Ten

Out of force of habit, I climbed into the backseat. Bane looked at me oddly. “What are you doing?” Why was it still so hot in the car? Actually, I think it was hotter. I was positively sweltering. If I was an egg, I’d be crisping around the edges.

“Sitting,” replied I, oh so intelligently. Weren’t cars supposed to have air conditioning? And Bane’s car seemed relatively nice, not that I knew anything about cars. It wasn’t fancy looking, but it wasn’t a Junker, either. So why, pray tell, was it so hot in here?

Bane ran a hand through his hair. Good move, smart man. Now your hair is just sticking up all over the place. It looks pretty silly, not going to lie. “Can you sit up here? I’ll feel like you’re grading me or something if you sit back there.” That was one of the dumbest things I’d ever heard. I always sat in the backseat.

Pouting, I got out of the car, walked around in the sun and got in on the other side. The engine spluttered to life beneath us, less smoothly than did Katy’s car. I got pleasure in the fact that I owned something (even though I technically didn’t own it) that worked better than something of Bane’s, since Ms. Moreno had judged my brain to be second rate.

I leaned my head against the window, which was significantly less comfortable than it would have been in the backseat, mind you, and directed my sulking to the outside. It wasn’t fair that stupid Bane was charging in here and taking charge. This had been my magazine, and my life, and he had no place in it. And, to top it off, he thought he could make me talk?

“So,” Bane said conversationally as we pulled out of the parking lot. By my judgment, he seemed to be a good driver. And I did have my license; one of the few demands Uncle Mack had ever made was that I pass my permit and then driving test, feeling that it was something important for every high school student. “Your mom doesn’t have the same name as you. Did she remarry?”

I gritted my teeth. “No.” He’d better not start in on my mother.

Bane turned a corner, this being the first one not along my route home. And it was going, going, gone. It figured that he’d live on the swankier side of this town.
Let me guess: he got whatever he wanted? Although, his car spoke of different backgrounds. “Really? Then, is Donnelly her maiden name?”

“Yes.” And, as Uncle Mack’s sister, technically my mother’s name had been Donnelly.

The window, which had originally been cool against my skull, was starting to heat up. I shifted my head to another, cooler, spot. “Why does she go by her maiden name, then? Professional reasons?”

I winced inwardly, though I’m sure my face remained passive. “Why” questions were surely the worst; it was impossible to dismiss them with a one-word answer, which was surely Bane’s intent. Why couldn’t I have been given a stupid torturer? “She doesn’t.”

“She introduced herself as Mrs. Donnelly, though.” That wasn’t a question. I was exempt. After a few seconds of this, Bane caught on and sighed. “It’s really annoying having to phrase everything as a question, you know. Why did she introduce herself as Mrs. Donnelly?”

“That was my aunt.” My voice was hard, warning him not to go any further. He didn’t heed the warning.

“Why did you give me your aunt’s phone number?”

“I live there.”

“Why?”

Did he have no sense of personal boundaries? “None of your business!” I snapped, squeezing my eyes shut. I had talked more today than in the past six months. I hated it.

For a few minutes we drove on in silence. I kept my eyes closed, feigning sleep…or maybe death. It didn’t really matter which, so long as this Morrison boy wasn’t speaking to me. Huh, I could call him Morrison—maybe that would put some distance between us. But Morrison had two more syllables than Bane. Never mind, then.

The car halted jerkily. I kept my position precisely—I had a lot of practice in simply not moving. One might even call me an expert. “Deirdre?” Bane asked quietly. He sounded genuinely apologetic, as though he sincerely regretted his intrusion. “We’re here.”

I opened my eyes to one of the most classically beautiful houses I’d ever seen. It was clearly from the Victorian era, with a turret. Yes, a turret. It was easily twice the size of my house. It had a wrap-around porch. I glared at Bane belligerently.

“What?” he asked, shocked.

By the way, I win all staring contests, too. “Does anything come hard to you?” I answered his questions with one of my own.

He took off his seatbelt and turned to face me in full, running both hands through his medium-length shaggy black hair. “What are you talking about?”

I could feel a slight flush rising to my cheeks with my anger—curse those Irish genes! I clenched my fists, nails biting into palms. My temper receded a little with the pain. “Does anything ever go wrong for you?” I snapped. Okay, so my temper wasn’t completely overcome.

Maybe my tone was a bit much; for the first time, Bane’s expression grew hostile.

“Do you have a problem with me, Deirdre?” Somehow, he managed to make my name sound like an insult.

“Yes!” shouted I. I was breathing heavily, shaking with fury. There was only so far he could push me before I snapped. And when I snapped, it was really ugly.

“Why?” roared Bane in return.

Could he possibly not know? “Why? Are you stupid? You saunter in here from God knows where and steal my job and try to make me change the way I’ve been my entire life! I was perfectly content with the way things were before you came in and started meddling, you stupid, stupid boy. And then you expect me not to be angry when you turn out to have everything? People like you already; everyone apparently thinks you’re ‘gorgeous’, and then you have this perfect house and perfect life and you took my job!”

Forget the past six months—that was more than I’d said since I’d started high school. Or middle school, maybe.

Bane slammed his hands on the steering wheel. My fists were clenched so tight, I couldn’t even feel the pressure from my nails anymore. “Don’t delude yourself into thinking you know anything about my life, brat. Do you want to know why we had to come here today? Yeah, my sisters. Lindsay has Down syndrome. Natalie can’t ever stay after school for anything because she has to come home with her. My dad used to be home, but guess what? He freaking left my mom. Now it’s just her, taking care of three kids.”

“I haven’t seen my mother in nine years, Bane. Nine! When you’ve gone that long, then we can talk, understand me? “I shrieked.

This was greeted by silence. The only sound that could be heard was my breathing, heavy to the point of near-sobbing. I bent my head, causing my hair to fall forward to cover my face. From this position, I could see traces of blood along my fingernails. I hadn’t done that in a long time.

I’d never told anyone about my mother before. Anyone who’d needed to know had already known. I felt tears form in the backs of my eyes and blinked them away.

“I’m…sorry, Deirdre,” Bane muttered. “No, really I am. I can’t imagine what I would do without my mom. I guess that’s why you live with your aunt.” I offered no reply to this, and for once, he didn’t ask me for one.

The numbness in my hands was receding, and being replaced by a dull ache. Well, no matter; I’d certainly had worse.

“Deirdre?”

“Deirdre?”

“Deirdre?”

On my third bout of non-responding, Bane reached his hand under my hair and tipped my chin up. Normally, my reaction to this would have been to pull away immediately, but for this once, I didn’t. I had no particular reason why—instinct just didn’t tell me to break our point of contact. “Are you alright?”

I nodded once, the movement both answering and pushing Bane’s hand away. I leaned against the window again, hands still shaking. Flickering memories of my mother—and the pain of losing her—were flashing through my mind, like some perverse slide show.

Suddenly Bane grinned, though I failed to see what was so humorous about the situation. “So, everyone thinks I’m ‘gorgeous,’ eh?” I nodded. “Do you think I’m gorgeous?” he asked  mischievously.

My eyes narrowed. “No,” I snapped. I didn’t get over my tempers as easily as he appeared to.

Chuckling, Bane reached over to unbuckle my seatbelt, as I’d made not move to.

“Let’s go inside, brat.”

For a moment, I considered resisting, but then decided it simply wasn’t worth it. Bane wasn’t like any of the other forces I’d been pitted against in the past; he wouldn’t back down from the challenges I presented. True to his name, he was quickly becoming the bane of my existence.

And to think, I’d only known him one day.

So I shuffled along behind him dourly. Perhaps it wasn’t the most mature way to behave, but I supposed I’ve never been the most mature person in that way. After all, my way of coping (which had failed, by the way) was to go on a reign of self-imposed silence.

Bane unlocked the door and pushed it inward, glancing behind him to make sure I was following. My outburst seemed to have prompted a bout of protectiveness from him, an issue I hadn’t anticipated. I hesitated at his doorstep—when was the last time I’d been invited to someone else’s house?—and he reached back to guide me forward by the sleeve. I tugged it out of his grasp.

“Nat, Lindsay, I’m home,” he called out. I trailed uncomfortably behind, not used to being in environments I didn’t know cold. “We’ll go into the kitchen,” he informed me. I nodded once.

However, we were cut off by the squeals of two small girls, who came tumbling down the stairs at a speed I was almost certain I’d never achieved. “Bane, Bane!” they shrieked enthusiastically. I stepped to the side as they smothered him with a hug that he bent down to receive.

The two couldn’t have been more than ten—twins or close in age, I would have guessed. Even if Bane hadn’t shouted it to me in the car, Lindsay’s condition would have been evident. There was a look about her eyes that suggested it, and the way her tongue poked forward slightly. I knew the symptoms from AP Bio.

“Natalie, Lindsay, this is my friend Deirdre,” Bane introduced me. Three pairs of equally blue eyes turned on me; I quailed a bit under their intensity.

“You’re pretty,” Natalie complimented me. False flattery won’t get you anywhere with me, girl.

I nodded my acknowledgment. I would have left it at that, if not for a flash in Bane’s eyes. “Thank you, “I whispered. Natalie smiled a gap-toothed smile at me.

Then, even more unexpected, Lindsay stepped forward and wrapped her arms around my waist in a hug. I bent down to receive it even without prompting from Bane. I only got so far that my shoulder was level with the top of Lindsay’s shoulder. I mean, at five-six I’m pretty tall, and this girl was tiny. She smiled at me as she stepped back.

“Alright, alright,” Bane laughed when she had let go, “enough torturing poor Deirdre. Go play, you two.” He assessed my reaction with worried eyes. His protectiveness of his sisters was evident.

Natalie giggled, as if this were the hugest joke ever. “Okay. Let’s go, Linnie.” Lindsay scampered up the stairs after her sister obligingly.

Echoing down the stairs I could hear Natalie, and then a voice that I could only assume was Lindsay’s chant, “Bane’s got a girlfriend! Bane’s got a girlfriend!”

Bane let out a slightly embarrassed snort. “Sorry about them. They’re six and seven and have this issue with personal limits.”

“S’okay,” I muttered. Look at me, talking without being prompted. How impressive am I?

“That’s why I have to book it home, though. As it is, they still get home a few minutes before me, and I can’t let them be home by themselves on the days my mom is at work.”

We passed through a wide hallway, with what I could only assume was a living room on one side and what was obviously a kitchen on the other. It was, however, an item in the former room that caught my eye.

His grand piano was gorgeous. I stopped dead to admire it, seething with jealousy. My second hand keyboard had played its last this past summer, and was now rotting away in some dump somewhere, used beyond repair.

Bane had come up behind me when he’d realized I’d stopped following him. “You play?” he asked, low and into my ear. He hadn’t yet given up trying to surprise me. Clearly the boy should realize that this wasn’t happening, ever. I nodded once.

“Go ahead, if you like,” he offered, shrugging. “I’m going to go get something to eat.” How could he possibly be hungry? He had eaten my lunch.

Zombie-like, I made my way over to the piano. It was really lovely, like the one that the man at the music store always let me play. Unlike my keyboard (which had been really useless, even before it had stopped working) I doubted that this piano would have a broken middle C.

I put my hands in place, and started playing a nice, slow nocturne. If I had a hobby, playing the piano would be the one I would choose. I closed my eyes and let my fingers feel their way along—I’d played this song enough times that I could feel the keys. Besides, it was easier to play when I was just hearing the sounds.

“That’s really pretty,” Bane commented from immediately behind me. I didn’t stop playing. He had gotten his food—a peanut butter sandwich, if my nose served me correctly. “You’re one hell of an interesting girl.”