“I have an idea.” He snapped his fingers. “Grab the cookies and show me your room.”
Heathcliff had the uncanny ability of making everything he said sound like it was perfectly reasonable. Cookies and my bedroom wasn’t remotely close to that, but I found myself marching into the kitchen anyway to grab the covered plate on the counter. My feet were traitors, their love affair with Heathcliff’s shoes making them blind. It was my only excuse.
“I’m upstairs,” I mumbled, the thud of my shoes quieted by the carpeted stairwell.
Heathcliff’s muffled steps followed.
Musty flooring and moth-eaten curtains assaulted my nose and eyes, the hallway suddenly new to me, seen and smelled the same way I imagined Heathcliff saw and smelled it.
“We aren’t really into decorating here,” I muttered.
I nodded at a door, and Heathcliff breezed past me, his hands removing the plate of cookies from my palms as we entered the room. My bedroom. My sanctuary.
There was silence, and then, “Wow, Hawthorne. No posters or tubes of lipstick anywhere?”
My cheeks heated as my gaze scanned the room. It was barren other than my dresser, my bed, the window seat, and a shelf of books. The only decoration was the gilded mirror propped on the dresser, its current reflection a tall young man and an uneasy young woman with windblown hair and a bulky work jacket.
Removing my messenger bag and the coat, I held the jacket up before tossing it on the end of my bed. “I forgot to leave it in the truck.”
Heathcliff set the plate of cookies down on the dresser and moved past me to the bookshelf. “Don’t worry about it.” His fingers ran along the books’ worn spines. “No TV or anything here?”
The books were in alphabetical order by title rather than author, and his hand wavered over the W’s, over my tattered copy of Wuthering Heights.
“My uncle was never one for television, and I guess he didn’t think I needed it.”
My gaze fell to my feet as he glanced at me. “That’s where it comes from,” he said thoughtfully. “This genuine air of yours. It hasn’t been corroded by things.”
I snorted. “You don’t read much do you? There are tons of sordid, not so innocent stuff in books.”
Heathcliff stepped toward me. “Like what?”
Clearing my throat, I backed away, my hand falling to my bag, to the notebook that lay within. “We’re supposed to be doing homework.”
“Oh!” Heathcliff exclaimed. “That reminds me! My idea!” Leaning close, he took my bag from me, his hands digging through the contents for the composition book and pens within. “Let’s make this more interesting. I’m going to write your paper and you’re going to write mine.”
“What?” I gasped. “No!”
“It’ll be your words, Hawthorne. I’m just going to write them down while you speak and vice versa.” His hand found my hand, and he tugged me toward the bed. “Sit,” he ordered. My tailbone hit the mattress, the mirror from my dresser suddenly appearing in front of me. “Look in this, and tell me what you want me to write.”
Handing the mirror off, he sat behind me on the dark comforter, and for the first time I stared at his face. It wasn’t a direct look. It was his reflection, but it was his face nonetheless. He had a strong countenance, a hard jaw and straight nose. His hazel eyes teetered on bright green, the color in stark contrast to his dark brown hair.
His eyes met mine in the mirror, and he froze.
“It’s just a reflection,” I defended, the words slipping free before I could grab them back.
One of Heathcliff’s hands rested on the bed, the other poised above my notebook, the cover open to reveal the page I’d written in school. His gaze fell to the words, scanning them before his eyes rose again.
“An honest reflection,” he murmured. “Isn’t that what you said in class? The mirror is honest.”
My gaze studied him before sliding to my face, to my gray eyes and reddened cheeks.
“Let’s write, Hawthorne,” Heathcliff prompted. “What do you see?”
“My mother,” I whispered. My mouth choked on the words, desperate to draw them back in, but it was too late. Thoughts I’d never shared with anyone but Gregor fell against my lips and there was no holding them back. I guess when you dam something up long enough, it’s bound to explode.
“I see my mother,” I repeated. “I see her eyes and her face, but I don’t see the storm. When I was a child, her eyes always looked like the sky right before the tornado sirens go off, like funnel clouds of wildness. I used to envy her those eyes. They flashed like lightning. Now, when I see the same color in mine, I’m angry.”
Heathcliff wrote in the notebook, but mostly he stared at my reflection, an odd expression on his face. “Angry?” he asked.
I swallowed hard. “Because she took that away from me. She took away my right to be wild or irresponsible. I couldn’t do that to my uncle, and if I did, if I decided to be rebellious despite that, I’d prove them all right.”
“Them?”