Familiar Spirit

Sarah had a hard time falling asleep that night. She lay awake a long time in the dark, empty bedroom, tossing on the new bed. She tensed at every sound, afraid that something was wrong. It was hard to accept that the battle was over and she had won, that she could sleep safely now. When she didn’t think of Jade, her thoughts turned relentlessly to Brian. Her earlier annoyance with him had faded, leaving behind the old, familiar ache. How long, she wondered, before she stopped missing him, stopped wanting him back?

I need to find someone else, she thought. It was time to get out, to meet new people, to go to parties again. It was possible in Austin to find some sort of party every weekend. It was time to stop mourning and get back into the swing of things. With someone new to think about and hold, she would not miss Brian so much.

That settled, Sarah snuggled deeper into the bed, pulling the blankets closer around her. The sound of the insects outside lulled her. It would be like the old days, she thought, when she and Beverly had found dates for each other.

She was half-asleep now, remembering the past and drifting into dreams. She rolled over in the soft, yielding bed and pressed herself against the comfort of Brian’s warm, naked body. Vague, sexual thoughts stirred within her, and she pressed her breasts against his back. Was he awake? She slipped her arms around him and trailed her fingers teasingly down his chest, his stomach, lower still . . .

He caught her hands gently and folded them around his penis, which was already half erect. She felt it swell within her hands and she sighed, pleased. He moved, turning within her arms to face her.

Moving to accommodate him, Sarah opened her eyes and was alone. Her arms, reaching out to embrace a phantom, were empty.

She shuddered, and tears rose in her eyes. A dream. Just a dream. Moonlight spilled coldly through the window, illuminating nothing but the emptiness around her. She didn’t belong here, alone in this big, empty house. She had no home.

Chapter Sixteen

Sarah hurried across the West Mall, her arms full of books and her mind full of lists. The day was unseasonably warm and sunny, and someone had strung garish red and silver Christmas decorations on all the pathetic boxed trees that broke up the monotony of the paved mall, but Sarah scarcely registered any of it. It was the last week of school before Christmas, and she had far too many things to do before she could leave town. She planned to hole up in the library for as long as possible to avoid the temptations of phone calls, visits, parties, and the accusing list of presents still unbought.

“Sarah, for heaven’s sake, are you deaf?”

Beverly blocked her way.

Sarah smiled and shifted her books against her chest. “Sorry. I was just plotting the impossible course of my life the next few days.”

“I need to talk to you for a minute, okay?”

Sarah raised an eyebrow at the mystery in her friend’s voice and followed her to a bench in the nearby Union patio.

“Look, I don’t want to stir anything up, or make you unhappy,” Beverly said. “I’ve been put in the middle of this, though, and you should know about it. Brian called me this morning. He wanted your address. He said he knew you’d moved into our complex, but he didn’t know the apartment number. I told him he could call you, and that he could get your new phone number from information, because I wasn’t going to tell him.”

Sarah laughed affectionately, although she felt a pang. “My duenna,” she said. “Protecting my virtue.” She gave Beverly a quick hug. “Believe it or not, Brian thinks we are still friends. He probably wants to send me a Christmas card. He’s very big on that sort of thing. It’ll be signed by both of them—as if Melanie would want to send me a Christmas card, or I’d want to get one from her!”

“That’s not very likely,” Beverly said soberly. “The word is that Melanie has split.”

Sarah stared. “Brian told you that?”

Beverly shook her head. “You know that undergraduate course in Folklore I’ve been auditing? I just came from there. Melanie’s best friend is in that course, and I overheard her gossiping with her little clique about Melanie. It put a whole new light on Brian’s call, I’ll tell you.

“It seems that Melanie has left him and gone running back to her parents. She won’t tell her friends why, and they were clucking like a bunch of hens over that defection, saying how much she had changed, wondering whatever had happened to their sweet little Melanie, to make her change so.”

To make her change so.

The words caught Sarah like a lump of ice forced down her throat.

Beverly leaned forward and pressed her hand. “So you see why I’m worried. If he and Melanie have split, he’s probably feeling sorry for himself. And he may want to come crawling back to you for comfort. If he does, Sarah—kick him in the teeth. You don’t need that. Not after what he did to you. Don’t let him take advantage of you.”