Stupidly, I don’t realise that Hannah has left the door open. Jarrod’s voice has me jumping. ‘What if I say I’m sorry?’
My head jerks up, going red really, really fast.
How long has he been standing there?
It doesn’t help that Hannah bursts out laughing, thoroughly amused.
‘Shut up, Hannah.’ My mood is black.
Eventually she does. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbles, but I know she isn’t really. She does sit up though and Jarrod sits beside her on my bed.
‘You told Hannah everything,’ he says miserably, and I have the answer to my question – he’d obviously been standing there a long time.
‘Do you always eavesdrop at people’s bedroom doors?’
‘If the conversation is interesting enough.’
Hannah remains amused, trying to contain an occasional cackle, even though it’s apparent the tension in the room is so thick you could grab great heaving chunks of it by the handfuls. ‘She’s right you know.’
Jarrod glances at Hannah. ‘About what?’
‘Everything,’ she replies casually. ‘You don’t know her, I do. Listen, if Kate says you’re cursed, believe it. She knows about these things. If she says you’re gifted, you gotta believe that too. Accept and don’t knock it. Wow, what I’d do to have the gift.’
‘I don’t have your same faith, Hannah.’
‘Pity,’ she mumbles, stretching and rubbing her nonexistent stomach. ‘Anyway, I gotta go now that I’m full and I’ve had a good laugh.’ She turns around at the door. ‘Seeing you’ve got company I’ll see myself out. Gotta thank Jillian for the pancakes anyway. Seeya.’
Jarrod shakes his head as her footsteps tread lightly down the stairs. ‘Why did you tell Hannah everything?’
I’m not in the mood to be nice. ‘Why didn’t you tell Tasha and Jessica you came to see me?’
He accepts defeat better than I would have. ‘I’m sorry about that. It kind of just slipped out.’
‘You’re a jerk.’
‘I’ll make it up to you.’
His eyes are pleading. I like it so much I almost smile. ‘Yeah? How?’
‘Anything you say. I promise.’
Impulsively, for I would never do this otherwise, I say, ‘Take me to Ryan’s party.’
He doesn’t say a thing, just stares with those vivid green eyes. The silence grows suffocating. For a second I almost feel sorry for him. I know I’m asking a lot. But I’ve said it now and refuse to take it back. Not that I would really make him go through with it. I guess I just need to test his friendship. All I want is to hear him say something like, ‘Yeah, sure, no problem.’ And mean it.
Instead, he says, ‘You don’t really want to go, do you?’
It’s hard to decide whether he just doesn’t want to take me, or in some absurd way is attempting to protect me. I guess he knows that if I turn up at Ryan’s party I’d find myself the centre of attention, the kind of attention nobody wants. And Pecs will be there.
I shrug and look away. At least no one can call me a coward.
‘If it’s what you really want, I promise to take you.’
I glare at him. He obviously feels indebted. Well, sucked in. Maybe I should go through with it. It would teach him a lesson – in loyalty. Instead, I mumble, ‘I wasn’t serious, you know.’
He leans forward, his voice softly menacing. ‘I don’t like being tested, Kate.’ The chimes start moving, pastel colours flicker across my bedroom walls as they catch the sun through the window. His temper is simmering and I get the feeling I’m playing with explosives.
Then again, I don’t scare easily. ‘You’re just relieved you’re off the hook. Of course I wouldn’t dare ruin your chances with Tasha or Jessica. They’d be so disgusted, they might even kick you out of their elite little group.’
‘I don’t care about them,’ he stuns me by saying.
‘You lie badly.’
He shrugs as if the subject actually bores him. As quickly as they started the chimes stop spinning. At least my house is safe for now. ‘I thought being accepted was your major goal in life.’
His forehead wrinkles with worry lines. ‘My priorities are changing.’
His dead serious tone scares me. Surely nothing else could have happened? When would it all end? I search his face and say quickly, ‘Has some other horror happened to your family?’
He sits thinking for a quiet moment, and my pulse leaps. When he looks up there’s just weary sadness. ‘That’s the thing, Kate. I’m afraid of what might happen next. My family’s been through so much already, how much more can they take before they self-destruct?’ He looks at me then with an intensity that would frighten a hardened criminal. ‘I never thought I’d believe in curses, but right now my head’s in such a spin, I think I could believe anything.’