Page 8 of House of Hearts
“Curiosity.”
“Bad trait to have,” he mutters to himself. He taps a steady rhythm against his cheek, the phantom strokes of some song only he knows. “Or so I’m told.”
I turn to face him fully, but he slides down the wall and ignores me for a hangnail on his ring finger. If I thought conversation with Calvin was a stilted, horrible affair, silence is worse. I shift to stare out the window—risking anxiety over whatever this is.
As much as I hate this place, I can’t deny that it’s beautiful. The campus is an otherworldly green. The color spreads up the throats of academic buildings, thick tangles of ivy like branching arteries. And if those are the arteries, there’s no denying what the heart is.
A hedge maze sprawls as far as the eye can see, a never-ending labyrinth locked away by an ornate metal gate. Wind slices through it, breathing life into the shrubbery and making it pulse in tandem with my own heart. This high up, the world feels particularly violent outside. I shudder and imagine what it’d be like standing at the top, feeling the sharp air against my cheek.
I rip my gaze from the window. Calvin’s a cat curling in on himself, his head propped against his shoulder as he splays on the ground. He’s gotten ready for the long haul.
“Comfy?”
He flutters an eye open. “I’d be comfier with a down featherpillow and the sound of the ocean spraying through Bose speakers…but otherwise, yeah. This will do. If you need me, which I hope you won’t, I’ll be taking a nap.”
I cross my arms to keep my hands from trembling at my sides. “And I’m supposed to believe this is the best napping spot on campus?”
He winces, and I know he’s been caught. “The stone floor is comfier than you think.”
I level him with a look until he finally huffs in defeat. “I thought it was fairly obvious. I need a break from my sister.”
“What does she want?” I conjure the image of her red face and glaring eyes snapping between us. Glaring at me like I was a gnat that flew too close.
Calvin wets his lips. He looks every inch a Grecian tragedy on the floor. Splaying out like an art class might arrive with charcoals and canvas to capture his melodramatic anguish.
“What doesn’t she want?” he answers finally. “A conversation? A lecture opportunity? Maybe Mom got tired of telling me I’m a disappointment directly, so she decided to have Sadie play messenger.”
“So, you’d rather hang out in a dusty old tower than talk to her?”
Calvin stands up, and I feel the heat rolling off his skin as he peers out the window behind me. I stiffen as he approaches, his body so large it eclipses mine. We’re not touching, but if I were to lean back, I’d fall right onto his broad chest. The closeness has me holding my breath.
“I’d lather myself in honey and jump into a grizzly’s cage if that’s what it took. What, you think I came up here for the view?”
“It’s…” I’m about to say “pretty,” but the word doesn’t come. I’ve made the mistake of looking straight down. Vertigo has me by the throat, and I’m suddenly Emoree. Zeroing in on a patch of grass beforethe world rushes past me. An impact. And then darkness.
At least it was quick.I remember someone whispering that at the funeral.Painless.
The wind knocks out of my lungs, and no matter what I do, I can’t tear my gaze away from the lawn. My grief is a hole only I can see, ruptured through the thicket of green, green grass. It’s black and never-ending, and I’ve tumbled down it before. You fall and fall and fall, and when you think it couldn’t possibly go any further, you’re wrong.
I swallow down bile. She’s gone, I know that, but now I feel like I’m falling, too. The world sways, and my knees buckle, and now I really am falling, and…
Arms. I’m halfway to the floor when I feel the heat of someone pressed against my back. Gentle hands lowering me to the cool stone floor. A rushed, worried breath sticky against my skin. And then Calvin’s face is way too close to mine.
He brushes the back of his hand to my forehead. It’s refreshingly cool against my flushed skin. “Jesus, are you okay?”
Less than twenty-four hours here, and I’ve already lost it twice. I wave his concern away—or I try to. My arms are as weak as the rest of me. “I’m fine.”
I really need to stop saying that.
“Sure about that one? Because from my viewpoint it looks like you nearly blacked out and I’m the only thing that kept you from cracking your head open on the floor.”
I squeeze my eyes shut at that. The casket was closed at the funeral, but my mind is strong enough to fill in the gaps.
“I’m okay,” I repeat, woozy. “I’m…scared of heights.”
Calvin makes a show of swiveling around us. “I hate to break it toyou, New Girl, but you’re in the tallest building on campus. I’m not sure if you noticed that coming in.”
Is it possible for my cheeks to burn any hotter? “I didn’t, actually. I was far too busy being dragged in here against my will.” I leave out the part where I thought I could handle it up here. I thought I could handle a lot of things.
