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Lily
Parasitoids: Insects that eventually kill the host they feed on.
I trackedmy finger down the well-worn page in my notepad. My writing was neat rows of black on white, flowing down the paper, punctuated by pink highlighter.
Light rain hit the window of the coffee shop I was sitting in. I liked to study in the library, coffee shops, and parks. For some reason, all the noise helped me concentrate. Maybe it was the silence at home that distracted me more than anything. My parents were strict about study time and held themselves to the same standard.No one disturbs our A+ student.I could just hear my dad’s voice.
But he was right; I was in my senior year, and I needed to concentrate more than anything. My cell phone rang just as I turned the page in my textbook and jotted down yet more facts about parasites.
“Tell me you’re home already and getting dressed?” Eve’s hopeful voice brought a smile to my face.
“I’m home and getting dressed.”
She sighed. “Liar! I can hear that you’re not. Lily, we need to go to this party.”
I closed my textbook and laid my notebook on top of it, doodling under my notes. “Yeah, but we really don’t. If you think about it, absolutely no one will care if we go or not.”
“That’s not true.I’llcare. Lily, we’re running out of time to do stuff. Let’s not have regrets about missing the all-American rite of passage that going to a high school rager is. For me, please!” She shifted her tone with the last to the cute voice I could never say no to.
Eve had been my best friend since before we could walk. Our mothers were best friends, so there’d never really been an option not to be best buds.
“Fine. I’ll go for an hour, and I’m not getting changed. Final offer.”
Eve laughed. “You can’t open with your final offer. Counter, we go for an hour, and you wear something I bring you.”
“Whatever. Let’s get this over with. I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes.” Today, I’d borrowed my mom’s car, and it felt great to have a miniscule amount of freedom.
Eve squealed. “I can’t wait!”
“Me neither.”For it to be over.
I packed up my things and headed out of the coffee shop. The smells of burnt coffee grounds and pastries faded to the wet smell of a brewing storm. I ran to my car.
Soon, if I got my way, Maine weather would be a distant memory. I had plans to go to California for school. I had the grades; I had the extracurriculars; now all I needed was the acceptance letters and my parents’ approval. I had a horrible feeling that the last would be the hardest to secure. They wouldn’t refuse, they’d just be hurt. That was so much worse.
I was only a few feet away when I ran into a wall. Not a literal wall; actually, that might have been preferable. I ran into a wall of a person, bounced backward, and fell on my ass in a freezing puddle. My glasses flew off and landed somewhere on the wet asphalt.
My backpack landed in the puddle beside me, and I reached for it immediately. One of the corners was drenched. My heart lurched.My notes!I groped for the strap and dragged it toward me, my vision blurry without my glasses.
I tugged it onto my lap, an angry retort forming for the person who’d run right into me and sent me careening away like a pinball. But when I looked up, the words died on my lips. The man stood over me, rising to an awesome height. Dark jeans with holes at the knees, and black boots. Thin, drenched hoodie. The hood was up, shielding his face from my inspection, not that I could see well, anyway. Everything was hazy. I’d been wearing glasses and occasionally contacts for years, but I’d never been in this situation: knocked down in a puddle, blind as a bat without them, while the person responsible simply loomed over me and didn’t lift a finger to help.
He stared at me. I could feel his eyes on me, even under the darkness of his hood.
“Excuse me—” I started angrily. I wasn’t the bravest at standing up for myself, but the horror of my color-coded notebook getting wet was enough to send fearless adrenaline coursing through me.
“You’re excused,” a deep voice interrupted me. The man stared down a moment longer and then turned on his heel and walked away.
Fury like lava bubbled up in my chest. I staggered to my feet, crying out when I slipped and scraped my palm in the process.
“Hey! My glasses!”Damn it. Blood ran down my hand as I pointed at the departing stranger’s back. “You damn—” My mind blanked, searching for a word. “Parasitoid!”
The stranger stopped; his shoulders hunched. I watched him, slightly alarmed that my mild insult had provoked a reaction. I groped around madly for my glasses. They couldn’t be that far, and I needed my eyes back. My hand closed over the frames, just as the stranger turned slowly and headed back toward me. I shoved them back on and straightened up to my full five foot seven, fighting the urge to back up a step.
Now that I was standing, I could see how big this guy really was. I was no stranger to big guys—Hade Harbor was an ice hockey town after all—but this guy took the prize. His huge shoulders bunched together with tension. He was over six five, I was sure of it.
He leaned down toward me, as if I were a speck on a petri dish. His face was still shadowed, but I could nearly make out his mouth. He had full lips and nice teeth; a clean-shaved jaw that could cut glass. His pretty mouth pulled in a sneer, making its beauty bearable.
“What did you call me?”
