Authors: Cindy Mezni
I analyzed the situation gradually. I fell asleep on the floor in the hallway of the main entrance of the school. Night had fallen. The tempest continued its raging outside. And... Garreth Wates crouched within a meter of me, moving a hand in my direction. It was incredible. He simply couldn’t be here as he was elsewhere.
That reasoning is a relentless logic, Deliah.
“Are you okay?”
He was here. Really. My mind wasn’t playing tricks on me again. I was completely lost and didn’t understand his sudden reappearance. Especially in this place. At this moment.
“What are you doing here?” I inquired, the trouble he inspired now audible in my tone.
Even if he was here, this was totally implausible. What was he doing after several days of absence?
“I think I asked you a question,” he pointed out to me, insistent.
“I think my question is more important than yours.”
He sighed. I liked it better when he played the deserter with his family. I was with him for a few minutes and already I felt the urge to run away and blamed him for the annoyance he caused me.
Damn stubborn hot guy!
I shook my head at these silly thoughts and blamed it on the account of the blow I received when I bumped against the wall a few moments ago. He approached me and grabbed my arm before putting me on my feet with a quick movement. I looked at him, speechless. I was not heavy but still... He was suddenly too close to me, both hands holding my arms. My instinct manifested as whenever I was in his presence and especially when too close to him. I wanted to be anywhere, but here. I wanted to get away at all costs.
“In the maelstrom of important issues, mine arrives before all yours. So now if you could answer me,” he said in a firm voice. “You will have your answers soon. Anyway, I’m here now and that’s all that matters.”
I let out a snort. Who was he kidding? He spoke as if he was the most indispensable person in the world. The worst part was that this was all my fault. It was my confidences in my room that had made him believe he had so much power over me and was so important to me.
“I’m fine,” I finally pronounced, a tad irritated.
“Very well,” he concluded with a smile, happy to finally get what he wanted from me. “What are you doing here?”
“Where is Leighton?” I asked, ignoring the question, wanting to know and also childishly eager to annoy him as much as he annoyed me.
I tried to curb the rush of joy that came over me thinking of her possible return. Hayden would be so happy. And even if she had hurt me, I was eager to see her.
“She’s not here. Travis, either,” he replied, a certain dryness in his voice at the mention of his brother, even if I didn’t ask about him. “They're still where we had to go, two weeks ago. And so are my uncle and aunt. So, what are you doing here?”
My hope vanished like a mirage in the desert. Leighton wasn’t there. There was just him, the irritating brother. And he told me that his sister had not returned, without any ounce of compassion towards me.
“It’s not your business,” I told him.
“On the contrary, I think it is.”
He said it in a tone of confidence. What kept me from slapping my hand across his face, huh? Ah yes, the good manners that Tess had instilled in me. Perhaps the fact that he was much stronger than me, too but that didn’t come into play there. I was too pissed off to think logically.
“If you are waiting for an answer, dream on.”
“But that’s what I do,” he said in a voice that sounded awfully lascivious. “I dream of you.”
Shocked, I opened my mouth before blushing. I thought I saw Garreth’s cheeks tremble as if laughing silently. He said that to embarrass me, of course, and I had walked right into his stupid trap. My anger doubled in intensity.
“Seriously, why are you still here when everyone is gone?” he asked me, suddenly serious.
“Same question to you.”
I was acting childishly; I recognized it. But I didn’t see why I should answer, when he refused to do the same and besides, he was laughing at me. If I had a logical reason for my presence here, I wondered what explanation he would give me for deserting the school for two weeks and suddenly finding himself wandering in the corridors outside of school hours.
“Enough playing,” he decreed weary. “I’m here because I’m back in town. I went to see you because Leighton wanted me to give her some news about you. But there was no one at your house. I thought you were probably at Hayden’s, given the weather. So I decided that until you got home and I could see how you were doing, I was going to get my schoolbooks from my locker.”
“To try to catch up on your work tonight. Of course, now the reason for your presence seems extremely relevant,” I retorted, knowing I sounded highly sarcastic.
“Are you kidding me?” he asked, unmoved.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wouldn’t make fun of someone
.
”
He approached me. Too close. He was too close. My breath was lost on how it was supposed to keep me alive. My heart beat wildly and I didn’t know if it was anxiety or something else. I felt like my chest was going to break one second to another. I didn’t know if it were Garreth’s eyes, suddenly dark and tinged with a hint of exasperation and fascination that made me like that, or if it was his unreal beauty that made all my internal workings malfunction. Why, Lord, why, when I finally overcame his arrogance, then I had to ruin it all by letting myself get sucked into his mesmerizing eyes? I had to remove myself from its devastating power or I was going to faint soon. And this time, it would certainly have nothing to do with any unrealistic visions.
“Are you scared?”
As subjugated by him as I was, in spite of myself, I didn’t avert my eyes from his. I should have though and I knew it.
“Excuse me?”
“Are you afraid of me?” he asked again.
I was taken aback by his question, but I considered in nonetheless. I didn’t understand his personality and I was, at the same time, frightened by the possibility of one day knowing him better. Because I was sure, as my instinct kept screaming at me, that Garreth was synonymous with problems.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I said frankly.
At this moment, for once, I was not afraid of him. It was only the idea of a future where I would know him better, where I’d know his secrets and the reason for his strange behavior, which worried me.
“So what are you feeling right now? Why is your heart beating so fast?” he asked me, taking my wrist between his fingers. “Is it the same thing again, when you fainted the first time we met? How do you feel?” he repeated, seeing that I didn’t answer.
“I...”
I didn’t know how I felt. So many conflicting emotions were raging inside of me all of a sudden, I didn’t know if I wanted to run away or stay here, whether I liked him or he annoyed me, if I wanted to know more about him or if I wanted the exact opposite. How could I be so... torn?
“You...?”
“I don’t know,” I blurted out suddenly, tearing my wrist from his grip.
He tilted his head slightly forward in order to anchor his eyes on mine and looked at me with even more intensity, if that was possible. Before I met him, I didn’t know one could feel so many different emotions at the same time and for a single person.
“There’s something that makes you suspicious of me, isn’t there? Unfortunately, you don’t know what exactly. Without the key to the problem, it is impossible to open the door that leads to the solution. We are at an impasse.”
How did he know exactly how I felt towards him? To put the exact words, in the right places, to describe my feelings towards him when I, myself, couldn’t succeed? I was horrified by how he came to read me so well. To believe he perceived my thoughts. But people who read minds didn’t exist. Strange and irrational things existed only in my head, not in the real world. He smiled at me in this way that belonged only to him before touching my cheek with the tips of his fingers and placing a strand of hair behind my ear. I should feel embarrassed and would have been normally, if my thoughts were not a thousand miles away.
“You seem frightened and astonished at the same time.”
I swallowed. He could read me like nobody else and I hated it because if I let him do it, he would have access to a secret that I didn’t want to reveal to anyone. The one I hid from everyone regarding the fact that I was seeing things that didn’t exist in the real world. I had to get away from here. Immediately.
“Stop doing... this.”
God, I cursed my trembling tones at this moment! I was convinced that it was exactly where he wanted to lead me. He wanted to destroy my barriers one by one, so I became helpless before him. Congratulations, he succeeded brilliantly!
“Doing what?” he asked, acting innocent.
Nobody could have imagined that this sublime appearance concealed a character so dark.
“To play with me...to strip me naked.”
Formulated aloud, this sentence seemed to have a double meaning that wasn’t lost on me. As if he had suddenly been shocked by my words, Garreth stopped all contact with me and moved back a step. I resumed gradually making order of my thoughts and feelings. When I regained some semblance of courage, I said in a trembling voice:
“I have... I have to go...”
He gave me a puzzled look.
“Are you going to go out and walk to your house in such weather?” he threw at me, snidely. “What are your favorite flowers?”
I was surprised at how quickly he changed the subject.
“So that I know, for your funeral,” he said, looking amused.
I still noticed a fleeting gleam in his eyes that I didn’t have time to identify when he uttered these words.
“Let me escort you,” he asked me, his unctuous inflections seemed to get me back in the apathetic state that I had just left.
“What?”
Charming.
My reaction was as if I had written on my forehead: “You have such an effect on me that I’m lost for words.” And if he had not yet grasped the extent of his devastating power over me, he understood now. As if I didn’t get ridiculed enough in front of him.
“Escort you. Would you let me take you home? It would bother me to have to buy flowers for your funeral. And I don’t want to be indirectly responsible for your terrible fate.”
I glared at him, teeth clenched. I had to stop letting him manipulate me and let myself be dominated by my inexperience and my damn boiling hormones. Because outside of the physical, the boy had absolutely nothing pleasant to offer.
“I don’t want you spending even a penny on me and carrying the burden of my death,” I said sourly.
“Very well,” he concluded with an ambiguous smile.
I knew from the moment I saw it that his smile didn’t bode well for me.
***
On the windshield of the car, water drops were falling with unprecedented violence. The road was impossible to see. It looked like the car had sunk to the bottom of a lake. I thought Garreth irresponsible for driving in this weather, when the visibility was almost nonexistent.
“Perhaps we should stop on the side, until it calms down,” I suggested, breaking the peaceful silence.
He looked at me, just for a second, before turning his attention back to the road. I unfortunately had the displeasure of seeing the satisfied expression that my sentence had caused him. If he thought I was trying to extend the time that was allotted to me in his company, he was wrong. And if he thought pulling over meant anything other than stopping and waiting without moving, he was completely mistaken.
“It’s odd. Until now, I felt that my company displeased you.”
I avoided his inquisitive eyes and looked out the window. I saw nothing but black on the outside. The darkness surrounded us. I tried to suppress the anxiety provoked in me by the idea. I had always been afraid of the night. My phobia was such as a child, I couldn’t sleep without a light on in my room. Now, it wasn’t as invasive, but darkness always put me ill-at-ease. And I found out that a night with Garreth brought back the fear.
“Don’t get the wrong idea,” I said, hoping to put an end to any thought in which he imagined that I liked him. “I don’t want to stay in the car with you. Unfortunately, the weather decided otherwise and I’d prefer a thousand times to endure your presence a little longer than end up ejected against a tree trunk.”
The car braked suddenly in a shrill screech of tires. In a pure reflex of self-preservation, I clapped my hands on the dashboard to keep my head from hitting it. I was already deficient, mentally speaking, no need to aggravate my case.
“Could you tell me what I did wrong?” Garreth threw at me.
I dared a glance in his direction. He had perfect control of himself, I was forced to recognize that in him. Only his eyes betrayed the superhuman effort he made to remain polite and not yell at me. I took my courage in both hands. Without telling him about my damn visions I had had in his presence, I had to confide in him how I felt...about him.
“You’re weird. One moment, you’re hot. Another, you’re cold. At times, you seem to be someone likable and the next moment, you act as if you’re trying to be offensive or run away from me. I don’t understand you. The worst part of all this is that I want to know more about you, while frightened at the idea of being with you and coming to understand the reason for your behavior. Maybe I don’t want to know.”
He laughed bitterly. He didn’t seem to appreciate my remarks. Not at all. It was some time before he answered.
“I think the same thing about you. You’re...unpredictable. And you do everything to push me away, and it’s not me, whatever you may think. I wouldn’t be like this if you hadn’t started it.”
I lowered my head and turned my attention to my hands. Yes, I was pushing him away. It was an undeniable fact that I had to admit. But it was stronger than me, something inside of me that kept yelling at me to get away from him. However, his claim that I was the instigator of all this was totally false.
“This is ridiculous. You started it. In my room, before you ran away. You did everything to annoy me. If someone started something here, it’s you.”