Things were much more interesting in Annapolis than I"d ever suspected they would be, back when my parents had announced that that was where we were moving for the year.
It didn"t take Liz long to figure out that she hadn"t been missing much, not having been invited to popular kids" parties before. Stacy soon grew bored as well. When they finally announced that they wanted to go-we"d managed to polish off all the guacamole, and it didn"t look like more was forthcoming-I nodded, because by then, I wanted to go, too. I"d seen what I"d wanted to see-Will"s dad, who, in spite of what I"d been led to believe, seemed very nice; his stepmom, who seemed lovely; and the way Will interacted with Jennifer, which was exactly the way you"d expect a boyfriend and girlfriend to interact...not too lovey-dovey, or anything, but they held hands a lot, and I saw him lean down to kiss her once.
Did the sight send a dagger of envy into my heart? Yes. Did I think I"d make a better girlfriend for him than she did? Pretty much.
But the thing was, I wanted him to be happy. It sounds weird, but I really did. And if Jennifer made him happy, well, so be it.
Except...
What about that rose? The one that was fully blooming now in its vase on my nightstand, where it was the first thing I saw every morning when I woke up, and the last thing I saw every night before I turned out the light?
It wasn"t until we were on our way out that I suddenly remembered I needed to let Lance know about our meeting with Mr. Morton on Monday morning. Telling Liz and Stacy I"d meet them out by the car, I went to find Lance to break the news.
But he wasn"t out by the pool where I"d last seen him. And he wasn"t anywhere on the first floor of the house, either. Finally, someone hanging out in the line for the bathroom on the second floor said they"d seen him go through the door to a spare bedroom. I thanked them, then went to the door and knocked on it.
But the music floating up from downstairs was too loud for me to hear whether or not Lance had said come in. I knocked a little harder. Still nothing.
Figuring if I couldn"t hear him because of the music, he probably couldn"t hear my knocking, I opened the door-just a crack-to see if Lance really was in there.
He was in there, all right.
In there making out with Jennifer on the bed. Jennifer, his best friend"s girlfriend.
They were so wrapped up in each other, they didn"t even notice the door opening. I quickly closed it, then hurried to lean against the wall across from it, my heart feeling as if it were about to leap out of my chest.
But before I even had time to register what I"d just seen-let alone wonder what it meant-I saw something even more horrifying.
And that was Will coming up the stairs, and heading for the very door I"d just closed.
CHAPTER TEN.
As often thro" the purple night,
Below the starry cl.u.s.ters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over still Shalott.
"Oh, hey, Elle," Will said, when he saw me.
It was a sign of how freaked I truly was by what I"d just seen that my heartstrings didn"t so much as quiver at hearing him call me Elle.
"Hi," I said faintly.
"Have you seen Jen?" Will wanted to know. "Someone said they saw her come up here."
"Jen?" I echoed. My gaze, though I tried not to let it, strayed toward the closed door to the spare bedroom. "Um..."
What was I supposed to say? I mean, really? Was I supposed to go, "Sure, I"ve seen her, she"s right in there," and let him walk through that door and find Jennifer and Lance in there, going at it?
Or was I supposed to lie and go, "Jen? Nope. Haven"t seen her," and let him continue to live in total ignorance of the fact that his girlfriend and best friend were a couple of lying s.k.a.n.ks?
Who could make a decision like that? Why did I have to be the one who"d walked in on them? I mean, I wanted Will to break up with Jennifer so he could be free to hook up with me-you know, if h.e.l.l happened to freeze over, or something, and he asked me out.
But I didn"t want to be the person who, however indirectly, caused that breakup by revealing his girlfriend"s true nature to him! Because whenever this happens to girls on soap operas or the WB or whatever, they never end up getting the guy....
But before I could decide what to do, Will looked more closely at me and went, "Are you all right, Elle? You look sort of...pale."
I felt pale. In fact, I felt a little like I might throw up all that guacamole I"d scarfed down earlier.
"I"m fine," I said, though it sounded like a lie even to my own ears.
"You"re not fine," Will said firmly. "Come on. Fresh air time."
Then something amazing happened. He took my hand-grabbed it like it was the most natural thing to do in the world-and steered me toward a door I hadn"t noticed before. Then he pulled me up a narrow, steep stairway that opened out onto this kind of deck all along the roof of the house.
In spite of the party below, which was in full swing, it was quiet out on the narrow little deck. Quiet and dark, with a fantastic view of the stars overhead, and the bay stretched out below us, the moon reflected like a bright ribbon of light across it. A cool breeze lifted my hair from my face, and immediately, I started to feel a little better.
I leaned against the ornately carved railing that ran the length of the deck and gazed out at the bay, at the bridge that arched across it, and the occasional glow of a car"s headlights as someone drove over it.
"Better?" Will asked.
I nodded, feeling a little ashamed of myself, and wanting to distract him from looking at me too closely-I sensed that I was still slightly green around the gills-I asked brightly, "So what is this thing, anyway?" meaning the narrow parapet Will and I were standing on.
"You really aren"t from around here, are you?" Will asked, with a grin. Then he joined me at the railing and said, "They call it a widow"s walk. All the old houses around here have them. People like to say they were built for the wives of sailors so they could come out and watch for their husbands" ships to return."
"Nice," I said sarcastically. Because, of course, if the husband didn"t return, it meant that his ship had gone down and the wife was now a widow, thus making her pretty little lookout post a widow"s walk.
"Well," Will said, with a laugh. "yeah. But that"s not really what they were for. They were built so people could climb up here and put out the flames if their roof caught fire, back when they had to use their chimneys for heat and cooking and everything."
"Nice!" I said again, this time with even more sarcasm.
Will smiled. "Yeah. I guess they should change the name." He shrugged. "The view"s the same, no matter what they call it."
I nodded, admiring the shimmering band of light the moon cast across the water. "It"s nice," I said. "Soothing." Soothing enough to make a girl forget why she"d had to come out there in the first place. What was I going to do about Lance and Jennifer, anyway?
"Yeah," Will said, totally oblivious to my inner turmoil. "I never get tired of it. It"s the one thing that always seems to stay the same. The water, I mean. The color changes. Sometimes it"s flat. Sometimes there"s chop. But it"s always there. You can depend on it."
Not like his girlfriend and best friend.
But I didn"t say this out loud, of course.
I couldn"t help wondering if the new Mrs. Wagner came out here much, maybe with her morning cup of coffee. Had the irony of his house"s widow"s walk occurred to Will? You know, her being a widow, and all?
"Do you miss her?" I asked Will suddenly. Too suddenly, I realized, when he looked at me like he had no idea what I was talking about.
"Who?" he asked.
"Your mom, I mean," I said. "Your, um, real mom." I didn"t figure there was any point in pretending like I didn"t know the story of what had happened with his dad.
"My mom?" He squinted out across the water. "No, not at all. I never knew her. She died when I was born."
"Oh," I said. Because I didn"t know what else to say.
"It"s okay," Will said with a grin, I guess sensing my sadness for him, and wanting to rea.s.sure me. "You can"t miss what you never had."
"I guess," I said. "Do you like-" I paused, not sure what I should call his stepmom. "-Marco"s mom?" was what I ended up settling for.
"Jean?" Will nodded. "Yeah. I like her a lot."
"Well," I said, "that"s good. And Marco?"
"Yeah," Will said. His grin broadened. "How"d you know about Marco and Jean? Have you been asking around about me, or something?"
"Maybe," I said, feeling myself start to flush, and hoping he wouldn"t notice in the relative darkness.
If he did, he didn"t let on.
"Marco"s cool," Will said, with a shrug. "He..." He paused, seeming to struggle with how to put what he said next. "He didn"t have a lot, growing up. He"s been in some trouble. But I think he"s starting to chill a little."
"He and your dad get along?" I asked casually, but I was really curious. Would I get along with the man who"d ordered my dad to his death, then married my mom? I was thinking probably not.
Will looked thoughtful. Not sad, or anything. Just like he was thinking hard about what I"d asked.
"You know, I think they do," he said finally. "It"s different for Marco. I mean, he"s not related to my dad. So there isn"t the same...pressure between him and Marco as there is between him and me."
"So I guess that"s what you meant when you were talking about things being weird," I said. "About Marco and your dad and stepmom and...what happened with them, and everything?"
I guess it was wishful thinking. You know, that the thing with Will"s parents was really what was bothering him, and not...well, the thing with his girlfriend. I mean, did Will suspect? About Lance and Jennifer? He had to. What had happened at tonight"s game, with Lance not having been there for him because he was over by the sidelines talking to Jen...and now the two of them having disappeared together....
That had to be what he meant about things being weird lately. That had to be the explanation for the dark shadow I sometimes saw fall across his face. Didn"t it? I mean...didn"t it?
"I guess that"s part of it," he said, looking out into the water. "But it doesn"t explain everything. It doesn"t explain...." He tore his gaze from the bay and looked down at me instead.
And I knew-just knew-what was coming. I even closed my eyes, antic.i.p.ating the blow.
He"s going to ask me, I thought. He"s going to ask me about Lance and Jennifer. What should I say? I can"t be the one to tell him. I just can"t. They should have to tell him. Lance and Jennifer! It"s their fault, not mine. They should be the ones to have to break the news. It"s not fair that it has to be me!
But then, to my utter astonishment, what Will ended up saying to me instead was, "It doesn"t explain what"s going on between me and you."
If that meteorite I"d been fantasizing about earlier had suddenly streaked down out of the sky and taken out the Avalon High cheerleading team, I doubt I"d have been as surprised as I was by what Will had just said to me. I was stunned, in fact, into speechlessness and, my eyes flying open, could only stare at him, my mind sluggishly repeating those last three words over and over again.... Me and you. Me and you. Me and you.
Except that-there was no me and you. To me, maybe. But not to Will.
Was there?
But before I could even begin to formulate a reply to his extraordinary statement, he tore his gaze from mine and, looking out across the water again, asked, "Do you ever get the feeling that this can"t be it?"
My brain staggered around, trying to figure out what was happening. I"m afraid it was all too much for me, and I ended up going, "Um...what?" because it was the only thing I could think of to say.
"You know," Will said, a note of urgency in his deep voice as he looked me in the eye again. "Don"t you ever wonder if there"s something...more? That we"re supposed to be doing?"
"Um." Okay. Okay, apparently this is heading somewhere, hopefully back to what he"d said before, about me and you. In the meantime, I"ll humor him. "Sure. Isn"t that how we"re supposed to feel? Otherwise we"d never move out. We"d all just live with our parents until we died."
He laughed a little at that. I loved the sound of his laugh. It almost made me forget about...well, what I"d seen earlier.
"That"s not what I meant, exactly," he said. "Do you ever think"-his blue eyes were very bright in the moonlight-"that this isn"t the first time you"ve been alive? Like that you might have done all this-only as someone else-before?"
"Um." I looked up into his face, wondering what he"d do if I reached out and grabbed it, dragged it down to mine, and kissed him. "Not really."
"Never?" He ran a hand through his thick dark hair, a gesture I was starting to realize was habitual for him when he was feeling frustrated. "You"ve never had a feeling that you"ve been somewhere before-somewhere you know you"ve never been? Or read something that you know you"d never seen before that moment, but that felt familiar anyway? Heard a piece of music you could swear you"d heard sometime in the past, but that you know you couldn"t have?"
"Well," I said. It would be wrong to kiss him. He might freak. Guys don"t like it when girls make the first move. At least according to Nancy. But how would she even know? It"s not like she ever had a boyfriend. "Sure. But there"s a name for that. It"s called deja vu. It"s a totally common-"
"I"m not talking about deja vu," he interrupted. "I"m talking about knowing you"ve met someone before-the way I feel I"ve met you before-even though there"s no possible way we could have met before. That kind of thing. You don"t feel it? That there"s...there"s something...something between us?"
Oh, I felt there was something between us, all right. It just wasn"t, I was pretty sure, what Will was feeling. I mean, I didn"t feel like I"d met him before. Because if I had, I for sure would have remembered.
Although there was that...my feelings for him, and the strength of them. The way I wanted him to be mine, but at the same time, I also wanted to protect him from the hurt I knew he was going to feel when he found out-and he would find out-about Lance and Jennifer. These weren"t the kinds of feelings that stem simply from a guy being nice to you, and buying you a cup of lemonade, and giving you a rose.
These were far, far more than that.
Could there be something to what Will was saying? Could we have met before? If not in this lifetime, then...in another?