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The wind was whipping my face, as I stood there, appalled, frightened, and confused, about what had just happened before my wandering eyes. I was concerned that what I had just witnessed had truly been reality, and terrified by the same act. ‘Did he really just kill that man?’ Is the only thing that had run through my mind for the past ten seconds. I never thought ‘run!’ or ‘what if you’re next’. No, I wondered blatantly, unconcerned for myself, How could he? How could he go through with the killing? But the question that scared me was when I started asking myself if I knew the person.
Hadn’t I just seen him in my homeroom the other day? He went to my school and he just killed someone? I knew I recognized him and when he said those words, I knew exactly who it was.
“Vale perpetuo,” he uttered the words as if the man disgusted him.
Zachariah Jack Dawson, that was his name. He never cared to talk to any of us in his classes, just looked at us intensely. Sometimes his dark blue eyes would flicker into a grey when he showed some kind of amusement. Tonight his long dark hair was unusually still, as if the wind wasn’t touching his strong face. When he turned slightly his eyes looked a shade of dark red. As if every emotion changed his eyes, it didn’t matter to me his eyes were always beautiful. That was my favorite part of him. His eyes showed his emotions almost to well.
As I realized who it was, my horror took on a new perspective, he looked up and walked away. It wasn’t really a walk, he jumped up the buildings, window to window he moved. His dark shadow traveling the walls made him look like he belonged there.
If it wasn’t for the darkness he would have seen me. When I looked back at the man, I had the urge to reach out and touch him, to check his pulse, see if he was alive. I drew myself back, not needing to draw attention below until Zachariah was gone. Watching as Zachariah took the last leap to the roof, I counted to ten before going over to the man.
“Mr.Santino?” I whispered.
Silence. That was all I heard. The pure unforgivable silence of death, it was haunting.
Walking into my 3rd hour math class, the next day was horrible. I already knew we would have a substitute; I had witnessed Mr.Santino’s death last night. If that wasn’t enough, The substitute told us that we had a student transferring into our class. When he walked in I sat up, as quickly as I could. The first thing he looked at was me. His look told me that he, Zachariah Dawson, knew I was there last night, or maybe it was just my nerves I couldn’t tell, but why would I be nervous? Oh yeah, the only seat left was next to me.
When he sat down, he looked at me again only this time more intensely and held my eyes. His eyes held a deep blue color today, like the ocean I thought. I wanted to know what he was thinking at that moment. Although the thought was impossibly silly, I still longed for it. Why was he looking at me? There were prettier girls in the room. Did he know I was there last night? What was he? I held his gaze for a few more moments before looking away. It was a hard thing to do, look away, but I did. I felt his wandering eyes on me the rest of the hour.
When I got up to leave, he stopped looking and filed out the door like the rest of the students. What in the world did he think of me? I knew my eyes weren’t all that pretty like the other girls. Mine were a rust color. Not like my friend Anna, her eyes were a beautiful shade of green.
“Izzy, did you see the way Zach was looking at you?” Anna had run up beside me.
“Anna its, Zachariah or at least he hasn’t said to call him Zach, and yes I did.” It took me a second to think it all over though, to replay the class in my head. What does he think?
“I think he has a thing for you Izzy. The way he was looking at you? My gosh! Its worse than Jessica and Mark, and they were voted most likely to stay together.” Anna had whispered the last part.
“Anna, I really think it was no big deal, and Jess and Mark have been having a few troubles lately.” I replied hastily this time, I was afraid if I didn’t she would tell the whole school.
She replied easily, “What if he does though Izzy?”
I had to shoot her hopes down and fast, “he doesn’t I saw him with another girl last night Anna. He has no feelings for me, absolutely none. Okay?”
She sighed before agreeing, and then asked about our plans for the weekend, I had to tell her no though I needed the weekend to be alone.
I walked to the rest of my classes in hushed anticipation. I knew why I was so jumpy, I didn’t want to admit it, but I knew.
When I walked into homeroom Zachariah was sitting next to my desk. Mr. Fuller stepped next to me and whispered, “He insisted Izabella. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No of course not Mr. Fuller.” I whispered back with a smile.
I casually walked over to my seat and lowered myself down.
“Hello, Izabella.” He spoke clearly. I had never heard him speak before, his voice was the most amazing sound I had ever heard. It was deep but not extremely deep. It was perfect.
“Um . . . hello Zachariah,” I said embarrassed, “and you can call me Izzy.”
“Izzy then and you can call me Jack.”
“Jack? Isn’t that your middle name?”
“Yes, but it is shorter, and I have found that people prefer names that don’t take to long to pronounce.”
“I like Zachariah better.”
“To each their own. How are you by the way? You look like death itself.”
“I do? I feel fine.”
“Perhaps you stayed out too late?” his eyebrow raised to this.
“Maybe.”
The bell rang just then adding a period to my sentence along with another four students through the door. Again, I felt his eyes on me the whole hour.
“Izzy, if I may, I would like to ask you what you are thinking.” He said in a hushed tone.
“Um . . . I am thinking about what to do tomorrow.” I knew this wasn’t true, but he didn’t. I was really thinking about his eyes.
“Oh,” he lowered his eyes and turned away.
That was the last word he spoke to me for a month.
“Izzy!” Zachariah stated in his beautiful voice, “Never leave me, I need you. I need you Izabella Martin. You are my life.”
“Never” I promised tears streaming down my face, “Never.”
As he bent down to kiss me the vision disappeared with the sound of my alarm clock. Just another dream, like the ones I’ve had since the day he first spoke to me.
Naturally I would’ve gotten up and dressed, ate, brushed my hair and teeth, and gotten my bag around in the first twenty minutes. Today, I just sat there. Thinking, creating false hopes for myself. This was the first morning I’d allowed myself to do that.
As I walked into school, people looked at me. I wasn’t dressed like I usually was. I wasn’t in bright colors like normal. I wore a deep blue tank top, a gray jacket, and black skinny jeans. I hadn’t my straightened hair, I just let it fall naturally. I had my headphones in my ears and it was singing out music softly.
“Izzy? Is that you?” Anna’s eyes were wide.
“I decided to try something new, what do you think?”
“I actually like it.” Anna turned and walked away looking back multiple times.
I walked into the bathroom to check my reflection. I thought I looked okay. Not like usual, but not to bad. I obviously wasn’t put together, but I wasn’t falling apart either. I had put on eyeliner and mascara this morning and that was it.
“Anna…” I felt sheepish asking her, “Do I look okay?”
“Iz,” she said pulling me off to the side, “I have never ever seen you dressed like this before. In a way I wonder why, but the better half of me says, ‘she looks amazing! I wish I looked that pretty,’ you should dress like this more often.”
At this point, I looked down, and mumbled “Thanks.”
“No problem, now lets get to class.” She was excited for something, her voice was high, that was a dead giveaway.
When we walked into my first hour I saw why she was excited. It was movie/partner day in all the classes. Movie/partner day was Anna’s favorite day for a multitude of different reasons. Mainly the day meant that every class would show a movie while you worked with the person next to you on something. Which was something every student was excited about, it meant social time. The only exception I knew of was me. This was because in the past month Zachariah had switched into every one of my classes, always ending up sitting next to me. I was dreading this day, only because I knew how awkward it would be. Either way I had to sit down, so I trudged slowly to my seat.
“Good morning,” Zachariah surprised me.
“Good morning,” I managed to choke out before plopping into my seat.
“It’s a special day today,” He smiled.
“Movie/partner day isn’t so special,” I said.
“No, no, no, not that,” Zachariah whispered.
This puzzled me, “then what?”
“I am giving up today,” he sighed.
“Giving up on what?” I questioned. Why did he have to create so many questions? Every question he had ever raised in my mind came to thought now.
“Doing the right thing” He whispered before looking at me.
I had never seen his eyes this color before, a light blue-greenish color, but I liked it. I wanted to know what he meant, I needed to know. I needed to know all the answers to my questions. Mostly I just needed to know.
“What do you mean?” I asked
“Nothing, and everything,” Zachariah replied.
“You are so difficult,” I said rolling my eyes.
He looked away; I looked down at his things. On the cover of his notebook he had drawings. They were beautiful and horrifying. It was a scene of an alleyway. There were two people in the alley one looked horribly mangled, while the other was standing overtop of him. It looked familiar, like I had been there. I remembered that night with all of the images rolling to the top of my head. I became sick in an instant. Then he looked at me, and I was comforted. I have no idea why. He made me feel protected, no one could hurt me when I was with him.
“You’re not bad, and your not good, so what are you?” I asked in a gentle tone.
“I have no idea,” he said staring at the wall.
That made me wonder. If he doesn’t know then why do I remember that night?
“Do you ever have nightmares?” I questioned quietly.
“Nightmares that seem real, yes, more than you can imagine,” He looked almost ghost like as he said those words. What was I getting myself into?
“Hey, are you there?” I asked in a whisper.
“Oh, um yea. Sorry,” He replied looking at me. I could tell that his eyes were fading back to the color they were earlier, they had changed in our conversation.
“Don’t apologize,” I smiled lightly so he knew I was telling him that it was okay.
“So what exactly are these partner days about?” he wondered aloud.
“Well, we pair up and then we either watch the movie, play a game, or talk,” I explained.
“So a game will do then?” He said in more of a telling tone.
“Umm, I guess what game?” I asked.
“What games are there?” he asked politely.
“Well, there’s checkers or candy land?” I replied.
“Hmm, how about twenty questions instead?” he stated rather than asking. He paused before saying, “I will be asking the questions of course,” with a cocky grin.
“Okay,” I answered even though I had no reason to.
“Well let’s start with the basics. How long have you been here in the town of Langley?” he started waiting for me to answer.
“Almost 2 years now,” I left myself open for a hundred more questions with that answer.
He looked at me puzzled. After answering 18 questions I was starting to hope he had run out of things to ask. Until he looked at me, and I saw the sparkle in his eyes. He was interested and he was sifting through what was good and what was bad, he wanted to know what would set me off so he didn’t ruin this momentary connection we had.
Slowly he opened his mouth and let his question spill, “Do you like, um, different?” watching for my reaction.
I looked up to see his face twisted in fear, but why fear? “Different? Like, not the norm? Different is, good. Different is what the world needs. I guess I like different.” I answered back.
His face relaxed allowing himself to take a deep breath before letting his final question out of his mind and into the open air between us. After 20 seconds of quiet he smiled and asked “Do you want to know me, better?”
That question was different than all the rest. It intrigued me more too, I wanted to know him, I needed to know him. I longed for it. I smiled and watched as his eyes softened to a blue color that reminded me of the sky. I didn’t need to answer with words, he knew that I wanted to.
“Come with me,” he whispered as we walked to Mrs.Langstrode’s desk. “Excuse me, Mrs. Langstrode, Izabella and I have some things to take care of in the project garage. We are working on a homecoming project, for next year of course.” He said easily, like we really did have a project to go work on.
“Oh, well then. Go right ahead, you are excused from my class.” She replied blushing.
We walked out of the orange room and into the sterile white hallways of our school.
“Where are we?” I asked in amazement as I looked at the front of the massive forest that stood before s.
“Well, this is a forest, what else would it be?” he smiled, as if I didn’t know what it was. I looked at him and rolled my eyes before looking away.
“Why are we here?” I asked confused. Why were we here, at a forest at noon when we should be in school.
“This is the place I come to think. I thought you would possibly want to see it?” He lightly whispered before looking at me. A questioning in his eyes wondering if he had gone too far.
“Well then show me where you think, let’s not just stand here. If I’m going to miss school than I want to see.” I grinned through every word, even though I had a feeling that if I went forward my whole world would change and I’m not sure if I wanted that.
Zachariah smiled before reaching for my hand, I placed mine in his hand, they looked like giant’s hands wrapped around mine. He pulled me forward deeper in the thick wood. And as I followed forward I felt the air change, I felt the world around me change. This place was different, the forest was different on the inside. Something more magical entered into the atmosphere. I looked at him and Zachariah smiled and watched me patiently.
“Are you sure you want to see?” Zachariah whispered.
“Yes.” That moment changed my life.
***
Zachariah led me through the forest, to a tree. I could tell it wasn’t normal by the way the branches were all twisted. It seemed the tree was trying to say it was in pain.
“This,” He was looking at me, his eyes set in a look of concern, “this is my own little, sanctuary? If that’s what you would consider it. I’m not sure if I would, but I can’t control what you think.”
I looked around, this place, was beautiful. It looked like something out of a fairytale. The tree was curved and rounded in a hideously beautiful way. Without thinking I reached out to touch it, and instantly I felt a cold sting on my finger tips when I brushed my fingers over the top.
 AmorLunae · Mon Dec 21, 2009 @ 08:53pm · 0 Comments |
