Pulse

Chapter 22

Lucie

I skipped dinner.

Mom called to me, letting me know she had a sloppy joe waiting for me in the kitchen, but I had replied that I wasn't hungry and shut my bedroom door. The truth is, it's not that I didn't want to speak with my parents, I just knew that I wouldn't know what to say if I did. I mean, how could I? Did they know about the scar on my arm? Had they noticed it a long time ago, and thought I had, too? Why had it shown up so suddenly?

I hugged my knees to my chest with a sigh. For the past hour I'd been staring at my forearm; it took all my effort to peel my stubborn eyes away. Maybe I needed to think about something else for a while.

Just as I'd drawn the covers up around myself, my phone buzzed on my desk, which was mounted to the wall opposite the bed I curled on. At first I assumed it was a notification from one of the several old game apps I no longer played, but then the buzzing continued, and continued, the device dancing atop my desk's surface. I stared at it once more, then slid off my bed and went to retrieve it.

I passed my window and nearly had a stroke, swallowing down a scream just before it left my lips.

Cian was at my window—hanging upside down in front of it, to be exact, gravity pulling his dark gold hair off his forehead. Trees were waving in the wind behind him, my lamplight just enough to see his expression in, as the sun had set around an hour ago. He looked oddly focused.

My phone was still buzzing. I was close enough now to see Jiya's face on the screen.

I bit my lip, hesitating, but went to the window.

Unhooking the latch, I gave it a sturdy shove upwards. The breezes from the sea began leisurely wafting into my room, overlapping the apple-scented candle I had lit. I exhaled. He wasn't the worst company, admittedly, but that did not mean I wanted to see him at the current moment. Especially not dangling in front of my window.

He waved exuberantly, a smile on his face. "Hey there, muffin. Can I come in?"

"The heck are you doing? How did you get up there? Why are you upside down?"

"From my torso down, I'm on your roof," he said matter-of-factly. His face had begun to turn red. "Don't question it. But I do look kinda look like a Peeping Tom, so...can I come in?"

"No! No, you cannot come in—"

"I brought pizza."

I let him in.

The pizza box went in first, and I pulled him in afterwards, grasping his wrists and taking steps back until the entirety of his lengthy body was safely inside. I shoved the window shut again, sitting down on my bed with another laborious sigh. Cian stretched himself out on my rug and watched the ceiling fan spin.

I didn't have to ask why he was here. He answered before I could. "I think there's something wrong with Vinny," he told me, opening up the pizza box and handing it to me. "You like cheese?"

I took a slice, watching as Cian smiled ruefully and set the hot cardboard back on his chest. Folding the pizza first, I asked, "What's wrong with Vinny?"

"You told me to talk to him, so I did," he answered, sitting up and taking a slice of the pizza for himself. The fact that he had showed up bearing gifts (food gifts, the best kind) should have been stranger to me, but after knowing Cian for a few weeks, nothing was really strange anymore.

The only light on in the room was my lamp, and it cast a gold sheen across his stormy eyes, shadows dancing ominously across his face. He looked towards my shut door, listened to the faded noise of my parents' voices downstairs, and exhaled. "But then...the girl I told you about, the one that I was friends with once. She showed up. Totally uncalled for."