Wings

FIFTEEN

IT WAS FOUR O’CLOCK WHEN LAUREL PARKED HER bike in the garage, way later than any study session could really justify. She braced herself and pushed open the front door.

Her father was napping on the couch, his snores a quiet, familiar rhythm. No threat of trouble from that source. She listened for her mother and heard bottles clinking in the kitchen. “Mom?” she called as she came around the corner.

“There you are. You and David must have gotten that last page done quickly. I only called half an hour ago.”

“Uh, yeah. It was easier than I thought,” she said quickly.

“Did you have a good time? He’s a nice boy.”

Laurel nodded, her mind nowhere near David — about forty-two miles away from David, to be precise.

“Are you two…?”

“What?” Laurel tried to focus on what her mom was saying.

“Well, you spend an awful lot of time over at his house; I thought maybe the two of you were…becoming an item.”

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “Maybe.”

“It’s just — I know David’s mom sometimes works long hours, so you and David spend a lot of time alone. It’s easy for things to get out of control when you’re in an empty house together.”

“I’ll be careful, Mom,” she said wryly.

“I know you will, but I’m the mom, and I have to say it anyway,” she said with a smile. “Remember,” she added, “just because you haven’t started your period doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t get pregnant.”

“Mom!”

“I’m just saying.”

Laurel thought of Tamani’s words earlier that day. Pollination is for reproduction — sex is just for fun. She wondered what her mom would say if Laurel told her she couldn’t get pregnant — would never start her period. That sex for her was just sex, with no strings attached. If there was anything Laurel could say to truly rattle her mother, that would be it. She was still trying to wrap her mind around it.

“Mom,” Laurel said haltingly, “I wanted to talk to you about the land. It’s been in your family for so long. And we lived there for my whole life.” She ducked her head when she thought of her real origins — her secret home. “As long as I can remember, anyway.” Unexpected tears pricked at her eyes when she looked back up at her mom. “It’s the most magical place in the world. I wish you wouldn’t sell it.”

Her mom looked at her for a long time. “Mr. Barnes is offering us a lot of money, Laurel. All the things you’ve wanted lately that we couldn’t afford would be in our budget again.”

“But what if you didn’t sell? Would we be okay?”

Her mom sighed and thought about that for a moment. “Your dad is doing good business, but there’s no guarantee that will continue.” She leaned forward over the counter on her elbows. “We would have this tight budget for a long time, Laurel. I don’t like living this frugally. You’re not the only one who has to give things up.”

Laurel was quiet for a while. It seemed too monumental a task for a fifteen-year-old girl. But then, she added mentally, I am no ordinary girl. Buoyed up by that thought, she said, “Could you at least think about it? For like, a week?” Laurel added when her mom pursed her lips.

“We’re supposed to sign papers on Wednesday.”

“A week? Please? Just tell Mr. Barnes you need a week. And if you really think about it for a week, I won’t bother you about it ever again.”

Her mom studied her with skepticism.

“Please?”

Her face softened. “I guess Mr. Barnes probably wouldn’t rescind his offer if I needed one more week.”

Laurel bounded around the bar and hugged her mom. “Thanks,” she whispered. “It means a lot.”

“So he really didn’t tell you much.” David sat on a stool at the bar in his kitchen. His mom was on a date, so he and Laurel had the house to themselves tonight. David was eating microwaved leftovers and Laurel was doodling on a notebook, trying to distract herself from the smell.

“He told me enough,” Laurel said defensively. “It was like he wanted to tell me more, but he wasn’t allowed. I could tell it annoyed him.”

“He sounds kind of weird.”

“He’s definitely different — and not just in his looks.” She paused in the middle of a spiral and looked up, remembering. “He’s so intense. Everything he feels — good or bad — seems enhanced. And contagious.” She started scribbling again. “You want to feel like he does, but there’s just no way you could keep up, because the way he’s feeling changes so quickly. It must be exhausting to be so passionate.” Her body shivered as she found just the right word for him. Passionate, always.

“So are you two, like, friends now?”

“I don’t know.” The truth was that she knew he wanted her. And that, despite trying not to, she felt much the same way. It seemed disloyal spending the evening with David after her day with Tamani. Or maybe she felt disloyal having spent the day with Tamani. It was hard to tell for sure.

She reached up to touch the ring he’d given her, strung on a thin, silver chain. She’d done so at least a hundred times already that day. It brought back the feeling of being with him. In their short visit, they had become more than friends — no, not more, beyond friends. The word friend seemed too paltry to describe the connection they shared. It was more like they had a bond. She couldn’t tell David that. It would be hard enough to explain to an unaffected observer — and David was far from unaffected. If he had any idea of the storm of emotions she felt for Tamani, he would be terribly jealous.

But that didn’t mean she didn’t like David. She considered him her best friend and sometimes more. David was everything Tamani wasn’t — calm and centered, logical, soothing. Her feelings for him weren’t a storm of chaos but a calm, strong pull. He was a constant in her life in a way Tamani never could be. Two halves that could never be a whole.

David finally finished his dinner and Laurel pushed the notebook aside to face him. “Thanks for covering for me, by the way. I never dreamed my mom would actually call you.”

David shrugged. “You’d been gone a long time, and she knows you don’t actually like biology.”

“I did some reading this afternoon,” Laurel said. “You know how plants absorb carbon dioxide from the air and then release oxygen as a by-product, right?”

“Yeah, that’s why we’re supposed to save the trees and all that stuff.”

“I was thinking it wouldn’t make sense for me to breathe oxygen.”

“So…you think you breathe carbon dioxide?”

“And exhale oxygen, yeah.”

“I guess that would make sense.”

“I was thinking,” Laurel began slowly, “that we could try another experiment.”

David looked at her, puzzled. “Okay. What kind of experiment?”

“Um, well, air’s not something you can look at under a microscope or anything, so the only way to tell if I was exhaling oxygen would be to see if you could inhale it without any problems.”

David began to see where this was headed. “And how do you propose we do that?” he asked, with a tiny smile hovering around the corner of his mouth.

“Well, I was kind of thinking it would be sort of like…mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Except you’d breathe into my mouth first and then, without getting another breath of air, I could breathe into yours.” She looked at him for a second then blurted, “But there’s no reason you have to. It was just an idea I had.”

“I’m impressed,” David said. “You studied bio all by yourself.”

Laurel rolled her eyes but grinned. “Google is my friend.”

David snorted, then tried to cover it with a cough.

Laurel glared at him.

“It makes sense,” David said. “Let’s do it.”

David turned toward her till their knees were touching.

“First you take a breath of air and hold it for about ten seconds so your lungs can convert it to carbon dioxide. Then blow it into my mouth, and I’ll breathe it in. Then I’ll wait about ten seconds and blow it back into your mouth, okay?”

David nodded.

It sounded simple enough. Well, except the mouth-to-mouth part. But she could handle that. Right?

David’s chest expanded as he sucked in a lungful of air, and his face flushed red while he held it.

No backing out now.

After about ten seconds he gestured to her and leaned forward, his eyes trained on her mouth. She forced herself to focus as she leaned forward to meet him. Their lips touched gently at first and Laurel almost forgot herself and breathed in a nervous gulp of air. Then David pressed more firmly and blew into her mouth. She let her lungs fill.

He pulled back and Laurel made the mistake of meeting his eyes. She smiled, then had to look away as she counted to ten. Then he was leaning back in, his hand tugging softly on her shoulder.

Laurel met him halfway without any hesitation this time. His mouth pressed to hers and he opened his lips just a little. She blew all the air from her lungs back into his mouth and felt him inhale it. He lingered for just a moment before pulling back and breaking contact.

“Wow.” He exhaled and ran his fingers through his hair. “Wow. That was amazing. My head’s spinning a little. I think you’re exhaling almost pure oxygen, Laurel.”

“You’re not going to fall off your stool, are you?” She placed her hands on his legs.

“I’m all right,” David said, breathing slowly. “Just give me a couple more seconds.” He let his hands slide down to cover hers, where they were still braced on his legs. She looked up as he sucked on his bottom lip, then grinned.

“What’s so funny?”

“Sorry,” David said, reddening again. “You just taste so sweet.”

“What do you mean, sweet?”

He licked his bottom lip one more time. “You taste like honey.”

“Honey?”

“Yeah. I thought I was going nuts the day…well, you know, that one day. But it was the same today. Your mouth is really sweet.” He paused for a second, then grinned. “Not like honey — like nectar. That makes more sense.”

“Great. Now I’m going to have to explain that to everyone I kiss for the rest of my life unless it’s you or…or another faerie.” She’d almost said Tamani’s name. Her fingers flew to the ring around her neck.

David shrugged. “Then don’t kiss anyone except me.”

“David…”

“I’m just offering up the obvious solution,” he said, hands up in protest.

She laughed and rolled her eyes. “I guess that’ll keep me from being one of those girls who kisses everyone.”

David shook his head. “You could never be like that. Your feelings are too soft. You’d worry that you were breaking the heart of every guy you kissed.”

She wasn’t sure if he meant that as a compliment or not, but it felt that way. “Um, thanks. I think.”

“So what is that?” he asked, pointing to her necklace. “You keep playing with it.”

Laurel dropped the ring down the front of her shirt. It was like a talisman that sent her thoughts straight to Tamani. She wondered if Tamani had known before he gave it to her that it would do that. She was a little surprised when the thought didn’t irritate her. “It’s a ring,” she finally confessed. “Tamani gave it to me.”

David looked at her strangely. “Tamani gave you a ring?”

“It’s not like that.” Guys. “It’s a baby ring. I guess all faeries get them when they’re little.” Against her impulse to keep the ring her own special secret, she pulled the chain out from under her shirt and showed David the tiny circlet.

“That’s really pretty,” he said grudgingly. “Why’d he give it to you?”

Laurel tried to shrug his question away. “I don’t know. He just wanted me to have it.”

David looked at it for a long time before dropping it back onto her chest.