Free Othersphere by Nina Berry Page A

of bales of hay and tree branches. We’d come back from class one day to find that the boys had constructed their own Monopoly set using cardboard and colored pens. A bemused Lazar had never seen one before, and they were teaching him all about real estate, the hard way. I had a strong vision in my head of how Lazar would be with his own sons—bemused, loving, so careful to be the opposite of his own father.
    And he flirted with me, always opening the door for me, helping me when it was my turn to clean the kitchen or take out the garbage. Every time he did it, my spirit would lift, my pulse would speed up. November made sarcastic comments about it in the girls’ dorm room at night, but I didn’t know how to respond. I missed Caleb so much I ached. Lazar’s attention sometimes made me forget that ache. Maybe I wouldn’t go through my whole life alone. Maybe I wasn’t a complete failure at being a girl, and a girlfriend.
    Then during our first week after Siku’s death, during an exercise where Morfael made us wade upstream through an ankle-deep creek, feeling for places where the veil was thin, I’d slipped on a mossy rock. I would have fallen and gotten completely soaked, except that Lazar was instantly at my side to grab my elbow with a firm, steady hand, the other hand on my waist.
    It was the first time anyone had touched me since the night Siku died. I’d had good crying sessions with Mom via video conference, but at school we were all just wandering around in our own isolated haze, going through the motions. Now here was a warm, living person holding me, keeping me from falling, supporting me.
    I nearly collapsed right into him. I’d nearly asked him to pick me up and carry me away to somewhere safe, somewhere that grief didn’t drip from every word, where no one mourned or blamed.
    Instead, I fumbled to gain my footing and slipped again, falling hard against his chest. The contours of his body were strangely familiar under my hands, but he smelled different from Caleb, more like soap and amber than thunderstorm. I’d wanted to wrap my arms around him and bury my face in his neck, to pretend, for a moment, to find comfort there.
    His heartbeat had sped up; his hands tightened around my body. His pupils dilated, and he smiled. Our faces had been close, our lips inches apart, and the ache inside me had changed from a great dragging weight into a light, soaring, burning thing.
    We hadn’t kissed. It was too soon for that. He’d set me carefully on my feet, laughing. We navigated that river side by side, steadying each other. And as we walked back to the school, he took my hand.
    We strolled like that until we reached the school. We even let go at the same time, just before we walked inside. I’d spent the rest of the day quietly smiling to myself. It had progressed slowly from there, with him always patient, deferring to my reticence, but hinting at better things to come.
    Until yesterday. I blushed just thinking about it, wondering what would happen next.
    What would Caleb do if he found out?
    The thought dragged at me. The others in the school had eventually figured it out. But no one had said much. We were all preoccupied with loss. Grief had drawn a boundary of silence between us. Except for me and Lazar.
    Lazar still hadn’t given any outward sign we were together, but Caleb was no fool. He might already suspect. I tried to keep my responses to Lazar’s chatter as innocuous as possible as we drove. If Caleb left because of me being with Lazar, then it would really be my fault that the group of friends, the team, had disintegrated.
    And I couldn’t imagine never seeing Caleb again.
    We reached Livermore late in the afternoon, stopped off for some fast food, and coasted slowly down Cherry Drive after dusk.
    It reminded me a bit of the neighborhood where I’d grown up in Burbank. The trees here were smaller, the houses newer, and thus even more