Illusions

Chapter Twenty-Two

LAUREL WAITED OUTSIDE CHELSEA’S CLASSROOM AND grabbed her arm as she walked out. “Are you and Ryan eating lunch with us today?” Laurel asked.

“I think so,” Chelsea said. “Why?”

“You just sneak off together sometimes,” Laurel said — though they seemed to be sneaking off a good deal less than usual these days. Chelsea steadfastly refused to confront Ryan about Harvard, and keeping her mouth shut about it seemed to be taking its toll. “I wanted to check.” The truth was, she didn’t want to face David alone. Not yet. She was still mad that he’d “bumped” into Tamani that morning. She didn’t think she had the patience to head off both guys’ bad behavior today.

Laurel heard the commotion before she saw it. She and Chelsea rounded the corner just in time to see David slam his fist into Tamani’s face. In the time it took her to blink, Tamani had David by the shirt. David took one lightning-quick blow to the stomach and doubled over, gasping for breath. Tamani held on and raised his free hand to strike again.

“Tamani!” She ran forward, shoving people out of her way to get to them.

Tamani held on to David’s shirt a moment longer, but when Laurel emerged from the crowd, he shoved David back, releasing his T-shirt and leaving a wrinkled circle where his hand had clenched it.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Laurel yelled, looking back and forth between them.

“He started it!” David shouted, looking like he was about to attack Tamani again.

“He hit me,” Tamani said calmly, addressing his complaint to Laurel with his hands resting easily on his hips. “What was I supposed to do? Let him?”

“You wanted me to hit you and you know it,” David said, lunging forward. Ryan grabbed David by the shoulder and pulled him back. David shoved Ryan’s arm away, but he didn’t try to go for Tamani again.

“Oh, please,” Tamani argued, looking at David. “You’ve been wanting to take a shot at me since day one, admit it.”

“With pleasure,” David growled.

“That’s enough!” Laurel yelled. “I can’t believe… what the… forget it!” she said, raising her hands sharply to cut off all protests. “You want me to choose? Fine, I’ll choose. I choose to walk away from you both! I don’t want either of you if you’re going to act like this. I’m through.” She spun on her heel and started shoving her way toward the front doors.

“Laurel!” The desperation in David’s voice made Laurel stop and turn.

“No,” she said levelly. “I’m not going to do this again. We’re done.” She didn’t look back as she broke into a run. She heard footsteps behind her, but she couldn’t stop — wouldn’t stop.

“Mr. Lawson! What is the meaning of this!” She’d recognize his voice anywhere; it was Mr. Roster, the vice principal. “Mr. Collins! Tam Collins, come back here this instant!”

Laurel kept going and no one called after her. She shot through the front doors, grateful she’d driven that morning instead of riding with David — or Tamani. She jammed the keys in the ignition and for the first time she could remember, peeled out of her parking spot. The asphalt lot was not yet thick with milling students and Laurel didn’t touch her brakes until she pulled up to the first stop sign.

Her hands naturally steered her to the 101 and it wasn’t until she was halfway there that she realized she was heading to her old house. She found it rather ironic that since moving away from Orick, she’d mostly gone there to see Tamani. Now she was running away from him.

And David.

She didn’t want to think about that.

There was some light rain on the way down, but Laurel didn’t bother to close her windows. Her windshield was spotted and her hair a little damp, but she just pushed it away from her face. It began raining in earnest as she pulled into the unpaved driveway, and the clatter of raindrops tumbling through the canopy grew almost deafening. Laurel rolled up her windows, pushed open her door, and decided to take shelter in the cabin instead of the forest.

Besides, she was in no mood for lectures from Shar. He might follow her into the house, but in the forest he would be unavoidable.

Absently, Laurel fiddled with the knotted sash that kept her blossom bound. Her wilting petals didn’t spring up so much as sag out, shifting gradually into place as she walked toward the cabin door with her shirt hiked to the bottom of her ribs. She jiggled her key in the deadbolt — sticky from disuse — and finally managed to make it turn. She had just laid a hand on the doorknob when she heard another vehicle crunch down the long driveway. She glanced around for something she could use as a weapon, then realized if it was anyone hostile, the sentries would handle them.

But when Tamani’s convertible appeared around the bend, a whole new kind of fear set in.

His top was down and he was soaking wet. “Laurel!” he called, springing out of the seat almost before his car stopped rolling.

“No!” Laurel called over the rain, which drummed heavily on the tin roof of the cabin’s small porch. She pressed her back against the door, her hand still tight around the doorknob. “I came here to get away from you!”

Tamani paused at the small wooden gate, his hand resting on the fence post. Then he strode forward, his eyes filled with purpose.

“I don’t want you here,” Laurel said as he drew closer.

“I’m already here,” he said softly. He was just inches away from her, but he didn’t touch her. Didn’t even try. “The question now is whether you want me to leave.”

“I do,” Laurel said, her voice barely loud enough to be heard over the rain.

“Why?”

“You… you make everything confusing,” she said, her emotions overflowing into stinging tears that she swiped at with angry hands.

“I could say the same about you,” Tamani said, his eyes boring into hers.

“So why are you here?”

He lifted his hands and made as if to lay them on her arms, but just before they touched he stopped and let them fall. Then, simply, as though it were all the explanation she could ever need, he said, “Because I love you.”

“You have a funny way of showing it.”

A heavy sigh escaped Tamani’s lips. “Look, not my finest moment, obviously. I was mad. I’m sorry.”

“What about Yuki?”

“Yuki? I—” Tamani frowned, his brow furrowed in thought. Then his eyes widened as realization dawned. “Oh, Laurel, you don’t think—”

“She really likes you.”

“And I would trade every minute I have ever spent with her for one second with you. Every instant I’m with Yuki is an act, a game. I have to find out what she is, what she knows, to keep you safe!”

Laurel swallowed hard. His words sounded like truth. For a moment she pondered whether this truly was all the explanation she ever needed. But she mustered her resolve; he had only answered half of the question she really needed to know. And as he could not read her mind, if she wanted an answer she was going to have to ask.

“Would it hurt you more if I was with David because I loved him, or if I was with David because I wanted to make you jealous?”

“Hurt—?” Tamani started immediately, before the analogy could sink in. Then he stopped and studied her, as they stood beneath the cabin’s porch, the rainfall settling into a steady liquid hiss against rooftop and treetop alike. And though it was the only sound for miles, she couldn’t hear it over the sound of her own ragged breath.

Quietly, almost too quietly to hear, Tamani spoke. “I would never do something just to hurt you.”

“No?” Laurel asked, much louder than Tamani, her voice rising louder with every word as she finally asked the question that felt like it had torn deeper into her every day. “What about at the dance? You were dancing with Yuki and I looked at you. And you turned away and held her closer. Why did you do that? If you didn’t want to hurt me, then why?”

He looked away, as though slapped, but he didn’t look guilty. He looked pained. “I closed my eyes,” he said, his voice so low and strangled she could hardly hear him.

“What?” she asked, not understanding.

Tamani held up a hand and Laurel realized he hadn’t finished — he was having trouble speaking at all. “I closed my eyes,” he repeated after a few shallow breaths, “and imagined she was you.” He looked at her, his face open, his eyes honest, his voice a song of anguish.

Without thinking, Laurel pulled him to her and her mouth met his with a passion, a hunger, she felt powerless to fight. He braced himself against the door frame with both hands, as though he were afraid to touch her. She tasted the sweetness of his mouth, felt the strength of his body against hers. She still had one hand on the doorknob, so she turned it. Their combined weight sent the door flying open and, stumbling backward, her fist tangled in his hair, Laurel pulled Tamani in after her.