The Compass by C. T. Lang (carter reed .txt) 📕

never saw that coming! How do I handle this? What do I say?) Her eyes grew as large as saucers, but she never looked away.
“Wha… why… no… NO!” (That was elegant. I’m an idiot.)
“Very well, then. What else could occupy your time on a Sunday morning?” (Time to cave in. This has gone far enough.)
“I was at church.” Another brief moment, then Jenson said,
“I’m not buying it.”
“I was!”
“Were not,” said Grey. (At least, I think it’s Grey. It’s so hard to tell with TaG.)
“I WAS.”
“Were nah-ot!”
“Shut up, TaG!”
“Leave Trey and Grey out of this,” Jenson said, not even looking at the twins, who were clearly enjoying this. “Alex, do you realize The Compass has its first performance in two nights’ time?”
“Yes.” (We’ve only been rehearsing for hours every day since I got here.)
“And do you realize that if you already have a female companion, it will jeopardize your popularity with the Axes female population??”
“But I don’t have one!”
“You do realize your earnings are directly proportional to the number of audience members who come to see you?”
“Quit reading me the riot act! I don’t have a girlfriend! I was at church, for crying out loud! It’s Sunday! I went to church!”
“By yourself?” interrupted the annoying voices in unison.
“Shh, TaG. Let her think about it.”
“There’s nothing to think about!” Alex took a deep breath. “Read my lips. I do not have a girlfriend,” she said, enunciating every word sharply.
“Very well, then,” said Jenson in the same tone as before. “I suppose we have nothing to discuss. Stay here.” (Why are the rest of them leaving?)
“Where are you going?”
Jenson didn’t answer her, but as he and the Captain walked out the door, leading the group, she heard Joshua ask, “Umm, First Mate, where are we going?”


The Compass
Chapter Five: No Secrets Among Sailors

It may have been minutes, but it seemed several hours to Alex before her other crew-mates returned. Once again, Jenson spoke first. (Clearly the First Mate is running this program.)
“Alex, we need to talk.”
“What about?” She controlled her voice, keeping it level with Jenson’s. He didn’t answer. But this time they didn’t have long to wait.
“Alex,” began Ryan, but Mark Antony shot him a look that read, shut up.
“Alex, we know,” said Trey, in a soft, comforting voice, very much unlike that he had recently used.
“We found out second,” said Grey not-quite-as-solemnly.
“Found out what?” Alex asked hollowly, needlessly. (It’s all over now.) But Jenson wasn’t listening to her.
“I discovered first. I perform a routine background check on all Compass members, and when I read your Coreman Scholars file, I noticed some discrepancies.”
“Like what?” It wasn’t really a question. (Dammit! Trust Jenson to be so thorough! And I really had a good thing going here, too!)
“The handwriting on your essays doesn’t match that which you use here, and in your personal choice essay, you mentioned your brother, Jef, saying—”
“Okay, that’s enough!” Alex shouted, on the verge of tears.
“Alex, it’s all right,” said Trey, who had left his brother’s side to join Alex on the floor. “Isn’t it, Jenson?” The First Mate nodded, but did not offer any reassurance.
“He didn’t tell us, you know,” said Grey, assuringly. “Trey and I found out on the first morning. You’d left for classes way before any of us were up. We expected you to stay for breakfast. And then we noticed you’d left your door unlocked—”
“You went snooping in my room?!” She jerked away from Trey, who looked downcast.
“Alex, we didn’t know. If you had been a girl, I mean, if we’d have known you were one, before, I mean, we wouldn’t have gone in!”
“Yeah!” agreed Grey, with a touch of self-righteousness, “How were we to know?”
“But in our defense,” Trey said, his voice soft again, “We never told anyone.”
“Then how did you all find out?!” Alex no longer fought to control her voice. (It’s all over. I can’t believe it. No! I can’t let it end like this! This is too much!)
It was Ryan who spoke next, and his consistent chattering gave Alex the time she needed to regain her composure.
“… so ya see, Alex-mate, it’s not like we even cared all that much, especially Mark Antony ‘n me, ‘cause we’re kinda one foot out the door anyway since we’re both graduating this year and it’s not like I would tell on you anyways honest I wouldn’t Alex mate ‘cause I really didn’t care that you looked like a girl and cooked like a girl and sang like a girl, Oops! I mean well I guess it’s not an insult or nothing’ ‘specially now ya know since you are a girl, Oops! I mean since we know you are, ya know Alex-mate?”
“Yeah, Ryan, thanks, Sailor,” she said as strength returned to her voice. Just as her breathing began to even out (inhale, exhale! That’s the ticket.), the last voice began to speak. Pain shot through her ribcage as she forced herself to hear the Southern accent.
“Don’t you want to know how I found out, Alex?” (No, no, no… NO, DAMN IT!) She winced, clenched her jaw shut, and nodded.
“Well,” he said, looking at the floor, at his feet, at the wall, and anywhere but at her. “It was one day during lunch. I don’t normally take my food outside, but I wanted to see where you were going…” (I remember that day. He came with me to the gardens by Maritime Pond.) “I didn’t make a big deal out of it, but you blended in there, next to the leaves and the flowers—I’m not saying you’re a girly-girl, not at all! But you had this look in your eyes like you were, I dunno, in love with the place. I never thought about The Compass like that before.” Alex finally caught his gaze and held it for several seconds before she looked away. (He thinks I’m a sentimental idiot.)
“And then, there were times when we were both in the library, and you would have your head so far into a book that I thought your eyelashes must be touching the page, and you never even noticed I was there.” Alex looked up again at him and became acutely aware of his body language. (He doesn’t seem altogether disgusted. Maybe there’s a slim chance. But what is my plan of action? What else can I say?)
“Alex, I found myself going to those places over and over again, even when I should have been somewhere else.” At this point, they were reminded that they were not the only ones in the room.
“It’s true! He shoulda been walkin’ me to class last Thursday but he never showed and Josh-I-mean-Captain always meets Mark ‘n me by the double arches on the East End but he wasn’t there and—” Mark Antony clapped a hand on Ryan’s shoulder, and Alex involuntarily laughed. The tension of the moment was over, and though a resolution had not yet been reached, Alex was downloading mental data and growing more confident with each second.
“Am I hearing this right? You guys… don’t care?” She anxiously awaited an answer. She didn’t have to wait long.
“Of course not!” TaG responded in one voice.
“Well, I mean we kinda do but not really Alex mate ‘cause you’re the best I mean you’re not just another girl you’re already one of us!”
“Thanks, Ryan.” She looked toward Mark, who nodded and shrugged, and at Jenson, who said curtly, “You are bound by contract. As it were, I don’t give a damn if you’re boy, girl, black, white, Jewish or Muslim. You will complete your term as agreed.” (Well that was the coldest “welcome to the group” I’ve ever heard.)
“Well, Captain?” She asked, surprised to find herself nervous at his response. (He’s gotta be okay with it, right?)
“Yeah, sure,” he said, but his voice cracked a little as he added, “Whatever.” Imprint

Publication Date: 03-20-2010

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