CHAPTER ONE

Runaway Girl

“I’m not sure if I should pity you or envy you,” Trinity said thoughtfully as we spied on the alumni garden party. From the balcony above, she eyed Christian's impeccable shoulders and smacked her tongue stud on her front teeth. “Remind me. Is it a good thing Christian Henderson is your dad?”

I sighed. “He's my legal guardian. That doesn't make him my father.”

“He may as well be for all the fun you can have with him. How long have you been living with him?”

I corrected her. I hadn't lived with him at all.

Leaning over the railing, I fixed my eyes on Christian. As I looked at his face, his mysterious face, I felt my resolve harden. My time with him was almost up. Once I turned eighteen and graduated from high school, he would cut me loose. I was almost finished grade eleven and the reality that I had to drastically change our relationship loomed over me.

It was time to stop doing what he asked. That, in itself, was going to be difficult. I took immense pleasure in doing exactly what he suggested. I took the classes he suggested, wore the clothes he thought looked best on me, reread his messages, and thought constantly of what would please him. The problem was, if I kept playing by his rules, he would keep me firmly within the boundaries he found the most comfortable.

Those boundaries did not please me.

I looked down on him working the crowd and thought of who he was and what I had learned during the past three years.

What did he look like? His hair was wavy, tawny shade of blond. He kept quite shaggy until he swept it off his brow with mousse to expose his perfect widow’s peak. He could come off as boyish until his forehead was exposed, and then he looked like a man who could be suave or ruthless as the situation dictated. His eyes were hazel but never seemed exactly the same color as the time before. It was like his eyes didn’t know if they were green or brown or gray. Color didn't matter. They were his eyes and they could be any color as far as I cared. To me, he was made of perfect shapes: like the triangle of his collarbone, the lump of his Adam’s apple in his throat, the angle of his widow's peak, and the squareness of the back of his hand.

If his mood was right, I didn't even see the shapes. He had wonderful eyes for making me excited. Whenever he spoke, he made me feel like he was letting me into a world where only the two of us existed, promising a delicious closeness between the two of us.

Except it didn't last. He always went away.

The longest he had ever stayed with me for a vacation had been the time I was recovering from my final surgery. After that, the holidays were a week at the most. When we were vacationing, I was in paradise, but the time always passed quickly. Soon I was sent back to school, or summer camp, or something intended to enrich my life and keep me away from him.

Christian never hesitated to send me away.

I had to be protected. From what? You would think he was a playboy with mountains of women that had to be hidden from me. I knew he dated from time to time, but those fleeting relationships weren't what kept him from me. His work? He had long since moved along from his desk job in Edmonton. He was a director in charge of international marketing for a communication company in England. He liked his work and he was good at it, but that wasn't the clincher either. The problem was that wasn’t his only job.

The fact was, Christian Henderson wasn't his real name.

At the garden party, I watched him shake hands with my English professor. The façade that covered Christian’s face was perfect, like everything about him. It was a hair off the forehead night, where the crispness of his shirt paired with the white flash of his smile oozed wealth, education and worldly wisdom. His signature brand of luxury marked him as the best-dressed man in the room, even if he wasn't wearing the most expensive suit. It was the way he walked, the way he presented himself, and the way he gave away his attention. No one could buy or replicate his style because it wasn’t real. As I watched him, I didn’t see the flawless gentlemen everyone else saw. I only saw the conman who knew how to leave a good impression and wondered what I would exchange for half an hour of the kind of attention he gave others. He never looked at me like he wanted to fool me, charm me, or seduce me.

He was a liar and a gentleman. Everything he was doing, saying, was for my benefit. He had nothing to gain by sweet-talking the faculty. Even if he was a liar, I believed my father would not have been disappointed in his choice, but he was not Christian Henderson.

If he was not Christian Henderson, who was he? What was his real job?

I wished I knew.

Once, when I was staying at a hotel with him in New York, he accepted a phone call for Damen Cross. He didn’t realize until after he hung up that I overheard his conversation. I was fifteen then, and suspicious, so I read a few of his messages on his laptop. He had a unique operating system and unfamiliar programs. I found a request for him to go to Israel.

He was furious when he caught me. I was terrified when he slammed the laptop shut. For a split second, I thought he was going to hit me. He didn’t, but he sent me back to the boarding school that evening. Before he sent me away, he gave me an incredibly father-like lecture on snooping. I wouldn’t treat my father’s things that way, would I? I had no idea. I had no father.

On the plane, I was furious. Christian wasn’t my father and his imitation of him made me sick to my stomach. The thing was, he felt like he had to put me in a box where his ‘other lives’ didn’t affect me. There was no need for the partition. It didn’t matter to me what Christian had done or was currently doing in his double, or triple, life. Whatever power he had, he had used it to save my life. I knew the sacrifice had been too much. Though he did everything he could to stop his discomfort from showing, something was bothering him that had not bothered him before my operation. Maybe he owed money. Maybe he was running from someone. Whatever was happening, at fifteen years old, I didn’t know how to react.

The next time I heard from him, he sent me a letter, postmarked Liberia. I didn’t write him back, because I wasn’t sure how to proceed. I needed to know the truth about the way he lived his life, but he wouldn’t tell me. I didn’t see him again until Christmas when he took me to Paris and showered me with presents. He acted like himself and even apologized for being so angry in New York. I was probably just trying to check my social media? That was the moment I learned that in order to stay with him, I needed to refrain from asking questions, or lifting one finger to find out the truth. I loved him unconditionally and I needed to give him the freedom to handle whatever he had to handle without my interference. I cried like a baby to have him back… even if he lied to me constantly.

Since then, I learned to be discreet when I heard him referred to by another name. I let him think I hadn’t heard. It was easy. He wanted to believe I was ignorant. Both of us knew the truth would separate us. I had to play dumb if I wanted to stay with him.

So far, I’d heard him referred to as Christian Henderson, Damen Cross, Riley Fulks, and William Farris.

Trinity interrupted my thoughts. “Look,” she said, “my parents just walked in.”

“They look pissed.”

“They are.”

I glanced at her. “Are you getting expelled this time?”

“Probably not. It looks like dad came carrying his extra-heavy checkbook. See the bulge in his pocket? He’s gonna pay them off.”

“Didn’t he already pay for the gazebo in the park?”

“And the stone gardens,” Trinity admitted. “Those knuckleheads just don’t get the message. I don’t want to go to school here. I’ve said it a million times, but they’d rather go on holiday in the Mediterranean ten months of the year than play house with me. Why aren’t they worried about me going astray? I could get addicted to meth or crack, get an STI, or get an abortion. Pissy parents!”

“I still think you’re lucky. At least, they’re not dead,” I said absently, my conversation playing on repeat. I was on repeat because I was thinking about what I needed to do to get Christian’s attention. “Trinity, what do you think a girl would have to do to get booted out of this school on her first try?”

“What?”

“I have never been to the disciplinary office. What do you think I’d have to do to get expelled—no negotiation—first try?”

“Well,” Trinity said, rubbing her hands together. “The difficulty is hitting that magic number between really annoying the school board and involving the police. You could get thrown out if you made a bomb threat or set a fire in one of the chemistry labs, but do you really want to toy with getting a criminal record? Those old bats on the school board have dealt with so many wild ones that hardly any scam turns their heads. Believe me, I know.” She paused and looked at me with shrewd eyes. “But Beth-baby, if you wanted to get Christian’s attention by acting up, shouldn’t you have started already? We only have one year of high school left.”

“Yeah. It’s just that for some reason I always thought that once I graduated I’d get to live with him. Tonight, I realized that’s never going to happen. Once I finish here, he’ll ship me off to a university and phase me out of his life. I’m never going to get to spend any time with him.”

Trinity nodded. “I understand. There isn’t a girl in this school who doesn’t faint every time he picks you up. You should have called in a bomb threat when you were fourteen. They would have gone way easier on you.”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s the best advice you have?”

“No,” she said, grabbing my arm. “You could do the very first prank I ever pulled.”

I thought back. “That naked picture you painted of the chairman of the board? No, thanks! I don’t know how you kept your gag reflex down.”

It stung when she flicked my ear. “No, idiot. That was my first prank in high school. I’m talking about my very first, please-pay-attention-to-me, act of defiance. I pulled it so many times, my parents stopped reacting, but the first time I did it they were wetting themselves and I bet Christian would, too.”

“What?” I asked curiously.

“I ran away from school.”

“Now, that’s an idea,” I said nodding.

“Do you have money? How far away could you get?”

“I have money,” I hedged.

After I woke up healed in Mexico, consequences started mattering again, and the truth about my parents’ finances came forward. They were oceans deep in debt. After everyone was paid in full, there was a little money for me, but it was nowhere near the amount I would have needed if I was going to live in the luxury they had provided for me. Christian put that money away, and I wasn’t to touch it until I was an adult, but it was peanuts compared to the money he spent on me regularly. All the same, I did have Christian’s money in the form of a credit card. If I used it to pay for flights and accommodations, he would undoubtedly be able to trace me in a jiffy, but the idea wasn’t to run away to a place where he couldn’t find me. The idea was to run away to a place where he would come after me.

“You could give it a try.” Trinity winked and started down the stairs that would lead her to the reception. We were students and weren’t exactly invited, but Trinity didn’t let that bother her. She wasn’t going to miss the chance to see her parents, no matter the consequences.

I breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth to steady my nerves. I hoped I could revert to the little girl I always played when I was with Christian. If I couldn’t be his woman, I had to settle for being his little girl. After one more breath, I was ready and followed Trinity down the grand staircase.

In my school uniform, I sauntered up carefully behind him. He was drinking a glass of champagne and talking to a nondescript parent. I put my fingers over his eyes and said, “Guess who.”

He put his hand on mine and asked, “Is my girl out of bed without permission?”

“Maybe.”

“Is she in her pajamas?”

“No!”

He took my hand off his eyes and turned around to see what I was wearing. “Darling, you look quite respectable. I thought you’d dress up if you decided to crash the ‘adult’ party. It’s like you aren’t even trying to blend in.”

I put my arms around the crook of his arm, pulled his elbow against my chest, and rested my head on his shoulder. If it had been my first time doing that, I doubted he would have allowed it, but I had been doing that since Mexico. It was one of the rare forms of physical contact he allowed. We didn’t hug the way families did. He tolerated my arm clamp with an easy smile and placed a teensy kiss on the corner of my forehead.

The parent beside us started talking, like that level of clinginess in a seventeen-year-old was normal. Nothing was amiss to him. “This must be Beth.” He put out his hand for me to shake and I momentarily had to relinquish my hold on Christian. “Good job sneaking in,” the nameless parent praised. “I don’t know why they don’t allow students to come to these functions. I hardly ever see my boy.” Then his cell phone interrupted him and he excused himself to take the call.

Workaholic, I thought as the man walked away. No wonder he never got to see his son.

Christian turned his head forty-five degrees and whispered. “Beth, if you keep hanging on to me like this, people will think we’re a couple.”

I chuckled and gave him a bit of space, though I kept my hand in the crook of his arm. “That would be so embarrassing… for me. It couldn’t possibly be embarrassing for you. I mean, you’re so old that being seen with a cute young thing like me could only raise your reputation. I can hear them now, whispering about the adorable little woman you have on your arm. When they look at me, they wonder how I could have let my standards fall so totally when I clearly have so much to offer.” This was said to gently mock him. He always spoke of himself like he was so hilariously grand. “The last few times we’ve gone away together, the hotel clerks wondered why we got separate rooms, so it wouldn’t be the first time someone thought we were together.”

Christian glanced at me. “Your school uniform ruins the effect.”

“Too true,” I replied.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

His lips parted like he was about to say something, but no words came out. He had been growing more and more distant. He was putting space between us. It was in dark contrast to how we used to talk when we were together. We had conversations like bubbles in the bath, you weren't sure if they were doing anything until there were none. Like bubbles, his words were often meaningless, as if he was afraid to give himself to me. Even though he used evasive words, there had been thousands of them. Now there were dozens.

He was going to dump me and he wanted it to look natural.

Instead of giving me words, he placed a kiss on the side of my head, like I was a child. When he finally did speak, his words were light and meaningless. “What have you been up to? Slip anything good into the punch? I hate to break it to you, but it was already spiked when I arrived and not with anything tasteful, I might add.”

“I didn’t. That’s more Trinity’s game. I think the adults are plenty capable of getting themselves smashed without my help. Besides, it’s not like alcohol would improve their personalities.”

He laughed. “Probably not.” Then he dumped the rest of his champagne into a plant. He never overdid it with drinks.

“Can I ask you something?” I asked, trying to wheedle out the reason for the distance between us.

“Of course,” he drawled.

“Do you have a girlfriend these days?”

“Are you worried I wouldn’t tell you if such a thing happened?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“What, exactly, do you think would change between us if such a person existed?” he asked. His eyes darted around my person to see if there was something about me that he had missed, and then his gaze returned to my eyes, where the challenge in his question lingered.

I should have handled his direct gaze better. Unfortunately, I involuntarily averted my eyes and swallowed everything that had been waiting on my tongue.

“Besides,” he continued, “I would never refer to a woman I was seeing as my girlfriend. Girlfriends are for young men. You should be someone’s girlfriend.”

“Why would I want a boyfriend? You make being single look so charming.”

Again, he looked me over to see if he had missed something. His eyebrows lifted and dropped quickly as he dismissed whatever he had been thinking. I realized he was looking for signs of maturity as he discarded his empty goblet on a waiter’s tray. “To change the subject,” he began slyly. “I was going to ask you where you wanted to go this summer. I was thinking about Sydney or maybe Okinawa. Want to go swimming?”

“What about your place? I know you have a flat in London I haven’t seen.”

He shrugged his immaculate, elegant shoulders. “It’s boring, and I only stay there for work. It’s nothing but a bed and a window.”

“Yes, but I haven’t seen out that window,” I persisted, showering myself in innocent enthusiasm.

“It’s an alley-way, darling. An alley-way. I’d much rather take you scuba diving.”

I sighed and tried a different tack. “Christian, do you realize that I don’t have a home? I may not have visited my parents’ home more than twice a year when they were alive, but at least that was a place filled with pictures of us, books we had read, music we chose instead of elevator music, motel art, and old magazines. I haven’t had anything like that in years and I’m so lonesome for it I could die. Can’t you give me a place that could be my home?”

While I was speaking, he looked worried, but he calmed down considerably by the time I finished and answered smoothly. “Is that all? Why didn’t you say something sooner? I hate being in the same place. I can't put down roots, but I can understand it if you want to hang your Christmas stocking on the same hearth every year. I’m sure we could arrange for you to visit one of your aunts.”

“No,” I interrupted. “I don’t want to see them. They’re still disgruntled that my parents didn’t have enough money to spread around. Don’t try to fob me off on them. I want a home with you.”

He shook his hand dismissively. “You know my work has me hopping planes every other day. I would never be there.”

“Fine. I bet I’d see you more in London than I do now.”

Christian looked like he was tired of talking to me and I knew from his expression that he had no intention of giving in to my demand.

After that, he danced with me twice and Trinity once. Then he faked a yawn, patted me on the head and said his good-nights.

I stared at the pristine lines of his back and shoulders and felt like clawing my heart out. He was about to get a shock. I was going to run away from school.

***

Running away from school was too easy. Maybe it was because I was seventeen instead of eight like Trinity had been, but I felt like it should have been harder. I made flight reservations online and then I faked a headache to get out of class. I picked up my bag and slipped over the fence by the pool. That was how Trinity always snuck out and, for some reason, no one ever clued in that she just hopped over the fence by standing on the crates of salt. Once outside, I called for a ride and went to the airport.

It was hard for me to decide where to run away to. In the end, I decided to stay in Canada, but the farther away from Toronto, the better. There was a stable outside Calgary that I was quite fond of, so I decided to go there.

The trip was uneventful, as was checking into the hotel.

Day one: I hoped to make myself as much of a nuisance as possible, so I stayed in the hotel room and racked up the bill.

Day two: I took a taxi to the stable and went riding all afternoon. Except that I hadn’t been riding in ages and my thighs and backside ached like murder by the time I dismounted and went back to the city. At the hotel, there was no sign of Christian.

Day three: After the bruises from the day before, I didn’t want to go riding again. Instead, I lounged in the tub for most of the morning and then went shopping in the afternoon. I wished Christian would somehow meet me in the mall. Shopping without his opinion was a waste of time. In the evening, I had supper by myself in the hotel restaurant. I drove myself crazy staring at the door. Impatient, I thought that no matter where Christian was in the world when he found out I was missing, he should have been able to make it to Calgary by then.

Day four: Sick of Calgary and depressed that Christian hadn’t shown up, I decided to take a train to Vancouver and made plans to be on the next one. The journey would take a day and a night, so he would have to meet me in Vancouver if he showed up at my hotel after I left. Whatever. I went to the dining room and ordered four lobster tails without any sides to feed my sorrows.

Day five: I didn’t leave the room. I sulked and watched day-time TV until nightfall and then I watched late-night TV, which wasn’t any better.

Day six: I packed up and paid my bill. My credit card still worked, which seemed like a bad sign, showing that I hadn’t got his attention at all.

I went to the train station.

I got there an hour before boarding, so I sat down to wait. The place was littered with people but gave the impression of being empty since there were so many unoccupied chairs. Which was why it seemed unusual that the seat next to me was immediately occupied by one of the mustiest people I had ever smelled.

It was a man, swarthy and unwashed, wearing cheap cologne. He hadn’t shaved in days and his loud hibiscus printed shirt was only buttoned halfway up his chest. For pity sake, we were in Canada! Who did he think he was? And why did he keep looking at me?

I tried to ignore him by burying my face in my magazine, but he was getting so close to me that I could feel his breath on my neck.

“Do you mind?” I said in my snottiest, rich-girl, voice.

He didn’t move. “You like the fashion magazine, yes? Yet, you dress so boring. You need more style,” he said in a thick French accent. “Do you know what I mean by style?”

I moved over into the next seat.

He slipped into the chair I had just emptied and kept talking. “You should let me teach you. I can turn you into a star.”

At this point, I turned and looked directly into the sleazy loser’s eyes. Color didn’t matter. Shapes were all that mattered and I saw them at once. The nose was wrong, but everything else checked out. I took a chance. “Stop teasing me, Christian. It really hurts my feelings when I don’t look good in the clothes you like the most. I look fine in this. Not everyone has the shape to dress like a supermodel.”

He had been smiling, but he stopped when I said my lines. He leaned back in his chair and his shirt fell even more open as he placed his hands behind his head. “How did you know it was me?”

“Because it is you,” I said, like calling his bluff was nothing. I stuck my nose back in my magazine and pretended to read.

He scratched his head and lifted himself out of his chair. “Whatever. The fun part of our meeting is over. Get up.”

“My train isn’t boarding yet.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said with zero humor in his voice. “You aren’t getting on that train. We’re done with pleasantries. Get up.”

I did.

He grabbed my arm and ushered me out the front doors. “I look like crap and I need to change. I have a room down a few streets.” He pushed me into one of the waiting cabs and told the driver where to go.

Sitting next to him, I got a better look at his face. He had to be wearing pounds of makeup to make his skin look so dark. Well, even if it was a tan, that still didn’t explain why he was wearing a rubber extension on the end of his nose. As I looked closer, I saw he was wearing phony eyebrows, too. What was he up to?

“Christian?” I asked softly.

His glare could have killed me, but he seemed to check himself before the daggers got to me. “Did you forget my name already?” he asked flippantly in his French accent. “It’s Louis.”

“I’ll remember,” I said, excitement igniting inside me.

We stopped in front of a dingy hotel. I had only seen such shabby establishments from car windows and I’d certainly never been inside one of them. Christian took me past the check-in desk and up the stairs to a room on the second floor. He pushed me in and locked the door behind us. I watched as he stooped to put an electronic device under the door. Then he tugged his shirt over his head, flashing me a view of his bare back before he disappeared into the bathroom. The door closed and I heard the water running.

The room was the sorriest excuse for lodging I’d ever seen in my life. I wanted to sit on the bed, but the covers looked stained, and the whole place smelled funny. Instead, there was a plain wooden chair that I settled into while I waited for him to get cleaned up. It was then that I made the miserable realization that we had left my luggage at the train station.

When Christian came out of the bathroom, I didn't recognize him at first, because a red-haired teenage boy opened the door. I stared at him, trying to piece together what had just happened. He had been trying to disguise himself when he was dressed as Louis, but as far as I was concerned, it wasn't a very good disguise. When he came out of the bathroom, he looked like a completely different person. The beautiful angles of his face had been replaced with curves like he hadn't already lost his baby fat. His eyes that were normally a sweet murky color were now a pale blue, transforming the look of his entire face.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“My room here is under the name Charles Lewis,” he said simply as he dropped his bag on the floor. “From here, the story is that I helped you run away from school because we’re in love.”

“Can we talk about why I actually ran away from school?”

“There isn’t time,” he said as he circled the room picking up oddities he had left scattered. “The story goes that after we spent a few days on the lam, we ran out of money and I convinced you to return to school. I’ll fly back to Toronto with you. The plane leaves in an hour and a half.”

“Can we go back to the train station?”

“Why?”

“I left my bag there.”

He snorted. “Then you left your bag there. Honestly, I’m willing to put up with all kinds of crap from you, but taking the time to go back to the station—that’s a no-go. Look, Beth, seriously—I understand. You want attention. I wish I could give it to you, but I don’t have more time to give you than I already do. The truth is you are the only normal thing I have in my life, so please, don’t wreck it.” He looked at me with appealing eyes that somehow still looked like his even though so much had changed.

I shook my head. Once I had processed what he said, I knew his made-up story about us being in love wasn’t important. He was using that story as a tool to lure me back to school. He hadn’t disguised himself to be my boyfriend. He was disguising himself to hide himself. It wasn’t a real offer, and I hadn’t gone to all the trouble of running away so that he could ship me back without a shot being fired.

“You think I want attention? Yes, but that's not all I want.” I said without batting an eyelash.

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

I crossed my legs and mentally glued my bottom to the chair. I wasn’t going without a fight.

He zipped up his bag. “Time to go.” He picked up the phone and asked the front desk to have a car waiting for him downstairs. He was about to pick up the device from under the door when he saw I wasn’t moving. “Beth, get up.”

“I don’t see why I should come with you. I haven’t got what I want.”

“What do you want?” he asked as he retrieved the thing on the floor. “Back at your school, didn’t you say something about a home?”

His offhanded way of describing my most crucial desire made my blood boil. I didn’t answer him.

He came over to the chair and grabbed my arm. “Get up,” he ordered again.

“I want attention, but I also want a place that connects us, not just a random resort where we made some memories,” I said, looking up into his face, humiliating tears forming in my eyes. “I know you're keeping secrets and I won't ask you about them. You’re worried I’ll wreck the balance of your carefully crafted life. I promise I won't wreck it. I want to make our relationship better. You can never be my dad and I don't want you to try, but I want you to be my… there isn't a word for what I want.”

“All right,” he said, tightening his hold on my arm. “I’ll give you what you want, but you’ve got to give me what I want right now.”

“What, exactly, will you give me?” I muttered, grasping the armrests of the chair with white-knuckles.

He frowned darkly. “I’ll give you a key to one of my places and you can go there this summer, whether I’m there or not.”

“Done,” I said, uncurling my fingers from the chair and allowing myself to be led out of the room without the necessity of being man-handled.

After we left the room, we had to walk down a long hallway to the stairs that led to the hotel lobby. When we first started down, the stretch was empty, but as we continued, two men in suits appeared in the exit. Suddenly, Christian put his arm around my shoulder and, holding me like a teenage boyfriend, he cuddled up behind me. Then without warning, he began nuzzling my ear with his nose. I involuntarily pulled back, because I was completely unprepared for him to touch me like that.

“Smile,” he whispered in a seductive tone as he buried his face in my hair. “Look natural until we get to the end of the hall.”

I bit my cheek.

It had to have something to do with the men we were passing. He was hiding his face in my neck. They went by without noticing us at all. When we got to the end of the hallway, I peeked over Christian’s shoulder to see which room they were going to. Sure enough, they knocked at the room we had just vacated.

Heat flooded my face. If I had made Christian wait any longer there, we would have been caught by those thugs.

In the lobby, as Christian finished paying his bill, we heard a crash from upstairs. It sounded like the door of our room had been broken down. Christian acted like the sound didn’t have anything to do with us and got us out of the hotel and into a taxi in record time.

My heart was beating like a drum machine as he stuffed me into the car and told the driver to go to the airport in a cultured British accent.

I wanted to ask him all kinds of questions about what he had done to land himself in such trouble. Was it me? Was it a consequence of helping me with my heart? I couldn’t ask. I had promised I wouldn't ask and wouldn't try to find out.

On the plane back to Toronto, we didn’t talk, but Christian held my hand. There were freckles painted on his ordinarily brown forearms. It looked natural. His fingers lazily tangled with mine and it felt like the stuff my dreams were made of. I had to calm down. He was only doing it to keep up the charade. Charade or no, it felt real.

***

Back at the school, he dropped me off in front of the gates and ripped a page from a book in his pocket. He scrawled on it and, keeping the accent, he said, “This is my address—one of them anyway. You can use this as a home and if you ever decide to run away again, please run here.” He produced a keyring and unhooked a key for me. “This opens the door. Don’t get lost.” He looked around. “I think that’s everything. Is anyone watching us?”

I peeked around. “I don’t see anyone, but probably.”

“Yeah, teenagers could be hiding anywhere. Better make it real, just in case.”

With that, he bent, wrapped one arm around my waist, and pulled me to him. With no more warning than that, he kissed me on the mouth and my senses blotted out everything else. There may have been teachers yelling, or high school students hooting. I didn’t care. I put my arms out and twisted my fingers in his fake red hair.

If it wasn’t real for him, it was thoroughly real for me and my reality changed forever. Whatever had been 'wrong' for him about our secret kiss in the hospital, was now shaping into a real future for me. Sure, he hadn't wanted to kiss a fourteen-year-old, but I did not make him kiss me in front of my school. Finally, I saw a tiny part of him that wanted me.

***

The aftermath of the incident was boring. I didn’t get expelled, but I got suspended from class for two weeks. The principal called Christian and he had a meeting with the administration. Then he gave me a lecture on how I was too precious to run away from school with a boy no matter how attractive he might be. It was amazing how straight he kept his face while he lectured me about my romance with ‘Charles’.

When I was alone with Trinity, she asked me what happened. “I still can’t figure out how the heck you managed it. You were supposed to run away to get Christian’s attention and instead you turn up back here with some amazing new boyfriend?”

“It’s simple really. Christian never came to get me,” I lied. “He could have looked up my Visa bill online and tracked me down, but he didn’t have the time. After spending almost a week in a hotel room in Calgary, you meet a few people. His name is Charles Lewis.”

“So, what’s going to happen next?”

I smiled. “He’s invited me to his home in Scotland for the summer and Christian says I can go, just so long as I don’t run away from school in the meantime. Cool, eh?”

That wasn’t exactly what Christian said, but whatever. Two could play his game.