And now, I’m waiting in front of the restaurant like I was waiting for Neal at prom.
Actually, I don’t think this is like prom at all. Ryan would never cancel on me like Neal did.
In fact, we’ve been trying to find time to go out for the past few days. But Ryan’s been super busy and I’ve been working night shifts a lot, along with the day shifts; there’s a new party coming in for a tour of the towers and the grounds, and Mrs. S was going ballistic.
Although that doesn’t mean that we don’t see each other every day or steal some time to talk between jobs.
He’s just so sweet. Exactly like I imagined. Kind and caring. We haven’t had a kiss yet – I guess we’re waiting for the official date – but he’s kissed my cheek. He has run his finger down my cheek as well. Both of those things were nice and warm, typical of him.
Sometimes though, he looks at me with pity, which bugs me. But I guess, after my meltdown in the kitchen with Ashley, I can’t really blame him. I bet his pity will go away after a while. Everyone else’s will too.
For now, I’m kind of excited. It’s been a long time since I was on a date. I’m excited to get to know him, see him smile, have him touch me. Kiss me.
Besides, Tina, as always, was right. My parents would definitely have approved.
Right on time, Ryan pulls up at the curb and gets out of the car. I smile at him but then, my smile vanishes when I see a pained look on his face.
He approaches me and pulls me to the side, away from the entrance of the restaurant, where we can’t be overheard by the patrons going in and out.
“What’s up?” I ask, feeling apprehensive.
He grimaces. “I hate to do this but I’m going to have to take a rain check.”
“Oh.”
He rubs his hand up and down my arm. “I was already in my car, ready to drive over when I got called into work. So I thought I should tell you.”
Ryan’s distress is obvious, and it makes me feel a little better. He isn’t abandoning me like my first boyfriend. He has a genuine reason.
“It sucks. But I get it. I mean, we’ve been so busy with everything for the last few days, so.” I shrug.
Ryan gives me a penetrating look that makes me blush. “It sucks, yeah.”
“You could’ve called, you know.” I mock-punch his shoulder. “You didn’t have to come all the way here just to tell me that.”
Smiling, he does what he’s been doing often: he thumbs my cheek, softly and smoothly.
“I wanted to see you,” he says. “You look beautiful.”
Blushing even more, I say, “Thank you.”
Then I check him out with lowered lashes. He dressed up for the date, too. He has a black suit jacket on and a sage green shirt. “You look nice too.”
His eyes heat up. “Next time, I promise that we’ll go. No one will ruin it for us. Not even Mr. Prince.”
What?
“I thought, uh, that Mr. Prince was out of town. When did he come back?”
He left the next day after Zach’s welcome party on a business trip or something. If he was back, we would’ve heard about it.
Ryan chuckles. “I tend to forget that we have two Mr. Princes now. I’m talking about the other one. The new one. Zachariah. Zach. Whatever they’re calling him. He said he had a short-notice meeting.”
“Zach. They call him Zach,” I tell him mechanically, as the earlier warmth in my chest slowly goes away.
Ever since I had my chat with Tina and Zach cornered me in the hallway a few days ago, I’ve maintained my distance.
Every morning on my way to work I see him working out by the pool, shirtless. I feel his stare across the expanse of ground that separates us but I make it a point to never stare back. I make it a point to not see how his muscles ripple and how sun spotlights every drop of sweat that he sheds.
I also make it a point to never go into the kitchen in the morning because Zach’s always there, getting fussed over by Maggie.
A couple of times I saw him getting out of tower one, where Mr. and Mrs. Prince’s bedroom is located – junior members of the staff, such as me, aren’t allowed in their suite. He looked agitated, angry, but as soon as our eyes clashed, I looked away.
Most nights, I hear the roar of his bike as he leaves the estate to go wherever he goes. Again, I make it a point not to think about it. Along with other things like how he sent Ashley away and how he made himself sick with the custard. How he hasn’t smoked in a while.
Don’t be like me.
What does that mean? I make it a point not to wonder.
As the days passed, I thought that he meant what he said. If I left him alone, he’d leave me alone too. I’d go back to trying to save up for my house and he’d do whatever he came here to do. I thought that maybe now that we’ve grown up, things really changed.
“Didn’t you go to school with him?”
Ryan’s question brings me out of my head and I nod. “Yeah.”
People have been asking me that since the first night he came back.
Didn’t you go to school together?
How was he back in school?
Do you know why he left? Why he came back?
Has he always been this sexy, this good looking?
“Were you…” Ryan pauses. “Were you guys friends?”
“No. No, we weren’t friends,” I tell Ryan, waiting for the familiar anger against Zach to rise up in me.
Familiar heat and the sense of injustice and the urge to punch him for ruining this for me.
Nothing changed, right?
Zach did ruin my date. He said there were no secrets from him. So he probably figured out that tonight Ryan was taking me out.
This is exactly like prom.
But unlike prom, unlike all the years at St. Patrick’s, I don’t have the need to get even. All I feel is empty.
Exhausted, tired. Scared.
I feel scared. I feel like for years, I’ve hated Zach with such intensity that he’s consumed every thought in my head. He’s taken up all the spaces in my body that I have nothing left to give. Nothing left to feel.
Maybe I hate him so much that I’ll never be able to love anyone. I’ll never have what my parents had.
“Okay, well, I’ll see you,” Ryan says.
He asks me if he can drop me off anywhere, maybe at The Pleiades, but I decline. Finally, with a soft kiss on my cheek, he drives away.
And I start walking north. Toward the mansion where he lives.
I’m in Zach’s room.
I walked for hours to get here.
I walked for miles in my blue sandals that gnawed on my feet. I have blisters on my heels and my skin tore open, oozing blood.
But I kept putting one foot in front of the other. I kept bleeding and sweating in the heat until I reached The Pleiades. Instead of going to the cottage, I walked toward the main house and got in through the service entrance.
If someone had found me wandering the hallways, in a dark blue dress, with bloody feet, I don’t know what I would’ve said to them. Maggie would’ve been pissed. Mrs. S would’ve come to know and I could’ve been fired. But I didn’t care about that. I didn’t care about the job or the house I’m trying to get back.
Good thing too because I didn’t encounter anyone on my way to his room.
His door was locked.
After the whole debacle of him dousing me in water and taking away my keys, Mrs. S said that we weren’t allowed in Zach’s room, unless he was the one letting us in. But there was no hesitation in me when I used the pin in my hair to break in.
And now, here I am. Dizzy and tired and probably as pale as a ghost.
Maybe he’s out on his bike right now, doing what he does this time of night. But I’ll wait for him to come back.
I don’t know what I’ll do when he does come back or why I came into his room in the middle of the night. I’m pretty sure tomorrow, all of this will look crazy and unhinged. But for now, I don’t know what else to do or where else to go.
I look around his room. It appears the same from days ago when I stupidly hid in his bathtub.
But there are subtle differences. A few of his clothes are scattered on the dresser. His backpack is on the black leather couch, directly opposite from his king-sized bed. His empty mattress holds the shape of his body and rumpled dark sheets.
And then, there’s his book, sitting on the nightstand.
Still in my sandals, I round the side of the bed and limp over to it. The cover of the book is all white, with the title written in bright blue.
Last time I flicked through it, but tonight I take the time to read what’s inside. There’s a story behind almost every constellation, and soon I’m flying through the pages.
I don’t remember sitting on the bed but I am. Right on the edge as I read the love story of Perseus and Andromeda. Apparently, the night sky is full of them, love stories. That’s where the term comes from: a love written in the stars.
Again, I don’t remember taking off my sandals and lying down but I am. I’m on my side, facing the big window as I keep on reading. The sheets feel warm like a cocoon, and even if I didn’t already know that this is where Zach sleeps, I’d smell him and figure it out.
Blueberry pie and clean musk.
Last thing I remember before closing my eyes and drowning in his quicksand of a bed is turning the page and thinking that there’s no way I can sleep in his room.
Turns out, I was wrong.
I did sleep. God knows for how long and God knows what woke me up with a jerk. But I’m awake now and sort of dizzy and foggy.
I take in the room; it’s dark. The overhead lights have been switched off. I swallow in fear. And then, my eyes fall on a shadow. A big, black shadow in the shape of the guy I’ve come seeking.
He’s sitting in a chair, in the glass alcove, overlooking the sky and stars and age-old love stories.
The only light in the room is the glow of the lamp, ripping his body in two: dark and light.
I can see his elbow propped up on the arm of the chair and his gorgeous soft lips lightly wrapped around his finger. He’s contemplating as he watches me sleep.