Chapter 8
"I'll let you go to the prom on a few conditions." My mom's face is flushed and she's frowning. I know that my mom isn't upset about the money I spent, even though my prom dress cost almost a thousand dollars. No, she's upset because I disobeyed her and made plans to go to the prom without her consent.
"I understand that you want this to be a part of your life experience—I get that. Prom is important and maybe I've been too strict on you. So, you may go solo, but you have to promise me you won't kiss anyone," she says.
"Okay," I say with some surprise. Convincing her was much easier than I anticipated. But I can barely look her in the eyes, afraid she might see right through me that I kissed Anthony on the cheek.
"One more thing, you have to be home by midnight," she says.
"Midnight? What, is this like Cinderella or something? That's ridiculous. Mom, I won't kiss anyone even if I stay out until 6:00 a.m. three days after the prom, I promise." I re-commit myself to not kissing anyone, at least not until I turn eighteen. I feel a pang of regret for what I did to Anthony. What am I going to do when he starts stalking me like Savannah did? It was the worst idea I've ever had—kissing him on the cheek. What possessed me to do such an idiotic thing? But when I think about how my heart pounded like thunder, and how hungry his eyes and hands were, I can't help that the edges of my lips curve upward.
"This isn't a joke!" My mom's voice is trembling with fury. I'm a little shocked because she's usually very calm, so much so that I've often wondered if she feels anything at all.
"Sonia, trust me, you don't understand the strong and uncontrollable urges you'll begin to experience. I'm sure you have already started to notice them a little, but these next two weeks will be the hardest. You could lose control and cause a lot of damage, and you don't want to play with that kind of fire. It will only come back to haunt you for the rest of your life."
I think back to the moment with Anthony, and I certainly tasted some of the wickedly awesome urges that my Huldra side has brought out in me.
I'll just have to try harder. If I do, I'll be able to control myself, not let my urges control me. But I wonder why it's different with Anthony—he has been the only one so far who has brought the passionate impulses out in me. Since he won't be my prom date anyway, not kissing anyone on prom night should be a breeze—no problem.
My mom says, "You won't be able to control your impulses to, excuse my bluntness, seduce young men if you find any of them even remotely attractive and if that happens, there will be a lot of unfortunate events afterwards. Trust me, you do not want to go down that path."
"Why are you so vague all the time? Can't you just tell me so I understand?" It angers me that I'm always in the dark. "What difference does a few days make in explaining this to me? I mean, I feel like I'm changing so fast, and I have no idea what's happening or why!"
"No, I can't tell you," she says. "It has to happen during the ceremony in Kensington, and in the right order. If you won't agree to the terms of the prom, you're not allowed to go, and that's final."
I know she won't budge on this. "Fine!" I grab my prom dress and march to my room. What does she know about being a teenager in this day and age anyway?
In my room, I stuff the dress into the closet and pull out a book. As soon as I open it, my phone rings and I answer it.
"Hello?"
"Hey, it's me, Anthony. Got a minute?"
My stomach sinks, although my heart is beating more fervently. My flair must have worked on him. Crap. What do I do now? I lie down on my bed and look up into the ceiling.
"Sure," I say, trying to come up with excuses why I can't see him again. Suddenly I'm hyperventilating, regretting I ever kissed him. I'm not ready to be bound to him for eternity. I'm furious with myself.
"I wanted to apologize for earlier—I don't know what came over me, but I hope we can still be friends?" he says.
Wait...what? Didn't my flair work? I'm confused as hell. "Was it that disappointing?" I kick myself for talking before thinking. He's apologizing? Didn't he feel the attraction between us? Surely I must have left enough saliva on his cheek to have him want me—even just a little.
I do feel slightly relieved, but not nearly as relieved as I thought I would.
"I mean...yeah," I say. "I guess what happened was somewhat of out of the blue." I flip over onto my stomach, squeeze my eyes shut and press my palm to my forehead.
"So just friends then?" he asks, sounding unsure of himself. Maybe it's my flair kicking in.
I don't want to answer him, but the words have to be spoken. "Sure, whatever—"
"Good, and I think it's best if we don't work together anymore either—on the weeding, so I'll just take it from here." He almost sounds happy about his decision now.
Still trying to recover from the shock, I become speechless.
"Is that all right?" Anthony asks, now sounding surer of himself.
Then an idea suddenly flashes through my mind. Maybe I have to request or demand something from him so he knows what I want? "Hey, I really want for us to continue to work together on the weeding until we're finished, okay?"
It goes silent on the other end.
"Hello?" I say.
He makes a faint grunting sound. "I...don't think it's a good idea, Sonia. We should really just be friends from here on out. Besides, you probably need to focus on your homework, don't you?" He emphasizes the "don't you" part of his statement.
How dare he tell me what to do! And did he just use homework as a deflector? It's the lamest escape-line I've heard—ever. Not only that, he flatly rejected my proposal.
I exhale at length. I decide to be all right with his rejection for now, considering that it's the only option I have at the moment. I'll try to see if my flair worked again after school on Monday—in person. I huff at my lame plan, but then I think: is this my plan, or my inner Huldra's plan? I hate this new me, yet—I love this new me. I sigh at the thought, remembering the warnings my dad gave me, knowing he would be ashamed of me for acting this way.
"Fine, no worries." I scrunch my eyes shut.
"Really?"
"Really, anything you say, Anthony." I sit up. "Have a great weekend." I don't want to admit it, but his rejection has hurt me pretty badly, and I don't exactly know how I'll get through Sunday and all of school on Monday before I see him again.
"Yeah, you too, and maybe I'll see you around," he says.
"Yeah." I hang up the phone and let myself fall into the pillows. My Huldra flair isn't working on him like it did on Savannah. Maybe I need to give it more time. Maybe it has to be past midnight or something before the magic kicks in or maybe I should just be glad that it didn't work and that I have a chance to do the right thing, which is to stay away from him.
* * *
Sunday seems like the longest day in my existence. I stay busy with homework, and even help my mom mop all the floors in the house. Then, Ashley convinces me to break yet another one of my mom's rules and I head to Siesta Beach with her to kill some time.
Anthony's in the back of my mind all day. I have to figure out what's happening—if I'm attracted to him because I genuinely am interested or just because I'm going through a crazy Huldra phase that compels me to like him. I want to believe the former, but I worry it might be the latter. Either way, this obsession just doesn't seem normal. Or healthy.
"Hey—what's up with you?" Ashley asks. The sand that feels like powdered-sugar stretches on for miles, and bright pink clouds streak the blue sky. It's hot outside and I see beads of sweat on Ashley's forehead. I'm glad I don't sweat.
"I've asked you three times now, and you pretend like everything's okay, but you should know by now that I know you better than to believe you," she says.
"What you said doesn't even make sense," I say.
"I don't care if it makes sense. You know what I meant." Ashley digs her blood-red polished toenails into the sand. "Does your mood have anything to do with, what's his name...Anthony?"
"Yes," I admit begrudgingly. I need a confidante and it's either Ashley or my mom. There's no way I'm going to tell my mom. "Yesterday at lunch, I actually kissed him on the cheek."
"So now the truth comes out," she says. "Anything else?"
Our eyes connect.
"You can tell me everything, you know," she says. "I won't tell your mom or anyone else."
"He kissed me on the collarbone." I pause. "It was the most romantic experience of my life."
She laughs heartily. "Wow, that's great, but we have really got to get you some more action if that truly was the most romantic experience of your life."
I laugh, half-terrified by her suggestion, half-overcome by excitement. I hardly dare think the thought; it's too risky, too delicious. My mom would skin me alive.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" Ashley pushes me so I have to catch myself from falling face first into the sand.
"I don't know. My mom's so paranoid about me kissing anyone that I just wanted to keep it a secret." I rub my hands together, trying to get rid of the sticky sand.
"You know I'd never tell your mom."
"I know you wouldn't," I say.
Ashley's eyes sparkle with mischief. "But you want to kiss him, don't you?"
I glance at her and then back at the sand. "Yes," I say faintly, my eyebrows furrowing. I want to kiss him a lot more than I'm willing to admit and it's so stupid because I just met the guy.
"Why do I get the feeling that you're upset about him kissing you?" she asks.
I tuck my knees under my chin and wrap my arms around my legs. "Well, after I got home, he called me and apologized for what happened." I feel vulnerable admitting to this.
"What? Why?"
"He says we can only be friends and that we shouldn't even keep weeding together," I say.
Ashley's eyes widen and she gasps. "What a jerk!"
"I don't think he's a jerk. I just think he's confused," I say.
She takes a deep breath. "Oh puh-lease, don't make excuses for him. He knows what he's doing. He probably has a girlfriend—the one he's taking to the prom—and just wants to flirt with you because he thinks you're beautiful, like all the boys at our high school do, and then he plans to, after he conquers you, to dump you and get back with his girlfriend, pretending nothing ever happened."
I look at Ashley, wide-eyed and in shock. I had never thought of that. "You think?"
"Maybe," Ashley says, looking out onto the blue ocean. "You like him a lot?"
"Yes." For the first time in history, I'm the girl with her heart exposed, the pathetic girl who can think of nothing else but Anthony. I'm pathetic.
"What happened to 'I'll never fall for anyone?'" Ashley says, quoting what I said just a few weeks ago.
Before I can respond, a volleyball collides with my skull.
"Ouch!" I exclaim, standing up.
"Sorry, miss, I didn't mean to—"
Anthony stands in front of me in nothing but his beach shorts. "Hello Anthony." I try not to stare at his sculpted physique and I hone in on his blue eyes instead. That doesn't prevent my heart from pounding and my cheeks from blushing.
"I didn't expect to meet you here," he says. "Sorry about the volleyball. Are you okay?"
He reaches for my head, but I knock his hand away. "I'm fine," I say, but what I really want to say is: 'Looks like you suck at volleyball just as much as you do at making late night phone calls.' I don't bother though, knowing what a lame comeback that would be.
"Is this a friend of yours?" Anthony asks, gesturing to Ashley.
"Yes. This is my best friend Ashley. Ashley, this is Anthony. The weed guy."
"Thanks for the compliment, Sonia." Anthony chuckles and reaches his hand out to greet her.
I smile sarcastically.
Ashley doesn't take his hand, but crosses her arms in front of her chest instead. "Anthony? Do you know him? I've never heard of him." Her hazel eyes glare at him with the power to melt metal, and I'm pleased to see how uncomfortable he is under her unrelenting scrutiny. I can always count on Ashley to have my back.
If I had known I'd bump into Anthony today, I would have made a plan to see if my flair had worked on him, but improvising on the spot will do no good—especially since I'm unable to focus because he's so ridiculously distracting with his shirt off. I glance at him from the corner of my eye when he turns around to look for someone. His back is broad and he has a tattoo of a beast on his right shoulder. I can't tell what kind of a beast it is, but it looks dangerous.
He picks up the volleyball, turns around again and smiles at me like he's genuinely happy to see me. "Come join us," he says, bouncing the volleyball in his hand. I'm tempted to accept, but before I can give an answer, a blonde girl in a tiny lavender bikini shows up and grabs his arm.
"Come on, Anthony, we're waiting for you," she says, pulling him along. Of course she has to be gorgeous and have a body that looks like she paid for it.
Bimbo. My jaw tenses and I have to do everything in my power to not say something rude. Deep down, I know it's not a fair assessment, and I wonder whether it's my own jealousy that makes me hate her so suddenly or if being a Huldra has this kind of effect on my emotions.
"No thanks, we'll pass," I say, squeezing my hands into my faded jean short pockets. I've never really been good at sports. Well, that's not totally true. I'm not good at team sports, but for some reason, I never miss a goal whether I'm throwing, batting or kicking a ball. But either way, my passion is for classical ballet, though I've taken a break from it my senior year to focus on getting my grades up.
Anthony squints at me for a second, his eyes almost looking like they care. "We'd really like for you to come join us," he says as if I hadn't heard him the first time.
"No," I say so firmly that the bimbo by his side jumps. Then she looks at me like I'm mass-producing spit bubbles like an angry crab or something.
For a split second, Anthony looks shocked, but he quickly regains his cool demeanor. "See you at school then." He jogs off. In the distance he glances back at me one more time, his face pensive.
"What a prick!" Ashley yells. Then she says at a normal volume, "I told you that's what he was up to, but he's hot though. Really hot. Maybe you can just chalk the whole experience up to a steamy encounter, no strings attached?"
I don't want to admit it, but Ashley's probably right. Why does the first guy I'm attracted to have to be the maestro of all players? I should have known he was that type of guy. The signs are all there, but I thought maybe he was different.
Why did my plan fail so miserably? Why didn't my kiss work? When I spit in Savannah's face, it was a huge glob. Does the amount of spit matter? Maybe it's harder to use my flair than I thought, or maybe there's such a thing as an immune human.