Intrinsical - Lani Woodland [8]
Going through a tragedy leaves an impression on people’s souls. Once you’ve had a loss, you learn to deal with it and move on, but you carry that hurt with you always. Staring at Brent, I recognized his pain. It was so transparent, I was surprised I hadn’t noticed it before.
“Want to talk about it?” I asked gently.
He smirked at me. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m a guy. We don’t do that.” My nose scrunched up in confusion. “We don’t discuss our feelings.”
“That’s a relief; I don’t want to talk about it either.”
The corner of Brent’s lips curled into a smile that matched my own. We had stopped dancing, standing instead in each others arms in the middle of the dance floor, sharing each others heartache without words.
I didn’t dance with Brent again, but after the evening wound down, he found me standing with Cherie and Steve and walked us back to our dorm. Brent and I strolled along a few feet apart and I let my arms swing freely by my side in case he chose to reach out and grab my hand. He didn’t.
He cleared his throat. “Will you walk with me for a while?”
I nodded, chewing the inside of my cheek. He reached out and took hold of my elbow, leading me away from the dorms, across campus. He stopped by the cafeteria and charmed a peach for each of us out of the cleaning lady. We ate our fruit while we walked, lessening the need to talk. The sticky fruit juice clung to my fingers and I tried to lick it away while Brent navigated us through a grove of avocado trees into a well-manicured garden. In the middle of a square of lawn sat a white gazebo and an elegant fountain; flowers and shrubs lined the edges. A stone path wound its way through the grass. Strings of white lights strung from Victorian lampposts lit up the entire area, dispelling the darkness inside the ring of oak and avocado trees that lined the garden.
“It’s beautiful.” I was stunned that such a location existed inside the wild of the groves.
“You like it?” It was a rhetorical question, but I nodded anyway. “It’s the Headmaster’s Garden, where he entertains guests.”
“And all Headmaster Farnsworth’s important guests hike through the grove?” I asked with a knowing grin.
“No, the exit over there—” He pointed across from where we stood. “—leads to a private road that would take you to the guest quarters.”
“Let me guess. We aren’t supposed to be here?”
He laughed a quiet but nervous laugh. “Uh . . . not exactly. But we should be okay.”
“I wasn’t worried.”
Shyly he took hold of my hand, leading me toward the gazebo. We sat next to each other on the smooth wooden bench inside it, our fingers still intertwined. We each faced forward, but I was very aware of his strong presence beside me.
“I wanted to thank you for yesterday.”
“You’re welcome, but I didn’t really do anything,” I said, focusing on our hands, not daring to look at Brent.
“But you did.”
I didn’t know how to respond and an awkward silence spread around us. My fingers fiddled with a button on my jacket as I searched for something to say.
He took a deep breath like he was about to make an important announcement when a rustling in the trees brought us both to our feet, spinning toward the sound. Squinting into the darkness, I thought I made out a shape in the shadows.
“Anyone there?” Brent called, sliding his arm around my waist protectively, bringing me against his chest. We stood silently staring into the groves, but nothing was moving. It was as silent and still as a graveyard.
Brent seemed concerned when he turned toward me. “We’d better go back.” I nodded and we left, hand in hand. Glancing back, I saw a dark figure moving across the garden. I tried to convince myself I was only imagining the chlorinated smell that followed me home.
Chapter 3
The next morning at breakfast, after loading up our plates to their maximum capacity, Cherie and I sat down next to a large window that offered a hillside view of Corona, California, and it amazed me how beautiful it was from a distance. Pendrell