These Lying Eyes (2 page)

“How am I supposed to get to school?” Mina asked.

“The bus stops at the end of the lane, Love. You have plenty of time to catch it.” Her mom dodged Mina’s eyes again.

Her mom was serious. Mina rejected the stab of utter betrayal and blinked quickly, refusing her eyes the chance to tear. She didn’t bother to shoot a pleading glance at her mom. Mina couldn’t take another no from her mother, another rejection of what Mina needed over what everyone else needed, and a no is what she’d get. So, it was her turn to avoid her mother’s eyes and grab an apple.

She paused for a moment before opening the drawer next to the door, finding a set of keys at the back of it, and palming them. She glanced back, saw her mom hadn’t noticed, and left silently.

Sounding genuinely worried, her mom called out, “You can’t just eat an apple, Mina.”

But, she didn’t pause in her escape. So, she hadn’t managed to gain any weight since the gym teacher called her parents to tell them she was too thin. She ignored her mom’s second call; yes, she planned to buy lunch at school, but right now, her mom didn’t need to know that. Let her worry about Mina for once.

* * *

She stepped out onto the patio, swung around, and opened the outer garage door. Quietly taking a helmet from a wide metal shelf, she caught movement from the corner of her eye, turned around, and gasped.

“Holy Shiz, Sarah! What are you doing? You gave me a heart attack.”

“That’s probably because you’re sneaking the scooter.” Her sister said dryly but almost as if she were talking through a tunnel.

Mina grinned until she saw her normally pale sister was almost glow in the dark white. With a rush of concern, Mina snapped on the light and looked her sister over. Sarah was nearly as thin as Mina, with peaches and cream skin, hair so blonde it was looked white, and warm pools of dark brown eyes. She was only in the seventh grade but already Sarah was more elegant and controlled than Mina would ever be.

“What’s wrong with your eyes?” Mina asked. Sarah was blinking rapidly, and as one of the few people Mina liked, let alone loved, Mina was worried.

“Are you ok?” Mina asked, touching her sister’s arm. “Are you sick?”

Sarah rubbed her eyes and shook her head.

“Why are you in pajamas? Aren’t you going to school? Are you sure you’re ok?”

“What? Yes.” Sarah ran her hands over her face. “I…I was looking for something.”

Mina stared at her suspiciously before saying, “Ok.”

“I didn’t sleep well.” Sarah opened the door and helped Mina push the apple green scooter out of the garage. “Kate checked the mileage before she went to school.”

Their older sister didn’t relish sharing her things, even when she was away. Which was unfortunate for her.

Mina grinned at Sarah before saying, “She’ll never know.”

“Um,” Sarah glanced at Mina before darting a glance around the house and waving Mina on, “that’s why she checked the mileage.”

“But she’ll never know it was me.” Mina smirked.

Sarah grinned back with a shrug. Mina left Sarah behind, pushing the scooter down their driveway past the leafless rotting trees that lined the way.

“Nervous?” Zizi asked.

“No.” Mina lied before admitting, “Yes. Damn it.”

She would be alone most of the day. Even if Peter had lunch with her, she’d be tagging along. No one would talk to her, no one would nod at her or touch her shoulder or shout, “hey,” as though excited to see her. She would, yet again, be the unseen kid that everyone else was grateful
not to be
.

“Work on your extra classes,” Poppy suggested.

Hitched landed on the edge of her messenger bag and said, “Find someone who isn’t a jerk and have lunch with them.”

“Right.” Mina said as if that were so easy.

“Go visit Grace today. Get some books from her. Have some tea with her,” Zizi suggested.

“I have to see the doc after school.” Mina said as she straddled the scooter and put on her helmet. “But then I’m going to the library. Grace has books for me on legends, for my extra classes.”

“Plus you don’t want to come home too early.” Hitch said, and Mina nodded.

They watched the bus arrive, each of them glaring at the bus stop. Mina snapped the strap under her chin, remembering how she’d once told her mom how much she hated riding the bus. And what had Mom said?
The bus stops at the end of the road, love.

No wonder Mina had a complex. She sped down the road. Even so, the sprites leaving her behind, disappearing into towering trees and going wherever they went when they weren’t with her.

Chapter 2

Mina parked the scooter near the end of the school and watched the mass of people meeting up with their friends; they were hugging and bouncing in flip flops despite the wet chill in the air.

She had followed the windy road down from her hillside home above Ocean Haven, enjoying the feel of the air slapping around her body. Ocean Haven was one of the larger towns on the Oregon Coast extending from the hills to the beach. The downtown was lined with cobblestone streets and accented by old-fashioned street lamps. If she were to get off the scooter and walk towards the town, she’d be able to lose herself in eclectic shops, restaurants, art galleries. And how she wanted to, she ached to join the tourists that still haunted the town, buy some yummy food, and find a sunny bench.

Shadows from the skyscraper trees flickered off her face for a moment, and then she realized it wasn’t the trees at all. It was flying lizards the size of house cats. Mina didn’t look up as one shot fire at the other, nor did she react when one landed on the fence bordering the football field only a few feet away.

Instead, she took slow deep breaths, counting to ten, cursing the shrink as she got off the scooter. She turned towards the school, and her gray eyes met with startling blue ones. Large, beautiful eyes flashing with humor. Was he laughing at her? He was so amazingly gorgeous he couldn’t be doing anything else. She took a deep breath. It wasn’t going to bother her, she told herself.

“Nice t-shirt.” He said. “Mind if I join you?” The boy spoke with deep voice, and it sent a shiver down her spine. Stop it, she thought and responded with a shrug.

He shifted his back pack, pacing next to her.

Didn’t he know? Surely there was something on her forehead—don’t bother with me, it would say; I don’t have friends, and I might be a little looney tunes. No one else had ever had trouble recognizing it—that sign right there on her face.

She told herself to not gawk at him.

“How’s it goin’?” he asked, grinning at her as if he was expecting another reaction. Maybe he wasn’t talking to her, even though his eyes met hers. Mina looked behind her, but no one was there. Was she supposed to know him?

“Ok.” Mina finally answered, shifting her bag and squinting her eyes against a sudden flash of the sun.

He rubbed his brow and continued to grin at her. Perfect white teeth flashed, but she was distracted by a dimple on his left cheek. Holy Shiz, Mina thought, he may be the most perfect boy I’ve ever seen.

And, still he watched at her expectantly.

“Do I know you?” Mina asked.

His grin faded for a moment, and Mina felt a rush of inexplicable guilt. But, he grinned again. Relief flooded her; she wasn’t even sure why. He needed to stop smiling so much; she couldn’t think when he grinned. She absentmindedly rubbed the back of her head.

“I followed you around in Miss Jenkins’s class and then in Mr. Spiegel’s.” Still with the ever-present grin; it was making her all weak-kneed.

Her cheeks flamed an embarrassing red she could feel to her toes, and she couldn’t help but hope her thoughts were spreading across her face as vibrantly. Mina searched her mind. When had she ever known anyone as beautiful as him?

“Like a puppy.” He laughed; his dimples flashed, but his eyes rested on her too-bright face.

And, suddenly she remembered.

He’d been little. In the same grade, but tiny; smaller even than her. He chased after her and her cousins as they raced through the woods behind the grade school. He used to smile at her flashing dimples and crooked teeth as he showed her his favorite book or gave her a pretty rock. She remembered his daily, squeaky, “Hey Mina!” She could hear his voice again, full of excitement every time he spoke to her; she felt his hand in her as she pulled him up behind her to climb trees.

Mina’s heart skipped, but her legs recovered their strength. The image of her old, awkward friend overlaid this handsome pseudo-stranger.

“Max?” She couldn’t hold back her own grin.

He nodded. It was
Max.

“You moved…you’re back?” She bounced on her toes before she wrapped him in her arms, squeezing him tight. “Max!”

How could his return not fill her with delight? He’d been her little buddy.

“Do you remember the frog?” He asked. Even his voice grinned, just like it always had.

“We named him Herbert,” she laughed, startled by her sheer excitement to see him. They passed through the doors to the school, and she didn’t even care.

“I used to go back to where we left him and leave flies and stuff.”

“Me too.” She added, and the shadows of the day fled despite the dark hallways.

“Mina. Mina. Mina.” Max repeated almost as if he savored saying her name again. “I was just remembering trick or treating that last year—when we were both superman?”

She nodded, and they revisited memory after memory in a rush, almost unable to help themselves. It was as if the shadows of their former selves were there.

“Remember swimming in the creek?”

“Totally, remember the tire swing by the creepy trees.”

“And the time we landed in the poison oak?”

“Oh my gosh, I’d forgotten. Remember the time we made brownies with salt for Hailey and them?”

“Man, I laughed for days over that.”

The grinned at each other with the shadows of their old selves dancing around them. Mina, still tiny, still overburdened with her mop of hair. Max, smaller still, squeaky.

They laughed until Max brought out his class schedule, “Spent the summer at camp, so I missed that whole orientation day,” he pulled her out of her thoughts with a laugh that didn’t reach his eyes. “So now I get to wander around the school, trying to find my classes, and pretend high school doesn’t freak me out.” His voice had the slightest tinge of anger.

She
so
identified. “We can wander together,” she pushed her hair behind her ear and tried not to bite her lip. “I don’t know where I’m going either.”

Max waved his schedule, asking, “Where’s yours?”

Mina produced her own and bit her lips to remind herself to not see Poppy flying down the hallway towards them. The sprite landed on Mina’s shoulder and said, “Zizi and Hitch went home for the day.”

Mina didn’t react as she and Max discovered they had English, Health, Geometry, and Horticulture together. The first class, the two classes after lunch, separate study halls, and the last class. If he turned out to be the old wonderful Max, their schedules couldn’t be more perfect.

“You got stuck in horticulture too, huh?”

“Everyone wants that class.” Mina said surprised, “You have to be a junior or senior or know someone to get in. It’s supposed to actually be fun. You do nature walks. And y’know, mess around in the school gardens. The teacher’s really awesome. How did you get in, if you don’t want it?” As she spoke, she adjusted her hair, so Poppy wasn’t sitting in a forest of it.

“All the classes were full. I missed the scheduling day too. But the counselor said that the teacher could just get over being above the limit. I guess she gets kind of weird about it.” He tapped her shoe with his toe, and still he grinned at her.

She grinned back, unable to help herself and found she didn’t want to.

“I can’t believe Max is back,” Poppy squealed as Max spoke.

“How did you manipulate your way in?” he asked as Mina tried not to react to Poppy.

“It’s super nerdy, but I’ve been pals with the town librarian for a while. She got me in cause she’s the teacher’s sister. She said I needed some more sunshine.”

“I remember.” Max said. “Grace, right? She only ever gave me cookies if you were there.” Max grinned; the dimples flashed, and then he teased, “You didn’t want to take wood shop?”

“Please, I’d cut off my finger.” She said, and a sort of auto pilot took over. Before she knew what was happening, she was joking, laughing with him, amazed that she wasn’t dreaming, amazed that they were able to talk about something other than their past. Mina pinched her shoulder, but she didn’t wake from this dream.

Max poked fun at Mina, and she tried not to let her jaw drop too often while, just for these moments, she was her old self again. She felt her soul settle comfortably where it wanted to be.

As each chuckle escaped, the feeling of dread she’d had all morning lightened. It was so strange to walk through school with someone. Like she had a friend, only she realized it was better. Max knew the old Mina, and when he laughed
with
her, the old Mina stretched luxuriously in the sunshine of his smile.

* * *

“Do you have any idea where our class is?” Max asked as they passed classroom after classroom with no discernable order.

Mina shook her head, frustrated, but…happy.

“Oh, there’s my brother.” She said, stopping and finding an angry shout escaping before she could hold it back, “Hey, you big jerk! You were my ride.”

Erik grinned at her. Thank goodness her oldest brother was at college cause one brother to deal with was too much.

She scowled at him. It wasn’t fair that he was too big to shove into that locker—the lumbering idiot. Erik peered over his shoulder, eyes resting on Max, before turning back to his things. Mina peeked at Max too; she should probably contain the certain-to-fail violence while he was watching. But then, Erik turned to smirk at her, and her vision turned red, clouding her gaze. He might be three times her size, but she would force him to tell her how to find English—and she would get revenge.