Very interesting, although a little long. The third chapter in a series I hope will someday become a novel. (For the very few people who're following this story, I've changed Isabel to Rebecca.)
3.
He had turned slightly away from her and from her gaze she could still see that his face still blended in, perfectly, with the cloudy sky. Blake buried his head in his hands, shaking it slowly, back and forth, like a pendulum that would never stop. But it stopped. His eyes (not counting his pupil and iris) were filled with red streaks, and there was a strange expression on his face. It was a slight balance between amusement and complete, out-of-control anger. A slight shiver raced through his body, starting from the tips of his fingers, which sent him rocking slightly on his heels.
“Are you okay?” She took a hesitant step towards him and reached out, slightly putting one hand on his shoulder in a comforting, kind manner. When he didn’t shrug her off, she gripped the shoulder slightly tighter and tried to turn him around so she could clearly see his face. She didn’t even come close to actually moving him. With a slight, blur of black, her hand was knocked off from its perch. He had turned around of his own accord, revealing a torn face that looked like he had been crying. “Are you okay?” she said.
“No.”
He then started to walk away, leaving her alone, but instead of gliding towards the school, he was climbing a small hill that lead to the fence that kept the unwanted items out and the kids in.
“Where are you going?” She ran after him, catching up in a few seconds.
“Leaving.”
“What? Why would you be leaving? Where would you go?”
“Somewhere. Away from him.” He gripped the iron lattice-like structure tightly. So tight that his knuckles literally turned white. (Yes. It’s possible)
“But why? He’s done nothing wrong.”
“That’s what you think. You probably just know nothing about him. My recommendation is to leave as soon as possible. You’re bound to be hurt while you’re around him.” He reached up, grasped the top bar, and in one swift motion, pulled himself up and over the 6 foot fence.
She gaped. “How’d you do that?”
“What?” He looked around, as if she was talking to someone else. When fixed his gaze on her again, he gave her a small smile and wave, and said, “So I’ll be leaving now. I hope you won’t tell him anything.”
“But I still don’t understand why you’re leaving.” She hooked two fingers from both hands on the fence, and looked down.
“You don’t have to understand. Besides, it’s quite complicated. You won’t tell him, right?” The minute bell rang. There was only one minute left for the students to get to their respective classrooms.
“I might. I probably will.”
“What? Why?!” His voice rose up in volume.
“You don’t have to understand,” she mimed in a childish voice.
“Fine. Whatever. Bluff all you want. I still win.” He turned around.
“Wait.”
He put his hands in his jacket pockets. “I’m waiting.”
“I won’t tell him…. If you come back. I hardly know you, and either than my brother, I’ve never met anyone else who’s….” she turned around to look at the school. “You know,” she whispered.
“I won’t stay long at all,” he warned with a whisper. “And I’ll have to take both of your phones.”
“Why our phones?” She unconsciously slid her hand to her bulging front pocket.
“Contacting him. Did your mother drop you too many times?”
“What?! No – Fine. I’ll give you my phone. Now come over the fence. We’re going to be late.” The final bell rang.
Blake gave a small smile. “We’re late.” He grasped the top of the fence and lifted himself over. “I’m actually curious too. I’m curious about you and your brother’s life. Maybe everyone’s changed….” He gave a short, barking laugh. “You’ll answer my questions, right?”
“Yeah, sure. Where do we get those lockout thingys? I don’t think I was paying attention to that teach.” She had already begun walking back to the school, back to one of the corridors lined with classrooms.
“Wait a second.” He ran up to her and grasped her shoulder with a vice-like grip, fiercely digging his fingers into that soft spot above the shoulder blade. When she opened her mouth to scream, or even say something, he snaked his hand over her neck and slapped his free hand over half-open mouth.
“Let me go!” she mumbled into his mouth as she made several unsuccessful attempts to bite his finger.
“Sh…sh…sh,” he slowly crooned, as he dragged her kicking body over to the fence. Rebecca kicked and tried to break free of his grip, but she didn’t have enough strength to fight back.
“Mmmmm!” She tried to say something as his hold tightened, but no coherent words came out.
“Shut up,” he hissed and he threw her, hard and with no remorse, on the fence. She landed, stunned, sitting on the ground with her back to the fence. At first, she just sat there, wide eyed behind her slightly askew sunglasses, staring up at the looming, and quite imposing figure wearing all black, standing over her. To make everything more scary for her, he as blotting out the sun, shadowing his face.
“I’m sorry….” He whispered. “I’m really, really sorry….” His voice was only a breath in the wind, hardly anything audible. “I’m sorry…. I guess I should leave now, huh?” He walked slightly to the left and grasped the top of the fence. “I hope you’ll forgive me.”
“Wait,” she choked out. Her voice seemed forced and cracked, like the voice you hear after someone cries. “I can forgive you…. So don’t leave.”
“You can forgive me? What’s that supposed to mean?” His expression was strange, as if he was slightly infuriated but trying to control his temper.
“I will forgive you. If… if you promise you’ll never do anything like that again.” She seemed to regain her voice and composure. Standing up and brushing off her clothes, she took a slight half-step away from him. “But only because I know how you are. And why you would do something like that.”
“If you ‘know how I am’ then you should know that you can’t expect me to hold onto any promises, because I can’t keep them. But if you will accept my sincere apology,” he made an exaggerated sweeping bow that included taking off his invisible hat and swept it across the ground. “Then I’ll be quite grateful. And sort of happy.” But all this time his face still had a sardonic smile with no warmth and his left hand was still holding onto the top bar.
“Let go of that bar. You’re making me a little nervous.” She bit her bottom lip a little bit.
“Nervous? How?” His hand was still on the bar, but it wasn’t gripping the steel pole like there was no tomorrow.
“Come on, lets go. You’ll have to lead the way. I don’t know where the lockout stuff is.” She skipped down the hill and reached the start of a corridor. “Are you going to come?”
Blake looked outside, then at the school, then outside, then finally back at her. He sighed. “Yeah. I guess so.”
He slowly walked down the steep hill without stumbling, and made his way to her. “Let’s go,” he sighed, and pushed past her. “The passes are at the quad. You know, the place full of blue and yellow tables and the coverings.”
After everything had been settled, they walked to their class with at least a three meter distance between them. Whenever she tried to catch up, he quickened his pace to stay ahead of her. At the quad, the proctor had given them orange slips and asked for a reason why they were so late.
Rebecca decided to answer. “Um… that’s because we were-“
But Blake decided to coolly cut her off. “We were talking behind the school. We’re old friends, you see, and we haven’t talked to each other in a long time, so we took this opportunity to chat and exchange stories. So we forgot the time. Can we go now?” He looked bored.
Tired, and probably in no mood to argue with an obnoxious student, the proctor dismissed the two with a slight wave of her hand.
Blake entered the classroom first, placing the orange slip on the edge of the teacher’s desk. He selected a chair far away from Parker and the empty seat at his side. Once again, the newcomers have managed to always oust him from his original spot. Now he was forced to sit somewhere completely surrounded by talkative chatterboxes. The teacher was lecturing and writing numbers and fraction bars on the board. He didn’t even really bother to pay attention. He just rested his head on a propped elbow and stared at the clock underneath his sunglasses.
Finally, the seemingly-distant footsteps on the ramp outside shoot him from whatever thoughts he was having. Rebecca entered, and after staring at the lecturing teacher of a second or two, she followed suit and set the orange slip on top of Blake’s. She then, reacting to Parker’s gaze, walked over to the empty seat.
“What happened? Why were you late?”
“We…were talking…”
“But where were you?”
“Behind the school…”
“Alone? With him?!” His voice was a slowly rising hiss. But other people seemed to be too busy taking notes to be paying attention to him. He pretended to take notes, but still kept on whispering. “You know he’s…to be sublime, dangerous.”
“He was…alright. Nothing…violent.” She started digging through her backpack. Taking out a notebook, she started to copy all of the notes on the board, never once locking eyes with him.
“You’re sure? Anyways, we can just call Ignatius if we need anything.”
“Actually… I sort of made a deal with him. When I told him he lived with Ignatius, he nearly freaked out and jumped the fence. The deal was: if we would give him our phones and answer his questions, then he’ll stay. But he didn’t say for how long… So we’ll have to keep an eye on him. He already has my phone, and I’ll bet he’ll ask for yours later.” He voice was a calm, flat breeze that flew with the air conditioning. Only Parker could hear what she was saying. Parker and Blake, that is.
Blake made no sign of actually listening, but there was no doubt he was. He absentmindedly scratched his head.
“I’m not going to give him my phone. He might… do something to it, or even break it. No.”
“You have to. It was part of the deal.”
“The deal that I didn’t know of!” His voice rose slightly above a whisper and the teacher gave a dramatic pause while writing out the quadratic formula. “What if Ignatius has an emergency?” His voice returned to a slight whisper now, and thankfully, not full of any erratic emotions.
“Fine. But he might leave. You know, if we just do what he wants, we might be able to take him home with us. And he might even see Ignatius for the first time, in what? 24 years? That’ll make Ignatius happy, and maybe Blake’ll think things through.”
“Okay. When we leave, I’ll give him my phone. But I think I’ll sneak a text to Ignatius first. He might not even get it, so–”
Blake gave a slightly-loud cough. But it was normal-sounding and realistic. No one bothered to even take a look at him, except for the two whisperers in the corner. They quickly silenced themselves. Instead, Parker gave Rebecca a small nod. She nodded back. He took out his phone, flipped it open, and started quietly tapping the appropriate keys for a message. Blake made another noise, a string of slightly-loud coughs, each one louder than the next. He then glared at the only two people looking at him. Parker stopped tapping and dropped the phone in a pocket on his backpack and looked away. Rebecca slightly blushed and kept on copying.
When Parker made a move towards his phone, another cough rang guiltily through his ears. But by now, they were starting to get annoying, and several students other then the talkative two peeked at look at the seemingly-sick teen. Even the teacher made another dramatic pause, and a tiny titter of laughter broke the monotone hum of the air conditioning. “Forget it,” Rebecca said. “He’ll just find another way to warn us… Don’t reach for your phone anymore. Just forget it.”
Finally, after several worksheets were handed out, they were dismissed by a bell that came through a modernized speaker. Blake, although surrounded by students clogging the thin aisles chairs, was still first out the door. Rebecca poked Parker and pointed, while he made a playful, annoyed look. They exited to find Blake standing in front of the classroom, in the paved corridor. Once he made sure they saw him, he started walking. Catching up to him, Parker shoved his phone into Blake’s chest. “Here. Are you happy now?” Blake snatched it away and put it in his jacket pocket. “I’m never ‘happy’.”
“So you’ll stay, though, right?” He walked backwards, facing Blake while Rebecca walked next to him.
“I’ll stay for a while. But I won’t go with you to the house. That would be suicide on my part.”
“But why no-”
Rebecca interrupted him. “That won’t be a problem yet. So what’s your first question?”
“Straightforward? Fine. Let me think… How old are the two of you? I daresay that both of you look about the same age.”
“I’m 16, and he’s 15.”
“So you’re body is 16 is his is 15. Okay, but that’s not what I meant.”
“So you mean, like, how long we’ve existed?”
“Yes.” Blake sounded exasperated and looked tired.
“Well… I was born in ’84 and he in ’85… So that would make us…” She gave a slight pause.
“So you’re 26 and he’s 25. Okay… Where have you been? Any cities, buildings…” They walked down a clogged flight of stairs and he tensed dramatically. Once past the band room and the performing arts center, he was visibly much more relaxed.
“We were born in New-” Parker poked her, grabbed her arm, and pulled her aside.
“Do you want to tell him all that?”
“Why not? It’ll do us no harm. I’m older. I can tell what’s good or bad. So shut up.” They walked back to a still Blake. They continued walking, and they went down another flight of stairs to reach the cluster of buildings where the first class took place.
“So we have the same class, right? 804?”
“Yeah. Should I continue?”
“Yes.”
“Okay… So both of us were born in New York, with semi-rich parents. We’ve been to Boston-”
“Underground?”
“What? No…. Anyways…. Boston, and most of New England. Then one year, I was 16 and he was 15, we flew to London to have a vacation. Then, with Ignatius, we’ve been to Stockholm, St. Petersburg, Paris, Czechoslovakia, and Germany. Oh, and here. And that’s it.”
“You’ve never been in any ‘communities’?”
“I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“I’ll take that as a no. And you?” Blake’s question was directed at the silent Parker. “Has he taken you anywhere she hasn’t been? Anywhere underground?”
“No.” He seemed a little blunt, and perhaps a little “ticked off”. At what, probably no one was sure of.
Ignoring whatever was up with him, he didn’t say a word, and arrived at the front of the classroom. Opening the door for the two, he made a slight bow. As Parker was about to step into the door when Blake said, “Ladies first,” with a small smile. But his momentum carried him forward and through the portal. Turning his head and giving him a dark look, he kept on going. Rebecca stifled a giggle, and then she went in. Blake held the door fro two others, and when both of them didn’t even bother to acknowledge the fleshy doorstop, Blake practically slammed the door on the third.
“Hello, Blake.” The teacher, who was tall and seemed like an out-of-shape basketball player, greeted him with.
“Hello Mr. Thomas. Have a nice weekend?” He seemed patient and calm, completely relaxed without even show a sign of being bored. In fact, he seemed a little happy to have this conversation.
“Yeah. We went to that Chinese restaurant you suggested, and it was great! Did you ever order that-“
“Ahem.” Parker had cleared his throat somewhat impolitely.
Mr. Thomas swung his head around and took off his rectangular reading glasses. “Can I help you?”
Blake went over and sat down in his usual seat, which was towards the front end of the room and a slightly closer to the teacher’s desk.
“We-” Parker was, in turn, interrupted by Rebecca.
“We’re new students, and we have this paper you have to sign.” They handed him a half-sheet of paper with a table on it.
Putting on his glasses in a scholarly manner, he peered at the two and gave both of them scribbles that could be identified as the initials “M.T”. Morgan Thomas.
“Here you go.” He handed them back to their respective owners. He then peered inquisitively between the two at Blake. “So, do you know these two? I’ve never seen you open a door for anyone before, much less make a comment.”
“That was probably the only time too. I do know these two. I met them this morning. Does that count?”
Mr. Thomas gave a short laugh. “I believe that does count as knowing. What about you? Do anything good this weekend?”
“No, not really. Just stayed at home, used the laptop, and some other boring stuff that doesn’t deserve to be mentioned.”
“Hm… Okay. Oh, right! I have a book for you.” Scooting back in his wheelie chair, he opened the cabinet, took out a paperback and threw it at him. Blake caught it and looked at the cover. “The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo”. A Swedish book. Translated. “It’s a bit recent, but I thought it would do for you. I’m sure you’ll like it.”
“Thanks. I wonder how I’ll ever live without you…”
Mr. Thomas chuckled and went back on grading papers.
The two sat towards the back of the room, ignoring Blake’s slight waves to beckon them forward. Giving a small sigh, he complied and went to sit in a small, one-man desk beside Rebecca. “I still have some questions to ask.”
“Okay… But first, I have one question.”
Blake looked a little peeved. “What?”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Why are you so…open towards him, and not towards other…people?”
“I don’t know. He gives me stuff, he…he…he doesn’t ask too many questions about me…and about my life. He’s just nice and tries to live with me the best he can. My turn. Let me think…”
“How ‘bout we play a game?”
“What?”
“A game. You ask one question, and then I’ll ask one, then you, then me, and whatever.”
“Fine. Okay… With Ignatius, have you ever met any other... people like us?”
“Not really… He once said he was going to go meet some friends, but he didn’t take us with him.”
“And where –?”
“Wait a sec! It’s my – our turn.” Blake looked like he was about to kill someone.
“Um…old are you? Body and real age, please.” She beamed slightly at his peeved face as she framed two questions into one.
“14 and 56. Where were you guys? As in, where were you two when he met his ‘friends’?”
“We were in… Where were we?” He nudged her prone brother.
“New York. We were in a restaurant while he went out.”
“Okay. Hm…” Rebecca was thinking.
“How about you let him ask me a question?” Blake had his head propped up on an elbow again and pointed at Parker with his other hand.
“Fine.” She crossed her arms and mock pouted.
Instead of leaning on the wall, Parker sat up. “What was it like in Underground Boston?”
The smile Blake had when he looked at Rebecca’s pouting disappeared. “What?”
“Underground Boston. Or wherever it was you said you were from. What was it like?”
Blake slowly grinded his bottom lip. “Horrible. My turn.”
“Wait.” Parker leaned forward. “That’s not an answer. I want some details. Ignatius never told us anything, except that he lived there for sometime. He never told us why you left-”
“Escaped,” Blake interrupted.
“Escaped. But from some descriptions he gave us, it seemed like an okay place. So what was it like?”
“It was like hell.”
“That’s not a good answer.”
“It’s like hell trying to masquerade as heaven.”
“That’s still not a good answer.”
Blake leaned forward, over Rebecca’s desk, so that his nose nearly touched his. “That’s your opinion, and I don’t give a damn about it.” He made sure only the three of them would hear. He leaned back, back into his small desk.
“It’s your turn now…” Rebecca said, after a few minutes or so. The minute bell had rung and the entire class slowly poured in from the hallway. Blake looked away, not answering.
Gender:
Points: 1129
Reviews: 7