Free The Watchers by Lynnie Purcell

things you
wouldn’t figure me for,” I retorted.
    I walked even faster, feeling self-conscious
despite myself. I didn’t know where to put my hands suddenly. They
searched for a home, nothing feeling comfortable. I settled for
shoving them into my coat pockets.
    Daniel chuckled at my words. I looked over at
him and saw he was looking at me strangely. “Seriously, where are
you going? Can I give you a ride?”
    “What is this, some kind of outreach program
or something?”
    “What do you mean?”
    I stopped walking and faced him, my hands
finding a familiar home on my hips. My sour mood and the circling
voices in my head had me speaking my mind without thought. “It’s
been my experience that guys like you don’t pay attention to people
like me unless you A. want something, B. want to pull a prank or do
something mean, or three feel sorry for me.”
    “You said three instead of C.”
    “I know…”
    “If you’re going to list something, you
should do a proper job of it,” he said.
    “You’re very odd.”
    I started walking again, realizing he wasn’t
going to answer my accusation. Was it, ‘D.’ none of the above? As I
started walking the voices in my head lowered perceptibly then cut
off completely as if my talent had suddenly found its kryptonite.
All I heard was his voice and the occasional, normal, sound of the
residents of King’s Cross going about their lives.
    “You just met me,” Daniel said.
    “Doesn’t mean you’re not strange.”
    “True.”
    After a moment of that strange, blissful,
silence, he said, “So, really, where are we going?”
    Now it was “we.”
    “I don’t know…I’m just walking.”
    “I like to just walk, sometimes.”
    “Sometimes?”
    “Well, who likes to walk all the time?”
    “Marathon walkers?”
    “There’s no such thing.”
    “According to you.”
    “According to everyone, Clare.”
    I peeked over at him again, a little startled
by his familiarity, and the way he said my name. “Can I ask you a
question?”
    “Yes.”
    “I don’t mean to be rude, but you don’t
really seem…”
    “Generic, mindless, and full of my own
self-importance?” he asked
    “Like a football player.”
    He laughed and rolled his eyes.
    “How’d that happen?” I asked archly.
    While he was certainly athletic, his vibe was
very different from that of the average football player. It just
didn’t seem to fit him.
    “Sometimes, the best defense is a good
offense, Clare.” His smooth voice was light, but I sensed he was
serious. “In my case, a good offense means playing on the football
team.”
    “I don’t know what that means.”
    “Not everything is as it appears.”
    I snorted. “You can say that again.”
    “Not everything is as it appears,” he
repeated.
    It was my turn to laugh.
    “Don’t you have a car or something to get
back to?” I asked.
    We had made another turn onto a side street
going away from the downtown. I was certain he hadn’t parked this
far away. It was rude, but I couldn’t help the feeling he was
acting interested because, like Mark, he thought I was loose. I
wished I was better at really reading people, without the thoughts,
like Alex seemed to be.
    “Are you trying to get rid of me?”
    “Yes.” I shook my head knowing that wasn’t
true. “No. Look, I’m not really very good with people being
this…”
    “Attentive?”
    “Yes.”
    “Because you’ve perfected the art of blending
into the background. Your looks have always insured people never
really see you. People see the illusion you’ve created, instead of
the reality. You don’t know how to handle people being interested
in you beyond the novelty of your perceived oddness.”
    I hugged my arms against my chest not liking
how accurate that sounded. Had he somehow crawled into my head
while I wasn’t looking? “Sounds to me like you’ve taken Psych
101.”
    “I’ll take that to mean I’m right.”
    “I like my privacy. Is that wrong?”
    “Nope.”
    He looked