Awaken

  Justin stopped and fixed his eyes on me. They hardened now. “You shouldn’t do that.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “My life”—he paused for a moment to find the right words—“is not normal.”

  “So what? Everybody’s battling something. But do you really want to let your problems dictate your life? Because you don’t strike me as that kind of a person.”

  His face lightened with surprise. “See, doesn’t it feel good to speak your mind?”

  I couldn’t help but smile. It did feel good, like something toxic and heavy was leaving my body, like your mind can get clogged with the soot and grit of too many thoughts if you don’t sweep it out once in a while.

  “I live in about forty different cities,” he said. “I drive sixty-five different cars. I sleep when I can fit it in. You can only have so many commitments in life, and I’ve chosen mine. Friends are a commitment and I don’t have time for that.”

  “Maybe it’s all you’ve known up until this point, but it doesn’t mean it has to be that way forever.”

  Justin took a long, deep breath before he answered. “I love what I do. Do you know how many people I’ve helped in your shoes? Hundreds. Maybe a thousand. We’re intercepting half the people that are sent to detention centers. This is what I want to commit my life to. We’re losing our freedom more and more every day, Maddie. Fighting digital school is more important to me than anything. And with every choice you make you have to compromise other things.”

  “What are you giving up?”

  He threw his hands in the air like it was obvious. “Relationships. I can’t live like this and ask someone to be okay with seeing me once a month, if that. I’d never want to bring anyone into this kind of lifestyle. That’s way too selfish, because my job will always come first.”

  I felt desperate to convince him. “You mean just because your mission is to make other people’s lives better, you can’t enjoy your own?”

  He tightened his lips. “I do enjoy it,” he stated.

  “Not if you’re cutting yourself off from the very reason why you’re human.”

  “That’s my choice and I promised myself I’d never bring another person into this. I work better alone.”

  There was a finality in his voice to show me this conversation was over. I turned out and looked at the water and tried to make sense of his words. Justin woke me up to experience a world that I was missing out on. But maybe he needed someone to wake him up to the things he couldn’t see.

  He understood me better than anybody and for the first time, it occurred to me I might be the only one stubborn enough to try and understand him.

  I watched the sun dip below the horizon and it lit up the clouds like an orange flame.

  “This is the best part,” he said.

  He sat down on the sand and I sat next to him. I pulled my knees up and hugged them against my chest. The wind picked up and I pulled a stocking cap out of my jacket pocket and tugged it on. We sat in silence and watched the water and the sky and the clouds perform magic for us. I pretended my problems could be whisked up and churned under the waves, one at a time, and disappear forever. It relaxed me to watch a rhythm that was so constant it could hypnotize you. I shifted in the sand, overly aware that I was only inches from Justin. I looked over at him and he was sitting exactly as I was, with his arms wrapped around his legs, his eyes fixed on the light show in the distance.

  “This is what I’m fighting for. This moment, right now.” He stared intently around him. “Look down the beach, it’s deserted.” I gazed down the north and south stretch of beach and he was right. There wasn’t another soul there to appreciate the sunset.

  “This is the real world, right now happening in front of us, and everybody’s missing it. It’s like hearing you have a cousin or a relative but only knowing them through pictures and stories. You never actually meet. You never really get to know each other. We don’t know the world anymore. Everybody’s moved inside. People learn about the ocean, but they’ve never seen one. They know about the sun but they never feel it. The reason to be alive is to appreciate moments like this,” he said, and opened his hands to the sunset as if he could hold on to it.

  We watched the light slowly stretch and fade below the Pacific. I didn’t want to admit this was the first sunset I’d ever seen, or that this moment in my life was possibly the most intimate I’d ever known. I also realized this was my answer. Justin was offering me the entire world at my fingertips. But denying me the one thing I wanted.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The next morning I woke up with a start to a banging noise, like a hammer hitting metal. I pulled a pillow over my head and yelled, “Off,” which always silenced my computer alarm. The hammering continued. I flipped onto my back and groaned. What kind of a rock song was this? I sat up and blinked and forgot, yet again, that I was a long way from home. The sound was coming from outside.

  I walked into the kitchen, my brain still drowsy with sleep. I grabbed a mug off its hook and poured a cup of coffee. Just the smell made my sleepy eyes open wider. I heard more commotion outside and followed the sound out the front door. The sun was shining and it beat down on the driveway. I looked over and saw Justin leaning over the open hood of a car. He had a dark baseball cap on, turned backwards. He wore a white tank top smeared with dirt and oil, and his blue jeans were equally as filthy. The jeans were baggy and slid low on his waist, revealing some of his green boxers.

  I cleared my throat and he turned around and grinned at me, a friendly grin but with an edge to it that I picked up on now. It was an edge that was polite, but never crossed the line.

  “So,” I said. “You cook and you fix cars? Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

  He sat down in front of the car, on the warm cement, and I walked over and sat next to him. He leaned his back against the car and took a drink from a water bottle next to him.

  “Is it that strange?” he asked. I took a sip of my coffee and studied him. The sun poured rays of light that glowed off of his skin and heated the pavement around us. His face was flushed from working and his hands and nails were dirty with car grease. And he made car grease look really good.

  He looked over at me and caught me gaping and I quickly looked away.

  “It’s just weird to imagine you dodging the police one second and baking an apple pie the next.”

  He stared at me like I was crazy. “I don’t bake pies,” he argued, like I insulted his masculinity. “I only make flourless chocolate cake,” he stated, and I laughed.

  He took a long gulp of water. I watched the muscles in his neck move when he swallowed. I could hear the water slide down his throat. I looked at the light stubble of hair on his chin, around his lips, and below his cheekbones. My eyes were drawn to his shoulders and the muscles in his arms where veins popped out and glistened with sweat. He was oblivious to my staring.

  I looked out at the front of the house.

  “When do we have to leave?” I asked.

  “Not for a few more days.”

  “You mean we have to stay here?”

  He looked worried at this. “Is that all right?”

  I shrugged and tried not to stare too long at his eyes, light with the sunshine hitting them.

  “It beats a detention center.”

  He smirked and picked up a screwdriver.

  It was then I noticed a pink smooth scar on his shoulder. It began just outside the strap of his tank top but I could see it ran down farther, hidden underneath his shirt. He caught me staring.

  “Job injury?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “It happened when I was little,” he said.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  He surprised me by reaching behind his back and pulling the tank top over his head. My mouth dropped open at the sight of long, thin scars that stretched across his chest. From his waist up, there were several streaks of pink skin. I also couldn’t help but notice his toned stomach and how his chest shined with s
weat. The scars made Justin even sexier to me, like he was some kind of a gladiator with battle wounds to prove it.

  I leaned in close to study the marks. I could tell the accident happened when he was young from how faded they were. As he grew, the scars had stretched and lengthened out so the skin wasn’t puckered, just smooth and light compared to the golden tone of the rest of his skin.

  “They look like burns,” I said.

  He nodded and took another drink of water. He didn’t look embarrassed at all by his flawed skin. He seemed proud.

  “What happened?”

  “I’ve always had a thing for fire,” he said. “I’ve just been drawn to it, ever since I was little. When I was three years old, my parents took me camping.”

  Justin squinted into the sun as he told me this and I watched his eyes turn amber in the rays of light.

  “They built a campfire one night and turned their backs for a second and I walked right into it. I fell across some of the burning branches and it scorched my skin up pretty good.”

  I looked down at his chest and winced.

  “The weird thing is, when it happened I didn’t even scream, even when the pain of the burn really set in. After you break contact from the heat, it still keeps charring your skin, that’s one of the reasons burns scar so bad. We were in the middle of nowhere when it happened. My parents backpacked in with me so all they could do was put cold rags on my skin. But they said I was completely calm.” He glanced over at me and grinned. “Ever since then, my parents joke I’m fireproof.”

  I looked at one of the lighter scars across his chest, below his collarbone. I hesitated and reached my hand out toward it, slowly skimming my finger along its smooth surface. I saw Justin’s chest quickly respond to my touch with a sharp intake of breath. I thought maybe I scared him, or my finger was cold. I rubbed the scar and it felt delicate, like tissue paper. He watched me and something in his eyes was cautious but he didn’t stop me.

  I dropped my hand and looked away. “I’ve never seen a fire,” I said.

  Justin leaned his head back against the car. “It’s incredible.”

  I stared at his scars skeptically. “Why?” I asked.

  “Everything. The crackling sound it makes, the smoky smell—the color of the flames. They turn blue, green, orange, yellow, purple. The way fire moves, it consumes you. It’s so beautiful you want to touch it but you know you can’t. I think that’s part of its draw.”

  He looked over at me.

  “And the heat,” he continued. “That’s the best part.” His eyes were on mine but they were distracted. I could see him picturing it. Feeling it again. “It’s the most powerful force that exists. But people hate fire because they can’t contain it.”

  I looked at his chest again. In digital school I learned fire was a threat, something uncontrollable that devoured everything in its path. I grew up watching news coverage of forest fires, building fires, wars, bombs, heat—fire stole more life than any other element. Fireplaces and wood-burning stoves were all illegal now.

  “It sounds scary to me,” I said.

  He shook his head. “It isn’t. You’ve just been taught to believe that. The trick is to respect it. People don’t understand nature is stronger than we are. It always will be. People hate to be the underdogs.”

  I smiled at this. “Not everyone is fireproof.”

  He rubbed his chest with one hand. “I could easily fix this,” he said about his scars. I looked down and couldn’t imagine it. They were magnificent. “But I don’t want to,” he said. “I like defects. It’s what sets us apart.”

  I followed his gaze and noticed he was looking at my calf.

  “That’s my only scar,” I said. Justin reached his hand out and ran his fingers delicately along the tender spot on my leg where the skin was swollen and puckering under the wound. Healing. His fingers sent waves of electricity up my leg, through my knee, all the way to my thigh. He met my eyes again, his fingers still on my leg.

  He smiled. “It’s a good one,” he said.

  I couldn’t look away from him. My eyes were locked and my head was dazed. Justin slowly moved his fingers to my wrist and flipped my hand over so my palm was facing him. My heart pounded at the touch of his skin. He studied my wrist and lightly rubbed his fingers along the outline of my tattoo. I felt my breath stick in my chest.

  “I like this,” he said. The wind picked up and sent a breeze toward us, ruffling my hair around my shoulders. The sunshine was so warm I felt a bead of sweat trickle down my neck. I was acutely aware of my senses again. That always happened when I was with Justin. The heat of the sun intensified, the trees rustled like music, the smell of engine oil was thick in the air, and the touch of his skin heated my entire arm up to my chest and down to my stomach. He looked away and I felt my breath begin to come back.

  I hesitated and found the courage to pull my arm down until the palm of my hand rested against his. I brushed my fingers against his warm, rough ones. This moment, this tiny gesture, was one of my bravest acts. One of my greatest risks. After a long moment he pulled his hand away. He sat up straighter and his jaw tightened and the liquid in his eyes hardened, even against the sun.

  He took a deep breath. “You’re driving me insane, you know that?”

  I couldn’t help but smile since that’s what he did to me on a daily basis.

  “You’re the one stripping,” I informed him, and waved my hand over his bare chest. He stared at me, completely baffled like it never occurred to him what kind of effect he had on women. For the first time, I realized he probably didn’t know. Justin didn’t think about himself.

  “Maddie, this can’t happen,” he told me. “And torturing me isn’t fair.”

  I lifted one shoulder. “I’m not trying to torture you,” I said. “I’m just dropping subtle hints.”

  He raised his eyebrows at me. “Subtle?” he said. “Is that what you call your little dance of seduction at the club the other night?” He looked at me square in the eye and I felt my face heat up.

  I tried to play innocent. “I just got lost in the music.”

  “Oh, is that what that was?”

  I looked out at the yard and laughed with embarrassment. “Maybe you’re making a bigger deal out of this than it needs to be,” I said.

  “I’m making a big deal out of it?”

  “It’s not like I’m asking you to marry me.”

  He blinked back at me and creased his forehead.

  “I’d be happy just to make out. If you want to, I’m cool with it, that’s all I’m saying.” I stared down at my feet and wondered where I was getting the nerve to speak my mind.

  “You are the strangest girl I’ve ever met,” he said, like he thought I was joking. He picked up his water bottle and gave me a sideways glance. “Have you ever kissed anybody?” he asked, and took a sip.

  I smirked. “There aren’t a whole lot of opportunities in the digital world. I did practice on my hand once. It didn’t do anything for me.”

  Justin coughed on the water he was swallowing and I slapped my hand over my mouth.

  “Did I just say that out loud?” I mumbled.

  He was half coughing, half laughing. “Yes, you did,” he managed to say.

  “Delete, delete, delete,” I said, and pushed an imaginary button in the air. “I really miss that feature.”

  “No, that’s the good stuff. People always want to delete the good stuff.” His eyes lit up. “That’s a cool idea, though. What would you say, right now, if you could immediately delete it, so no one read it?”

  I stared at him and blurted out the first words that came to my head. “I love your lips,” I said.

  Justin pulled his head back with surprise and stared at me.

  “Are you serious?” he asked.

  “I’m just being honest,” I said, and threw my hands up in the air. I stared at his puzzled face and leaned closer. “Do you ever stare at your lips in the mirror and get hypnotized by the sight of them?” br />
  He blinked at me a few times like I was nuts. I watched a red hue stain his cheeks. “Maybe we shouldn’t play this game,” he said.

  “No, no, this was your idea. It’s your turn.”

  He turned and faced me. With his entire body. Then he turned my shoulders so I was facing him as well. His long legs straddled mine. I tried to swallow but my throat was too tight. He held me with his eyes.

  “I care about you,” he said, and his voice turned low and serious. “More than I feel safe caring. You make my heart do some really weird things.”

  I stared back at him with shock.

  “I’m just being honest,” he said with a small grin.

  “You want to delete that?” I asked. It was the greatest thing I’d ever heard in my life.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want to get you mixed up in my life. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. But I do.”

  “I thought you were attracted to me.”

  He fixed his eyes on me. “Of course I am. Who wouldn’t be? Look at you—you’re stunning.”

  I blushed and looked away. Stunning? Me?

  “And you don’t even know it, which might be one of the coolest things about you,” he added.

  “Okay, feelings are mutual,” I managed to say. “So then why can’t you let it happen?”

  Justin shook his head. “Didn’t you hear anything I said yesterday?”

  “Didn’t you hear anything I said?”

  “God, you’re stubborn.”

  “You’re stubborn and stupid,” I said.

  He grinned at me, a wide grin that made his dimples stand out. “You’re so charming when you’re honest.”

  “Why are you so determined to fight this?” I asked. He scooped up my hands in his. He stared at me, through me.

  “I need you to listen to me. Okay?” I nodded and felt my hands burn. “I’m not stupid. I see what’s sitting in front of me. But—” He looked away for a moment as if his thoughts were also blurred when our eyes met. “Here’s the reality. I’ll be gone in a couple days and who knows when I’ll see you next. In a month or two? And after that a couple times a year, for a few days here and there? You have too much to give to settle for that. I won’t let you settle for that. You can do better.”