Fragile Facade (Blind Barriers Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  Anxiously, I paced the small apartment trying to decide what to do next. The previous day had been all about finding an apartment. Now that I’d done that, I wasn’t sure what my next move was. I needed a job, definitely. But I wasn’t even sure where to start looking. All of those job-seeking websites were aimed at people who had some skill or specialty. At eighteen, I had only a high school education and no work experience to boast about. I figured my best bet was strolling through the more upscale neighborhoods and looking for Help Wanted signs in the restaurant windows. Since the temperature outside was in the upper 90s and the UV index was nine, not to mention the air quality alert on Weather.com, I wasn’t eager to start my search.

  “What to do. What to do,” I muttered to myself after several turns of the apartment. All this quality alone time I was spending with myself was becoming very boring. At home, I’d constantly been surrounded by people. My true friends had been few and far between. Some days, I doubted that I had any at all. But there were always people around – teachers, peers, parents. Here, in this city, I was finally alone. Finally free to be who I wanted, live how I wanted, without judgment. The problem was, I wasn’t sure who I wanted to be or how I wanted to live.

  I ticked off my entertainment options on my fingers as I paced. There was always television. My parents had always complained about how much TV I watched, but now that there was no one to pester me about finding more enriching extracurricular activities, the prospect of watching television held little appeal. Internet surfing was always a good waste of several hours, but that was all I’d been doing in my down time lately. Eating, now that was something that was both necessary and enjoyable.

  A quick check of the kitchen cabinets told me that Kim either loved or hated tuna fish. Cans of the stuff were stacked five deep in the cabinet closest to the fridge. Unfortunately, there was no mayo or bread. Tuna fish was out. I still had two granola bars left from the previous day’s CVS trip, but I was pretty much granolaed out.

  Splurge, I told myself. Order delivery from some local hot spot. Only trouble with that idea was that I had no idea where that would be. I started for the bedroom, intending to use my laptop to Google delivery options, when a thought popped into my head. Asher. He had said to let him know if I needed anything. And restaurant suggestions were the type of thing neighbors asked of one another. Maybe if he weren’t too busy, Asher would even offer to join me.

  I shook my head to clear the ridiculous notion. Sure, he’d said I was cute; but that was before he learned my age and employment status, or rather lack thereof. If I were him, I would already regret having helped me carry in my bags. He was about to be a law student, and the ink was barely dry on my high school diploma! College was something I aspired to, but not in my immediate future. He was preppy. I was, well, not preppy. Besides, he probably had a girlfriend.

  “Raven?”

  I came to an abrupt halt at the sound of my name. Slowly, I spun to face the front door. Speak of the devil, I thought. Asher, having exchanged his old t-shirt for a navy polo, was framed in my doorway.

  “The door was cracked open,” Asher explained sheepishly. “I knocked a couple of times, but I guess you didn’t hear me.”

  “Guess not,” I mumbled. How long had he been watching me? How had I missed his knock?

  “I was just gonna run out and pick up some food. I figured you probably hadn’t had time to make a grocery run yet. Do you like Ethiopian?”

  That flat grey bread that always accompanied the meat dishes at Ethiopian restaurants made my stomach turn. But Asher’s smile was so hopeful, so adorable, that I beamed back and said, “I love it.”

  After the energy it took to make it through the school day, both mental and social, the peace of Downtown Downs was a very welcome wave of calm that washed over me. The clean but slightly scratched tables, the overstuffed couches, the dark hardwood floors, and the ever-present struggling musicians provided exactly the atmosphere I was craving. Standing in the doorway, I scanned the people littered throughout the space while I searched for a place to settle in. Amid the small crowd of students and hipsters enjoying their salads, sandwiches and triple espressos, there was one person who immediately drew my attention: Blake Greyfield.

  His preppy look might’ve fit in with my crowd – jeans and a Lacoste polo were the afterschool uniform of choice in the warmer months, crisp oxfords when there was a chill in the air – but he was definitely like no one at Gracen. My poised, amiable smile, an expression ingrained in me at a young age by my mother when she taught me the importance of always seeming pleasant, instantly became a full-on grin when I saw him. Just moments later he looked in my direction, almost as if subconsciously he knew the moment I walked through the door. When he spotted me, his face lit up, mirroring my expression exactly. He stood and slapped hands with the guys he’d been sitting amongst, an effective end to his taking part in their conversation, but his green eyes kept flicking back to me.

  I made my way over to a plush loveseat in the corner and tossed my bag on the chair next to it while he said his goodbyes, turning to him just as he reached me.

  Every time I saw him, every time we touched, even just in casual hello, my heart literally fluttered. I know that they say things like that all of the time in books, but I actually had a physical response to him being near, like a thrill going through my stomach. I know I lingered a beat too long when he hugged me, but I couldn’t help it. And I didn’t feel bad, because he usually did too.

  “Hello there, gorgeous. I’ve missed you,” he said while his eyes held mine. It wasn’t like when all of the people at school threw the word around – I knew he meant it.

  “Hi, handsome,” I said with a grin, loving the way he stared into my eyes, past the contacts and deep into my soul. He saw the real me. The perfectly flawed girl trapped beneath the impeccably constructed façade.

  We probably would’ve stayed like that for a while – it had been known to happen – except our favorite waitress crept up from behind.

  “I know you guys are busy contemplating the span of the universe in each other’s eyes, so just nod if you’d like the usual.”

  We broke apart with a laugh, and I quickly regained my bearings.

  “Hi, Shirley! You know what I like; surprise me with something delicious.” I gave her a warm look, thinking about how unfair it was that she was probably seventy and still hustling around, fetching things for the over-privileged.

  While Downtown Downs had the warm, shabby look of an everyman’s hangout, the gourmet touches to the café menu and the prices actually ensured that only those who could afford to spend nine dollars on a latte were ever present. That was probably a good thing for Shirley, tip-wise, at least.

  Though I knew it wasn’t entirely normal, I just couldn’t help having thoughts like that, pondering the inequality of Shirley working so hard while we lounged and overpaid for coffee. I oftentimes stopped and wondered what other people’s lives were like when I encountered them. Why was the man on the garbage truck doing just that? Why did the mailman spend his life sorting and walking? Why was Shirley a waitress? What decisions led them to those lives? How much of it was simply cosmic lottery? What would my life be like if I weren’t me?

  “Stop it. You’re torturing yourself,” Blake said with a gentle nudge.

  He’d settled in on the couch next to me and slung his arm over my shoulder. I snuggled in closer. I could never be too close to him.

  “No way. I’m just thinking,” I smiled up at him.

  Blake was the perfect height for sitting like this: 6’2” to my 5’6”. He was the perfect height for everything, actually. When we kissed, he only had to tilt his head downwards while I stood on my tiptoes, and our lips met. When we danced, I could rest my cheek against his chest and feel the accelerated beat of his heart, while he rested his cheek on top of my hair and hummed along with the music.

  A dark curl strayed down over his tan forehead and I pushed it back, admiring the flawless lines of his
face. He was the only one who I could talk to about these things, about the existential issues constantly running through my mind. I didn’t dare let on to anyone else that I wondered things like that. Knowing the Eight, posing any questions aloud about why certain people had certain lives would be met with a joking comment from one of the guys along the lines of “Who cares? We’re lucky!” Some of the guys at school might even offer an obnoxious response about breeding and survival of the fittest, or something equally asinine.

  “So, a lot of homework? Or do we have time to just chill?” Blake asked, bringing me back from my pondering as he toyed with my hair. “Big fan of this new look, by the way.”

  That’s right; I hadn’t seen him since I’d had it cut from nearly the middle of my back to just below my shoulders. The haircut had been a huge source of drama in my house, with my mother acting as though I’d cut off my nose to spite my face, so I was secretly relieved that Blake liked it.

  I hated the days I didn’t see him, but I could only sneak away from my life so often without causing a huge stir. The only reason my parents hadn’t noticed my absences in the six months since we’d met was because I actually did schoolwork when we spent time here at the Downs, and it in no way affected my appearance. Had my grades slipped, or if I pierced my nose, then my time would’ve been more carefully accounted for.

  “Really? You like it?” I asked, patting the side of my head self-consciously.

  While I let my friends think that their opinion mattered, his was the only one that did. Well, and mine. And I liked my new look a lot.

  “Love it,” Blake responded, and then kissed my forehead.

  “You should’ve seen my mother’s expression when I got home from the salon. You’d think I got a face tattoo or something. ‘Lark, oh Lark, what have you done? Your hair is your crowning glory. Now no one will want to marry you!’” My imitation of my mother was rewarded with that low rumbling laugh of Blake’s that I lived for.

  “Your poor mother! You know you can’t make any decisions about your looks without her approval. Though it looks amazing. You look amazing. But you know you shouldn’t even be thinking about it; she does enough of that for you,” he said with a wink.

  Blake’s joke was a little too close to the truth for my comfort. He’d never met my mother, of course; but my stories of her must seem like gross exaggerations, as if I were telling him about a caricature of her. Unfortunately, that’s basically what the matriarch of our family was – a reproduction of what she was raised to know, just as her mother before her. To them, looks were everything. If you were pretty, you didn’t have to worry about anything else. Of course my father disagreed, but that didn’t stop my mother from taking me in for my first facial when I was six years old, my first chemical peel at thirteen.

  Blake’s family didn’t seem to put any of the pressures on him that mine gave me on a daily basis. They were well-off too, but his upbringing was entirely different from mine. He was what everyone I knew referred to as “New Money.” They said it in a way that implied there was something very wrong with that status. To add insult to injury, his parents were among those considered to be the worst type of New Money: those who held no concern for what Old Money thought of them. I admired that, which was probably part of why I liked Blake so much. He didn’t care what others thought of him, was as comfortable in the truly downtown crowd as he was in a tux at a fundraiser.

  That’s actually how we met, in the most romantic of scenarios.

  The Met Ball was an annual gala held every January at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ostensibly, it was put on to benefit one charity or another, but mostly existed as an excuse to dress in the most lavish new couture that one could find. I’d worn a long black gown that night; it was still tucked into the back of my closet, hidden away like the precious souvenir that it was. He’d chosen a classic tuxedo, a far cry from some of the outrageous styles that many of the husbands and metrosexuals alike adorned for the occasion. Forget the latest trends; there was nothing sexier than a good-looking guy in a tux.

  That night, that moment we’d first locked eyes across the room, was like a scene from a movie. One of my friends, I don’t know who, had been complaining that the champagne wasn’t up to the usual caliber of these parties. I’d been desperately searching for an escape, even if just for a couple minutes of solitude, when I spotted him. The attraction was instantaneous and all-consuming. I remember wanting to excuse myself and go to him. But Blake had been surrounded by his crowd, and my mother would have intercepted me before introductions were made.

  Instead, I spent the evening smiling for pictures, sipping pilfered champagne with my friends while our parents pretended not to notice, and keeping an eye on the gorgeous guy who I could never cross the floor to talk to.

  Events like this were clearly sectioned off, and it wasn’t difficult to spot the divides: “us” on one side of the room, “them” on the other, and the celebrities mixing in the middle, truly belonging to neither side. My friend Ally’s mother had once likened them to court jesters – only there for our entertainment. In a sense it’s true, but still, it’s harsh.

  That night I spent quite a while ruminating over what it must be like to be Kristen Stewart; she’d just looked so miserable. Jessica Alba was the polar opposite, glowingly pregnant and all smiles. I wondered about her life as well, whether she was truly as happy as she seemed to be. Or was she the consummate actress, always playing a part?

  I was tilting my head from side to side and trying to decide what exactly was different about Megan Fox’s face since the last time I’d seen her in public – if I cocked my head down and to the right, it looked like she’d had a nose job, but if I went up and to the left, definitely cheekbone shaving – when my mother caught my gaze and called me over. Not to admonish me for being slightly tipsy along with the rest of the Eight, but because while I’d been assessing Mrs. Brian Austin Green’s nose, my own had become shiny. Charming, I know.

  With one heavily jeweled hand, my mother beckoned me to her side. Barely suppressing a groan of frustration and irritation, I walked over to where she stood with the other parents. None of my friends offered to accompany me, probably since most of them were trying to stay off their parents’ radar.

  “Lark, darling,” mother greeted with an air kiss. When she leaned in, she whispered in a tone dripping with more artificial sweetness than sugar-free syrup, “You should visit the ladies’ room, sweetie. Use your compact. You caught the light a moment ago and nearly blinded me.”

  I didn’t bother walking back over to my crowd to have one of the girls accompany me to banish the offensive shine.

  And that was how I finally met Blake Greyfield. As I exited the ladies’ room, in a rare moment when I was offsides and alone, he made the first move.

  The hallway leading to the restrooms was dark and deserted, save Blake. He leaned casually against a small table holding a vase of red roses. He straightened when he saw me, standing to his full height with his hands tucked into the front pockets of his slacks.

  “Care to dance?” he asked.

  At first I was taken aback and blinked several times, causing those damned contacts to swim in my eyes. Not that the divides meant anything to me at all, but they did exist and my feelings were distinctly in the minority. But in a moment of reckless disregard for protocol, emboldened by the bubbly, I said, “Yes, actually, I would love to.”

  “Good,” Blake responded with all the confidence in the world.

  I smiled up at him as he offered me an arm. It wasn’t unheard of, was actually acceptable to my friends, to “slum” with a gorgeous guy on a special occasion after midnight. But only if you could blame it on drinking. Those weren’t my rules of course; I’d have said yes if he’d asked me the moment I stepped through the door, fashionably late at 9:30.

  Blake led me to the dance floor, just as Paul McCartney himself took the stage. That’s how it worked at these things – select musicians sang for their supper. As I trailed b
ehind Blake, the silence of the crowd’s anticipation was broken by the beginning notes of Blackbird, in a slower tempo than it was usually played. There was absolutely no helping it; I had a ridiculous grin on my face when Blake stopped in the center of the floor and turned to face me. It was one of my all-time favorite songs. Catching my moment of unadulterated delight, a wide smile transformed his features from simply gorgeous, to warm, inviting and gorgeous. Just when I thought he couldn’t have possibly been more attractive. I tried to reign myself in, biting my bottom lip and casting my gaze to the floor. But I was clearly still beaming.

  Blake put his hand on the small of my back and pulled me closer, an unfamiliar but not-unpleasant chill travelling down my spine. Instinctively I leaned in to him, closing my eyes as I let the song wash over me. We didn’t say a word, just swayed. When McCartney sang, “You were always waiting for this moment to arrive,” a second chill ran through me. I was?

  When Sir Paul seamlessly transitioned in to My Loving Flame, Blake didn’t move away. So neither did I. At one point, he pulled back slightly to look into my eyes, his smile replaced by a contemplative expression. My features grew serious as well when I met his gaze, the intensity simmering between us causing my heart to beat just a little faster.

  The corners of his mouth slowly begun to curve up, and he gently pulled me back into his embrace, holding me just a little tighter. All three of McCartney’s offerings that night were spent in Blake’s arms. We still smile every time we hear his music.

  When a pop star took the stage next, the mood instantly changed, and we reluctantly moved apart. Standing off to the side of the polished oak dance floor, Blake hooked me with that look of his again, and I was completely taken in. Everything else melted away. The crowds of elegantly dressed socialites blurred, the music faded into the background, and the lights dimmed. It was just me and the handsome stranger from the other side of the invisible societal barrier. It felt like we were learning about each other, getting to know one another, without uttering a word.