The Watcher

Chapter Nine



I skipped school on Tuesday. Mom was at work, so I called in sick. Even after fifteen hours of sleep, I had to drag my heavy limbs out of bed. Black stains circled my eyes, and my nose was so stuffy from crying the night before that it was easy to pass for having a cold. With all the pandemic viruses going around these past few years, the school’s policy was to stay home until you could get your symptoms checked. This rule was working to my advantage today.

But really I couldn’t face Michael. Not after telling him how I felt. Not when he was seeing someone else.

I was lying on the sofa watching an old black and white movie on TV when Heather called. I checked my watch; her lunch break was nearly over.

“Will you live?” she asked.

I couldn’t help but smile. “I’ll live.”

“Do you need anything? I know your mom works late. Chicken soup?”

I wished I could talk about what I was going through, but I’d never find the words without bursting into tears. I swallowed back the tightness in my throat. “Can you let me know what the math assignment is?”

“Sure,” she said. “By the way, Damiel was asking about you today.”

Right. Damiel. At least someone thought I was attractive. “Oh? What did he want to know?”

“Where you were, of course. I thought Fiona was going to fall over when he came by, she was practically swooning. He is really hot.”

“Is he?” I tried to sound nonchalant. She didn’t know he’d asked me out on Friday.

“Girl, are you dead? Half the school is talking about him. The entire female population, even a few of the guys.”

“What did you tell him?” I asked, flattered he let his interest show to my friends.

“That you were home today.”

“What did he say?”

“Not much. Michael came by to have lunch with Jesse, and Damiel was there. Talk about a weird vibe.” Her statement hung in the air. She was fishing for information.

Even hearing Michael’s name was hard. Thinking about him having lunch with my friends when I wasn’t there stung. Had he been waiting for me not to be around so he could visit with Jesse?

“Yeah, they have some kind of past.” I figured it was safe to share a little of what I’d heard.

“Oh.” I could practically hear the wheels turning in her head. I was pretty sure she wanted to know how I knew that, but I wasn’t ready to tell. “He seems into you, Mia. You should go for it.”

“Who?” I asked, my mind still faltering back to thoughts of Michael.

“Damiel, of course.” She quipped, “Are you on cold medication or something?”

I laughed. “Kind of.”

“Michael asked about you, too.” Had she read my mind? Known who I was really thinking about?

“Oh,” I said, trying to mask the sinking in my chest, the strange blend of hope and despair that Michael brought up in me. “What did he want?”

“To know where you were,” she said. “That’s all he said.”

I could have taken his asking about me to mean he cared a little, but really I wished he would forget about me. Or at least forget everything I said in the car yesterday. How could I face him after that?

When I didn’t say anything, Heather added, “Hey, lunch is over. I gotta go to class. I’ll e-mail the math homework to you.”

I thanked her and hung up. I’d been sitting around in my pajamas all day and needed to wash up, so I ran myself a bath. I couldn’t help but remember Heather’s praise of Damiel. He was hot. The situation with Michael may have been bleak, but at least I still had hope of a social life.

I lay in the tub trying to visualize Damiel’s features, not Michael’s, nor those blue eyes that had burned themselves into my thoughts. I focused on Damiel, the way he looked at me like I was the only girl in the room. It wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped. Thoughts of Michael would soon interrupt and I would be looking at his face, not Damiel’s. But I was determined to commit Damiel’s features to memory. The bath water cooled, so I refilled the tub several times. Once my skin had completely wrinkled, I got out.

After this exercise, though, I was sure Michael wouldn’t be able to faze me again.

***

The next day, Damiel found me at my locker before math class. His black cashmere sweater looked so soft I wanted to curl up in it.

“Feeling better?” he asked, sidling up to me.

“I am now.” I dared myself to meet his gaze.

He moved in a little closer and placed his hand on the top of my hip. Reflexively, I held my breath. I’d forgotten how disarming he could be. Behind him, two sophomore girls glanced at us, whispering to each other. Wherever he went attention would follow, and I wasn’t sure what to do about that part. I only hoped it stayed out of print.

“It wasn’t serious?” he asked, smiling.

“Not deadly, anyway.”

He looked me up and down with such heat it warmed my skin. “Oh, I’m sure you could be deadly if you wanted to.” Leaning in closer, he whispered, “Wanna do something later?”

I didn’t know how to react. I was flailing in an ocean, learning to swim, and had just been hit by my first big wave.

“I–I’m still catching up on what I missed yesterday. Lots of homework.”

As though sensing my apprehension, he took a step back and grabbed my hand, half-pleading, half-teasing. “Have lunch with me then?”

That I could do. Besides, if Michael was having lunch with Jesse and Heather, who was I to cramp his style by having lunch with my own friends? It also helped to know that in a public place Damiel wouldn’t move things along too quickly. After all, he was a difficult person to say no to. “Sure,” I said. “See you in the cafeteria?”

He squeezed my hand. “See you then.”

At lunch, Damiel held a table for us near the middle of the room. The three girls I’d seen talking about him the other day stood by his table with their lunch trays as though they wanted to join him. When he saw me and waved, they shot me dirty looks. That alone was intimidating. He already had his lunch with him, so I pointed to the concession stand, where I needed to get mine, and he gave me a nod.

Hurrying, I grabbed a panini sandwich and an iced tea. Heather caught up with me in line. Her hair in a messy ponytail, she wore a baggy sweatshirt and jeans, not her usual stylish gear. Grayish rings circled her eyes.

“What’s with the outfit?” I asked.

She flushed and said apologetically, “It’s Jesse’s. I was up most of the night studying for a huge Spanish test and I’m a bit shaky. Spilled coffee all over my shirt.”

“How was the test?”

“Okay I guess.” For Heather, “okay” was at least an A. I wasn’t far behind, but I didn’t stress about things the way she did.

“I’m having lunch with Damiel today and he’s got us another table.”

“You won’t sit with us? Is it the sweatshirt?” she teased. “No, seriously. That’s great. I’m happy for you. I didn’t know you were into the bad-boy type.”

Was that what Damiel was, a bad boy? Come to think of it, who was I kidding? “He’s nice to me.” I had always figured “bad boys” didn’t treat girls very well.

“That’s the best kind,” she said. “Remember the movie on Friday? Dean already got tickets online. Do you want him to get one more?”

“Um, not sure yet.”

“Good. You want to make him work for it. But from the way he looks at you—”

“What do you mean?”

Heather raised her eyebrows suggestively. “I think you know.”

I blushed. There was something in the way he looked at me that was all-consuming. I wondered what exactly that was as I paid for my lunch and went to join Damiel. The cafeteria was getting crowded and I noticed a few people eyeing our large table enviously.

He was looking at me that way again, and I realized it would be so easy to get pulled right into him, as though his world was all that mattered.

“Wow,” I said. “You got us a private table?”

“I do what I can,” he said with a flourish.

I sat beside him and opened the can of iced tea, trying to act casual. “So, how’ve you been?”

“Good,” he said with a slow, sultry smile. “Better now.”

A fluttering in my stomach made me not want to eat. Unwrapping my sandwich, I hoped my appetite would return once I had actual food in front of me. It didn’t.

The lasagna on Damiel’s plate must have been the special, but I hadn’t even seen it on the menu. As he cut a forkful and put it into his mouth, I noticed he was staring at me. He didn’t even try to hide it.

Then again, why would he? With Damiel, I always knew where I stood, but what surprised me was that I couldn’t help but stare back. When he smiled at me, his eyes weren’t just brown, they had shimmering bronze flecks that caught the light. As I gazed into them, the rest of the cafeteria faded and blurred into the background.

“You should eat something,” he said after swallowing a few bites.

Suddenly realizing I’d been staring way too long, I focused on my dry, unappealing sandwich.

“Here,” he said, holding up a forkful of lasagna for me to taste. “Try this. It’s the food of the gods. I swear.”

Was he seriously offering to feed me in the school cafeteria? Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a few girls glaring at me. Good thing I didn’t know any of them.

He leaned in closer, raised his fork slightly, and nodded. A voice in my head said C’mon, live a little.

Slowly, I inclined toward him and opened my mouth. It was the most perfect lasagna I’d ever tasted.

“You weren’t kidding, were you? That’s a drug,” I said. “I didn’t think the staff here could actually cook.”

The corners of his mouth curled into a grin. “They can’t cook a damn thing. I got this at a restaurant last night and they just heated it up.”

My sandwich was now seriously outclassed, but I took a bite anyway. The lasagna had sparked my appetite. The butterflies in my stomach had subsided, too.

He offered me another forkful of food. I accepted readily, not caring as much this time about what people were thinking, because he was looking at me even more intensely than he had before. He practically smoldered, and I suddenly got how intimate this gesture of sharing food was meant to be. I could feel it all the way to my toes.

“It goes better with a bit of Chianti.” He took a swig from a stainless steel water bottle, then held it up for me. “Want some?”

I didn’t accept it and lowered my voice. “You brought wine to school?”

“They had it at the restaurant, too. It’s great what you can get at a restaurant. You should try one sometime.” He took another bite of his food, savoring it. “It’s even better fresh out of the oven. How about it?”

As I leaned back in my seat to finish eating, I wondered exactly what he was offering: dinner out? Or something more?

“I can get reservations for Friday,” he continued.

“I already have plans on Friday.”

“How about Saturday?”

Could I actually go out with Damiel? He was charming enough, but he wasn’t exactly the type I’d bring home to Mom. I tried to recall her work schedule. If she was working, I wouldn’t have to introduce them. She’d never let me get on the back of that motorcycle. “What time?”

“Seven?” he asked. I winced slightly. If my calculations proved correct, she’d be working until seven. “What’s wrong?”

“My mom should be coming home from work around then, and she hates bikes…”

“I have a car, too.” He motioned to the rain outside. “It’s not bike season anymore.”

I relaxed a little. “Then seven would be great.”

Lunch was almost over. Back at the table where my friends sat, Heather had already left but Jesse and Michael lounged on the benches, talking. Michael glanced over at me and I felt a twinge in my chest. I turned to see Damiel smile at him with such malice it startled me. Michael’s expression hardened, and I could swear the energy crackled between the two of them. In my mind’s eye, everything went black, followed by a blinding flash of light. It made me dizzy. Damiel put his hands on my shoulders, steadying me, and a shudder ran up my spine. It was pleasure, wasn’t it? It had to be.

Smiling down at me, he said, “Let’s get you to class.”

“I can get myself there,” I said, guilt sweeping over me. It was difficult enough to get over Michael, but doing that with someone he despised made me seem petty. It wasn’t my fault that Damiel liked me and Michael didn’t, or that the two of them had some weird bad blood between them. But it had been harder to see Michael than I thought, and I’d soon have to sit through English with both of them.

“Besides,” I added, “I need to freshen up.”

I’d read once that the antidote to some venoms is to inject small doses of the venom and let the body develop its own antivenin. They do this with farm animals, horses, sheep, and goats. I would have to do this to myself with Michael. See him in small doses at school every day until seeing him no longer made me suffer. I couldn’t expect Damiel to understand, but I needed some time alone to prepare myself for a class with Michael. I needed to let the small dose of him I’d just seen in the cafeteria prepare me for the larger dose.

Damiel squeezed my shoulders gently a few times, and I sighed. I was so tired all of a sudden, I could have taken a nap right then and there. He dropped his hands and whispered in my ear, his breath almost tickling my skin. “See you in class, beautiful.” I drank it in and walked away, not looking at anyone on my way out.

Perhaps Damiel was an antidote all by himself.