Free Rosethorn by Ava Zavora Page B

does that mean?”
    “It means that he just wants to get you into-" 
    “Into what, Andrew?”
    “Nothing. It’s a line, Sera. He was feeding you lines and you were eating it up. ‘Ooooh, you’re breathtaking.'" He mocked, "'Ooooh, your eyes, your lips.’ It’s a bunch of crap." Andrew yanked the gardenia from her hair and threw it on the floor.
    “Oh, right. You’re right. How stupid of me to think that someone would find me pretty. He had to have been giving me a line because I’m so damn ugly, why would anyone want to paint a picture of me?"
    Sera slammed a chafing dish down, then strode to the sink, and started to rinse the dishes with a vengeance.
    “Don’t try and turn this around on me, Sera. That’s not what I said. And whether he was feeding you lines or not, it still doesn’t change the fact that you were about to let him kiss you!" Andrew’s face was two inches from hers, red with unabated anger.
    She stopped washing the dishes and turned to him.
    “Nothing would have happened. Believe me. He’s not the one I want to kiss."
    They looked at each other without moving, without saying anything.  Then Andrew took the plate from her hand and swiftly placed it in the sink, putting his arm around her waist and pulling her to him.
    He bent his head.
    “Sera?" Miss Haviland called out from the dining room.
    They quickly jumped apart as Miss Haviland walked in.
    “Your grandmother’s here to pick you up, dear."
    Their eyes met, crestfallen.
    “Okay." She sighed, defeated, still looking at him. “See you later."
    He said nothing as she turned to go.
    *****
    That night, as she had every night for two weeks, Sera paced her room, unable to calm herself down. Her heart beat too fast, her face was too hot. She was in a raging fever. She put her pillow over her face and screamed as loud as she could into its muffled softness. She wrote in her journal all her pent up frustration but sickened of writing the same thing over and over again.
    So completely absorbed was she in her agony that Sera did not at first hear the little taps. When she did hear it, she wondered if it was raining, until she realized that the sounds were from tiny pebbles being thrown at her window. She rushed to her window, pushed the curtain aside and looked out.
    Andrew was standing on the driveway to her house, looking up at her. His bike lay at his feet, his upturned face lit by the moon.
    Sera quickly climbed onto her desk and slid open her window. She wondered if he could see her face, if he had somehow known that what she had wanted most of all was to see him.
    He disappeared under the carport and re-appeared at the edge of her patio gate. He pulled himself up and sat on top of the tall fence, then clambered on top of the carport.
    Sera’s heart quickened, wondering if his footsteps only sounded loud to her. She looked over at her closed door, hoping that her grandmother wouldn’t wake up, wouldn’t hear.
    Andrew had made his way to the roof of the storage adjoining the first floor of townhouse. He was as near as he could possibly be - there was nowhere to step onto so that he could edge his way to her open window.
    “Take off the screen,” he whispered loudly.
    “What are you going to do?”
    “Just take it off."
    Sera carefully unlatched the dusty screen and propped it next to her desk. Then holding onto her window frame, she leaned out and strained towards Andrew.
    “You’re too far away,” She whispered, frustrated.
    “Move back,” he commanded.
    Sera went back into her room. With his heels still on the edge of the storage roof, Andrew stretched his long body to catch a hold of the window ledge, his face stubborn with concentration.
    Frightened, Sera leaned out again, “No, don’t, you’ll fall!  We’ve waited two weeks, we can wait one more night."
    With his fingers grasping the ledge, Andrew swung so that he was dangling from her window. The ground seemed a long way down.
    Sera put her hands on her mouth to