“A grizzly?” Charlotte nearly chokes on her ice cream. “And you’re alive? Why didn’t you say anything?!”
“I’m not hurt!” I exclaim defensively. “I only have a bruise, and some scratches—”
We are interrupted by the doorbell.
A crew of classmates enter Charlotte’s house in a pack.
Nevertheless, for the rest of the evening, I try to keep Aksel Fredricksen out of my mind.
I fail.
CHAPTER 9
I wake at dawn. My forehead is damp, and the sheets are tangled around me. Extricating myself from the linens, I dash to the gabled window and unhook the latch. I inhale the crisp alpine air, trying to calm my nerves, to cool myself off.
Parched mouth … a smell of garlic and vinegar beneath the doorway … loud shouting on the other side of the wall … a blinding flash of light …
I cling to the window ledge. That was the past. I press my eyelids together until I see stars. It is over now. Over.
“Why did you leave so fast?” my mother asks as I hurry down the staircase a short while later, having returned home from my morning run with barely enough time to shower. “I would have joined you!” There is a reason I prefer running with my father over my mother—she can beat me, and he can’t.
She nods at my outfit: a plaid button-up blouse tucked into high-waist jeans. “All part of blending in.” She smiles ruefully.
“You’re not leaving without breakfast!” my father orders from down the hall. I step into the small, modern kitchen—marble counters, a polished-nickel faucet, and French tile on the walls. My mother’s favorite Stelton teapot is on the stove, and her Celine handbag is on the counter, but other than that—nothing. No photographs. No sticky notes with our handwriting. No handmade figurines. Nothing of us.
“They sell muesli in Waterford?” I ask, distracting myself from comparing my pristine, sterile kitchen to Charlotte’s cozy, cluttered one.
The muesli package is open on the counter. My father has made three yogurt parfaits drizzled with honey. He gives me one.
“Found it at Alpine Market. It’s actually not bad.” My father eats so quickly he’s emptied his dish and washed it before I take my first bite.
“Sit,” my mother says sternly. “Some American habits I want you to learn. Others, I do not.” She motions to me, standing in the middle of the kitchen, eating. I dutifully sit.
“Sophia,” she says, casually glancing at my leg.
It’s been a week since the grizzly attacked me. To explain my limp, I told her I tripped on the way to Charlotte’s.
“Yes?” I say innocuously.
She taps her fingers on the tabletop, pursing her lips. “You can’t run around Waterford with a 5-7,” she eventually says, “but you can at least take your Ladybug.”
I stare at her inquisitively; I lost my Ladybug at the Sport Club in Beirut.
She walks to her handbag and retrieves a delicate five-centimeter blade.
“You said I wouldn’t need a weapon here,” I say.
My mother walks behind me and pushes aside my hair. She reaches her hand into the back of my new blouse and lifts out the price tag. Snip.
Clicking the Ladybug closed, she leans over my shoulder and puts it on the table beside my glass dish of muesli and yogurt. “Who said it’s a weapon?”
Charlotte dumps her precalculus textbook onto the cafeteria table, “I loathe Krenshaw!”
I check my silver Skagen watch and groan. “I forgot Krenshaw’s assignment in my locker.” I stuff my thermos into my backpack. “See you guys later?”
“You better hurry!” Charlotte warns through a mouthful of pizza as I run out of the cafeteria and into the corridor.
Approaching the glass-walled vestibule connecting the cafeteria to the north hall, I notice something out of the corner of my eye—someone.
He is here?
Crossing the lawn with long, lithe steps, Aksel keeps his head bowed against the damp wind rushing in from the canyons.
One second, he is bounding up the stairs two at a time; the next, he is opening the door and stepping inside.
Aksel doesn’t stop casually when he sees me. He comes to a deliberate halt a meter away from me—like I am either contagious or dangerous.
Aksel Fredricksen hasn’t been at school all week. I’d know. Because harder than catching up on eighteen months of missed schoolwork has been trying to not constantly scan the halls, curious if I’d see Aksel at school—which is why it actually seems weird that I haven’t seen him. Not once. Until now.
He’s even more strapping and formidable than I remember.