Cold Kiss

backward, waving with her free hand, and I can’t help smiling.
    But the moment I turn around to head up Dudley toward home, my smile falls away. There’s Gabriel, hunched into an ancient denim jacket, waiting for me on the next corner.
    “Hey,” he says when I reach him, and he sounds so easy, so casual, like we’re best friends now, that for a second anger prickles just under my skin.
    I’m too tired to feed it, though, so I simply nod at him. He falls into step beside me, and suddenly I wonder if he can feel how confused and terrified I am about what I agreed to with Darcia.
    “On your way home?” I ask, because distracting him seems like the best option.
    “Yeah. I live up on the north end of Prospect.”
    Not far from me. Naturally. I swallow a sigh. He doesn’t seem inclined to say much more, though, so I ask the next thing that comes to mind, “Where’d you go after school?”
    “Downtown.” He shrugs, and I realize he doesn’t even have a backpack. “Looking for a job.”
    “Oh yeah? Find anything?”
    “The guy at the bakery said he’d get back to me, and the manager at the movie theater gave me an application.” He gives me a tight smile and turns his head to let the wind blow his hair off his forehead. “It’s just me and my sister, so I could use some extra cash.”
    “Oh.” I’m not sure what else to say, and in the thinning light, his eyes are hard to read.
    “My mom died a long time ago. My dad isn’t around right now.”
    “Oh. Wow.” God, I sound like a complete idiot when I could be telling him I at least know how the second part feels.
    “You don’t have to be sorry,” he says, and he smiles then, a wry and twisted grin that makes me laugh. “I mean, I know it sounds weird, but it’s a good thing. My dad being gone, anyway. I miss my mom sometimes, but she was really sick, and she’s not now, so… I think it’s harder for Olivia.”
    “She’s your sister?” We’ve slowed down, kicking idly at the muddy drifts of leaves on the sidewalk.
    “Yeah. She’s a bartender at Bar Car, that place down by the train station, and she teaches yoga at the Y some mornings.”
    I glance sideways at him, but he’s focused on the sidewalk, watching as he steps carefully in the middle of each square, avoiding the cracks.
    That sounds hard. It’s hard enough for us, with just my mom, but at least she’s an adult, even if Dad left a cold, empty space behind when he left us. I wonder how old Gabriel’s sister is, if she gave up college for this, where their dad is exactly, and suddenly Gabriel turns his head and looks at me with a sly grin.
    “Curious, huh?”
    I reel back as if he slapped me. “Not fair.”
    “Well, you’re thinking about me, so I figured it was a little bit fair.”
    “But you couldn’t know that unless you peeked.” I sound like a little kid about to have a tantrum, and I hate it, but as much as I want to ask him about his grandmother, and what he knows about people with powers like mine, I want to scream, Don’t look! even more.
    Maybe he can feel it anyway, because his grin fades and he hunches into his coat again as the wind sweeps us farther up the street. “I’m sorry. I was just teasing. Olivia’s twenty-four, and no, she never went to college. My dad is, um, another story.”
    He looks so contrite, almost shy, that I want to apologize, but I won’t. I can’t, I realize, as I watch his strange eyes darting over at my face, his hair falling forward.
    He’s just a boy. A cute boy, yeah, a really interesting boy, but just a boy. And I have a boy. I have a boyfriend , even if the rest of the world thinks he’s gone. I have a boyfriend who has nothing but me, and not even all of me, not anymore. I don’t have any business with Gabriel, here and now or any other time. And I can’t let him think I do.
    So I square my shoulders, hitch my battered JanSport up higher, and set my jaw. “I’m sorry. That sounds rough.”
    He blinks, surprised by my tone maybe, but before he can say anything I’m pointing at the sign for Edgewood, my street. My stomach twists, sick-hot, because I hate lying, pretending, and it feels like all I do anymore.
    “That’s me, and I’m late, so I’m going to run. Bye, Gabriel.”
    My Docs smack the sidewalk as I take off at a run, and if he answers, the wind carries it away.

CHAPTER EIGHT

    DANNY SAYS, “YOU DIDN’T MEAN IT,” AND PULLS me close. I nod, even though it doesn’t really work with my forehead