Chapter 10: Chapter 9

Light-headedness, from the heat and the emotion. The feeling that I was going to pass out.

That was how I explained what had happened in the mall, hiding my reactions the best I could.

I had tried to suppress my body’s panic, I had tried with everything I had to contain myself. I reassured Anna multiple times, and in the end, she believed me.

I didn’t like lying to her, but there was nothing else I could do. The idea of telling her the truth made me feel so nauseous that I couldn’t breathe. I just couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t tell her what had caused those feelings, because they came from so deep down in me that even I didn’t want to probe there.

‘Nica?’ I heard on Monday morning.

Anna was standing in the doorway to my room. Her eyes were still as clear as a cloudless sky. I hoped she’d never see me like that again.

‘What are you looking for?’ she asked, watching me rummage through my desk. I knew that she had accepted what I told her as true, but this hadn’t stopped her worrying about me.

‘Oh, nothing, just…a photo,’ I murmured as she came near. ‘My friend gave me one the other day and…I can’t find it.’

I couldn’t believe it. Billie had only just given it to me and I’d already lost it?

‘Have you looked on the kitchen table?’

I nodded, tucking my hair behind my ears.

‘You’ll find it, I’m sure. It won’t be lost.’

She tilted her head and tidied a lock of hair on my collarbone. As she looked me in the eyes, I felt a surge of affection for her warming my chest.

‘I’ve got something for you.’

A small box appeared under my nose.

I came back to my senses and looked at the wrapping paper, unsure what to say. When I opened it, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

‘I know it’s a bit old,’ Anna commented as I pulled away the wrapping. ‘It’s definitely not the latest model, but…well, this way I can always know where you and Rigel are. I gave him one too.’

A cell phone. Anna was giving me a cell phone. I stared at her, utterly speechless.

‘It’s already got a SIM, and I’ve put my number in the contacts,’ she explained calmly. ‘You can reach me at any time. I’ve put Norman’s number in there too.’

I was unable to express what I was feeling at that moment, with something so important in my hands.

I thought about all the times I’d daydreamed about exchanging numbers with a friend, or hearing my phone ringing somewhere, knowing that someone was looking for me, that someone wanted to speak specifically with me…

‘I…Anna, I, I can’t…’ I stammered. I looked at her, enraptured, overwhelmed with gratitude. ‘Thank you…’

It was surreal. I had never had anything of my own, except for that caterpillar plushie…

Why did Anna go so out of her way for me? Why did she give me clothes, underwear, such long-lasting things? I knew I shouldn’t delude myself. I knew that nothing was for certain yet…And yet I couldn’t help but hope.

Hope that she wanted to keep me with her.

Hope that we could stay together, that she was starting to care about me as much as I cared about her…

‘I know that girls your age all have the latest model, but…’

‘It’s perfect,’ I whispered, savouring the moment. ‘It’s so perfect, Anna. Thank you.’

She smiled affectionately, then put a hand on my head. My heart felt warm.

‘Oh, Nica…Why don’t you put on those new clothes we bought?’ She looked at me a little sadly. ‘Don’t you like them any more?’

‘No,’ I replied urgently. ‘The opposite…I love them!’

Too much, in truth.

When I came to put them away, I hadn’t been able to see them together in the same drawer with my old clothes. So, I left them in their bags, tidy and safe like holy relics.

‘I was just waiting for the right moment to wear them. I didn’t want to ruin them for nothing,’ I murmured quietly.

‘But they’re clothes,’ Anna pointed out. ‘They’re made for wearing. Don’t you want to wear all those colourful socks we got together?’

I nodded vigorously, feeling a bit like a little girl.

‘So what are you waiting for?’ She stroked my hair and I lowered my face.

She had given me another bit of herself, and I couldn’t help but feel happy. With that conversation, once again, Anna had offered me a piece of the normality that I had always dreamt of.

—

That morning, I walked to school alone.

Changing my outfit had made me late, and I didn’t need to see the empty hook on the coat rack to know that Rigel hadn’t bothered waiting for me.

It was better that way. At the end of the day, I had promised myself that I’d keep well away from him.

When Billie had told me about Garden Day the previous Friday, I had imagined a day of pure romance. I had always thought that Valentine’s Day would be intimate and personal, that there would be no need for grand, showy gestures as love reveals itself in secret, private ways.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The yard outside school was thronging like an anthill. The atmosphere was so electric that everyone was as jumpy as grasshoppers.

I was surrounded by a gaudy mosaic swarming with yellow, pink, blue and white roses, devoid of thorns but full of meaning.

There were some students roaming around with baskets bursting with bouquets and reading the little labels attached to them. When they approached a group of girls, they all held their breath, then exploded into giggles when the chosen one was handed a rose. The others hid grimaces of disappointment or sighs of restless anticipation.

I tried to get to the entrance without ending up in the middle of some big scene. I had to agree with Billie. It was a day full of drama.

Some girls exchanged pink roses as a symbol of their friendship, while others would point fingers and hurl insults at them. Jealous girlfriends accused their boyfriends of having sent a scarlet rose to some other girl, and then forgot to say thanks for the flowers that they themselves were holding.

I recognised one of my classmates – he ran towards a dark-skinned girl and hugged her from behind, flourishing a bunch of flowers in front of her face, which made her smile.

I stood watching them affectionately, before a cheerleader shoved into me. She was furious, to say the least.

‘Pink? Pink? After everything we’ve done together, that’s all I am to you? Just a friend?’ she raged at some guy who scratched his head awkwardly.

‘Hmm…well, Karen…in a way…’

‘Friends, my ass!’ she screamed at him. I slipped away with wide eyes, slightly terrified.

In the distance, I glimpsed an unmistakable mane of blonde curls.

‘Billie, hey,’ I groaned, approaching her. ‘Sorry, can I get through…’

Her face lit up as I practically fell at her feet.

‘Nica, just at the right moment! It’s all kicking off!’

I saw Miki sourly stuffing two roses into her locker. They were a beautiful, bright red.

‘I hate Garden Day,’ she grumbled gloomily.

‘Hello, Miki,’ I greeted her sweetly. She glanced at me distractedly like she did every morning, but this time I noticed a hint of tenderness in her eyes.

‘Two red roses already, and it’s not even first period,’ Billie teased her as I opened my locker. ‘I bet there are more on their way too…what do you think, Nica?’

She elbowed me, turning towards me with a smile.

‘Hey, you’re looking so colourful today!’ she commented, looking at me.

I pulled at the sleeves of my new shirt, happy to be wearing something other than grey.

‘Anna got me so many new clothes,’ I replied, as I caught Miki’s glance.

‘Oh, these colours look great on you! Who knows, maybe you’ll get a flaming red rose too…’

‘Let’s get to class,’ Miki snarled with an energy she didn’t normally have that early in the morning. ‘If I hear another word, I swear I’ll…Hey! Let it go!’

Billie jumped out of the way impishly and before I could understand what was happening, she had grabbed the padlock from my locker too.

‘I’ll keep these!’ she exclaimed triumphantly. ‘Garden Day is for everyone!’

‘Not if you value your life,’ Miki growled, her eyes ablaze.

‘Come on, I’m just encouraging some secret admirers! Who knows how many flowers you might get by the time class is over…’

‘I was wrong. You do want to die – horribly.’

Billie’s lively laughter filled my ears, and then I noticed an unmistakable presence in front of reception, a figure that magnetically drew my eyes.

Rigel came through the door into the corridor. He parted the crowd like waves, his gaze fixed determinedly ahead of him.

I was staring at him without even realising it. He always oozed that disdainful confidence, as if he was aware of the world and was deliberately ignoring it. He knew how to draw attention to himself but paid no attention back. He didn’t care about anyone, and yet it seemed with every step he took he asserted himself above everyone else.

When he stopped in front of his locker, I noticed a long, green stem poking through the door.

I realised I was holding my breath.

It was a shining white rose.

Someone had left it there in the hope that he’d take it.

It was beautiful. I found myself staring at it, speechless, but Rigel opened the locker and the rose fell to the floor.

It languished there among the dust and gum wrappers as he headed off, without even glancing at it.

‘He didn’t take it,’ I heard some other girls stammering. ‘He didn’t even take it!’

I turned around to look at them, disorientated, and saw that they were avidly watching him leave.

‘I told you, he didn’t accept Susy’s,’ one of them said. ‘She took it to him in person…I was sure that he’d take it, but he just walked past her.’

‘Maybe he’s already dating someone…’

I tried to ignore them. It upset me to hear him spoken about like that. All the girls wanted him ardently, as if he was a dark and distant prince from a nameless fairy tale. At the end of the day, Rigel’s was a rare beauty, as sharp as a blade, and just as lethal. And when he left a room, he always left murmuring ripples in his wake.

‘I’m going to class,’ I muttered, ignoring the heavy weight in my chest.

I didn’t know what it was, but I didn’t like it.

But the idea of finding out…

I liked that even less.

—

The day went by alarmingly quickly.

Halfway through first period, two committee members knocked at the door. They entered with wicker baskets and sweet smiles, holding the power to bestow joy and tears with nothing but a wave of their hand.

I was stunned to see a girl receive a very rare blue rose.

‘It’s obvious who sent it,’ Billie whispered beside me. ‘Blue represents wisdom. Someone admires her for her intelligence. It’s not a colour that some gym rat would have given her. Just look how red Jimmy Nut’s gone!’

I looked over at where he was hiding behind a history textbook and smiled.

Then, a committee member stopped in front of us.

Surprised, I saw him read the name on the label. He extracted a single stalk from the others and held it out. I stared, wide-eyed.

I turned around. Next to me, Billie was smiling calmly.

‘Is it for me?’ she asked simply.

The boy nodded, and she took the rose off him.

‘It’s white,’ she noted gleefully. ‘Isn’t that the symbol of true love? I get one every year,’ she confided in me emotionally. ‘I’ve never gotten many flowers. In fact, practically no one…but every Garden Day I get this…every year. Once, I saw the shadow of a boy close to my locker, but I’ve never found out who sends them.’

I noticed how warmly her cheeks were glowing and understood why she liked Garden Day so much.

‘You should put it in water,’ I smiled gently. ‘I’ll come with you after class.’

When we left class at the end of the day, Billie was still clutching her flower tightly.

‘She’s wilting,’ she noted with a smile. ‘Look!’

‘It’ll pick up again.’ I looked at the slightly drooping petals. ‘Let’s go to the water fountain.’

Of course, the water fountain in question was crowded like a busy bird bath. There was a long line of girls proudly waving their own flowers about.

‘There’s the faucet behind the yard,’ Billie suggested, ‘let’s try there first.’

We turned around, moving against the current. As we headed around the back of the school, she started chatting excitedly again.

‘Oh, by the way, my photo? Did you keep it?’ she asked me lightly.

I felt my stomach churn.

I was mortified by the idea of having lost it. Billie had shared her passion with me, and I really had appreciated her gift, but somehow, I’d still managed to misplace it. I didn’t want her to think that I didn’t care about it, so I found myself telling another lie.

‘Yes,’ I swallowed. She smiled and I promised myself that as soon as I got home, I’d find it. It couldn’t have just disappeared. I couldn’t really have lost it…

We went to the concrete yard around the back of the school. The faucet was next to the basketball hoop.

‘Wait!’ Billie facepalmed. ‘I left my water bottle in class!’

My eyes opened wide. ‘Let’s hope the janitor hasn’t got there yet!’

She quickly turned around, promising me she’d only be a moment.

I couldn’t help but return to wondering where that photo could have gotten to…

Then I heard a noise. The sound of footsteps, but I couldn’t work out where they were coming from. I noticed that a window of one of the ground-floor classrooms was open.

‘I’m not surprised to find you here.’

I froze.

That voice.

It was indescribable to suddenly hear it so close. It was like he was right there with me, with his black eyes and his irresistible charm.

I stepped aside stiffly, and my suspicions were confirmed.

Rigel was there, in the classroom.

He was still sitting down, as if he had stayed behind to finish reading a last paragraph. He was putting a book into his backpack. Next to him was a cascade of glossy hair.

I recognised her straight away. The girl who had stopped outside the music room the day that he had played the piano. She was, to say the least, stunning. Her soft and slender body made her look like a fairy. She was standing close to his desk, and I noticed that her hands were extremely well cared for. Her nails had a light polish on them, and her fingers were perfect and slender, so different to mine, which were covered in scratches and Band-Aids. And her long fingers were holding…

A red rose.

‘Are you expecting me to take that?’ Rigel asked, aloof and derisive. He didn’t turn a hair, but there was still that intimidating flame in his gaze that would make anyone feel uncomfortable.

‘Well…that would be nice.’

That whisper had a strange effect on me. It upset me. Rigel zipped up his backpack and then got up from his seat.

‘I’m not nice.’

He passed her and walked out into the corridor, but she reached her hand out and grabbed his backpack strap.

‘What are you like then?’ she asked, trying to get his attention. But he didn’t turn around, refusing to give it to her. She took a step forward, approaching his broad back.

‘I want to get to know you. I’ve wanted to since the first time I saw you, that first day, when you were playing the piano,’ she said softly. ‘I’d like us to get to know each other better…’

She lifted up the rose, fixing her eyes on his.

‘You could take this…and tell me something about yourself. There are still so many things that I don’t know about you, Rigel Wilde,’ she said seductively. ‘Like…what type of guy are you?’

Rigel was no longer facing the door.

He stood there staring down at the rose, his dark hair framing his perfect, frozen features, and his eyes were flat and expressionless. They were impenetrable. Indifferent. Like walls of black diamond, devoid of any emotion. They were empty, cold and distant, like dead stars.

He looked up at her. And I could tell that he was about to show his charming mask.

Rigel lifted a corner of his mouth…and he smiled. Smiled in his persuasive, enticing way. It was breathtaking, that crooked smile. It poisoned you with malice then lured you in seductively. It was the grin of a beast who let no one near.

He lifted his hand and closed it around the flower, resolutely holding her gaze. He squeezed it, and his fingers squashed the petals until it disintegrated. Ragged petals fell to the ground like a fistful of dead butterfly wings.

‘I’m a complicated guy,’ he whispered, in response to the girl’s question.

The sound of his low, gravelly voice sent a shiver down my spine.

Then he turned around and left the room. He disappeared through the door.

But I could still hear him. As if he was still there.

His voice had carved a path inside of me.

It was like he had violently, silently, bruised the air.

I jumped as a hand touched my shoulder. I whirled around and saw Billie looking at me, confused.

‘Did I scare you?’ she giggled. ‘Sorry! I found my bottle. I had to argue with the janitor but I got it in the end!’ She showed it to me triumphantly, and I stared without really seeing it.

We filled it with water from the faucet and then turned around. Billie started talking again but I wasn’t listening.

I was still thinking about Rigel.

The polite mask he hid behind.

His cynical, insolent smile, as if he thought that girl’s attempt to get closer to him had been amusing and pitiful.

How did he do it? How did he manage to be that bewitching?

How did he manage to melt you with one look, and then make you freeze in terror with the next?

What was Rigel made of? Flesh or nightmares?

Billie glimpsed Miki in the crowd and rushed towards her, as radiant as a sunflower.

‘Miki! Look! This year too!’

Miki distractedly, wearily, looked at the rose, and Billie smiled. ‘It’s white!’

‘Like it is every year…’ Miki muttered, opening her locker. One of the roses fell down and she tried not to take any notice as she shoved her books inside, amongst the tangle of leaves and stems.

Billie bent down to pick it up for her and held it out with a happy smile. Miki froze. She stared at her for a moment, then slowly took it from her. I watched her blinking, then she shoved it into the locker along with the others.

‘Umm…do you think it will be all right with all this water? It’s not too much? I don’t want to drown it…What do you think, Nica?’ Billie asked, turning to face me, and I replied that flowers could do many extraordinary things, but drowning wasn’t one of them.

‘Are you sure?’ she asked. ‘I don’t want to kill her, she seems so delicate…’

‘Excuse me?’ someone interrupted.

A boy was standing behind Miki, holding something bright red in his hands.

‘Excuse me?’ He smiled confidently. Billie and I watched him as he fervently poked her shoulder. He suddenly went pale when Miki turned around, her eyes flashing angrily.

‘What do you want?’ she snarled, about as sweet as a raging bull.

‘I just wanted…’ The boy faltered. He fumbled with the rose and Miki’s glare turned even more fierce.

‘What?’

‘N…no…nothing,’ he retreated hastily, hiding the flower behind his back. He laughed nervously, then fled like his feet were aflame.

There was a moment of silence as we watched him run away.

‘It has to be said,’ Billie said after a moment. ‘You really do turn everyone on.’

Miki lifted her hands and Billie gave an entertained little shriek.

They started bickering fervently, writhing like water snakes. I hid a smile and opened my locker.

The next moment…

The whole world stopped.

My smile faded and all noises were swallowed up by the black hole inside my locker.

Black.

Black like the night of a new moon.

I never thought that something so delicate could be so dark.

It was black like ink.

I was so upset I could hardly breathe. I reached in and brought it out of its metal cage. The black rose was like a bruise, thorny and wild, its petals doused with an enticing pathos.

It wasn’t smooth and harmless like the others. No, its stem was covered in thorns that snagged on the Band-Aids on my fingers.

I stared at it in disbelief.

And this time, I didn’t feel uncertainty, but clarity.

My heart was beating fast. Some mechanism in my brain had activated. I realised something that I should have already known. My books tumbled to the floor as I stepped backwards, holding the rose, my fingers finding purchase between the thorns.

I hadn’t lost that photo.

I would never have lost it.

The more the certainty grew inside of me, the more the rose cut into my fingers, chasing away any doubt.

I turned around and started running.

The world blurred around me as I hurtled down the corridor, across the courtyard and through the gates, propelled by an unstoppable impulse.

People threw anxious looks at me, disturbed by the flower I was holding. ‘It’s black…there’s never been a black rose…’ they murmured, and the girls, slightly nervously, said, ‘It’s beautiful!’

It’s black, black, black, kept thundering in my head as I ran straight home.

I shoved the key in the lock and dropped my backpack on the stairs, my jacket on the top step. And then I stopped in front of his door.

The thorns were still digging into my hands, scratching my skin in the gaps between the Band-Aids. It was as if I couldn’t let it go.

As if it were proof. My suspicion becoming my reality, screaming his name.

It was crazy. Nonsensical. Illogical and absurd…

Had it been him? Had he taken the photo?

‘Don’t come into my room,’ he had told me.

I vehemently turned the door handle and entered.

I hoped he wouldn’t be there, because that afternoon he had detention. I closed the door behind me and looked around.

I took in the unfamiliar atmosphere. Everything was tidy and precise, the curtains were drawn, the bed made.

I couldn’t help but notice the almost artificial tidiness of the room. It was as if Rigel had never slept there, despite his books on the nightstand and his clothes in the drawers.

Despite the fact that he spent most of his time here…

No.

I swallowed.

This was his room.

Rigel slept here, studied here, got dressed here. That was Rigel’s shirt on the back of the chair, Rigel’s towel poking out of the closet, his notebooks full of his elegant handwriting on the desk.

It was Rigel I could smell.

A strange discomfort came over me. It felt as though the thorns were even piercing through the Band-Aids now, urging me to hurry up.

I cautiously stepped towards the desk. I sifted through the stacks of paper, moved a few books, then looked in the closet, in the chest of drawers, even the pockets of his jackets.

I rummaged everywhere, taking care to put everything back exactly where it had been. I looked in every drawer of his nightstand, and found almost all of them empty, but the photo wasn’t there.

It wasn’t there…

I stood still in the middle of the room, wiping my wrist across my forehead.

I had looked everywhere.

Hold on, no. Not everywhere…

I turned towards the bed. I looked at the pillow, the perfectly tidy bedsheets, the tight corners, without a fold out of place. And then the mattress.

I remembered all the times I had hidden candy under my bed springs, so I could eat them without anyone seeing me. I remembered the popsicle sticks I put there so the matron wouldn’t find them…

I should have heard him.

Maybe, if I hadn’t reached out to lift the mattress up and found nothing underneath, I would have realised it sooner.

Maybe, if I hadn’t been gripping the rose so tightly, I would have felt the icy cold that preceded his words.

‘I told you…not to come into my room.’

I quickly fell into a darker reality.

I had walked into a trap.

Petrified, my eyes swung towards him.

Rigel was standing in the open doorway, dark and looming like only he could be.

Unbearable. There was no other word for it.

Narrow and feline, his black eyes shone like dark chasms, ready to swallow me up.

I couldn’t move. Even my heart had frozen in my chest.

He looked so tall and terrible that he scared me. His tense shoulders and implacable eyes were like those of a nightmare guard.

And I had just stepped into his territory…

I was still trying to react when, slowly, without taking a step…he lifted his arm. He raised his hand and placed it on the door. Then he pushed it.

The long click of the latch turned me to stone.

He had just closed the door behind him.

‘I…’ I swallowed. ‘I was just…’

‘Just?’ he snarled threateningly.

‘… just looking for something.’

His glare was frighteningly cold. I clutched at the rose, not knowing what else to do with my hands.

‘Something…in my room?’

‘I was looking for a photo.’

‘And did you find it?’

I hesitated, my lip trembling.

‘No.’

‘No,’ he whispered emphatically, narrowing his eyes slightly.

His fearsome aura made me want to run as far away from him as possible.

‘You come into the wolf’s lair, Nica, and then you ask him not to tear you to pieces.’

I stiffened as he came near me.

The urge to retreat screamed at me loud and clear, but I didn’t give in.

‘Was it you?’ I burst out, brandishing the black rose. ‘Did you give me this?’

Rigel stopped. His cold and expressionless eyes fell to the flower, and he raised an eyebrow.

‘Me?’ he asked, failing to hide a hint of amusement in his voice. His lips curled into a mocking, spiteful smirk. ‘Did I…give you…a flower?’

His words stung me, and all of my supposed certainties dissolved once more into doubt.

I lowered my eyes, hesitating in that way that so amused him, and the smirk on his lips glinted like a knife.

He took a few steps towards me and tore the rose out of my hands.

My mouth fell open as he grabbed the flower and started to tear it apart. A shower of black petals fell to the ground in front of me.

‘No! No! Leave it!’ I struggled to grab it off him. It was mine, despite everything, the rose was mine! It was an innocent gift, and now that Rigel had mocked it like that, I felt more than ever the need to defend it.

I scratched helplessly at his sleeves, but he just held it higher so that it was out of my reach.

He tore off every single petal, and in a fit of desperation I stretched up onto my tiptoes.

‘Rigel, stop it!’ I clutched at his chest. ‘Stop it!’

My eyes flew open as I lost my balance.

Instinctively, I grabbed on to him. He can’t have been expecting it, because I managed to take him down with me.

I fell backwards onto the bed, the mattress breaking my fall.

I had no time to think anything at all before a weight landed on top of me, and the ceiling went blurry between my half-closed eyes. My vision was hazy, and I squeezed my eyes shut tight.

I felt something fall delicately on my hair and the hollow of my throat. They were petals. I barely registered them as a weight lifted up off my torso.

When my vision focused, my breath snagged in my throat.

Rigel’s face was right in front of mine.

His body was looming above me.

It was all so unexpected that my heart jumped to my throat. His knee was between my thighs and the fabric of his pants was grazing my skin. His short breaths were hot and damp in my mouth, and his hands, eagle’s talons, were on either side of my face.

It was only when our eyes met that I started to tremble. I noticed something in his gaze that I had never seen before, a gleam of light that made my throat go dry.

I saw myself reflected in his eyes. My lips had parted, my chest was rising and falling rhythmically and my cheeks were flushed. We were so close that it was like the heartbeat in my throat was his.

My astonishment was his.

My breath was his…

It was all his, even my soul.

I shivered violently. My mind was screaming hysterically and with a force I didn’t know I had, I pushed him away.

I scrambled off the bed and fled from the room like a startled hare.

I stumbled into the hallway and dove into my own room, shut the door and slammed my back against it, sliding to the floor.

My heart was thumping painfully against my ribcage, I was overcome by shivers. My skin was reeling from his presence, as if I could still feel him all over me.

What was he doing to me?

What had he poisoned me with?

I tried to calm my breathing, but, inside me, something raged, burning hot.

He was whispering in my ears, playing with my heartbeat and walking through my thoughts.

He was feasting on my emotions, leaving me only with shivers.

It made no sense.

It knew no limits.

And it had nothing to do with…tenderness.