Crescendo h-2 Read online

  Jerk? he spoke to my thoughts, his voice cold and cutting. I’m trying to follow the rules. I’m not supposed to fall in love with you. We both know this isn’t about Marcie. This is about how I feel about you. I have to hold back. I’m walking a dangerous line. Falling in love is what got me in trouble in the first place. I can’t be with you the way I want.

  “Why did you give up becoming human for me if you knew you couldn’t be with me?” I asked, my voice wobbling slightly, sweat prickling the palms of my hands. “What did you even expect from a relationship with me? What’s the point of”—my voice caught and I swallowed without meaning to—“us?”

  What had I expected from a relationship with Patch? At some point, I must have thought about where our relationship was headed, and what would happen. Of course I had. But I’d been so frightened by what I saw coming that I’d pretended the inevitable away. I’d pretended a relationship with Patch could work, because deep inside, any time with Patch had seemed better than nothing at all.

  Angel.

  I looked up when Patch spoke my name in my thoughts.

  Being close to you on any level is better than nothing. I’m not going to lose you. He paused, and for the first time since I’d know him, I saw a flicker of worry in his eyes. But I already fell once. If I give the archangels cause to think I’m even remotely in love with you, they’ll send me to hell. Forever.

  The news hit me like a blow to the stomach. “What?”

  I’m a guardian angel, or at least so I’ve been told, but the archangels don’t trust me. I have no privileges, no privacy. Two of them cornered me last night for a talk, and I walked away with the feeling that they want me to slip up again. For whatever reason, they’re choosing now to crack down on me. They’re looking for any excuse to get rid of me. I’m on probation, and if I screw this up, my story doesn’t have a happy ending.

  I stared at him, thinking he had to be exaggerating, thinking it couldn’t possibly be that bad, but one look at his face told me he’d never been more serious.

  “What happens now?” I wondered out loud.

  Instead of answering, Patch sighed with frustration. The truth of the matter was, this was going to end badly. No matter how much we backpedaled, stalled, or looked the other way, one day all too soon, our lives would be ripped apart. What would happen when I graduated and went off to college? What would happen when I followed my dream job to the other side of the country? What would happen when it came time for me to marry or have kids? I wasn’t doing anyone a favor by falling in love with Patch more every day. Did I really want to stay on this road longer, knowing it was only going to end with devastation?

  For one fleeting moment, I thought I had the answer—I’d give up my dreams. It was as simple as that. I shut my eyes and let go of my dreams like they were balloons on long, thin ribbons. I didn’t need those dreams. I couldn’t even be sure they’d come true. And even if they did, I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life alone and tortured by the knowledge that everything I’d done meant nothing without Patch.

  And then it hit me in a terrible way that neither of us could give up everything. My life would continue marching into the future, and I didn’t have the power to stop it. Patch would stay an angel forever; he would continue the path he’d been on since he fell.

  “Isn’t there anything we can do?” I asked.

  “I’m working on it.”

  In other words, he had nothing. We were trapped on both sides—the archangels applying pressure from one direction, and two futures headed in vastly different directions from the other.

  “I want out,” I said quietly. I knew I wasn’t being fair—I was protecting myself. What other option did I have? I couldn’t give Patch a chance to talk me out of it. I had to do what was best for both of us. I couldn’t stand here, hanging on, when the very thing I held disappeared more with each passing day. I couldn’t show how much I cared when it was only going to make things impossibly hard in the end. Most of all, I didn’t want to be the reason Patch lost everything he’d worked for. If the archangels were looking for an excuse to banish him forever, I was only making it easy.

  Patch stared at me like he couldn’t tell if I was serious. “That’s it? You want out? You got your turn to explain yourself, which I don’t buy, by the way, but now that it’s my turn, I’m supposed to just swallow your decision and walk out?”

  I hugged my elbows and turned away. “You can’t force me to stay in a relationship I don’t want.”

  “Can we talk about this?”

  “If you want to talk, tell me what you were doing at Marcie’s last night.” But Patch was right. This wasn’t about Marcie. This was because I was scared and upset with the deal that fate and circumstance had cut both of us.

  I turned back to see Patch drag his hands down his face. He gave a short, unamused laugh.

  “If I’d been at Rixon’s last night, you’d wonder what was going on!” I flung back.

  “No,” he said, his voice dangerously low. “I trust you.”

  Afraid I’d lose my resolve if I didn’t act immediately, I smacked the heels of my hands against his chest, knocking him back a step. “Go,” I said, tears making my voice rough. “I have other things I want to do with my life. Things that don’t involve you. I have college and future jobs. I’m not going to throw it all away on something that was never meant to be.”

  Patch flinched. “Is this what you really want?”

  “When I kiss my boyfriend, I want to know he feels it!”

  As soon as I said it, I regretted it. I didn’t want to hurt him—I just wanted to get this moment over with as quickly as possible before I unraveled and broke down sobbing. But I’d gone too far. I saw him stiffen. We stood face-to-face, both of us breathing hard.

  Then he strode out, yanking the door shut behind him.

  Once the door was closed, I collapsed against it. Tears burned at the back of my eyes, but not a single drop fell. I had too much frustration and anger clashing around inside me to feel much of anything else, but I suspected in a way that caused a sob to catch in my throat, that five minutes from now, when everything else had dropped away and I realized the full impact of what I’d done, I’d feel my heart breaking.

  CHAPTER 3

  I LOWERED MYSELF ONTO THE CORNER OF MY bed, staring into space. The anger was beginning to wear off, but I almost wished I could stay caught up in its fever forever. The emptiness it left behind ached more than the sharp, fiery pain I’d felt when Patch walked out. I tried to make sense of what had just happened, but my thoughts were a disjointed mess. Our shouted words rang in my ears, but they echoed helter-skelter, like I was recalling a bad dream rather than an actual conversation.

  Had I really broken up with him? Had I really meant for it to be permanent? Was there no way around fate or, more immediately, the archangels’ threats? By way of an answer, my stomach twisted, threatening to be sick.

  I hurried to the bathroom and knelt over the toilet, my ears clanging and my breathing coming out shallow and choppy. What had I done? Nothing permanent, definitely nothing permanent. Tomorrow we’d see each other again and everything would go back to the way it had been. This was just a fight. A stupid fight. This wasn’t the end. Tomorrow we’d realize how petty we’d been and apologize. We’d put this behind us. We’d make up.

  I dragged myself to my feet and turned on the sink faucet. Wetting a washcloth, I pressed it to my face. My mind still felt like it was unraveling faster than a spool of thread, and I squeezed my eyes closed to make the motion stop. But what about the archangels? I asked myself again. How could Patch and I have a normal relationship when they were constantly watching us? I froze. They could be watching me right now. They could be watching Patch. Trying to tell if he’d crossed the line. Looking for any excuse to send him to hell, and away from me, forever.

  I felt my anger reignite. Why couldn’t they leave us alone? Why were they so bent on destroying Patch? Patch had told me he was the first fallen an
gel to get his wings back and become a guardian angel. Were the archangels angry over that? Did they feel Patch had somehow tricked them? Or that he’d cheated his way back up from the bottom? Did they want to put him in his place? Or did they merely not trust him?

  I closed my eyes, feeling a tear travel down the side of my nose. I take it all back, I thought. I desperately wanted to call Patch but didn’t know whether I’d be putting him at some kind of risk. Could the archangels listen in on phone conversations? How were Patch and I supposed to have an honest talk if they were eavesdropping?

  I also couldn’t let go of my pride that quickly. Didn’t he realize he was just as much in the wrong? The whole reason we’d fought in the first place was because he’d refused to tell me what he was doing at Marcie’s house last night. I wasn’t the jealous type, but he knew my history with Marcie. He knew this was the one time when I had to know.

  There was something else causing my insides to sicken. Patch said Marcie had been attacked in the men’s room at Bo’s Arcade. What was Marcie doing at Bo’s? As far as I knew, nobody at Cold-water High hung out at Bo’s. In fact, prior to meeting Patch, I’d never heard of the place. Was it a coincidence that the day after Patch was gazing at Marcie’s bedroom window, she’d wandered through Bo’s front doors? Patch had insisted there was nothing but business between them, but what did that even mean? And Marcie was many things, among them seductive and persuasive. Not only did she not take no for an answer, she didn’t accept any answer that wasn’t exactly what she wanted.

  What if, this time, she wanted … Patch?

  A loud rap at the front door brought me out of my reverie.

  I curled up in the heaps of pillows on my bed, closed my eyes, and dialed my mom. “The Parnells are here.”

  “Ack! I’m at the light on Walnut. I’ll be there in two minutes. Invite them in.”

  “I barely remember Scott, and I don’t remember his mom at all. I’ll invite them in, but I’m not making small talk. I’ll hang out in my room until you get back.” I tried to convey in my tone that something was wrong, but it wasn’t like I could confide in my mom. She hated Patch. She wouldn’t sympathize. I couldn’t take hearing the happiness and relief in her voice. Not now.

  “Nora.”

  “Fine! I’ll talk to them.” I snapped my phone shut and threw it across the room.

  I took my time walking to the front door and flipped the lock back. The guy standing on the doormat was tall and well built— I could tell, since his T-shirt fit on the snug side and blatantly advertised PLATINUM GYM, PORTLAND. A silver hoop ran through his right earlobe, and his Levi’s hung dangerously low on the hips. He wore a pink Hawaiian-print ball cap that looked fresh off a thrift store shelf and had to be an inside joke, and his sunglasses reminded me of Hulk Hogan. Despite all this, he had a certain boyish charm.

  The corners of his mouth turned up. “You must be Nora.”

  “You must be Scott.”

  He stepped inside and pulled off his sunglasses. His eyes scanned the hall leading back to the kitchen and family room. “Where’s your mom?”

  “On her way home with dinner.”

  “What are we having?”

  I didn’t like his use of the word “we.” There was no “we.” There was the Grey family, and the Parnell family. Two separate entities that happened to be sharing the same dinner table for one night.

  When I didn’t answer, he pushed on. “Coldwater’s a little smaller than I’m used to.”

  I folded my arms over my chest. “It’s also a little colder than Portland.”

  He gave me a head-to-toe, then smiled ever so slightly. “So I noticed.” He sidestepped me on his way to the kitchen and tugged on the fridge door. “Got any beer?”

  “What? No.”

  The front door was still open, and voices carried in from outside. My mom stepped over the threshold, carrying two brown paper grocery bags. A round woman with a bad pixie-style haircut and heavy pink makeup followed her in.

  “Nora, this is Lynn Parnell,” my mom said. “Lynn, this is Nora.”

  “My, my,” Mrs. Parnell said, clasping her hands together. “She looks just like you, doesn’t she, Blythe? And look at those legs! Longer than the Vegas strip.”

  I spoke up. “I know this is bad timing, but I’m not feeling well, so I’m going to go lie down—”

  I broke off at the black look my mom shot in my direction. I aimed my most unjust look back.

  “Scott has really grown up, hasn’t he, Nora?” she said.

  “Very observant.”

  Mom set the bags on the counter and addressed Scott. “Nora and I were a little nostalgic this morning, remembering all the things the two of you used to do. Nora told me you used to try to get her to eat roly-polies.”

  Before Scott could defend himself, I said, “He used to fry them alive under a magnifying glass, and he didn’t try to get me to eat them. He sat on top of me and pinched my nose until I ran out of air and had to open my mouth. Then he flicked them inside.”

  Mom and Mrs. Parnell shared a quick look.

  “Scott was always very persuasive,” Mrs. Parnell said quickly. “He can talk people into doing things they’d never dream of. He has a knack for it. He talked me into buying him a 1966 Ford Mustang, mint condition. Of course, he hit me at a good time, I was so guilt-ridden over the divorce. Well. As I was saying, Scott probably made the best fried roly-polies on the whole block.”

  Everyone looked to me for confirmation.

  I couldn’t believe we were discussing this as if it was a perfectly normal topic of conversation.

  “So,” Scott piped up, scratching his chest. His bicep flexed when he did, but he probably knew that. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Lasagna, garlic bread, and a Jell-O salad,” said Mom with a smile. “Nora made the salad.”

  This was news to me. “I did?”

  “You bought the Jell-O boxes,” she reminded me.

  “That doesn’t really count.”

  “Nora made the salad,” Mom assured Scott. “I think everything is ready. Why don’t we eat?”

  Once seated, we joined hands and Mom blessed the food.

  “Tell me about apartments in the neighborhood,” Mrs. Parnell said, cutting the lasagna and sliding the first piece onto Scott’s plate. “How much can I expect to pay for two bedrooms, two baths?”

  “Depends how remodeled you want,” Mom answered. “Almost everything on this side of town was built pre-1900, and it shows. When we were first married, Harrison and I looked at several inexpensive two-bedroom apartments, but there was always something wrong—holes in the walls, cockroach problems, or they weren’t within walking distance of a park. Since I was pregnant, we decided we needed a bigger place. This house had been on the market for eighteen months, and we were able to get a deal we considered almost too good to be true.” She looked around. “Harrison and I had planned on fully restoring it eventually, but … well, and then … as you know …” She bowed her head.

  Scott cleared his throat. “Sorry about your dad, Nora. I still remember my dad calling me the night it happened. I was working a few blocks away at a convenience store. I hope they catch whoever killed him.”

  I tried to say thank you, but the words had broken to pieces in my throat. I didn’t want to talk about my dad. The raw feelings from my breakup with Patch were enough to deal with. Where was he right now? Was regret eating at him? Did he understand how much I wanted to take back everything I’d said? I suddenly wondered if he’d texted me, and wished I’d brought my phone down to the dinner table. But how much could he even say? Could the archangels read his texts? How much could they see? Were they everywhere? I wondered, feeling very vulnerable.

  “Tell us, Nora,” Mrs. Parnell said. “What’s Coldwater High like? Scott wrestled back in Portland. His team won State the last three years. Is the wrestling team here any good? I was sure we’d faced off against Coldwater before, but then Scott reminded me Coldwater is Class C.”
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  I was slow to pull myself out of the fog of my thoughts. Did we even have a wrestling team?

  “I don’t know about wrestling,” I said flatly, “but the basketball team went to State once.”

  Mrs. Parnell choked on her wine. “Once?” Her eyes cut between me and my mom, demanding an explanation.

  “There’s a team picture across from the front office,” I said. “From the look of the picture, it was over sixty years ago.”

  Mrs. Parnell’s eyes stretched. “Sixty years ago?” She dabbed her mouth with her napkin. “Is there something wrong with the school? The coach? The athletic director?”

  “No biggie,” Scott said. “I’m taking the year off.”

  Mrs. Parnell set down her fork with a loud chink. “But you love wrestling.”

  Scott shoveled in another bite of lasagna and raised an indifferent shoulder.

  “And it’s your senior year.”

  “So?” Scott said around his food.

  Mrs. Parnell planted her elbows on the table and leaned in. “So you’re not getting into college on your grades, mister. Your only hope this late in the game is that a community college picks you up.”

  “I’ve got other stuff I want to do.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Oh? Like repeat last year?” As soon as she said it, I saw a spark of fear in her eyes.

  Scott chewed twice more, then swallowed hard. “Pass the salad, Blythe?”

  My mom handed the bowl of Jell-O to Mrs. Parnell, who set it down in front of Scott a little too carefully.

  “What happened last year?” my mom asked, filling the tense silence.

  Mrs. Parnell waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, you know how it is. Scott got into a bit of trouble, usual stuff. Nothing every mother of a teenage boy hasn’t seen before.” She laughed, but her pitch was off.

  “Mom,” Scott said in a tone that sounded a lot like a warning.

  “You know how boys are,” Mrs. Parnell prattled on, gesturing with her fork. “They don’t think. They live in the moment. They’re reckless. Be glad you have a daughter, Blythe. Oh, my. That garlic bread is making my mouth water—pass a slice?”