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I have no idea what’ll happen when I leave Willow alone at Dalton.
It makes me nauseous thinking about it.
I just realize I’m in the backyard, and Lo opens the pool gate.
I step inside. “I know you don’t like me,” I tell him, “but will you make sure that she’s okay when I’m gone?”
Lo freezes mid-step to the snow-covered lounge chairs. “I already do now.” His expression says, combat me. Tell me I’m wrong if I really am.
I nod a few times. “Okay.”
“If you know something—”
“Forget it, dude. I’m being an idiot.” I blink rapidly and stare up at the blue sky. “You hate me, right?”
I think I’m whiplashing him with my emotions, my swift detours, and he’s having trouble following my frantic mental pacing. “What?”
“You hate me,” I say, more forceful.
He laughs once. “Most of the goddamn universe is on my shit list.” With that, he walks off to the backdoor. Leaving me conflicted and confused again.
I’m standing knee-deep in the unknown.
22
willow moore
I find Garrison waiting for me by Lo’s covered pool. Quickly, he stands off a lounge chair as I approach. The cold bites me through a puffy blue jacket and thin mittens, but I’d rather bear the winter with Garrison. A minute ago, I entered through the garage, and Lily said he was out back. And he had something important to tell me.
“Hi,” I breathe softly, scanning his solemn features.
Garrison cracks a few knuckles, on edge. “You should sit.” He brushes snow off another lounge chair for me.
My heart knots. Tension builds so rapidly, and for some reason, I feel like an avalanche looms in the horizon. I take a seat, and he sits on another lounge chair across from mine.
Garrison licks his lips and then says, “So…I saw your Tumblr post this morning.”
Is that what he wants to talk about…or is he just sidetracking? “Oh yeah.” I cup my cellphone in one of my mittens. Last night I made a post about X-Men: Evolution, the animated series. It was short and went something like:
Me: *sees Storm creating lightning and thunder*
Me: Strike me down, beautiful eternal goddess!
I nudge my glasses. “You didn’t think it was lame?”
Garrison looks like he wants to smile but can’t. “Have you checked your notifications lately?”
I slowly shake my head and remove a mitten. Fingers cold, I tap on my cellphone screen and pop open Tumblr.
I immediately smile. “You didn’t…” He did. Garrison made gifs of Storm from X-Men: Evolution where she wields lightning with her mutant powers. And he tagged me in them.
There aren’t many gifs of the X-Men animated series to begin with, and to have this—and know personally who made them, and that he made them for me—means more than he realizes.
“Merry Christmas,” he says. “Really, though, that isn’t the present I meant to give you.”
My smile fades, remembering that I forgot my Christmas present for him in my Honda. “I left my gift for you in my car. I didn’t know you’d be here right now, but I can go get it—”
“Don’t worry about it,” he says quickly. “I left mine for you at my house, too.”
So he’s not here to exchange gifts then. In the lingering silence, I fit my mitten back on, and Garrison hunches forward, winded by his thoughts alone.
“Can I tell you what I got you?” he asks. I think he must want to kill time before he unleashes the important news.
I nod tensely.
His blue-green eyes flit to my ears. “I know you always wear the star and the bat studs, but I thought you’d like something X-Men related.”
My lips stretch into an uncontrollable smile. “You got me earrings?”
“Yeah.” He pinches his fingers to try to describe them. “They’re X-shaped, with a circle around them.” The X-Men symbol.
A guy bought me a gift. A guy bought me jewelry. It’s hard to believe. “It’s perfect,” I say without thinking.
Garrison tilts his head. “You haven’t seen it yet.”
I push up my glasses again. A nervous tic now. “I don’t have to see it to know it’s perfect.” Because you bought it for me. “I made you something, so it’s probably not as good, and it’s sort of…”
His lips try desperately to lift. “What?”
“Dorky?” I cringe at myself. “It’s a scrapbook.” I just come right out and spoil it. Maggie would hate if I spoiled her about anything, and thankfully, she’s been texting me again as I update her on my life with Garrison Abbey.
I have to constantly censor myself with my friend from Maine, so it’s not as easy talking with Maggie as it is with Daisy Calloway. Recently, I’ve noticed that more and more.
“A scrapbook of what?” He takes off his beanie to rake his hair out of his eyes.
Sometimes (a lot of the time) his whole bad boy persona intimidates me. The tattoos, the skillful sarcasm, and the good looks, but he’s always gentle with me. He has his mother’s innate and natural beauty, I’ve realized, and of the pictures I’ve seen of his father, he has his hair and lean build.
