Swell (Complete)

Chapter Nine (Part Two)

The drive to the Taylors' house behind the bakery was quiet. Adora felt a heavy tension in the air and she didn't know how to break it. Marti sat beside her in the backseat and tried to give her reassuring smiles, but all Adora could do was half smile back before looking to the twin sitting in the front of the car.
Most of the businesses on the Esplanade had houses attached to the back of them where the owners lived. Half of the block was the stores and the rest belonged to the house. After that first block, the rest of Wheeler Falls was a grid of houses and streets.
Adora knew her way around with her eyes closed, it took no longer than ten minutes to get to the driveway even with the rainy day traffic. Tom pushed a button and the garage door started to roll open.
Will was the first to get out.
"We'll leave your bike on the car, I'll likely need to drop you off in the rain, it'll save time this way." Tom said as he turned off the engine and undid his seatbelt. Adora just nodded and watched as Will took his bag, gave her a nod and then went through a door into the house.
The roller door started to close and Marti held out Adora's bag to her. "I'll see you later, I'm off to finish that bloody Macbeth play." She winked and Adora took her bag and nodded.
"Good luck." She said as her friend left her alone with Tom.
"We'll go down to the study." Tom slung his shoulder strap over his head and gestured towards the door.
"OK." Adora swallowed a thick lump and headed in the direction Will and Marti had disappeared in.
"Just straight down the end of the hallway." Tom pulled the door shut behind him and pointed.
Adora dawdled, hoping Tom would pass her and start leading the way, but as she passed the entrance to the kitchen, an opened door to a lounge and several closed doors along the hallway as she realised he was content with watching her from behind.
She found herself wishing he had decided against the study session.
"That one." Tom's hand appeared over her shoulder, pointing to a door at the end of the hallway.
Adora turned the knob and pushed it open. Several desks were arranged in the room, one facing the window, one in a corner looking out over the room and one against a wall. The corner desk had a computer monitor on it and the other two were in various states of organisation.
A large pine bookshelf was against its own wall, half full of books, the other half full of boxes.
"We're still trying to sort out the work and study areas. We can use this desk." Tom finally passed her and put his bag beside the desk facing the window.
"Great." Adora put her backpack on the floor and knelt down to get her psychology books and notes out. "I got some tests from a website Mr Harrison tells us to use before exams so that you could test yourself and your memory." She explained as she stood and put the books on top of the desk.
Tom was standing close beside her, his face locked on her. She felt her heart jerk and her stomach flutter as her eyes met with his and for a few moments she couldn't move.
That intense look was there, that fast fall in his beautiful eyes.
She cleared her throat and opened the text book. "We started this semester here." She pointed at the chapter and opened her exercise book. "And these sheets are the relevant tests for it. Have you learned about this before?"
Tom finally moved away from her and she stepped back further to give him more room to look at her books. "We did something like this in Richieville," he started, his finger running over the page and flicking to the next. "Let me try the test on this chapter and see how much I remember."
"Alright." Tom pulled out the chair and sat at the desk.
Moments later, Adora found herself wandering around the room while Tom's head was down and focussed on the sheet. The unpacked books were mostly baking books, and she smiled as she remembered the treats in the bakery's display cases.
She moved to the corner computer desk and sat down in the seat. The atmosphere between them felt better when Tom was trying to concentrate, and she felt more at ease than she had earlier.
Leaning forward, she reached out and picked up a photo frame beside the monitor.
"Is this you or Will?" She asked Tom. He looked up from his psychology sheet and glanced at the photo.
"Oh, that's Will." He said casually, before going back to his test.
The smile on Will's face was so happy it almost made him look like an entirely different person. In the photo there were two other boys laughing and smiling; one girl was in front of them grinning as they readied to pick her up.
The group looked perfect and an ache opened in Adora's chest. She didn't have any photos like this, she had friends, and the band but they had nothing like this.
Will was so solemn as she knew him, what had changed between this framed photo of happiness to now?
"He looks... So happy." She was almost certain that the expression on his face as he looked at the girl was what she thought to be love.
"That's Elissa, she was his girlfriend. Also Marti's best friend; I think Marti took that picture." Tom said absently.
She put the frame back down on the desk and looked over to Tom. "What happened?"
Tom looked up at her, and then down to the frame back on the desk. His pen went down onto his worksheet and he let go of a deep breath.
"She left."
Adora frowned. "Left?"
"Left a note, left Richieville, left Marti, left Will." Tom nodded.
The ache dropped like a stone to her gut and Adora looked from Tom's solemn face back to Will's smile.
"Why?"
Elissa looked blissfully happy in the picture. Why would she leave?
"The note wasn't really detailed." Tom shook his head as he stood up and moved beside Adora, he picked up the frame and his shoulders slumped with a sigh. "Marti was upset, but she recovered, friends come and go, you know, especially when you move, Will... He's taking it a bit harder. There were no signs, it was a total surprise to everyone, even her parents. No clues to where she went, and she asked nobody to find her."
"Wow." Adora tried to imagine someone in Wheeler Falls just running away like that, leaving nothing but a note to say goodbye. "That's heartbreaking." Her voice was low.
Tom put the frame back down and Adora felt his hand on her shoulder. "Yea, it was hard seeing Will go from being so happy to so... Guarded."
Adora's eyes moved to Tom's hand, his fingers near her collarbone and swallowed a nervous lump.
"But Marti's doing well, she's excited to be here, and we're both here for Will when he needs." Tom pulled his hand back and went back to his seat, picking up the pen and looking at Adora with a small smile.
"I just can't imagine somebody suddenly leaving when they look so happy." Adora shook her head and looked back to Will's bright expression.
The contrast almost made her want to cry. "When did she leave?"
"Marti went over to tell her we were moving the Sunday before we arrived here; the note was sitting on her bed. So, it's been two weeks." Tom frowned thoughtfully.
"Not long."
"I guess not, but there's plenty here to keep them both busy, like catching up on what we've missed before the mid year exams, finding dates to the end of semester dance that's advertised all over school."
Adora just nodded slowly, still trying to imagine why Elissa would leave people like Will and Marti without warning. What kind of person would leave behind such heartbreak?
In the peripheral of her vision she could see Tom looking at her, as if he was waiting, and when she refused to meet his eyes she heard a huff as he looked back down to his test.
The dance, had that been what he'd been hoping for? To ask her out to the dance?
She leaned back in the leather chair and closed her eyes.
No, Tom, I can't go out with you. She thought silently.

The rest of the study session went by smoothly. Tom seemed to need less help catching up than he led Adora to believe, and she was actually relieved about that.
He had started trying to help break the awkward atmosphere between them after the talk about Elissa.
His humour was more laid back and Adora found herself appreciating his effort to put them both at ease in the friendship.
The drive home wasn't even tense. The rain had slowed to a drizzle but he'd still insisted on driving her home because the clouds had made dark set in earlier.
Tom lowered her bike from the roof of his car and held it between them. He had a hand on the handlebars and a hand on the leather seat. Adora put her hands on the bike to take it from him, but he didn't let go.
After a couple of gentle tugs, she looked up by the front light into his face. His strong expression was set thoughtfully on her and she swallowed. "Um, Tom..."
"Do I have any chance?"
His question caught her breath in her chest and she felt as though it had sucked all the air from her body. Her lips opened and closed a couple of times before she looked down at their hands on either side of the handlebars, the basket fastenings between their fingers.
She shook her head slightly. "I don't think so, Tom." She could barely bring herself to say it.
She pulled her bike towards her body again; he still didn't let it go. She closed her eyes and gripped harder on the bike.
Let us go, she thought.
She felt the bike give towards her and relief washed through her for a moment before she felt his masculine fingers on her chin.
Her eyes flickered open as he lifted her face to look at his and leaned in towards her. His lips were touching hers before she realised what he had been starting and once again the intense passion pressed against her.
She made a sound of protest and stepped back, pulling her bike away and taking deep breaths.
"Forgive me if I try." He said solemnly, his eyes reflecting the light behind her for a few moments before he hopped into his car and drove down the driveway.
Adora was still gripping tightly onto her bike when the taillights of his car vanished around the bend. The drizzle had left a coating of drops on her hair and clothes and her heart was still racing from Tom's intensity.
"Adora?" Her mum's voice jerked her eyes away from the dark driveway and with one hand she wiped moisture from her face before turning to look over her shoulder. "Will you hurry up and get inside? You'll catch a cold outside tonight." Anne smiled.
"Yes, Mum. I'll just go put the bike away. I'll be inside soon." Adora gave her mum a small smile back and started to push her bike to the side of the house.