Pg. 13

I don't care.

It doesn't really matter.

They say it's bad luck. And so what? If the things I've been through don't show that I've got bad luck, and got it bad, then what else can I be afraid of, where luck's concerned.

Still in the dark, but it's okay. It's cold outside and I'd rather be in here, listening to the wind, than expected to go on my tedious walks to nowhere.

Just before we entered schooling at the castle, Aaron and I spent the entire summer together. Hardly a day went by that I didn't see him, and not a single one when I didn't talk to him.

It was like a dream, except it was more real than that and it made me grateful that I didn't have to wake up.

Aaron had a new game for us, he'd seen it in a movie. We would lie on our backs on the roof above his pool and strip naked, the tiles rough against our skin, the wind cool.

We would lie there, watching the stars, with something, a towel, a bag, a box, lying between us so we couldn't look at each other. He always stood up first and looked at me. I never looked at him, though. The thought made my heart pound in my throat, made my palms sweaty and my toes tingle. But I knew he was looking at me.

One day he reached over and touched me, pretending to brush something that he shouldn't have been able to see away from my skin.

"You've got a bug on your stomach," he said.

I jumped, it burned. He could make my skin hot or cold by just looking at me. When he touched me he could set me on fire or turn me to ice. I could have sworn, later, that he'd left a welt on my side, but no one would believe me and it was gone the next morning, anyway.

"You can't have seen a bug," I told him. "You're looking at the sky."

"I could hear it."

"Mmm." I grabbed my clothes, pulling my shirt on first. He grabbed my hands and forced them behind my back so he could look me in the eye. He stood there, naked, on the roof, on a starlit night, and he stared at me.

I was always jealous of his boldness.

He stared at me, and I could feel goosebumps raise, not just on my bare skin, but everywhere. Except for where his hands held me, my wrists stiffening from his grip, feeling cold and stuck.

"I didn't know your skin would be soft like that," He told me. And he smiled. "I want to touch you again, just on your stomach."

No. "No," I told him. "I've got to go. I think my wrists are bruising and I have to go."

He held me tighter, shook me a bit and kept staring at me. As much as I loved Aaron, he could really make me hate him, make me scared.

Finally, still smiling, he let me go, he handed me my clothes.

"I'll see you tomorrow."

I've never been able to figure out why he looked so proud right then, and he sure as hell wouldn't ever explain it to me.