Текст книги "The Evolution of Mara Dyer"

Автор книги: Michelle Hodkin

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

39

SHE WITHDREW THE CASH FROM HER POCKET AND offered it back to me. “I cannot take this from you, and you must not tell him what I said.”

“That’s convenient,” I muttered under my breath.

“If you leave him, tell him,” she said with a shrug, “by all means. But only if you let him go. If he knows of his destiny and the two of you remain together, it will seal his fate.” She gestured to the door.

I didn’t move. “That’s it?”

“I cannot help you further,” she said.

My nostrils flared. “You didn’t help at all.” My voice was sharp, but then it thinned. “Isn’t there something I can do?”

She crossed the small space and stood by the door. “Yes. There is something you can do. You can let him go. If you truly love him, you will let him go.”

My throat tightened as I looked at her. Then I marched out of the tent.

Noah was waiting outside and matched my pace as I stomped down the dirt path.

“Bad news?” he asked, clearly amused.

I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and kept walking.

“Wait,” he said, reaching for my hand and spinning me around. “Are you crying?”

I pulled away. “No.”

“Stop,” Noah said, and stood in the path. I hurried along and increased my pace to a jog. Before I knew it I was running.

We were nearly back by the Hall of Mirrors when Noah caught up with me. I felt a hand on my shoulder and whirled around.

“Mara,” he said softly. “Why are you running from me?”

And that undid me. The tears came faster than I could wipe them away. Noah took my hand and pulled me behind one of the game booths, then wrapped me in his arms. He stroked my hair.

“What did she say?”

“I can’t tell you,” I said between quiet sobs.

“But it’s the reason you’re crying, yes?”

I nodded into his soft shirt. He felt so solid beneath my cheek. I didn’t want to let go.

But Noah took a slight step back, pulling away, and tilted my face up with his hand. “This is going to sound mean, but I don’t mean it that way.”

“Just say it.” I sniffed.

“You’re gullible, Mara,” he said quietly, and his voice was kind. “An easy mark. A few weeks ago it was hypnosis and Santeria. Now it’s possession and tarot.”

“She didn’t do a tarot reading.”

Noah sighed and dipped his head. “It doesn’t matter what she did. What matters is what you believe. And you’re highly suggestible—you hear something offhand and suddenly you think it’s an all-embracing explanation.”

I glared at him, but there was no heat behind it. “At least I’m trying to find one.”

Noah’s eyes closed. “I’ve been trying to find one for years, Mara. It hasn’t led me anywhere. Look,” he said as he opened his eyes, taking my hand and lacing his long fingers through mine. “We’ll go straight back to her and I’ll double her money to admit the truth and she’ll tell you she made the whole thing up. To put on a good show. I’m not letting some con artist upset you this way.”

“She didn’t take my money,” I said quietly. “She didn’t have anything to gain by lying.”

“You never know what another person stands to gain or lose by anything.” He pulled me back onto the path. “Let’s go.”

When we made it back to her tent, a sign was hung over the entrance that said BACK IN ONE HOUR. Noah ignored it and pushed the flap open.

The fortune-teller’s daughter sat in a small overstuffed armchair reading a magazine. There was a Ouija board on the table in front of her. I looked away.

“Where’s your mother, Miranda?” Noah’s eyes roamed the small tent.

The girl cracked her gum and looked at me. She blew a fat pink bubble, then sucked it back into her mouth. “She got you good, huh?”

Noah arched an eyebrow at me.

“What do you mean?” I asked her.

“You bought her Madam Rose crap?” she asked me. “Look, her real name is Roslyn Ferretti and she’s from Babylon, Long Island. You’d get better predictions from a Magic Eight Ball,” she said to me. Then turned back to her magazine.

Noah tilted the page down with one finger. “Where can we find her?”

Miranda shrugged. “Getting high probably, behind The Screaming Dead Man.”

“Thanks,” Noah said, and we left the tent. He held my hand and walked like he knew where we were going. “See?” he said gently. “It isn’t real.”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t trust my voice.

An intimidatingly tall tower rose in front of us, right next to the Ferris wheel. A small car ascended slowly into the air; I assumed it would eventually fall in one drop. We hooked back behind the ride, searching for the woman as we walked. Noah led me around a patch of dirt; we wandered until it became grass and then, finally, we saw her.

Madam Rose, aka Roslyn Ferretti, was sitting perched on a small rock, the hem of her skirt pooled at her feet. Smoking a joint, just as her daughter predicted.

“Hey,” Noah called out.

The woman coughed and hastily moved her hand behind her back. Her eyes were bloodshot and unfocused. When she recognized me, she shook her head. “I already gave you your money back.”

“Why did you say those things?” I asked quietly.

Her eyes roamed over the two of us. She lifted the cigarette back to her mouth and inhaled deeply. “Because they were true,” she then said, exhaling the words in a cloud of cloying smoke. Her eyes began to close.

Noah snapped his fingers in her face. She pushed his hand away. “Listen closely,” he said. “I’ll give you a hundred dollars to admit you made it up.”

She looked at me then, her eyes suddenly sharp. “Did you tell him?”

I opened my mouth to insist that I didn’t, but Noah spoke before I had the chance.

“A thousand,” he said darkly.

She gave him a long look. “I can’t take your money.”

“Don’t fuck with me,” Noah said. “We know you’re a fraud, Roslyn, so please do yourself a favor and admit it.”

Her head dropped, and she shook it. “That girl, I swear.”

“Roslyn.”

She lolled her head back, like this was some kind of giant inconvenience. “He paid me, okay?”

The hair rose on the back of my neck. Noah and I exchanged a glance.

“Who paid you?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Some guy.”

“What did he look like?” Noah pushed.

“Tall. Dark. Handsome.” She smiled, and tried to take another puff. Noah plucked the joint from her fingers and held it in front of him, just out of her reach.

“Be specific,” he said.

She shrugged lazily. “He had an accident.”

“An accident?” Noah asked. “A limp? A prosthetic limb? What?”

“Talked funny.”

Noah rolled his eyes. “An accent. Right. What sort of accent?”

“Foreign,” she said thickly, and began to giggle.

“This is useless,” I said. But at least she hadn’t described Jude. A small relief, but still.

“We’re not leaving until she tells us exactly what happened,” Noah insisted. “Was his accent like mine?” he asked her.

She shook her head.

“What did he say to you?”

She sighed. “He told me to bring you into my tent,” she said to me. “He told me what to say to you.” Then she lifted her face up to Noah. “And he said you’d offer me money and that I couldn’t take it.”

“When was this?” I asked her.

“About ten minutes before I saw you.”

Noah ran his hand over his jaw. “I don’t suppose he gave you a name?”

She shook her head.

“Are you sure?” he pressed. “There’s no amount of money I could offer you to tell us?”

A sad, brittle smile appeared on her lips. “God knows I could use it, sweetheart, but I can’t take money from either of you.”

“Why not?”

Her gaze drifted off into the darkness. “He told me I couldn’t.”

“So what?” Noah asked. “Why listen?”

Her voice grew quiet. “Because he’s the real deal.” Then she reached out her hand. Noah gave back her joint, and she stood.

“I’m truly sorry,” she said to me as she passed by, leaving Noah and me alone. The tower above us was just about to fall; but even though everyone in it knew what was coming, when it dropped, they still screamed.

Noah fit his hands to the curve of my waist. “Tell me,” he said.

He looked inhumanly beautiful under the lights. It almost hurt to look at him, but it would have hurt more to look away.

“Tell me,” he said again. There was need in his voice, and I didn’t have the strength to refuse.

“She said I have to let you go.”

He drew me closer. Brushed a strand of hair from my face, trailed his fingers along the curve of my neck. “Why?”

I closed my eyes. The words ached as they left my throat. “Because you’ll die by my side if I don’t.”

Noah slid his arms around me and fitted me against him. “It isn’t real,” he whispered into my hair.

Maybe it wasn’t. But even if it was . . . “I’m too selfish to leave you,” I said.

Noah pulled back so I could see his smile. “I’m too selfish to let you.”

40

WHEN WE MET BACK UP WITH MY FAMILY, I put on my happy face. I was still haunted by what Roslyn had said and the idea that someone paid her to say it, but when I managed to sneak a minute alone with Noah after we got home, he said he’d have Investigator Guy look into it, kissed my forehead, and left it at that. My face fell, but Noah didn’t see it.

Or he ignored it.

Noah would try to find out who paid her off, I knew. I trusted him. But I wasn’t sure he trusted me.

I was suggestible, he said, and Noah was the opposite. Eternally skeptical and arrogant about it. Yes, he went along with anything I wanted, no matter how strange—the Santeria stuff, burning that doll. And tonight, with the fortune business; he gave in to me too, even though he thought Roslyn was just high, that her words had no more weight than a horoscope. Noah indulged my every whim, but they were more than that to me.

Which made me wish I had the freedom to look for answers myself.

I knew I should be grateful not to be locked up in a mental hospital already and I was, but it was hard not to feel like a prisoner in my own house instead. And I wasn’t just under my parents’ observation—I was under John’s, too. I wanted him watching me and the house, absolutely. But even though I felt safer now, I didn’t feel free. That wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t Noah’s.

It was Jude’s.

Noah did ask me to come to his room after everyone fell asleep that night, and even though I was frustrated and tired and still thinking about my crappy fortune, I went. Obviously.

When I opened the guest room door, Noah was in bed—still clothed and reading.

“What book?” I asked, closing the door and leaning against it.

He showed me the title: Invitation to a Beheading.

I smiled, but it didn’t reach my eyes. “I recommended that to you.”

“You did.”

“And?”

“It’s sad,” he said, placing the book on the bed.

My brows knitted together. “I thought it was funny.”

“Cincinnatus is in a prison of his own making. I find it sad.” He tilted his head at me. “You’re still upset.”

It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway.

“In that case, I have a proposal.”

“I’m listening.”

“You’ve been doing exposure therapy at Horizons, yes?”

“Yes . . .”

“To overcome your fears.”

I nodded again.

“And one of the things you’re afraid of is hurting me.”

“Killing you,” I said quietly.

“If we kiss.”

If I lose control. “If we stay together,” I said, thinking of Roslyn’s words.

“You want to do both?” Noah asked evenly.

So much. “Yes.”

“Then my proposal is this: that we approach it the way you would any other fear. First, you’ll imagine an encounter with the source of the phobia.” A half-smile appeared on his lips.

I saw where he was going with this. “You want me to imagine kissing you?”

“I’ll guide you through it.”

“Then what?”

“Then,” he said, “you’ll get closer to the source, but you won’t confront it yet.”

“And how exactly will that translate?”

“I’m sure I’ll think of something.” The timbre of his voice woke me up.

“When do you want to start?” I asked.

He looked up at me from the bed. “Come here.”

I obeyed.

Noah sat me down opposite him so that we faced each other. His eyelashes nearly swept his cheekbones and he bit his bottom lip and my breath caught as I stared.

Easy, there.

“Close your eyes,” Noah said, and I did.

“I want you to imagine us somewhere you love.”

I nodded.

“Somewhere safe.”

The room evaporated around us as he spoke. I walked through the hallways of my mind and opened the door to the house I grew up in. Where I played with my old toys on the floor. Where I had sleepovers with Rachel and laughed at her jokes and told her my secrets.

“Where are we?” he asked, his voice soft.

“My old bedroom.”

“Describe it.”

“There’s old, dark wood furniture that used to be my mom’s when she was younger. It’s antique. Pretty, but a little scratched-up.”

“What else?”

“The walls are pink, but you can’t see much of them under the sketches and drawings and pictures.”

“Pictures of . . .”

“Me. My family. Rachel,” I said, my voice nearly hitching. I took a deep breath. “Landscapes and stuff. I tacked everything to the wall.” I remembered it perfectly. “The papers flutter when I open or close the door, like the walls are breathing.”

“Tell me about your bed,” Noah said, the hint of a smile in his voice.

“It’s a twin,” I said, the hint of a smile in mine. “Oak, like the rest of the furniture. A four poster.”

“Blanket?”

“A really heavy quilt. It was my grandmother’s. Goose down and really thick.”

“What color is it?”

“Ugly.” I grinned. “A weird brown and black and white geometric print from the sixties, I think.”

“Where are you in your room right now?”

“Just . . . standing in the middle of it, I guess.”

“All right. If I were in your room, where would I be?”

I saw it with vivid clarity: Noah in my doorway. “Standing there, in the doorway,” I said, though our bodies now were just inches apart.

“I’m there, then,” he said in that warm, slow, honeyed voice. “It’s dark outside—night. Is there any light in your room?”

“The lamp on my nightstand.”

“All right. I walk into your room. Should I close the door?”

Yes. “Yes,” I said, my breath quickening.

“I close the door. I cross the room and meet you in the middle. What then?”

“I thought you were the one guiding me through this.”

“I think you should have some agency too.”

“What are my options?”

“You could read obscure poetry while I play the triangle, I suppose. Or we can smother ourselves in peanut butter and howl at the moon. Use your imagination.”

“Fine,” I said. “You take my hand and back up toward the bed.”

“Excellent choice. What then?”

“You sit down, and pull me down with you.”

“Where are you?” he asked.

“You pull me onto your lap.”

“Where are your legs?”

“Around your waist.”

“Well,” Noah said, his voice slightly rough. “This is getting interesting. So I’m on the edge of your bed. I’m holding you on my lap as you straddle me. My arms are around you, bracing you there so you don’t fall. What am I wearing?”

I smiled. “The T-shirt with all of the holes in it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I thought I’d be wearing a tux in your fantasies or something.”

“Like James Bond? That sounds like your fantasy,” I said, though the image of Noah in a crisp tuxedo with his artfully messy hair—his bowtie undone, hanging around his collar—I swallowed. My blood burned beneath my skin.

“Katie hates it.”

“The T-shirt?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s your sister.”

“So I should keep it?”

“Yes.”

“All right. I’m wearing the T-shirt. And below that?”

“What do you usually wear to bed?” I asked.

Noah said nothing. I opened my eyes to an arched brow and a devious grin.

Oh my God.

“Close. Your. Eyes,” he said. I did. “Now, where were we?”

“I was straddling you,” I said.

“Right. And I’m wearing . . .”

“Drawstring pants,” I said.

“Those are quite thin, you know.”

I’m aware.

“Whoa,” he said, and I felt the pressure of his hands on my shoulders. I opened my eyes.

“You swayed a bit,” he said, dropping his hands. “I thought you might fall off the bed.”

I blushed.

“Maybe we should take this to the floor,” he said, and stood. He stretched, and it was impossible to ignore the strong line of him, standing just inches away. I rose too quickly and wobbled on my feet.

He grinned and took a pillow from the bed and placed it on the floor, indicating that I should sit. I did.

“Right,” he said. “So what are you wearing?”

“I don’t know. A space suit. Who cares?”

“I think this should be as vivid as possible,” he said. “For you,” he clarified, and I chuckled. “Eyes closed,” he reminded me. “I’m going to have to institute a punishment for each time I have to tell you.”

“What did you have in mind?” I asked archly.

“Don’t tempt me. Now, what are you wearing?”

“A hoodie and drawstring pants too, I guess.”

“Anything underneath?”

“I don’t typically walk around without underwear.”

“Typically?”

“Only on special occasions.”

“Christ. I meant under your hoodie.”

“A tank top, I guess.”

“What color?”

“White tank. Black hoodie. Gray pants. I’m ready to move on now.”

I felt him nearer, his words close to my ear. “To the part where I lean back and pull you down with me?”

Yes.

“Over me,” he said.

Fuck.

“The part where I tell you that I want to feel the softness of the curls at the nape of your neck? To know what your hipbone would feel like against my mouth?” he murmured against my skin. “To memorize the slope of your navel and the arch of your neck and the swell of your—hey.”

I felt his warm hands on my shoulders. I opened my eyes. I must have been moving toward him while my eyes were closed, because I was almost in his lap.

“You should stay on your pillow,” he said.

But I don’t want to. “I don’t want to,” I said back. My fingertips ached with the need to touch.

“We shouldn’t rush this.”

But I want to. “Why not?” I asked.

He stared at me. At my mouth. “Because I want to kiss you again,” he said. “But not if any part of you is still afraid. Is any part of you still afraid?”

That I might hurt him? Kill him? If we kissed? If we stayed together?

“I’m not afraid of you, Noah,” I said out loud.

“Not consciously.”

“Not at all,” I said, shifting back and crossing my legs.

He tilted his head. He didn’t speak.

“I’m afraid of . . . myself,” I clarified. “I don’t—I don’t feel like I’m in control with you.”

His brow creased. I could see the gears turning in his mind.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Liar. You’re never thinking nothing.”

“I’m wondering what would make you feel as though you’re in control. What could make you trust yourself with me.”

“Any luck?”

“I’ll let you know.”

“Well.” I glanced at the clock. “We have a few hours before we have to be up again.”

“We should sleep,” he said, but didn’t move back to his bed.

I grinned. “We should go back to my room.”

That was when he stood. “Which is right between Joseph’s room and your parents’. And I thought I just told you I didn’t think we should rush anything?”

I rolled my eyes. “I meant my old bedroom.”

“Ah.”

I stood and wove my fingers into his. “Noah,” I said, my voice soft.

He turned and looked down at me. The shadow of a smile touched his mouth. “Tomorrow,” he said.

I must have been unable to hide my disappointment, because he placed his finger beneath my chin and tipped it up. “Tomorrow,” he said again, and I could hear the promise in the word.

I nodded. As the adrenaline dissolved in my blood, Noah pressed his lips to my forehead and led me to his bed. I wished with everything in me that I could sink into the feeling of Noah wrapped around me as I slept. But despite his words tonight, all I heard were Roslyn’s as I lay in his arms, awake in the dark.

You will love him to ruins.

If I did, it would ruin us both.

41

MY EYES FLUTTERED OPEN. THEY WERE unfocused, my vision hazy as I stared at the ceiling. Not the guest room ceiling.

Noah’s ceiling.

I was in Noah’s house. I was in his bed.

I was dreaming, I realized. And then the mattress shifted beside me.

The word nightmare came to mind unbidden, and suddenly, I was afraid.

But it was only Noah, facing away from me, staring at the rows of books that spanned the length of his room. What little light filtered in through the curtains shaded his beautiful face in sharp angles.

He could never be a nightmare.

I knelt up gingerly, afraid that the wrong movement would make the dream dissolve. I reached out and cautiously pushed his hair back. It felt so real, even though he didn’t move, didn’t respond, to my touch. I ran my fingers through his hair because when I was awake, I was scared I would do it too much.

But this wasn’t real, so there was nothing to be scared of. I ran my finger, my hand, along his jaw, enjoying the scrape against my skin. Touching him felt natural but possessive, and I wasn’t sure how far he would let me go.

Not far, apparently. Noah looked down at me with translucent eyes. His stare was desolate and hopeless.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered, but he didn’t answer. His expression frightened me. Looking at his face and into his eyes, all I wanted was to make him feel something else.

With a boldness my waking self didn’t have, I took his face in my hands, tilted him toward me, and kissed him. Not deeply. Light. Fresh. Soft.

He didn’t move toward me, not at first. He closed his eyes, shut them tight like I had hurt him. I blushed, stung, and backed away.

But then. He pulled my hair back from my face, brushed it behind my shoulders. With the flat of his palm, he pushed me down against the mattress very softly. He moved over me, pressed soft kisses against my skin, teased me with his mouth. I heard him whisper in my ear but I couldn’t hear his words—my own breath was too loud. He slid his hands into mine then, and kissed my lips lightly, one last time. Then he withdrew, leaving something behind in my open palm.

It was heavy but soft and fit perfectly in my hand. I couldn’t see what it was in the dark, so I cradled it to my chest. Followed him out onto the balcony, out of his room.

But when I stepped outside my feet touched nothing. I was weightless. I turned back to look at Noah’s house, but dark vines crawled over it. Trees burst from the ground and cracked through his roof.

I didn’t want to see this. I closed my eyes. Wake up, I told myself. Wake up.

But I opened them just in time to watch the bay soak into the ground. Buildings were crushed and crumpled in seconds beneath the weight of the forest. The jungle had been let in, and now there was nothing I could do.

I closed my eyes and twisted inside myself. I willed the nightmare to end.

But then I heard voices. Footsteps. They were approaching, but my eyelids were filled with lead; they wouldn’t open. Not until I felt the brush of a feather on my cheek. My lungs filled with breath and my eyes opened, drenching my world in color. When I woke, I was not myself.

A man knelt before me; he looked familiar but I did not know his name. He withdrew the feather from my cheek and placed it in one of my hands. My thumb caressed the edges. It was so soft.

“Show me what is in the other,” he said kindly.

I obeyed him. Uncurled my fingers to reveal what was inside.

It was Noah’s heart.

I woke up in the kitchen, facing the dark window above the sink. Noah was next to me. I had sleepwalked again but I was flooded with relief as I glanced at his chest—it was very much whole, and he was very much alive.

The nightmare wasn’t real. Noah was all right.

But when I looked up at his eyes, they were desolate. Hopeless. It was the expression he wore in my dream, before he gave me his heart.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him, panicked.

“Nothing,” he said, and his hand found mine. “Come back to bed.”

Noah woke me a few hours later and urged me into my own bed before the rest of the house woke up. I left because I had to but I was unsettled and didn’t want to be alone.

I felt sick. My muscles were tight and sore and my vertebrae crackled when I stretched my neck. My skin felt hot and the brush of my clothes against my skin seared my flesh. I felt wrong, like someone had poured me into a different body overnight.

What was happening to me?

I walked into my bathroom and turned on the light. I was shocked by what I saw.

Looking at myself in the mirror was like looking at a picture of myself in the future, like I had aged a year in an hour—I was still me, but not quite the same. The curves of my cheeks seemed hollow, and my eyes looked hollow too.

Was I the only one who could see it?

Did Noah see it?

“All you can do is watch,” I had said to him, in his bed but lying alone.

“I have been, Mara.”

If that was true then he had to see me changing, and whatever he saw I had to know. Noah seemed so haunted when I woke up in the kitchen: I’d sleepwalked before, but he never looked at me that way before. . . .

I was profoundly uneasy. I climbed back into bed, but it was a long time before I finally fell asleep.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” my mother called, her face peeking out from behind my door. “It’s almost noon.”

My eyes felt like they were pasted shut. I pushed myself up on my elbows and groaned.

“You feeling okay?”

I nodded. “Just tired.”

“You want to go back to bed?”

I did, but I shouldn’t. “No, I’ll be out soon.”

“Should I make you some lunch? Breakfast, I mean?”

I wasn’t really hungry, but knew I should eat anyway. “Thanks.”

My mother smiled, then left. I stood slowly and leaned against my dresser, arching my back.

I kept seeing Noah in my mind. The way he looked last night, in the kitchen and in my dream. Something was really wrong. We needed to talk because I couldn’t make sense of it by myself—the dream, the pendants, my grandmother, the picture. I was falling apart, and all my pieces were scattering to the wind.

When I dressed and made my way to the kitchen, Joseph was eating a sandwich, but aside from my mother, he was the only one.

“Where’s—everyone?” I asked. Didn’t want to be too obvious.

“Dad’s playing golf,” Joseph said between bites.

Next.

“Daniel went to hear Sophie rehearse for a recital she has in a couple of weeks.”

Next.

Except neither of them mentioned Noah. I sat down at the table and poured myself some juice. I glanced at the phone. I’d call.

“Noah went to pick something up at his house,” my mother said, a smile in her voice. “He’ll be back later.”

So I was that obvious. Excellent.

“Toast?”

“Thanks,” I said.

“What do you want to do today?” she asked me.

“Horseback riding,” Joseph answered, mid-bite.

“I’m not sure I’d even know where to go for that.”

“Noah does,” Joseph said. “He knows everything.”

“I see we have a bit of hero worship happening here.” My mother handed me a plate of toast as she shot Joseph a knowing look. “I think maybe we should let Noah have some space today and do what he wants to do. Why don’t we see a movie?”

My brother sighed. “Which one?”

“Whichever one you like—”

Joseph flashed a mischievous smile

“That’s rated no higher than PG-13.”

His expression fell. Then brightened again. “What about Aftermath?”

My mother squinted. “Is that the one about the plague?”

Joseph nodded vehemently.

My mother looked at me. “Okay with you?”

I didn’t particularly want to go anywhere. In fact, I could think of nothing I’d rather do than have the house to myself for a while. Maybe try to read more New Theories, or research the pendant symbols, the feather—something.

But my mom would never agree to leave me alone, and if I said I didn’t want to go out, she might wonder why. And wondering would lead to worrying, which would only make her less likely to release me from captivity anytime soon. So I assented. I could make Joseph happy, at least.

The movie didn’t start for over an hour, so I found myself with time to kill. I nearly called Noah to ask him about last night, but my mother was right. He deserved some space.

Which is why my insides squirmed with guilt when I found myself standing in the doorway of the guest room. I didn’t know what I was looking for until my eyes found it.

I didn’t touch his things. I didn’t dig through his black nylon bag. The room was as neat as if it had never been slept in, as if no one had ever been inside. Everything of his had been carefully put away. But just before I turned to leave, I noticed the corner of something peeking out from the crack between the wall and the bed.

A notebook.

Noah didn’t take notes.

I took a step into the room. Maybe it wasn’t his. Maybe Daniel or Joseph had left it there and forgotten, or maybe it belonged to one of their friends? I could look at the first page. Just to check.

No. I marched out of the room and picked up the phone to call Noah. I’d ask if it was his and if it was he’d know that I found it but didn’t betray his trust by looking inside.

This was my inner monologue as I dialed his number, as his phone continued to ring. Eventually, I heard a click, but it was only his voice mail. He didn’t pick up.

Within moments, I found myself back in the room.

The notebook probably wasn’t even his. I’d never seen him with one, ever, and anyway, there was no reason for him to bring one to my house. On spring break, no less. I would just flip through it to see whose it was; I wouldn’t read whatever was inside.

A Gollum/Sméagol conundrum. Would evil or good prevail?

I took a step toward the bed. If the notebook was Noah’s, the law of the universe dictated that I would get caught.

But it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission. I took another step. Another. Then I reached for the notebook, swallowed my guilt, and began to read.