Zachary Rawlins - The Academy

Then Sarah came breezing in, greeting both of them cheerfully and then walking over to the sink on Emily’s opposite side, the tiled space echoing with the sound of her sandals. Emily didn’t even have to check Sarah’s halo; as always, it was a ring of pulsating rose-pink light, which for Emily indicated optimism, good will and excitement, which was Sarah’s default emotional state. But there was something a bit unusual about it, in that it was shot through with the silvery metallic tone that Emily associated with curiosity, curiosity she was certain was directed at her, when she noticed Sarah glancing over while she got her hairbrush out.

“So,” Sarah said, her eyes locked on the hair she was brushing as if it required her full attention, “when were you going to tell me about your little date with Alex?”

Emily did her best to look composed. She’d guessed at the source of her curiosity, of course, and she kind of did want to brag about it. Only kind of, though, because it hadn’t gone exactly how she’d hoped. Then she saw herself in the mirror and realized she was blushing, and that made it all worse.

“We didn’t go on a date. I made him dinner, that’s all.”

“At your house,” Sarah offered, smiling eagerly.

“At my parent’s house,” Emily corrected.

“But, they weren’t there, right?”

“How did you know that?”

Sarah waved her hairbrush dismissively.

“I didn’t think you’d invite Alex over to meet your mom on a first date. Come on, tell me, how was it?”

Emily put away her tweezers, and then started to carefully remove the curlers from her hair, one at a time. She hoped her hair came out looking alright, because sleeping with the curlers in had been a pain. The Raleigh Cartel’s precognitives had told her that Alex would like her hair better this way, so she’d been dutifully curling her hair since the session had started. She thought it looked good, but she was getting a little tired of all the work entailed.

“It was pretty good. I mean, Therese showed up, even though she wasn’t supposed to be there, and she made a scene, as usual. But, it could have been a lot worse.”

Sarah glanced over sympathetically.

“Therese still does that, huh? Doesn’t she ever get tired of scaring your boyfriends off?”

“Did she?”

Emily turned to Margot, who was filling the sink while watching her in the mirror, surprised that she asked anything at all. She thought that she and Margot got along fine, for two people who barely ever spoke to each other, but she didn’t think she’d ever actually shown any interest in her personal life before. Margot was looking at her expectantly, so Emily couldn’t risk peaking at her halo to try and figure out her motivation.

“Did she what?”

“Did she scare off Alex?” Margot asked, putting one hand in the water briefly to check the temperature. “Or is he your boyfriend now?”

The curler in Emily’s fingers at that moment slipped from her hand and clattered off the counter and onto the ground. Sarah picked it up for her, and then set it down next to the rest of Emily’s toiletries on the counter.

“Well,” Emily stalled, trying to reason out some kind of answer, “not exactly. She didn’t seem to scare Alex off, though it was a little bit weird after she left. And no, Alex isn’t my boyfriend. We don’t even know each other that well, yet. But,” Emily said slowly, enjoying saying it out loud, even if it wasn’t exactly the whole truth, “well, we are kind of seeing each other.”

And it wasn’t a lie, not completely. Alex had agreed, after all, to see her again, and to spend more time with her. It didn’t matter that she’d told him that it would help her convince the Hegemony that she was doing her job, and therefore make them leave both of them alone. That was a detail, and if it was an unpleasant detail, it was also a minor one. The important thing, she reminded herself, was that she had made progress.

“Really? That’s awesome,” Sarah enthused, grabbing Emily’s shoulder and squealing. “I was worried for you. He seems a little, uh, shy. Spacey, too.”

“He is,” Emily agreed cheerfully. “I mean, I don’t know that much about him, but given how he got here, and what it must be like, with everyone knowing who is and all, I don’t think it’s too surprising that he’s a little nervous. It’s okay. It’s even cute, sort of.”

Margot looked up from the towel she was using to dry her face.

“Do you like him?”

The vampire’s voice was flat and devoid of interest. Emily wanted badly to take a quick look at her halo, to look for the reassuring silver flash of curiosity, but she was a little intimidated by Margot, and decided not to, afraid that she might notice.

“Maybe. I think that I might,” Emily answered, being as upbeat as possible while still telling the truth.

“Did he spend the night?”

Sarah nudged Emily, her eyes sparkling.

Emily’s pride and pleasure at being the center of attention wavered.

“No,” she admitted reluctantly, trying very hard to put Alex’s confession of inexperience and the bizarre story about his family out of her mind, as thinking about it made her feel weirdly sweaty and nervous. “I was kind of upset. Therese and I got into a fight, and I didn’t want to be there when she came back, so we came back up to campus.”

Sarah looked puzzled.

“But, I thought that your plan was…”

“It was,” Emily acknowledged, freeing her hair from the last of the curlers, and then frowning at her reflection in the mirror like it had done something to her. “But, the mood was all wrong, and anyway, I don’t want him to think that I’m… oh, I don’t know. Desperate or something. I wanted it to be, you know, good.”

Sarah’s hair brushing became more agitated.

“Are you sure about that? Don’t get me wrong, but you need this to work, right?”

“Well, yes,” Emily said, feeling her cheeks burn, unable to look up from her lap. “But… well, I’m not… not like that.”

“Come on. I know perfectly well what you’re like,” Sarah said, sounding a bit exasperated. “Remember that boy at the start of last session, what was his name? Kurt something? He followed you around for like two months before he finally gave up on you because he thought you weren’t interested, and I know you liked him. You have a lot of good points, Emily, but being assertive isn’t exactly one of them. Did you even let Alex kiss you?”

“He didn’t, uh, he didn’t try,” Emily said, trying not to sound discouraged or pathetic. “Actually. I thought he would. I was standing right there. I would have let him.”

“He is shy,” Margot observed, carefully squeezing toothpaste onto her toothbrush.

“Look, don’t take this the wrong way,” Sarah said carefully. “I know that this is a weird situation. And I know that you like to take these things slow. But, you have factor the rest of the world into your thinking, Emily. This isn’t just some boy you’re crushing on; he’s a strategic asset for the cartels to fight over. Anastasia and the rest of them are serious about recruiting this kid, you know?”

“I know,” Emily acknowledged quietly.

“And just because you want to wait for the right time and make sure that you have feelings for each other and everything is special, that doesn’t mean that some other girl won’t hop right into bed with him, you know? It’s probably not going to be roses and candlelight dinners.”

Sarah looked at her with what Emily pretended wasn’t a trace of pity. Sarah was her friend, Emily reminded herself firmly, and she was trying to help.

“He’s a guy, Emily. You know how guys are.”

“I know,” Emily acknowledged, in a steadily meeker voice.