Free Residue by Laury Falter Page A

acknowledgement and Nolan took a step forward, reminding me of a soldier advancing toward his enemy.
    Oscar’s hand came up and stopped Nolan at the chest before asking, “Jocelyn, were you harmed?”
    “ No,” I replied, shocked he’d even think to ask the question. “No, not at all. Jameson was…”
    Nolan pressed his chest against Oscar’s hand when I hesitated, ready to break through it toward Jameson’s side of the line.
    “ Was what?” Estelle prompted.
    I met Jameson’s eyes again. The intensity in them made me hesitate. He was waiting to see how I’d characterize him.
    “ Well…he was a complete gentleman.”
    This seemed to placate both sides. Nolan lessened his pressure against Oscar’s hand and those standing on both sides of Jameson dropped their shoulders.
    I got the sense this interaction was about to break up when Vinnia, petite and childlike Vinnia, stepped forward to direct a threat at Jameson. “Stay away from her or you will regret it, Caldwell.”
    My cousins began to turn and head down the hall, the fight deterred for the time being, when my subconscious registered the name she’d used.
    I repeated it slowly. “Caldwell?”
    Then I was piecing it all together from the depths of my awareness, his last name screaming through my mind. It was the name of the family who had repressed and endangered the Weatherfords for centuries, the name of our mortal enemy. And it was the name he had not disclosed yesterday when he’d asked for mine.
    Jameson remained firm, his expression never flinching and intently trained on me.
    “ You’re…” I swallowed hard, the words barely making it passed my throat. “You’re a Caldwell?”
    “ We’re all Caldwells,” Charlotte spat vehemently, motioning to the line on both sides of her. Apparently, from her point of view, I should have known this already.
    “ Easy, Charlotte,” Jameson warned again.
    She drew in a sharp breath, offended. “You spend the whole day with a Weatherford… knowing she’s a Weatherford…endangering yourself…all of us…and you’re telling me to take it easy?”
    “ No one got hurt,” he mumbled, contentious, his mouth downturned.
    “ Not yet…” seethed another one of the girls from his side, one with clear green eyes like Jameson, framed with long dark lashes. Right now they were narrowed and pointed at me.
    No one spoke for several seconds and only then did I notice that we’d drawn a crowd. Somewhere inside the swarm people were whispering.
    “… starting another fight…”
    “… always at it. Can’t they just get along?”
    “ Wonder what they’re gonna do this time.”
    Then Oscar’s voice rose above the rest. “Let’s go, Weatherfords.”
    This time, I turned with them to move toward the classrooms, noting that by accident or with intent they’d formed a circle around me.
    “ That went well,” I muttered sarcastically and heard a few of my cousins chuckle.
    “ You can hold your own,” Estelle pointed out, playfully elbowing me.
    I avoided it and used the motion to do a visual sweep of the boundary my cousins made. I lingered briefly on the Caldwells who stayed in place watching us leave.
    While most of them gradually returned to what they’d been doing before, opening their lockers, digging through their notebooks, Jameson stayed focused on me.
    The rigidity in his face had loosened. He no longer seemed alert, tense. But there was something in his expression that I couldn’t deny.
    He looked disappointed.
    That caught me off guard. Here was my enemy who, for every sane reason, should be glaring at my back but he wasn’t. It didn’t make sense. None of it did. Thinking back over the hours we’d spent together, even after he’d learned that I was a Weatherford, he’d remained friendly, even flirtatious at times. He’d diverted the attention of his family when we nearly met them on the street, which I had a feeling was to help me avoid the tense meeting that had just taken place.