Page 117 of A Heart of Bluestone

“It’s just…” His words falter.

The pinkish hue of his cheeks turns red. He cuts a look up the trail behind me, then fast brings his gaze back down.

“I just wanted to make sure, that’s all.” The shrug that lifts his shoulder is lame. “Maybe it’s… harder to juggle the teacher-student hats than I expected.”

Still, my smile is tight, pinned to my cheeks, and I feel a bit like Frankenstein, all clumsy and guttural.

“I should…” Eric gestures over my head, away from me. “I need to go. Sorry.”

I nod, then—leaving the stiff awkwardness behind—march up the salted ground. The soil beneath my boots is hard and cracked, and I sidestep the sludge patches to better care for the suede.

The fires that lick up from the metal bins dotted around help battle the freezing temperatures this far up the mountain, but not enough to stop me from wrapping my arms around myself.

I make for the bench with paper cups strewn about it, some knocked over, and a ping-pong ball bouncing once—then it clatters into a cup with a bubbling purple liquid.

Serena jeers with the rest of the students crowded around that game.

I approach, uneasy, and toss my cup of crap wine to the ground.

Serena aims a smile at me.

It eases me a little, lures me in closer to her, but for the most part, I just stand here, holding myself.

No one spares me more than a questioning glance or a lingering look, and only once. Then, it is just accepted that I am here, and no one seems to think more about it.

Yet I am heightened in my awareness that I haven’t gone to a party before at Bluestone, and that maybe, just maybe, I should turn back for the path and go to bed.

At the thought, the temptation, I twist around to eye the trail—

A frown furrows my face.

I blink, lashes fluttering once, twice, then a scoff jolts me.

I drop my arms to my sides.

And for a moment, I just stare at them.

Eric leaning against the surviving fence posts of the cabin, a lazy grin spread over his mouth—a mouth that brushes over Asta Ström’s lips.

My mouth hangs open.

I’m gaping, I know it, but I’m frozen and can’t do anything about it. Like the mist of the mountain wisps around me, freezes me, I am motionless as I watch Asta’s red-painted lips graze gently, lovingly—familiarly—over Eric’s grin, as she leans into him, her full slender weight relaxed on his chest, her neck arched to croon at him, the position of his hands on her hips, how his fingers disappear under the hem of her leather jacket.

I blink.

A gust of breath billows through me as I stagger around and, in two staggering steps, grab Serena by the arm.

My sagged voice is as bewildered as my gaze. “What the fuck is that?”

Serena shoots me an odd look. “It is a game. Potion Pong. We’re up next, if you must know—”

“What?” I glance at the table, then shake my head. “No, not that.That.” I look down at the old, rotted post near the cabin.

Serena traces my glower to the fence.

“Oh.” Her mouth pinches. “That.”

Still, Eric slouches against the fence. And leaning into him, Asta croons up at his smile, her hands fisted in his sweater.

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