The Fallen Star (Fallen Star Series) Read online

  “So do you want to know what I think is funny.” Alex flopped down on the floor next to me without a book. “That we chose our project based on what would be the quickest and easiest, yet I think out of the entire class, we’ve probably gotten the least accomplished.”

  I skimmed the list of titles in the index. “That might be because we skipped out yesterday.”

  “Yeah…maybe.” He paused. “So what is it?”

  I looked up at him, perplexed. “So what is what?”

  “Your fascination with astronomy.” He leaned against the shelf behind him, creating a domino effect with a row of books. “I mean, you’ve got to have some kind of interest in it since you chose to take this class.”

  “I guess.” I closed the Milky Way book. “Well, what’s your fascination with it?”

  He smiled a smile that lit up his whole face. “An easy A.”

  I rolled my eyes and exchanged the Milky Way book for one that said it was about planet locations. As I turned back around, I spotted a blond girl bouncing her way up the aisle toward us. It was Kelsey Merritt. Great. I was sooo not in the mood to deal with her right now.

  She wore a short pleated skirt and a pink sweater. She stopped just short of us, her gaze wandering between Alex and me like she was trying to make some kind of connection as to why we’d be sitting here alone together.

  I couldn’t really blame her, though. I probably would have been trying to make the connection too.

  She shot me a dirty look before flashing a smile at Alex. “Hey, mind if I get back in there,” she asked, pointing her perfectly manicured finger at the row of books between Alex and me. “I need to get a book.”

  “Sure.” Alex scooted closer to me so that we were almost touching. “Go ahead.”

  Of course Kelsey took it upon herself to invade Alex’s personal space, kneeling down so close to him that her arm was practically resting on his leg. He moved over more, his shoulder pressing into mine. I froze, knowing I should probably slide over and give him some room, but I couldn’t seem to find the motivation to do so. Instead, I sat there, my body humming. Beside me, I could feel Alex stiffen, but he didn’t move away. I felt his eyes on me, watching me. I turned my head slowly toward him, and our eyes met. What happened next, I couldn’t tell you? My mind tuned out and didn’t come back into focus until I heard Kelsey’s very loud and obnoxious voice—didn’t she know this was a library?

  “So what do you think?” she asked.

  Alex and I blinked simultaneously liked we’d both just come out of the same dream.

  Very reluctantly, he looked over at Kelsey. “Huh?”

  Taken aback by Alex’s irritated tone, Kelsey eyes went wide. “About the project,” she said, fumbling to pull a book off of the shelf.

  Alex raised his eyebrows at her. “What about it?”

  Now she looked extremely upset, probably because it was the first time she’d been blown off by a guy. “That it’s such a waste of time.”

  Alex shrugged. “It’s not that bad.”

  Kelsey tossed her hair off of her shoulder. “Yeah, I guess it’s not that bad. But don’t you think it would’ve been better if we could have chosen the people we worked on it with.” She shot a smirk at me.

  I glared at her.

  “Not really,” Alex said dully.

  “Oh. Well. Yeah. I guess.” She tucked a book beneath arm, got to her feet, and fixed me with another dirty look.

  I don’t know if it was the electricity, or Alex’s shoulder still pressed up against mine, but I suddenly felt possessed to put her in her place. “What the heck is your problem?”

  I threw her off a little, a beat of silence skipping by before she found something to say back. “You’re my problem,” she said and stormed off, her hair swinging across her back.

  I smiled at myself. Yeah, I know, I am supposed to rise above it and be better than her, blah, blah, blah. But I’d been putting up with her crap for way too long.

  “That was a little out of character for you,” Alex commented, sliding away from me.

  The space made me feel empty inside. “I think it was about time, though.”

  “Was it?” he mumbled to himself.

  He could be so weird sometimes.

  “So you never answered my question,” he said, selecting a random book off of the shelf.

  “What question?”

  “What your fascination with astronomy is?”

  “Oh, that.” I fiddled with the edges of the pages of the book I was holding. I wasn’t sure if I felt comfortable sharing the reason with him. It was kind of personal, especially because it was connected so closely to the prickle. The first time I’d ever been truly happy was when I’d looked up at the stars. But if I told him that, I might come off sounding a little strange.

  “Well, I guess it’s because the stars are so peaceful and mysterious and beautiful.” I met his eyes, which made me lose my train of thought and I ended up babbling. “Sometimes I wish I could be up there in the sky with them.”

  His face dropped in horror, and I instantly regretted what I’d said.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Did I say something…” Weird.

  He shoved the book he had in his hand back on the shelf and stood up. “I think I…I left my phone in my bag.” Then he practically sprinted off toward the table area.

  I swallowed hard. I never should’ve opened my mouth. I really, really shouldn’t have.

  I hung out in the astronomy section by myself until the bell rang. Then I went over to the table, carrying a few books I’d randomly pulled off of the shelf. To my surprise, Alex was there. I thought he’d left, but there he was, his phone pressed to his ear.

  “Yes. Uh huh. I will,” he said. Seeing me, he quickly added, “I have to go.” He hung up and shoved his phone into the pocket of his jeans. “So how much longer do you think it’s going to take for us to get this assignment finished?”

  I set my books down on the table and shrugged, slightly irked by his brush off attitude. “I don’t know. Like you said, we really haven’t gotten much done.”

  “No we haven’t.” He slipped on his jacket and zipped it up. “Okay, so here’s what I’m thinking. Maybe I should come over to your house after school so we can try to finish it up.”

  Huh? “You want to come over to my house?” He wanted to come over to my house. My house. I’d never had anyone over at my house. Ever. Especially some gorgeous guy who had the gift of making my mind go blank just by looking at me.

  “Yeah.” He spoke slowly, like I was slow, which he probably thought I was. “Is there something wrong with your house?”

  “No,” I said, which was sort of a lie. There was something wrong with my house. For starters, Sophia was there. “It's just that right now my grandmother and I are going through a…weird phase.”

  Weird phase? I sounded like an idiot.

  He cocked an eyebrow, seeming amused. “What kind of phase?”

  What kind of phase? What would be the best way to explain it to him? Tell him that everything was… strange. That Sophia and Marco couldn’t stand me. That we…“A yelling one.” I decided. It was too complicated to even try.

  He laughed. “So is that a yes or no?”

  I sighed. “I guess it’s a yes.”

  I wrote my address down on a piece of paper and gave it to him. He told me that he’d come over around 4:30. Then he left to go to lunch. As I watched him walk out, I felt more alone than I ever had.

  I took my lunch out of my bag and headed back toward my usual loner spot, desperately wishing that I wasn’t.

  Chapter 9

  Marco and Sophia weren’t there when I got home. I was so glad. If I was really lucky then maybe they wouldn’t show up until after Alex had left.

  I cleaned up my room a little while I waited for 4:30 to roll around. I also had a temporary loss of sanity where I played around with the idea of changing into something different. I was wearing jeans and a black tee, and they suddenly
seemed so plain. But then I realized, who was I trying to kid? It wouldn’t change anything. I’d still be socially incompetent, weirdo Gemma with the freaky violet eyes. And besides, I didn’t even own anything other than t-shirts and jeans

  I turned on some music and started on the essay to pass the time. I marked some pages with a highlighter and jaunted down a few notes. I’d made some real progress by the time I heard the door bell ring.

  I trotted down the stairs and opened the front door. Alex stood on the porch, the hood of his jacket pulled over his head as snowflakes drifted down on top of it.

  “Hi.” I opened up the screen door and let him in.

  He stepped into the foyer, rubbing his hands together to warm them up as he glanced around at everything. There wasn’t much to look at, though; a small table with a few framed pictures of Marco and Sophia on it, and a large painting of a castle by a lake.

  “So this is where you live,” he remarked.

  “Yep, this is where I live.” I didn’t mean to sound so unenthusiastic, but I did. “My rooms upstairs and I figured we could go up there and work on the assignment.”

  “In your room?” He squirmed around uncomfortably, which I thought was odd.

  Then again, a lot of things he did were odd.

  I gave him a strange look. “If you want, we could work on it at the kitchen table.”

  He shook his head. “No, your room’s fine.”

  I raised my eyebrows. Okay. Whatever. I gestured for him to follow me as I head up the stairs.

  My bedroom was very plain, particularly for a teenage girl’s room. I could only imagine what someone like say Kelsey Merritt’s room looked like. Or what Aislin’s looked like. There was probably a lot of pink, and a lot of photos hanging up on the walls. There was nothing on my walls. I had no rugs to cover up the boring off-white carpet. The only thing that gave it any character at all was a bookshelf in the corner that held my CD’s and books.

  “So what should we do first?” I asked as Alex glanced around at my stuff. I suddenly felt uncomfortable being up in my room alone with him.

  He traced his fingers along the titles of my CD’s. “Should we get the report out of the way first?”

  “Yeah, we could do that. But I’ve already got a lot of it done.”

  He turned and gaped at me. “You already started on it.”

  I nodded. “I worked on it while I was waiting for you to get here. I found a few good ideas and started putting stuff together. Really, there’s not too much left to do.”

  He mulled over what I said for longer than what seemed necessary. “You know, it doesn’t seem fair for you to do most of the work on the report, and to also have to help put the map together.”

  “I don’t mind,” I told him. And I wasn’t lying either. I really didn’t mind. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do. Plus, I loved astronomy.

  He tapped his finger on his bottom lip. “No, it’s not right. I think I’ll just work on the map at home. That way I can make Aislin help.”

  Assuming he was hinting that he wanted to leave, I said, “Okay, if that’s what you want to do then its fine by me.” It didn’t feel fine, though. The thought of him leaving made my stomach kind of queasy.

  “So…what do you want to do now, then?” he asked me.

  “Huh?” Had I misunderstood him? “What? Are you staying?”

  “I was planning on it.” He cocked an eyebrow. “That is unless you don’t want me to.”

  Me heart had already been pounding because of the whole him-being-in-my-room thing, but now it was in supercharge mode, hammering so viciously that it was making me lightheaded. But not wanting to let on that my heart was reacting so excitedly, I kept cool and gave a half-hearted shrug. “No, you can stay if you want.”

  He pressed his lips together, stifling a smile. “Sure. I don’t have anywhere else to be.”

  What was with him and finding me humorous when I wasn’t trying to be?

  He shucked off his jacket and slung it on the back of my computer chair. Then he pushed up the sleeves of his shirt and sat down backwards in the chair so that he was facing me.

  I shoved my books out of the way and sat down on my bed. The music was still playing from when I’d been working on the report—“Ohio for Lovers” by Hawthorne Heights. The slow rhythm of the guitar overtook the silence as I struggled to come up with something to say. Being a lifetime loner, I was completely clueless on how to strike up a conversation. Sure, Alex and I had spent some alone time together. But sitting here in my room with him felt different somehow, and I couldn’t seem to find any words to say to him. Perhaps it was because we were in my room.

  Alone.

  “So…” he finally said, breaking the silence, which was good because, waiting for me to speak first, we might have sat here forever. He rested his arms on the back of the chair and swayed it gently from side to side, “I know I’ve only been around you for a week or so, but it seems like you spend a heck of a lot of time by yourself.”

  “I guess so,” I said.

  “I didn’t mean that in a bad way or anything,” he quickly added. “I was just stating an observation… wondering why?”

  “Wondering why I what? Why I spend my time alone?”

  He nodded. “I’m just curious.”

  “I don’t know…” I trailed off. Honestly, I didn’t have an answer to give him. At least not one I could share without seeming like I belonged in a straitjacket. I picked at a loose string sticking up from my comforter. “It’s just how I’ve always been, I guess.”

  “And it doesn’t bother you being by yourself all the time?”

  I shrugged, staring at the floor. “Not really. Well, maybe lately it has a little.”

  The room quieted except for the low hum of the music. I heard the chair squeaked, and the next thing I knew, Alex was climbing off the chair and walking toward me. His hands were in his pockets, and the lack of uncertainty he carried looked out of place on him.

  When he reached my bed, he slid the pile of books out of the way and sat down beside me. We were sitting so close to one another that the only thing between our knees was a whisper of air. My head started buzzing as every single one of my nerves sparkled with electricity. I became hyperaware that Alex was sitting next to me on my bed. Holy crap. Never in a million years would I have thought that would ever happen.

  “What do you think the sudden change came from?” he asked, continuing our conversation right where we’d left off.

  I had to mentally prepare myself before I spoke, otherwise I would have stammered like an idiot. “I’m not sure.”

  “So what? You just basically woke up one day and decided you wanted to have friends?”

  Yeah….there was no way I was going to tell him the real reason—that part of the sudden change stemmed from his arrival. “I know it’s weird, isn’t it?”

  “Not necessarily weird, but it is kind of interesting,” he said. “But I find you interesting all together.”

  I traced the circular pattern of the comforter with my finger, feeling extremely uncomfortable with so much of his attention fixed on me. “Trust me, there's nothing interesting about me.” I was kind of lying, I guess, if by interesting, he meant the stick-you-under-a-microscope-and-study-you kind of interesting.

  “I think there is.” He paused, casting a brief glance at my computer as the song switched. “I mean for one thing, I find it interesting how long you put up with me being a complete jerk. Not a lot of people would’ve done that without getting mad and telling me off.”

  “Oh trust me, I got mad.”

  “Is that what you call it?” he teased.

  “Hey,” I said defensively. “Need I remind you that you’re the one who said I have a temper on me?”

  “Yeah, but it’s more entertaining than anything else.”

  I crossed my arms and stared him down, trying to look as tuff as I could. “Oh really.”

  He laughed. “Yeah really.”

  I si
ghed and dropped my arms onto my lap. I guess acting tuff wasn’t my forte.

  A funny looked passed across his face, and then suddenly he was leaning in toward me. “You want to know another thing that makes you so interesting?” His low voice sent a shiver down my spine. “That you can feel this electricity thing between us but you won’t say anything about it.”

  I swear my heart actually stopped. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yeah, you do.” He leaned in closer to me. If he did it again, our heads would probably be touching. “You can trust me, you know. You can tell me anything.”

  As much as I wanted to believe that was true, I didn’t. Yes, he was being nice to me, but I hadn’t forgotten how he’d treated me in the beginning. Or about the strange conversation I’d overheard between him and Aislin in the library.

  He moved even closer. Our heads didn’t touch like I thought they would, but they were close. Oh God, we were so close. “Gemma, I promise you can trust me.”

  Every inch of my body hummed, and my brain was getting foggy. Maybe I could trust him….

  “Gemma! What are you doing?” Sophia’s sharp voice cut through my thoughts like a sharp knife, and it popped the tension between Alex and I like a needle to a balloon.

  I turned around and found her standing in my doorway, her hand gripped so tightly around the door knob that her knuckles were paper white. I could only imagine how much this scene looked out of place to her.

  Heck, it seemed out of place to me.

  “Umm…this is Alex,” I told her, motioning at Alex. “We were just working on a project for school.”

  She narrowed her eyes at Alex. “Hello Alex.”

  Oh, my God. This was so embarrassing.

  Alex seemed fine, though. He held her gaze steadily, never wavering beneath the burn of Sophia’s glare.

  Man, to have such confidence.

  Sophia moved her eyes on me. “It’s time for dinner so you need to wrap it up and come down and eat.”

  I stared confusedly at her. Eat dinner with them...What the—“Since when do I eat dinner with you guys?”

  She looked like she wanted to strangle me. “Since now.”