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“You’re,” she starts, and then waves her hand up and down my body, “you’reyou. No chinks in your armor.”
I turn her words over for a few minutes, looking at them carefully, like each is an exquisite gem I’ve just found. I covet Angela’s thoughts on everything, but especially those that relate to me. I hoard them like a dragon. One time in eleventh grade, I caught her staring at me at the beach, and in a moment of weakness, she admitted that she thought my eyes looked nice in the sun.
I have repeated that compliment to myself every time I need a little pick-me-up for the last ten years.
“I’ve got plenty of chinks,” I say to her. “You just have to know where to look.”
“That doesn’t count. Not if you’ve disguised them,” she mutters.
“There’s one I’ve never quite been able to hide, Ange,” I say, flashing her a grin.
“What is it?” she demands.
“You’ll have to try and find it.”
“Whatever,” she says, and rolls onto her side, facing the wall.
Okay, conversation over, I guess. That’s fine. I can handle it. At least we had an entire conversation without her getting pissed at me. Or running away.
One good thing about the situation we’re in is that there’s nowhere we can hide from each other. That thought makes me grin, even as I dig into my dinner of half a protein bar.
7
ANGELA
I stareat my face in the mirror under the dim lighting of the cabin’s tiny bathroom. The mirror itself is so cheap it’s like a funhouse mirror, distorting my features as I move away from it and only showing my true features when I’m up close.
My skin is pale, there are bags under my eyes, and my curly hair is starting to frizz. I blew it out yesterday morning but it got damp in the rain, and that’s all it takes. I take it out of the ponytail it’s been in and shake it out. The curls are coming back to life. I’m not wearing any makeup because we were going for a hike, but I guess that’s okay. It would be wrecked by now anyways, and I don’t have any makeup remover with me. All the owner of the cabin has in here is a tube of toothpaste (thank God) and some hand soap.
Sadly, I still care what Carter Steel thinks of my appearance, so I pinch my cheeks to make them appear less deathly pale, like I’m some sort of heroine in a regency romance novel. I take one last look and decide that’s as good as I’m getting.
I walk back into the main room of the cabin and find Carter lying on his back in bed, flicking a coin into the air and catching it as it falls back down. Our entertainment options are prettylimited in here, so I go to sit by the window. It’s still storming outside.
I can barely make out the ocean through the storm, even though this cabin looks out over it. The whole world is blanketed in gray—gray clouds, gray cliffs, gray sea. Even the pine trees, now coated in ice and snow, are mere dark wisps in the landscape.
It’s beautiful, though. I’ve never really seen a storm like this. Not up close, anyway. Usually my moms and I cuddle up in the den when there’s a storm, watching endless movies and eating snacks.
It’s also really, really cold. The cabin is clearly not well insulated, and the wind whistles through it, cutting through the silence between Carter and I. Our conversation earlier only has me more confused.
Carter Steel claims to have a chink in his armor. A weakness. He actually admitted that to me. I’m going to make it my goal to find it, I vow to myself. If only to see the shock on his face when I figure it out.
And also, I’m curious. What makes this man weak? Is it his PhD? Is he worried about academic success? He certainly seemed stressed about it when we spoke about it yesterday. But no, he’s probably just worried about finishing it. I doubt he’s actually unsure about the research. I remember being in class with Carter in high school. He was never the first hand up, no, that’s too obvious for him. He’d wait it out, seeing what his classmates said, how they fumbled to get to the right answer, and then he’d raise his hand, and smugly make his point, which was always correct, brilliant, and far above what everyone else in the class had come up with. I used to roll my eyes at it, but I secretly found his intelligence kind of hot.
A man like that won’t be feeling vulnerable about the quality of his academic work. Unless he’s had a personality transplant.It must be something else. I wrap my arms around myself and continue to consider it as I stare outside.
“Cold?” Carter asks.
“A bit,” I admit, though as I say it, I start to shiver. “Argh, I should have worn more layers.”
“It was sunny when we left Acadia, and you are wearing long sleeves,” he says.
And then I feel something brush my shoulders. The blanket from the futon—Carter is draping it around me.
“May I?” he asks, his voice cracking a bit.
I nod.
He wraps the blanket around me, and then comes around my front, and tucks the edges in. His hands come to rest on my shoulders, and I can feel the warmth coming off of him. Carter Steel feels as warm as a roaring fire, despite the cold and wind outside.
