Free Collide by Alyson Kent Page A

, I wanted to
say, It’s the fact that whenever you touch
me I get a feeling of ‘wrong’ so strong that it takes everything I
have to not bolt out the door .
    “It’s all right, you just surprised me,” I
said instead.
    “Is this normal for her?” he asked. “The
random shoving, that is.”
    “Huh?”
    “Your friend Maria, is she usually the type
to shove someone during an argument?”
    “How do you know about that?”
    “One of my teammate’s girlfriend’s saw what
happened,” he said.
    I was quiet for a moment as I finished off my
burger and started on my shake. “No,” I finally said. “Maria isn’t,
or wasn’t, the type to get physically violent, no matter how
deserving the other individual may be. Heaven knows I’ve deserved a
good slapping more than once over the years, but she’s never been
the type to raise her hand in anger. That’s more my area of
expertise.”
    “Has something happened between you two?”
    “No, other than her missing week,” I
replied.
    “She missed a week of school?” he asked and
his eyebrows rocketed to his hairline. “Was she sick?”
    I blinked at him. “Noooooo, she was missing
for a week and doesn’t remember what happened. Vanished one night
and was gone for about seven days, then walked into her parents
house claiming no memory of what had happened.”
    “When was this?”
    “You’re serious,” I said. He honestly had no
idea what I was talking about, it was plain on his face that he was
completely baffled by what I was saying.
    “I’m very serious, when was this?”
    “It was about four weeks ago . . .,” I
trailed off when he nodded.
    “Ah, I wasn’t here then, I had gone to visit
my brother, who was looking to transfer into Boston University next
year.”
    Oh, that’s right. I remembered now that he
had been absent that week, as well, some kind of special permission
from the school since he wasn’t going to be able to travel back to
Japan for the holidays due to timing and flight schedules and other
things that tended to make my head hurt.
    “So, she changed after this ‘missing week’ of
hers?”
    “Yeah, she did,” I said and furrowed my
eyebrows as the skin between them began to prickle slightly. It
felt like ants were crawling over my forehead. Weird.
    “How did she change?”
    “She just did,” I said, angry at his
intrusion into something that he should have been told about when
he returned. I really didn’t want to go another round with my own
suspicions about Maria’s change. Besides, it really was none of his
business. “Why are you so interested anyway?”
    “Because you’ve also changed in the last few
weeks.”
    Ok, that one derailed me.
    “Huh?”
    “You’ve become more . . . what’s the word,
pulling back? Oh, withdrawn and you don’t smile as much,
either.”
    I stared at him and couldn’t decide what
emotion to settle on. There was annoyance over his interest in
Maria, irritation at myself for being so obvious about my own
stress levels, or the strange, happy, bubbly feeling at the thought
that he had been paying close enough attention to notice that I was
stressed. I quickly popped that one and settled on irritated.
    “Look,” I said and pulled out my wallet to
plunk enough money down to cover my meal plus tip next to my plate.
“Whatever is going on with Maria is between her and me and doesn’t
require outside interference.”
    He held up his hands in the universal
placating gesture and inclined his head slightly. “All right, all
right, just wondered if her disappearance might have something to
do with her suddenly shoving someone who was supposed to be her
best friend, no need to get so defensive.”
    “Look, I gotta get back to work. I’m going to
keep these books for a few days, but if you want to borrow the
Cherokee mythology one, let me know and I can work out something
with Mr. Baker.”
    “All right.” He stood with me, set his own
money down next to his plate and followed me out the door.