**Author's Note: A bit shorter of a chapter than I'm used to posting, but for now, it feels right, and I've kept you waiting too long. Life has been hectic lately, and work, and everything, so my apologies. Also, a little credit to Stephen King for a concept-the world growing thin. Enjoy, go read.**
CHAPTER ELEVEN- When Things Grow Thin
He wasn't really an observant chap to begin with-not in this world or the other-so it was no real surprise that Rob Wesley failed to notice things around him. His mind was a bit addled, after all, filled with her and her raspberry scent and the silk of her hair tickling his face.
He didn't notice his sister's absences, longer and more frequent, the languid, loose-limbed look about her, like a woman well-loved. Had he noticed it, he'd likely have tried to put a stop to it, and altered her life-and his-greatly.
He also didn't notice how his word had started to change, how in places it felt downright thin. If the neatly painted and ever-flawless walls of Holforth briefly shimmered into ancient stones, he took no notice. If the football he held between his hands took on a different color, a different shape, indented and curiously heavy, he took no note.
All he observed was her.
And for him, it was enough.
~~~
It had been days-only a few, though it felt like more to Lucia-since she'd asked him to the masque. She'd kept
it to herself, not knowing exactly why, only feeling that she should.
After all, boys like Rob Wesley didn't go to masques with odd ducks like Lovey, no matter how just that morning before jogging off to the field, he'd stood with her behind the stands and pressed his lips tentatively to the spot just under her ear, making her stomach plummet to the ground.
No matter those things, she kept it to herself.
Because deep down, she thought saying it out loud would jinx it, would hex things.
She thought saying it out loud would make her carriage turn into a pumpkin.
Now, as she watched him at his afternoon practice, just wanting a single glance before she headed home, Lucia couldn't quite get herself to focus, to concentrate on him.
Because every time she looked at him, she saw a spinning room, a flaming X on a door she seemed to know, and she saw Rob's head bent next to a raven one-
But she couldn't seem to get any farther than that.
She didn't dismiss it, not in a million years would Lucia ever shrug something off as insignificant, but she let it slide away for the moment.
If she didn't immediately know what it was, she might later.
For now, she was content to take one last look and head to her home.
~~~
He was disappointed. It was hard not to be, really; he'd made it all the way through practice hoping she'd be there waiting for him, but she wasn't.
The rational part of Rob Wesley-the same part that had asked Lucia to make things as unconfusing as possible-understood why she was gone. It was a school night, they both had lessons, her father would be expecting her.
But the irrational part of him-the same part that had kissed her in the first place, the part he was learning to like a hell of a lot-still wished she was there.
He'd tried to puzzle it out all day Tuesday and most of Wednesday, then he'd simply… tossed it out. If something didn't make sense, he'd just give up. It was his nature, no matter how many times his Mum had clouted him over the head for not doing a particular problem on an assignment or not fully thinking before he'd said or done something.
He liked life to be black and white, and more often than not, he tried to make it that way.
Perhaps Lovey was his bit of color.
It was easier to think of her, after all, than to think of what Ginny had breezily told him and their mother on the way out the door that morning.
"Drake Mallory's coming to dinner tomorrow night, hope you don't mind," she'd said, just as neat as you please, just as though she were saying the sun was shining.
And their mother, for God's sake, hadn't said anything but "Well, that's wonderful, honey, I'll set another plate."
The whole world was going dotty.
He wished he'd had the presence of mind-or the courage-to ask Lucia to come, but he wasn't about to subject her to the night of torture that supper with a Mallory was likely to be.
And didn't just a teeny tiny part of him suggest he wasn't really ready to have her there, with his family, at his house, sitting across from him at the worn table?
Maybe just a teeny tiny part.
~~~
"This doesn't look like working on the newspaper." He sat down beside her on a narrow wooden bleacher and
looked out at the football field instead of looking at her. He so rarely got to see it from this angle, and besides-his
mother had told him more than once it was rude to stare.
He wanted to look sidelong at her but didn't, wanted to tell her he'd thought of her the evening before but didn't.
Instead, he simply sat where he was and they looked out over the field in silence.
She smiled a bit at his greeting and felt her hand tense slightly in her lap. She wanted to reach across and slide her hand into his, but didn't. She wanted to simply lay her head on his shoulder, but didn't.
She wanted to open her mouth and let the story spill out, and perhaps a few tears with it, but she didn't.
She'd gone home the evening before as she'd intended, full of thoughts of him, but with dread lurking somewhere in the background. The date had been imprinted on her mind years before, first as a reason for making silly little cards and presents, then as a reminder of her father's grief, the grief he hid so well most of the time.
Seven years before, the evening had been spent exchanging gifts and cooking everyone's favorite dishes, the wedding anniversary marked the same way every year. Every year, Lucia's parents had tried to cook for one another, every year, they had included her, and every year, the food ended up burned or ruined or only halfway palatable.
And every year, the love was so evident that Lucia never questioned it.
And for the past six years, the house had been silent, save for her father's memories clinging in the air, and occasionally, as there had been last night, the sound of him talking to his departed wife as he tried to go to sleep.
And in her own room, Lucia had stared at the ceiling and wondered about the weakness that came when you split yourself in half and gave that half to someone else, asking for theirs in return.
When they left, they took their half back-but never returned yours.
It seemed foolish and unfair, and though she'd worked hard to keep the pettiness from touching her memories of her mother, there were times when she couldn't help it.
So she sat silently, looking out across the field, and took both comfort and despair in his presence next to her.
And wondered if she'd made a mistake.