“You’re my neighbor,” he says. “Malcolm Taylor’s daughter?”
“Yeah.” My father is notorious around Port Royal. It’s no surprise that Callan knows who he is. My father used to be in the military but he got injured, honorable discharge with a huge compensation payout. All he does these days is drink around town, criticizing the locals and generally causing trouble. But me? Yeah, I’m surprised he knows who I am.
Callan looks back at me, still huddled under a pile of books on the floor and he nods. “We have no classes together. Do you realize that?”
“I do—I do know that,” I reply.
“Your name is Coral.”
“Coralie.”
“That’s right. Coralie. You have an interesting face, Coralie.”
I pull myself upright, picking up a book and setting it down beside me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I like your face. It’s not perfectly symmetrical. People are drawn to other people with perfectly symmetrical faces. It’s what’s termed ‘classically beautiful.’ You, Coralie Taylor, are not classically beautiful.”
“Wow. Thanks.”
Callan shrugs off the fact that he’s offended me. “Your mouth is slightly fuller on one side. Have you ever noticed that?”
“I do look in the mirror. So yeah. I’ve noticed.” There was a time when the right hand side of my mouth was exactly the same shape and size as the left hand side, but not anymore. I have scar tissue on the inside of my lip that makes one side look different.
Callan frowns at me. I’m not used to boys frowning at me. They normally don’t see me at all. He drops his bag at his feet, and then he crouches down five feet away, still picking me apart with his eyes. “You have dark spot in your eye. It looks like…like that massive storm that’s always raging on Jupiter.”
“I can’t say that anyone’s ever compared it to that before, but okay.”
“And your nose—”
I suddenly want to throw a book at him. “Why are you doing this? Why are you pointing out all of my imperfections and making fun of them?”
Callan sits up straight on his heels, balancing on the balls of his feet. He nearly falls sideways but manages to right himself. “They’re not imperfections, Coralie. They’re differences between you and the rest of the herd. They make you interesting. I like interesting. I’m definitely not making fun of them.”
“Then what were you going to say about my nose?”
He wrinkles his own. “I was going to say that it’s slightly turned up at the end.”
“Oh god.” I cover my face with my hands.
“It is! You have a very cute button nose. That’s all I was going to say.”
“Well, stop. You’re freaking me out.”
Callan grins, showing off an imperfection of his own—a slightly skewed front tooth, just angled ever so slightly sideways. It’s strange that he’s not wearing braces. People seem entirely too preoccupied with having knife-edge straight teeth, and it’s not as though his mother can’t afford the dental work. She’s a doctor; living in that big old house next to ours must mean they don’t do too badly for themselves. Callan notices me noticing and closes his mouth. “Would you let me take a picture of you sometime?” he asks.
“What kind of picture?”
“Just a portrait. Of your head. Nothing weird.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I’d need to think about it.”
This seems to please him. Callan rubs one hand over the back of the other, nodding his head. “Good. Then just let me know, I suppose. You know where you can find me.”
“I do.”
He gets to his feet, and then collects a fallen book from on top of my legs, placing it back onto the shelf next to him. It’s the closest he’s gotten to me since we started our strange conversation, and I really, really notice the proximity. Looking down at me, Callan offers me his hand, presumably so he can help me up. I don’t take it. “I’m actually…I’m working down here,” I tell him.
“Fair enough. I’ll see you around then, Coralie Taylor.”
Picking up his bag, Callan slides his arms through the straps and is about to walk away. I don’t know what possesses me, but I call out to him. “Callan?”
“Mmm?” He presses his knuckles into the corner edge of the bookshelf.
“What makes you different from the rest of the herd?”
He winks at me. “My seven inch cock, of course.”
My cheeks burn again. Callan must notice, because he grins. His expression alters suddenly, though, as if he’s just thought of something. “Hey, Coralie Taylor. What would you say to coming to a party tonight?”
******