She slid one of the printouts toward her, one of Poe himself. After rubbing the back of it down with a glue stick, she smoothed the gloomy-looking portrait onto its poster board and set it aside to dry. Yet she couldn’t seem to help but stare at it. And she knew it was because of those eyes, those deep, hooded black holes. They seemed to tunnel through her with their sorrow, something about their expression making it seem as though Poe were silently beseeching the onlooker for something. “Forlorn” was the word that kept forming in her head, repeating itself over and over.
Isobel looked away, fighting back a shudder. She watched Varen as he, with head down, remained engrossed in whatever obscure Poe info he’d stumbled across. Shamelessly, she took the opportunity to study his long frame and how he sat with his back against his bed, his legs stretched out across the floor, boots crossed at the ankles, book open across his lap. With his head down like that, his hair curtaining his face, the only part of his features that remained visible was his mouth.
Her focus narrowed on the curve of the silver ring that embraced one corner of his bottom lip, and she couldn’t help but wonder how the metal would feel pressed against her own lips.
A boy shouldn’t have lips like that, she thought, and nearly started when he glanced up, catching her stare. She could feel her cheeks flare and knew they must be turning pink. She dropped her gaze immediately and reached out to wrestle yet another black-and-white printout from beneath Slipper, who batted at it greedily. Isobel turned over a portrait of Poe’s mother, a young doll-like figure wearing a ribbon-laced bonnet. She rubbed her glue stick over the back.
That’s when she started to wonder about what would happen after the project. She knew that now they’d at least be friends, she and Varen. After everything that had happened, how could they not? But would he ever ask her out again? What if he thought she really didn’t want to go to the Grim Facade when she’d told him she couldn’t? What if he thought she was just using her dad as an excuse?
Her movements slowed as a new concern swam into focus. What had she thought before now? That after the project was over, she’d be lucky enough for him to ask her out again? And then another realization dawned on her. What if this was the first and last time they were ever completely alone together? Sure, they would see each other at school, but if she didn’t speak up, if she didn’t say something now, would that be the end? She could almost see the run of their relationship from that point, dwindling and dissolving into the occasional and ever-awkward “Hey, how’s it going?” before disintegrating to feeble waves between classes. Without the project, she couldn’t be sure of when they’d ever meet outside of Mr. Swanson’s class or the cafeteria again.
She knew she would have to say something tonight.
Isobel ran a few phrases through her head, trying them all out, then letting them mellow in her mind. Each one clanged lamely against her internal ear and sounded vaguely insulting.
What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she just come out and say she liked him?
Maybe it was because she more than liked him.
Isobel let that thought swirl through her. She set her glue stick down and let her feelings frighten her because the only other option was to push them away. Only she was tired of pushing them away.
Determined, she looked up at him. A jolt of panic ran through her when she found him already staring at her. Had he been watching her this whole time?
“Uh, can we take a break?” she asked.
He closed the book and set it aside.
Wow, she thought, that had been easier than she’d expected. Now what?
In a moment of daring, Isobel lifted herself from where she sat across from him, scooting around Slipper, whose tail tapped and twitched in agitation. She repositioned herself to lean her back against the bed, sitting now less than a foot away from him, The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe the only thing between them.
She stretched her legs out in front of her just like him, crossing them at the ankles, then picked up the book, flipping it open across her lap.
“Why do you like Poe so much?” she found herself asking.
He shrugged. “Why do you like screaming and jumping around so much?”
She sighed, then tried again, “Well, I mean, do you at least have a favorite or something?”
He sat quietly for a moment, then, reaching across her, fingers finding the corner of the book in her lap, he began flipping through the pages, painstakingly, one by one.
Finally he stopped. “This one,” he said.
Isobel looked down into the book, at the single column of centered text. She read them to herself in silence: