Page 11 of Balance

“I don’t need help!” My face warmed in embarrassment. It was horrifying that my once-best-friend could read me so well.

Why did he have to act like a jerk most of the time?

Yet, my breathing steadied as the tension faded from me.

“What do you even bet about in chess?” Maybe I should take a break and go downstairs, it would be fun to see Bryce lose at something again.

Then Finn stepped closer to me—reaching into the pockets of his charcoal-colored slacks—making me lose my train of thought.

“I have something for you,” he explained, his shoulders growing even tighter and head lowering as the nervousness in his posture grew.

My throat closed. Until recently, I’d mostly only seen Finn with a mask of cool confidence.

This was the third time we’d been in this situation. The first time being when we’d met in middle school and he shoved his schoolbooks at me in order to get my attention. Then the second time was only recently, in the Science building’s hallways.

I hated that expression: the unsure tilt of his head and the miniscule shuffling of his feet. That look had a way of breaking through my defenses—of reanimating that small seed of hope that lay buried in the dark.

Whywas I like this? It was so much easier when I wanted to punch him.

“I don’t want anything,” I told him, cursing myself for how weak my voice suddenly sounded. But if he knew me so well, he shouldn’t have even tried. He knew how I felt about gifts.

All things came at a price. Unless it was something to eat, or there was a way to barter, I wasn’t—

“Here,” he said, pulling out a bronze pocket watch and holding it out toward me. “It’ll help.”

I studied it, unsure as to how it would help, exactly. I didn’t have any issues with punctuality.

Not usually.

Still, I watched as he dropped the watch itself, keeping his grip on the chain instead, and the pendant began to swing back and forth in a mesmerizing movement.

The face was difficult to make out, but I was almost certain there was a sort of floral pattern etched upon the cover. How intriguing.

Still, I was no fool.

“Stop it!” I dropped the blanket from my face, covering my eyes with my hands instead. “Don’t even try to hypnotize me! Julian will have your head if you do anything weird.”

I could almost hear Finn’s look of exasperation—his brief silence was loud enough.

“I’m not trying to hypnotize you,” he drawled finally. “I’mgivingthis to you.”

“I don’t need a watch,” I responded, pointing my elbow in the direction of the elaborate white side table across the room. “There’s a clock on my phone.”

“It’s not a watch. Will you just look at it please?”

I squinted my left eye open, peeking through my fingers. Finn’s expectant gaze captured mine, and the swinging motion fell from my awareness.

It sure looked like a watch. Then again, wasn’t Finn a fortune-teller of sorts? I’d seen that pose once, on a paranormal investigation program. His sudden air of confidence, with his arm-outstretched, and a heavy object on a chain as it swung through the air. It could only be one other thing…

“Is it a pendulum?”

This time there was no sarcasm in his expression and voice. Only a short, quick twitch of his lips that I might have missed if I hadn’t been searching for it.

My heart echoed in my ears.

“No,” he answered, and the humor masked over once more. “But itcouldbe used that way, if necessary. Not all onmyojis use pendulums in their practice.”

I could hardly breathe. He was doing that weird thing again, where he was being honest about his abilities.