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CHAPTER FIVE

So much for getting away from those eyelashes.

Leo has insisted on walking me back to my dorm.

He moseys beside me, hands in his front pockets and his gaze on the sky.

Meanwhile, my eyes are darting all around us, looking for spies in the bushes.

I remind myself that everyone at O-Chi is passed out by now and the bars downtown are closed.

But still, if anyone catches me out with a strange guy when I said I was going home with a headache, I’ll have some serious explaining to do.

“What did you tell him?” Leo asks.

“Tell who?”

“The boyfriend. That’s what you’re worried about, isn’t it?”

I sigh. “I told him I didn’t feel well and that I just wanted to go back to my room and go to bed.”

“Why didn’t you just tell him the truth?”

“I don’t know exactly,” I admit. “I know it sounds lame, but sometimes, with some people, it’s easier to lie than to try and explain.”

Leo nods thoughtfully and we walk in silence for a minute or two more, turning off Main Street and entering the back side of campus. Maples in full autumn color line the path on one side.

I yank a bright yellow leaf off a low-hanging branch. “Did you really go to Oxford?”

“I did.”

“What was it like?”

He gets a faraway look in his eyes, like he’s traveling back there in his mind. “Like a whole other world.”

I twirl the maple leaf by the stem. “What did you study there?”

“The Elizabethan period, mostly.”

“Hence the fascination with the Lost Colony?”

His smile is bashful. “It might have something to do with it.”

I picture him poring over sixteenth century manuscripts and visiting historic sites, and it makes me crazy jealous.

“How about you?” he asks. “You said you’re an English major, but what’s your special area of interest?”

“Well, I’m only a sophomore, so I haven’t been able to specialize much yet, but—” Do I tell him what I’ve been considering? Most of the people I know would say I’ve gone off the deep end, but I have a feeling Leo won’t.

“But—?”

“I think I might minor in women’s studies.” Because no matter what I read in my literature classes, my brain always zeros in on the female characters. And more often than not, I get pissed off at how they’re portrayed.

“Now that would be interesting,” Leo agrees. “And you’d never run out of material to study.”

No, I wouldn’t, indeed.

I toss my leaf into the bushes. “Why did you invite me tonight?”

Leo startles at my abruptness, but he quickly recovers. “I told you, I thought you might like to do something different.”

“Avery didn’t like me.”

“She misjudged you,” he corrects. “That’s her fault, not yours.”

“Yeah, but you had to know she’d do that. ”

“Sure. But I also knew that once she actually talked to you, she’d change her mind.”

“Did she?”

“ I think so.”

“But I’m everything she hates.”

He halts and turns to me. “Maybe you’re not really who you think you are.”

What the hell is that supposed to mean? I arch a brow at him, but he doesn’t elaborate. His words, coming out of anyone else’s mouth, would sound smug. But there’s nothing cocky about Leo.

He asks, “Did you have fun tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Then all’s well that ends well.”

I resume walking and he falls into step beside me. Dry leaves skitter on the sidewalk and the cold nips my nose, but I’m not rushing to get back to the warmth of my room.

He peers over at me. “Now that the pressure’s off, will you tell me what you meant when you said you felt the Tarot card?”

I resist the urge to apologize for how crazy my answer will sound. “That Three of Whatever?—”

“Pentacles.”

“Okay, Pentacles. That Three of Pentacles wanted me to pick it. The other cards felt like nothing, but that one, when I touched it—I dunno, I just felt…relieved.”

We’ve both stopped walking again.

“So why did that happen?” I ask. “I mean, they’re just cards, aren’t they? Just a game?”

“You’re right,” he says. “They are just cards. But they’re not a game, they’re a tool. And it takes a certain kind of person to use them.”

“I’m not that kind of person.”

“Evidently you are.” He sweeps the windblown strands of hair from my face and tucks them behind my ear. “I told you before—you’re clairsentient. ”

That’s what he’d called me at the party. “I don’t know what that means.”

“You feel things other people never notice.”

“Because I’m sensitive.” Too sensitive.

“No.” He’s still gazing at me and I’m pretty sure that’s his finger I feel under my chin. “It’s a lot more than sensitivity.”

“Then explain it to me.”

He swallows. “It’s a psychic ability.”

“Psychic?” He’s nuts.

When I roll my eyes and try to look away, I find out why he’s holding my chin. My head is locked in place.

“Yes, psychic.”

“There’s no such thing.”

“Yes, there is.”

They say you can’t argue with crazy, but yet I try. “Okay, well if there is, then I’m not one of them. I can’t talk to the dead, or predict the future, or do any of those freaky things psychics can supposedly do.”

“You might not be able to talk to the dead, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you can feel them.”

Is he for real? I gape at him, but he just blinks back at me with those earnest brown eyes.

“Think about it. Haven’t you ever gone into, say, an old house, and felt weird vibes?”

How did he know?

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” I bite out.

“I’m not talking about ghosts, I’m talking about energy.”

I dig in my metaphorical heels. “What’s the deal? Are you guys some sort of New Age cult or something?” I think of Avery’s goth aesthetic, Aaron’s claim that he hears whispers. “Is that what the Tarot cards were all about?”

Leo sighs. “No, Betts, we’re not a cult. If you’d just stop arguing with me and listen?—”

I huff and fold my arms. “What do you want from me? ”

His thick brows furrow. “ Want from you?”

I glare and wait.

“Nothing,” he says. “I just want to know you.”

“Why?”

He swallows and lifts his eyes to the sky. It’s the first time I’ve seen him look uncomfortable. After an eternity, his gaze returns to me. “Because you deserve to have friends who understand you. The friends you have now don’t. Not as well as they should.”

Um, excuse me? How would he know anything about my friends? Liv understands me. So does Zander.

Don’t they?

I narrow my eyes at Leo. “And you do?”

He turns up his hands. “Did anyone else know you felt that guy overdosing, before anyone even knew what was happening?”

I suck in a breath, head suddenly spinning as I’m forced to face the question I’ve been avoiding. How did Leo connect those dots between my “panic attack” and Jason nearly dying downstairs? How did he, a stranger, understand what I was experiencing?

I meet his eyes. “But you did.”

He nods.

“How?”

“Because I understand clairsentience.”

Stubbornly, I point out, “I didn’t feel him overdosing.”

“What did you feel?”

“Just this sort of…panic. Like that sudden stomach drop you get when you hear terrible news.”

“That makes sense.”

“It doesn’t to me.” I shake my head. “I mean, I can be pretty empathetic, but…”

He cuts me off. “That wasn’t empathy.”

How can it not be? I’m so sensitive, all I have to do is look at someone who’s hurting and I feel all their pain. Me and my giant bleeding heart.

“It’s clairsentience,” he says. “It couldn’t’ve been empathy because you weren’t with him. You didn’t know what was happening to him.”

I didn’t even know Jason existed, and yet I felt his fear.

Leo explains, “Emotions carry energy. That’s what you sensed.”

“So you’re saying I didn’t feel Jason’s panic, I felt its energy?” I’m not sure I’ve had enough beer and animal crackers to absorb this.

Leo nods. “And that’s a psychic ability.”

No, screw this. I’m not psychic. I don’t even like the word. It makes me think of that creepy little storefront in the rundown shopping center just off the interstate. The one with beaded curtains in the window and a neon sign that says, “Psychic Readings by Zora.”

I’ll bet she uses Tarot cards.

Leo squeezes my arm. “It’s okay if you think I’m nuts.”

“Good, because I do.”

“Fair enough.” He shrugs humbly and, as we return to our walk, shoves his hands back in his pockets. With a jerk of his head, he tosses his hair out of his eyes and gazes back up at the sky.

Damn, he has a nice profile.

“Just, the next time something like that happens, pay attention to what you’re feeling,” he says. “And google clairsentience.”

“If I do, will you stop nagging me about it?”

“We’ll only talk about it if you want to.”

I see his little sleight of hand. “So you’re that confident I’ll want to?”

“No, just optimistic.” He flashes me a hopeful smile.

I let out a laugh and it feels good, even though I sound a little hysterical.

Around the corner of a building a couple emerges, strolling and holding hands.

Thank god I don’t know them. As we pass each other, the guy makes eye contact with me and smiles.

The girl gives a little wave and a “hi.” Halfheartedly, I return the greeting.

How rude. Neither of them acknowledged Leo. Good thing he doesn’t seem to care .

When we get to the entrance of Newberry Hall, he stops and turns to me. “Meet me at the library sometime this week.”

My heart does a weird little somersault. He still wants to hang out with me? But I’ve been pouting and back-talking like a stubborn twelve-year-old.

“I’ve got a lot of work to do.” He looks up from studying his toes. “So maybe you can help keep me on task. I have a tendency to wander off and read books that have nothing to do with my classes.”

I tip my head. “But what if I want to hear more about the Lost Colony?”

There’s a vein of shyness in his laugh. “It would be better for my grades if you pretend you don’t.”

This is an odd reversal. I’m used to feigning interest in what a guy talks about, not hiding it. Besides, I don’t think I can pretend with Leo. I don’t think I want to. That’s what’s so refreshing about him.

We set a date for Wednesday evening.

No, not a date. We’re just friends.

“Goodnight, Betts.”

“Goodnight. Thanks for walking me home.”

I catch his wave before I run up the steps to my dorm.