The Immortals by Mary Hallberg (chrysanthemum read aloud txt) 📗

chapter fourteen

I spent the next two days on the couch (soon to be Luke’s couch, not mine) watching old TV show marathons and staring at my phone hoping someone, anyone, would call. Finally, as I was dozing off to some sitcom, I heard rustling outside the sliding glass door. Sighing, I got off the couch and pulled back the blinds. Gage and Matt leaned against the door making faces, their grimy hands and mouths making streaks on the glass. I frowned and popped the door open. They fell over each other into the doorway.

“Gross,” I said. “You two are cleaning that up.”

Gage propped his elbow on Matt’s back to stand himself up. “Of course, darling.” He reached out with both hands to grab my face and kissed me.

“Yuck, you just put your lips on that glass.” Secretly I was relieved; it seemed that our argument earlier that week had been forgotten.

Matt stood up and dusted his hands off. “So Kenzie, how do you feel about bowling?”

“I feel that it doesn’t like me. I’m one of those people whose bowling scores look like golf scores and my golf scores look like bowling scores.”

He laughed. “Well then you can be on a team with Gage. You two won’t stand a chance. Come on, everyone’s waiting back at the house.”

Bowling turned out to be easier than I had anticipated. Someone decided on a boy versus girls setup, so my fantasy of Gage leaning behind me and guiding the bowl down the lane was gone. But Elizabeth, for all her faults, was a pretty good bowler. I wondered if she and Gage had ever played together.

I got to talk to Paige more too. She mentioned again that she wanted to be a doctor like me. But when she twisted her finger inside the bowling ball and it started bleeding she nearly fainted. As I sat by her on the colored chairs, her finger wrapped in cotton, she turned and crossed her legs. I looked over at the opposing team’s chairs. The seat beside Gage’s was empty, and Matt headed toward the front desk.

“Where’s Matt going?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Maybe his shoes don’t fit.”

“He wouldn’t say anything though, would he?”

A piece of bloody cotton fell onto Paige’s lap and she grimaced. It was strange to see someone so bothered by blood but I ignored it. “Wouldn’t he though?” she said. “I don’t know, I really like him, but sometimes it seems like once he gets on a tangent about something he’ll never shut up.”

I frowned. Matt not being able to shut up? “Not with me.”

“Maybe he’s just different with his friends. Trying to impress me or something.” She removed the cotton wad from her finger. “I’m going to get a band-aid.” She hopped down and made her way to the front desk, where Matt met her. He took the fingers on her non injured hand in his and squeezed her waist with his other. He whispered something in her ear and they both burst out laughing.

It probably shouldn’t have bugged me, but for awhile (at least until it was my turn to go again), it sort of did. It wasn’t exactly a revelation; Matt had been outgoing at the barbecue, flirting with any good looking girl who paid him attention. Yet when he was with me, he clammed up. Why was I so different from every other girl he associated with?

Gage was as good at bowling as Elizabeth, but the boys were still no match for us. Halfway through the game we were ahead, but only by a couple of points. So I decided to spice things up with a loser buys food bet, but only between Gage and me.

By the end of the night we had beaten them by nearly thirty points. Twenty minutes later, Gage and I were alone in a booth in the back of the alley, two boxes of fries on the table. Everyone else had opted for the arcade, so we were alone.

“Quit stealing my fries!” I playfully slapped his hand away as he reached for what had to be his twentieth french fry out of the basket he claimed he had bought for me. “You’ve got your own.”

“I ate them all,” he whined.

“And whose fault is that?” I tilted my head to the side and shrugged. His pout curled into a smile, and he leaned over to kiss my forehead.

“You’re a nerd,” I mumbled.

“Mmmm,” was all he said. He leaned his forehead against the side of my head as we sat like that for a minute before Matt walked up.

“Hey lovebirds,” he said. “Got any more food?”

“Um...” I looked down at the three fries left in my basket. I picked it up and held it up to him. “Here you go.”

He took it reluctantly and raised his eyebrows. “Gee, thanks.”

I smiled and shrugged. “It’s your brother’s fault. Go get your own food.” As we ushered him off, it occurred to me that I might not get to eat fries again for a long time.

Half an hour later, while everyone else ate, Gage and I sat on the sidewalk outside the alley. It was warm for January, but Gage still had his arm around my shoulder. He laced his fingers through mine with his free hand and I rested my head on his shoulder. I shut my eyes and listened to his breathing for a moment.

He sat up. “Why are you leaving?”

“What?”

“Why are you doing this? Just transferring schools out of the blue in the middle of the year and not telling anyone?”

“I did tell people, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, after you did it. But you decided it all on your own. Why?”

I sighed, my breath shaking. What was I supposed to tell him? That the way our friends went through money and did stupid stuff like drive drunk scared the life out of me? That being Immortal and never hearing the word ‘no’ was getting to my head as well as his? That I caught