Kisses and Lies by Lauren Henderson

Author:Lauren Henderson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Scotland, Fiction, & Detective Stories, Mysteries, Espionage, Mystery and detective stories, Europe, Murder, wealth, Orphans, Death & Dying, Social Issues, Love & Romance, Social Issues - Death & Dying, Juvenile Fiction, Orphans & Foster Homes, Dating & Sex, Mysteries & Detective Stories, People & Places, Friendship, Social Issues - Dating & Sex, England, Family, General, Children: Young Adult (Gr. 10-12), Children's Books - Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 9780385734905
Publisher: DELACORTE
Published: 2009-08-15T04:24:45.059000+00:00

fourteen

NOTHING’S FAIR

“What’s going on here?” Callum McAndrew yells. He draws level with his girlfriend and slams to a halt. The heavy, wood-framed pictures on the dark green walls can’t possibly be shaking just because one seventeen-year-old boy strode down the corridor. But it feels as if they are. Callum’s fury is so powerful that it’s displacing a lot of air in the gallery. It takes a lot of courage for me to stay exactly where I am, rather than shrink back into the protective embrasure of the window seat.

Lucy looks up at him imploringly.

“Cal, I was just defending you,” she says.

“God, Lucy, why can’t you leave this alone?” Callum snaps.

“Because it’s not fair!” she protests, sounding suddenly very young.

Callum grunts.

“Fair,” he says bitterly. “Nothing’s fair.”

He’s standing next to a portrait of a long-dead McAndrew in a kilt and velvet jacket, both hands planted in front of him on the hilt of a sword, lowering storm clouds brewing thunder in the gray sky behind him, a strike of lightning splitting an oak tree in the background of the painting. The long-dead McAndrew, who was clearly painted in a very bad mood, is the spitting image of Callum, from the dark brows pulled down over the gray-green eyes to the stubbornly set jaw, even the stance of the broad shoulders and legs planted wide enough to withstand a gathering storm.

And I think of Dan, Callum’s twin brother, dead and buried, and Callum standing here, so alive that lightning practically crackles in the air around him.

Callum’s right. Nothing’s fair.

He turns to Catriona. “And you shouldn’t be encouraging her.”

Catriona, quite unintimidated by Callum’s looming presence, leans back in the window seat, wrapping her arms around her knees, and sighs:

“Cal, you can’t go round policing what everyone talks about. Scarlett just got here. Of course she wants to talk about Dan, that’s what she’s here for.”

“She’d better not be saying anything bad about him!” Callum narrows his eyes at me threateningly.

“If you bothered to say a word to me, you could ask me what I’ve been saying,” I snap at him, really annoyed that he’s talking about me as if I weren’t here. “I haven’t got anything negative to say about your brother at all.”

Quite unexpectedly, Callum covers his face with his hands. “I can’t do this,” he groans. “Mum and Dad—everyone talking about Dan, and we’re expected to be able to—God, sometimes I wish I were the one who’d died. I really do.”

He turns his back, and it sounds like he’s crying. Horrified, I can’t move a muscle. I know that the biggest humiliation for someone as tough as Callum McAndrew must be to burst into tears in front of his girlfriend, his sister, and the girl he thinks killed his brother.

“Cal, come with me.” Lucy puts her arm round his shoulders and guides him back down the corridor.

“Just tell her to stay away from me, okay?” Callum says in a voice now thick with tears. “Please? Just get her to stay away from me.

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