Kami leaned as far forward out of the window as she could manage, squinting at the difference between the brilliant enclosed lights of the party downstairs and the wide, dark expanse of the sky outside.,
“Hi, Jared,” she said, leaning out of the window. “Are you brooding?”
He was leaning back on the roof, looking up at the sky, at the gray clouds spiraling as if to make steps to climb up to the silver hook that was the moon. His hands were linked behind his head, his body one long lean line.
“No, I was about to strip off all my clothes, stand on the edge of the roof, and shout, ‘I’m a golden god,’ ” Jared said. “That’s the cool thing to do at parties; I saw it in a movie. Except I’m afraid that in this town, considering I’m a Lynburn and the worst family trait we have besides the constant murdering is our crushing arrogance, people would take it seriously.” He paused. “Just kidding, I was brooding. Brooding’s my favorite.”
“I know the ambiance isn’t as good as a starry night overlooking your shadowed town, but might you consider coming down and brooding on a bar stool?”
“What was I going to do in there? I can’t dance.”
Kami wanted to protest that she didn’t care, but before she could open her mouth she told herself she was a fool. Jared had not said anything about dancing with her.
She recalled a couple of little digs Ash had made about Jared’s table manners or being held back a year at school. She remembered Jared feeling self-conscious about it, though he would never have shown anyone what he felt. She wondered if he wished he could dance in the same way he wished he could do a lot of things Ash did so easily, with grace so perfectly trained it looked natural. There was Jared’s aunt Lillian, and there was Martha Wright: they adored him and would be pleased if he took them for a turn around the room. They wouldn’t care if he didn’t dance as well as Ash, any more than Kami did.
She didn’t think that he wanted to dance with a specific other girl. Maybe one day he would, but not yet. At least that was something to hold on to, poor comfort though it was. She wasn’t worried about him having a real girlfriend, one that he wanted, one that he’d asked. Not yet.
“Nobody expects you to be able to do everything Ash can do.”
“I’m aware,” said Jared.
She put her knee on the windowsill and hauled herself up and then out, walking on her knees for a moment. It wasn’t graceful. Probably a tall, skinny girl could have slid from the window and onto the roof like Jared’s dream come true, but Kami was focused on not showing her underwear in this dress.
She eventually scrambled to her feet and almost overbalanced because of the slope of the roof. Jared leaped up, but didn’t catch her arm: he hovered around her while she steadied herself. He would’ve caught her if she’d fallen, she knew, but it was another reminder of the way he did not touch her unless he absolutely had to.
“You looked like you were having a good time in there,” said Jared.
“Sure, I was,” said Kami. “But I’d be having a better time if you were in there. We’re—we’re still friends, right?”
“Course,” said Jared.
“And parties are a time for being with your friends,” said Kami. “Not brooding alone up on a roof. That’s basic party etiquette. Come on, it’s not like I’m any good at dancing. You know this about me.”
“You looked like you were doing fine.”
He didn’t say it with any rancor. It might’ve made Kami feel a little better if he had seemed at all jealous, but at the same time she appreciated that he wasn’t trying to make her feel bad. He’d been the one who broke up with her. He had no right to make her feel lousy.
“All an illusion,” Kami told him cheerfully. “Ash is able to mask my many failings.”
She began to dance as an illustration of this fact. Jared ducked out of the way of one of her flailing hands, and she caught the edge of his little smile, in the light cast by the sliver of a moon.
Ash could smooth anything over, make anyone look good, but Kami liked to figure things out for herself. Encouraged by the smile, she caught hold of Jared’s jacket and pulled him in a little closer to her. He started to dance with her, and promptly kicked her on the ankle.
“Sorry,” said Jared. “Sorry, sorry—I’m really bad.”
Kami tucked her smiling mouth, her silent laugh, into the collar of his T-shirt. “Me too.”
Jared wasn’t good. He was too awkward and she was too enthusiastic, and she kicked him in return, once lightly on purpose and then quite hard by accident. He let out a short shocked gasp and she hung onto his jacket and grinned up at him. Combined terrible dancing made them lurch, and Kami grabbed hold of Jared tight in panic that they were going to topple right off the roof. He let her stay there, tucked up against him, even when they had steadied themselves and started dancing again, in extremely poor rhythm to music almost too far away to hear. Hope flickered in her chest, a sweet small flame curling warm under her breastbone, and Kami thought, Maybe.
“Come on,” Jared said against her hair. “We can’t.”
He said We can’t, but Kami remembered what he had said before. She didn’t have to be able to read his mind to know that he was saying it again.
I don’t want to.
Kami came in from the cold, rubbing her hands. They felt numb. Jared walked in behind her, but he did not stay with her for long. He walked over to Martha Wright behind the bar, lifted a box of fresh glasses from over her head, and chased her off to dance with her husband. Martha hesitated about going, and Jared put his hand near hers, testing, waiting in case she flinched, braced to yank himself away. But Martha didn’t flinch, of course. She tipped her head back, her white hair limned with light so it looked butter-yellow, and said something to Jared Kami didn’t catch. Kami did catch the fond note in her voice, and Jared caught Martha’s hand and twirled her, a little awkwardly and looking self-conscious about doing so, until she was out from behind the bar.
Martha beamed at him. She was still smiling as she danced with her husband. Kami’s dad was making the rounds with Lillian, whisking her away before she could say anything too awful, and people were actually relaxing enough to talk to her. People were chatting with Lillian Lynburn. Kami’s dad was a miracle worker.
It was all going so well. Kami felt tired.
She excused herself and went into the parlor, where she expected to find some much-wanted solitude.
Instead she saw Ash, sitting in the deep armchair with his head bowed over the book in his lap. He looked lost in thought.
I wanted to be alone, said Ash.
She was surprised: Ash had always seemed to her like exactly the kind of person who never wanted to be alone, but she could feel how much he meant it. He felt sad, in a heavy way that company could not soothe or pierce. He felt like she did.
“I can go,” Kami offered.
No, said Ash. Stay.
Kami supposed they could be alone together. She went and leaned against the window, opened a book and leafed through it, though she felt impatient with reading history books now she’d learned Elinor’s secret. She had already done the research and wanted to get to the action. Kami wanted to be done feeling helpless and not able to do anything she wanted to do.
The fierce restlessness of Ash’s thoughts was infecting hers. Investigating his feelings seemed like putting a hand between the cage bars a tiger was prowling behind.
Kami could hear the sound of the party going on, through the little corridor, through two doors. Eventually the noise died down, the creak of the heavy inn door swinging back and forth becoming the most frequent sound, but the party winding down did nothing to ease the cold knot under her breastbone. Kami shut her book and leaned her head back against the window with a small sigh. She felt the hair at the back of her head stick to the condensation on the glass and stared up at the low, wooden-beamed ceiling for a long moment.
There was a sudden touch at her wrist and Kami dropped the book in her hand. It thumped against the wooden floor and the sound echoed. Ash was standing in front of her, his blue eyes darkened with the feeling she had sensed in him before, the feeling she had shared.
His hand was circling both her wrists. He closed his fingers, bringing her wrists together and over her head in one smooth movement. It brought her body forward, brought it against his. She felt the cool slick glass against the back of her hands at the same time as she felt the warmth of his mouth close over hers. He set his free hand on her hip, and she felt the heat and greed of his fingers sliding over the loose silk of Angela’s black dress. He was pressing her h*ps against the glass and making her back arch away from it, while his warm lips searched hers.
She was wearing someone else’s clothes, feeling someone else’s feelings. She could feel his rapt intentness, so focused on her that it felt as if it was piercing through her, but the piercing was sweet. She turned her face up, kissing him back as he was kissing her, feeling his fingers clench around her wrists and in the material of the dress. She did not want to feel the way she was feeling any longer, and she did not have to—she could feel other emotions sweeping through her like fire, destroying everything that was hers.
“Kami,” Ash whispered against her mouth, “don’t you know that I love you? I love you. I’m so in love with you.”
Kami’s eyes snapped open.
“What?” she whispered. Ash kissed her again, and she turned her face away, tested his grip on her wrists. He didn’t let her go. She felt his harsh breath against her cheek, felt his hot mouth catch the edge of hers, and she almost turned back, surrendered to the scorching rush of urgency and lack of all thought.
Almost. Not quite.
A lightbulb, set in an old-fashioned iron sconce in the wall, flickered as if it was a candle’s flame, wavering and almost going out. Kami thought for a moment that it was Ash doing it. Then she remembered that she was the only person in the room who could do magic.
“Stop,” said Kami, and pulled away decisively.
She infused extra strength into her muscles with magic, but she didn’t have to use it. Ash let her go when he registered she was really trying. She felt the echo of his dismay as he realized she was serious, that she was bent on getting away, felt the desolate soreness of rejection. She knew how that felt.
“I’m sorry,” she said instantly, and caught at his hands, wanting to comfort him and wipe away all the pain churning inside them both. If she could make him feel better, she would feel better herself.
She retreated but he followed her, keeping the hold on her hands she had given him. She sank down into the chair that he had vacated, his book—Melmoth the Wanderer, Kami noticed, and did not know why she was noticing except that everything seemed so strange and fragmented, and it did not seem like Ash’s type of book—was shut and placed on the arm. Kami almost knocked it off.
She thought Ash, leaning down with her hands still in his, was going to sit at her feet, that his lips were parted so he could speak to her. But instead his lips pressed against hers, desperate and imploring. He let go of her hands to cup the back of her head, and for an instant Kami let her mouth open against his, let sparks of heat and pleasure travel from him to her.
Everything was tangled up and confused. She didn’t want to say yes just to please him. It wasn’t the same as pleasing herself, even if it felt like it was. She pushed him back, just a little.
“I’m going to have to repeat myself,” said Kami. “Stop. What—what did you say?”
“I love you.”
“Ash,” said Kami. “Please don’t be hurt or take this the wrong way—but have you gone completely off your head?”
Ash blinked. At least he had stopped trying to kiss her. Kami supposed it was a highly inappropriate thing to say to a gorgeous guy professing eternal devotion. She should probably either be professing it back or rejecting him with passionate tears at seeing a good man’s heart wasted on such an unworthy creature as herself, who could not give hers in return.