“I found it puzzling myself,” said Ash. “So you see.”
“I could take on the pet-fire-extinguisher girl,” Kami considered. “I’ve done some very strange things.”
Ash’s laugh floated down the corridor, light as Kami’s heart suddenly was. Everything could be all right, she thought. “I’ve got faith in you,” Ash said. “So—how about it? Let’s give going out another try.”
You’d better not come in, Jared said. I’m in here. He didn’t hurl the comment at her resentfully. He just said it, as if he was resigned.
Kami stood at the door to her headquarters and looked in through the square of wire-covered glass. Jared was sitting at his desk, big shoulders hunched.
“No,” she told Ash, and saw him blink with surprise. “I really like you,” she continued, because Ash deserved to hear it. “But I’ve got a lot of stuff going on right now, and I just don’t—I don’t know how I can.”
She hardly heard Ash’s polite mumble saying “right” and “of course” and “somewhere to be,” meaningless words strung together to get himself out of this situation. She felt awash in horror.
Kami opened the door and went into her headquarters. The half-open blinds sliced the sky into bars of light and shadow over desks and floor, red lamps and Jared’s bright hair, making the room into a cage. She went over to stand at the window, behind Jared’s chair. Then she gave up and leaned against the back of Jared’s chair, almost touching but not quite.
“I’m glad you’re real,” she said. She was glad he was real. She couldn’t wish him out of existence, or even wish he was somewhere away from her. She wanted him with her: she wanted him right here.
Yeah? Jared asked.
Kami felt his slow-blossoming relief. There was no way to live a normal life, even if he wasn’t trying to interfere. She couldn’t be happy when he was unhappy. There was nothing she could do. Jared’s pain felt like her pain, and mattered a thousand times more than hurting Ash. There had been no way to smile at Ash and say yes to a date with a perfectly nice guy, when most of her heart lay behind the door.
Kami bowed her own head over Jared’s bowed head, and hated the link between them. She didn’t know if anything she was feeling was real.
Chapter Eighteen
The Water Rising
It was only half an hour after the end of school, and the Internet had already failed Kami completely. It was supposed to be a superhighway of information. She had exactly one hit on a Henry Thornton, living in Notting Hill. It was on a dating website. Apparently he was single, looking for a long-term relationship, and his interests were jazz and cricket. He had not been considerate enough to add “ritual animal slaughter” to the list.
Kami growled with frustration at the screen.
“Easy, tiger,” Angela said from her prone position on the sofa. “You’re wasting good aggression on computers when you could be turning it against mankind.”
Kami glanced over at Angela. Angela lay serenely with her hands folded across her chest and her lashes like black lace against her white cheeks. “You look so sweet when you sleep,” Kami said. “Like an emo ten-year-old’s first Vampire Bride Barbie. Pull the string on the back and she says cruel things to her hardworking friends.”
“Why don’t you and Jared go to the library?” Angela suggested, eyes still closed. She said “you and Jared” as if they were a unit.
“Angela,” Kami said sharply, “Jared and I are not dating.”
Angela lifted her eyelids a fraction of an inch. “Oh no. He asked you out and now you spend all your time together, sometimes having epic fights in the hallways. Where did I get such an outrageous idea?”
“We’re not and we never will!” Kami heard her voice go a little high.
Angela winced. “No loud noises. It is naptime.”
Kami leaned across her desk. “I’m not one of those girls, am I?”
“Those girls who disturb my naptime?”
“Those girls!” said Kami. “You know the ones. Who are always joined at the hip to some boy and all they talk about is some boy and they don’t hang around their friends anymore because they’re spending time with some boy. We hate those girls!”
“I hate practically everybody,” Angela pointed out.
“We should have a girls’ night,” Kami said. “Tonight. Hot chocolate made with cream, and a box of my mum’s pastries. You in?”
Angela’s eyes fell closed. “Only for the pastries.”
Kami returned to contemplating Henry Thornton, who was tempting her to be an Internet Mata Hari by having a green “User online now” on his profile. She stared at his thin, serious face. “Men are nothing but trouble,” she said. “Thank God for girls’ night.”