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Tristan

I knew things were off track as soon as I saw Savannah headedher ther the Ice Princess mask, her face cold and re a rough "

No tea today ers in the process

She opened the doors and headed upstairs, her steps brisker than usual She didn&039;t glance back at me on the way up, didn&039;t pause once she reached the hallway

She was silent as always during herequipment But her silence was somehow different today, cooler, as if she were all business and the real Savannah wasn&039;t even here

"Roughand the silence became too heavy

"No, not really" Her lips formed a siven Dylan in history after he&039;d knocked her books to the floor

Okay, obviously I&039;d screwed up at the gaht

We entered the practice field and drew closer to the gathering dancers But I didn&039;t care that we&039;d run out of tiht not give me a chance to later

"Listen, Sav, about what I said-"

"Mister Tristan, while we are on team time, I&039;ll have to ask you to please call me Miss Savannah As I clearly stated before, it&039;s the team rules, and hoe show respect for one another" She didn&039;t look atuntil she reached the edge of the fifty yard line where ays set up the sound syste co out of my mouth now Another barrier between us "I&039;et to work Let&039;s discuss this later please"

And then she walked away to do her early- with the tea-tiize at the end of practice But she was sneakier than I&039;d expected She had one of the fresh and sound systeot to the school before me and already had the sound system set up on the field by the time I arrived Even that wouldn&039;t have been an obstacle, except she had the sophoh Thursday&039;s practices were ers or sendingalone with etting there at the school each et there even earlier

Savannah

As soon as I saw hi outside the foyer doors, ether If I opened ht start talking and be unable to stop There were too s I wanted to say to him, questions I yearned to ask Like why couldn&039;t he just leavehtest bit sorry for all the years he&039;d refused to speak to me and pretended I didn&039;t exist?

I unlocked the doors in silence, the clicking of the lock&039;s release echoing in the foyer He held the door open forhied for the exact opposite to happen

Anne had tried to warn me and everyone else that he was a heartless, spoiled player I should have listened to her instead of thinking he&039;d changed

My eyes burned as we crossed the shiny linoleuripped thestairs

Was it so withme to open up and talk to hiain? And in front of others, too At the end of the game, no less than five Charmers had asked me what I&039;d said to make Tristan act like that

What I&039;d said! When all I had done was try to be nice to him

He waited until ere halfway up the stairs before speaking "Now can we talk?"

I sed hard as tears filled ive ize to you"

I froze at the third-floor landing, sure I&039;d heard hith to push the hallway door open Maybe this was a new part of his game

I unlocked Mrs Daniels&039;s office

He followed me inside "Sav, I&039;m sorry I was rude to you It washard to seewithoutht about his words, and fury replaced the ache in my chest Even if he&039;d been upset, he shouldn&039;t have taken it out on me He acted like he was the only person in the entire world who had ever lost so that mattered to them Like I wasn&039;t in his exact same position at every Char others do what I would give anything to be able to do, too

Not to ivenain like the worthless trash he apparently thought I was

The anger gave e to s back the tears, turn and face him

"You say it was hard to see your tea hurt ht Still, I somehow pushed out the rest of the words "But what do you know about what&039;s hard? All your life you&039;ve had it so easy Jacksonville&039;s golden prince, the rich boy all the girls want to date The Clann&039;s future high Pooh-Bah witch leader" I waggled er all boiling up to push e It was all I could do not to yell at hieous eyes of his widening "What are you talking-"

A laugh escaped ht I was clueless, didn&039;t he? "I know all about the Clann and your ic My family are descendants, too-they were Clann until they weren&039;t perfect enough, pure enough, for your kind anymore" I closed the distance between us until only inches separated us He wanted to talk? Maybe it was ti "You want to knohat&039;s hard? Try having your best friend suddenly refuse to speak to you Try not knohat you did wrong, and begging your for you don&039;t even exist anymore For seven years I must have been out of ain All you&039;re going to do is treat ht And all I was trying to do was be nice to you!"

He dragged a hand through his hair, ht I was a jerk all those years, and an even bigger jerk last week at the game I mean, yeah,to be a good kid and follow the rules But I shouldn&039;t have And I&039; h my sweater "Please believe me, I never wanted to hurt you like that And I&039;m more sorry about it than I can ever tell you"

His voice poured overI&039;d wanted to hear for years

But it still didn&039;t quite explain his acting like an ass at the gaht But why take it out on ? They didn&039;t put you up to this, did they?"

"What? Hell, no! I had to fight with er"

That stunned me into silence for a few seconds "What? Why would you do that?"

His entire body froze, and I wondered if he was even still breathing After a long hesitation, the muscles in his neck worked as he sed hard His hands, shaky now, slid down to cupout with you We were best friends once I er drained out ofwarmth inside Tears of a different kind burned rinned "Yeah, really"

I couldn&039;t stop an answering s like an ass I&039;ot a rep to maintain here How am I supposed to boss those Charers in line?"

He laughed and faked a salute "Aye, aye, captain"

"And you get to carry the sound syste For at least a week, for your rudeness to the teah

"Yes, &039;s strap and slung it over his shoulder

As I followed hirinned

And that&039;s when I realized how hard just being friends with hi around Mrs Daniels&039;s office with Savannah

"Hey, I was thinkingyou should keep an extra hat or two in your truck," I said "You know, in case anyone forgets theirs at the gaood idea I&039;ll have to rerab them nohile you&039;re here?"

She shut and locked the closet door "Because I have to coht we didn&039;t have practice the afternoon before a game?"

"We don&039;t But I do have to load all the Secret Sis gifts into ah the doorway A cabinet ran down the length of the back wall opposite the ifts of all shapes and styles I gave a lohistle That was one heck of a gift pile With forty girls on the tea boxes, she&039;d still have to ers usually help you?"

"No But they&039;re not heavy, and I like the exercise"

"Yeah, as if you need that Okay, I&039;ll see you this afternoon, then"

"No!" Sheer panic erupted in her voice and across her face

I looked at her, eyebrows raised

"I mean, it&039;s fine," she added "I really don&039;t need your help I&039;ll see you at the ga everywhere but at

I&039;d just have to swing by the dance room after school and see what she was up to

Savannah

I kept thinking the more time I spent around Tristan at Charnore him in history class But the only people I could successfully ignore in there were Dylan and the Brat Twins In fact, I&039;d gotten so good at tuning them out in class that the twins actually see, consideringmore sensitive everyatteirls for a while

Unfortunately, evento bait ly louder voices

Today, the conversation was about who in the school orth taking a bullet for A stupid question, in my opinion, but the twins seemed to consider it a deep, debate-worthy topic

"Hey, Tristan," Vanessa said "Who would you take a bullet for?"

"Uh, anybody in the school, I guess," heto face the to lish assignet to class

"Oh, surely not just anybody," Vanessa whined "I mean, you wouldn&039;t take a bullet for the freaks, would you?"

"Such as?" Tristan sounded like he arning the blondes about sorowl

"Well, like Freaky Eyes there," Vanessa stage-whispered

Three guesses who that was It took everything I had not to snort with laughter The Brat Tere so transparent they were pathetic They were just trying toold h to wonder why being called a freak no longer bothered , confident thattoday

"Sure," Tristan replied "Why wouldn&039;t I take a bullet for her?"

"Because she goes around putting these horrible love spells on the guys," Hope answered, not even bothering to fake a whisper Half the class had to have heard her "Probably because she&039;s so ugly It&039;s the only way she could ever get a guy to like her!"

The twins erupted in high-pitched giggles

Now that was going too far, even for the Oh, no, no as I going to cry I quickly ih my veins Ice Princess, I reminded myself You are surrounded by ice and untouchable My heart rate slowed down, and I felt that coldness within spread to my face

Sometimes, like now, my ability to e It had to be froenes It even made me feel like a va down into pathetic tears in class

I was so lost in thought, I aloose bu me not to slip too deep into Ice Princessabout this sort of stuff?" Tristan was definitely growling at theht," Hope whispered "I didn&039;t think"

"You never do," he muttered

Nice comeback It almost made me feel better But not quite The coldness insidefury grew, spreading like poison, settling inthe muscles stiffen then cramp Oh ow Okay, that actually hurt

Out of the corner of lance ht about hily endless need that crowded out all other thoughts fro so I felt around hi trapped in the desert for days and stu of ice-cold water I craved him My body screamed at me that I would feel so much better if I just leaned across the aisle toward him and

Oh, no Was this the bloodlust et out of here Now!

I er down the aisle to the teacher&039;s desk But Mr S direction toward the door I was outside and a few yards froasped out the first thing that ca to be sick"

"Do you need to see the nurse or-"

"No Bathroo until I reached the nearest girls&039; restroom at the top of the hill and around the corner to the left

But I wasn&039;t really nauseous Justthirsty, or hungry, or so I was trapped inside, and my mind didn&039;t kno to communicate with it anymore I didn&039;t knohat it needed But at least I was pretty sure it wasn&039;t blood Hopefully

I leaned against the edge of the sink, which felt war the pace to slow and deepen Okay, that was one area I was still in control of, at least

Then I looked up at my reflection My eyesthey were nearly white I&039;d never seen them that color before They didn&039;t even look likethem, II turned the hot water on and stuck ain The heat felt so nice, I pushed up my sleeves and scooped the water over my forear ain, thankfully

I really had to get a grip on my temper This was ridiculous

When I returned to the classrooain just as the usual ache froh irls," Mr Snored them as I returned to my seat and tried to listen to the day&039;s lecture

But deep insidefor the next ti the fact that she was seriously sick

She&039;d shot out of history class today like a rocket and stayed gone for half an hour When she&039;d returned, she had been white as a sheet and shaking, and she hadn&039;t taken any notes during Mr Smythe&039;s lecture like she norood explanation for why she had been so sick last spring Maybe she hadn&039;t made the Charmers teah that still wouldn&039;t explain why she didn&039;t want me near the dance rooet through, but finally the last bell rang I waited a few et to the dance roo up the sports and art building&039;s second-floor stairs as quietly as I could

I could hearthe door open at the third-floor landing, I entered the hallway and jerked to a stop

I&039;d always known that Savannah was beautiful But thisthis was so else I&039;d had no idea she could even hts and shut the rooh the long, narros at either side of the entrance In the faint sunlight slanting in through the exterior ith her red hair down and flowing around her pale skin

She didn&039;t look real She looked like so I&039;d dreamed up

Suddenly, she froze, her back to me, her body tense When she turned toward the doors, she had one hand pressed to the center of her chest, her fingers spread wide just below her collarbone Her other hand spread over her stoe

I knew it She was sick I yanked the doors open "Sav, what&039;s wrong?"

"What are you doing here? I told you I didn&039;t need your help"

"Just tellon Are you okay?"

"Of course I&039;m okay Why?"

"You look like you&039;re in pain" I nodded at her hands

She dropped them to her sides, where they clenched into fists "No, I&039;m fine I was just-"

"Then why aren&039;t you a dancer with the Charmers?" The question blurted out before I could reconsider asking it But if she was sick, I had to know

She flinched as if I&039;d hit her and took too long to reply "I wasn&039;t good enough apparently"

"That&039;s bull You just danced better than their current captain does" Not that I was an expert, but it didn&039;t take a rocket scientist to see how she&039;d been practically defying gravity in there

One small shoulder rose and fell as she stomped over to the stereo and snapped it off "That&039;s how things work so"

I knehen so to my face But ould she lie about this? I followed her into the unifor in as an alternate dancer this year with Keisha and Vicki?"

She stopped before a step stool, keeping her back to ht"

She hesitated, then sighed and reached for the stool, her movements suddenly jerky "My father&039;sfa last year So I proious thing

She dragged the stool a few feet to the left

"What are you doing?" I asked

"Hats" She pointed at a long row of square white boxes on the shelf above the unifor et the boxes for her without needing a stool

I stepped up beside her and reached over her head for a box

She froze and drew in a long breath, then suddenly gasped and wobbled on the stool Forgetting the hats, I grabbed her waist before she could fall

Her entire body tensed like a string stretched to the breaking point Gripping aze head-on

Her irises were a gray so light they looked al her nearly ht now The only other tiht with Greg The last tiether

"Tristan" she whispered

"Are you okay?"

She nodded, leaning closer to et the plan I lowered irls Lots of theh

She kissed me back, her arms wrapped around my neck so our whole bodies lined up My head swas forcedher in case she felt as light-headed and weak as I did

"I We" she gasped

"Yeah," I agreed, still breathless "Wow"

The dazed look left her face, replaced by horror She pushed away from me and stepped down from the stool as all the color drained from her cheeks "You kissed me!"

"You kissed me back" How had she recovered so fast? She had to have felt the world slaot a littlelight-headed And you took advantage ofme back"

She pressed a hand to her stomach and another to her chest like before

"Why do you keep doing that? And why are you feeling light-headed? Are you sick? Tell , she pressed a hand to her forehead "I didn&039;t eat e the subject This is not okay You and I can&039;t-"

"Have dinner with ed at my total, sudden lack of self-control Good job, Tristan Soher friend first

"Okay"

"Okay?" My pulse shot up through my skull Yes!