Jayleigh
)Ten
Warren walked me back to my house. His body inched towards mine with every step that he took. At times our arms brushed against each other or our hands would lightly touch. It was a feeling that I would have loved to continue.
“So, tell me,” I said in a light tone. “Do you only like me because I’m your future queen?” I used air quotes around ‘future queen’ and Warren gave me a strange look.
He shook his head. “It was torture to try and entertain Fawn. The entire time I was just wishing it would have been you. You intrigued me.”
“How so?”
He shrugged. “You are so quiet, but it always looks as if you have a million things you’d want to say. And you have something that Fawn doesn’t necessarily express.”
“What?”
When we were in front of my house, he turned to me. The light from my porch was bright against my eyes, but I didn’t care. I was looking at Warren. He brought his hand up to my face and brushed back a piece of hair. Then, he did something I wasn’t expecting. He placed his entire palm on my cheek. When he made that contact, my whole world sharpened. It wasn’t so dark, I could see down the road clearly. Warren's body was as clear to me as it would have been in broad daylight. I looked back into Warren’s eyes, mine seeking answers.
Although his lips parted, he didn’t speak. He brought his face closer to mine, so close I could feel his breath on my lips. And then, our lips touched.
The sensations felt before, when his body would only lightly touch mine, seemed inferior compared to what happened when we kissed. The expected tingling started in my lips, but grew as it traveled throughout my body. It felt as if all of my limbs had suddenly fell asleep, but in a good way.
When the kiss was broken, Warren had leaned away from my face, but not far. I could still feel him breathing.
“Inner beauty.”
I lightly laughed. “Is that ever going to stop? The tingling?”
He looked into my eyes then. “You feel it too?”
I nodded once. “What does it mean?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve only heard about it through legend. If one fairy finds another and when they touch, they are charged with energy, that means they have found their soul mate. ”
“Soul mate?”
He chuckled. “I know how weird it sounds. But it is just legend.”
*
I turned on the faucet and water began to cascade into the barren white tub. I tested the water, to see if it was to my liking, and then pulled the stopper. The flow ended, but began again at the shower head. I looked at myself in the mirror. I could be happy. I could be happier than a bird with a french fry if I wanted to. Then why wasn’t I?
The person that looked back at me in the mirror looked sad. She looked as if someone had just run over her pet cat. Was that me? Could that be how I felt?
It couldn’t be me. I just kissed the cutest guy I had ever met. And he likes me. Me! No one ever likes me. It just doesn’t happen.
I smiled. The girl in the mirror smiled, but it seemed forced and ugly.
I turned away from the mirror, too ashamed to look at that depressing girl any longer.
I did my usual washing routine in a daze, not even thinking of what I was doing. As I was rinsing out my hair, there was a little tickle on my ankle. I shook it quickly, thinking it was a hair, but the feeling never went away.
I looked down, in fear it may be a bug, but I saw something gray around my ankle. I whipped my eyes and looked again.
It was a hand.
My heart dropped and I gave a yelp simultaneously. I quickly turned around to see who it was.
Corrigan was there, sitting in the fetal position on the floor. I tried grasped the wall of the shower for support but my nails only painfully scratched at the surface as my legs began to shake. His head was down and his skin looked greyer than it had when I had seen him last. But he was moving. Closer. And Closer. So close he could have reached out and touched me again if he wanted to.
I reached up to open the curtain, only to have someone take hold of my hand and pull me out of the shower. I tripped over the rim of the tub and fell, dripping wet, into the arms of the person.
They turned me around so they were between me and the tub, and checked to see what had made me cry out. My chin fell as I looked at my body. It was tightly wrapped in a fluffy white towel that was not mine. It wasn’t one of my bath towels. It was soft and huge.
“Shh, Fay,” Warren coaxed. “It’s okay. No one is here.”
Warren held me tightly and ran a hand down the length of my hair.
“Cor—Corri…” I tried to form the coherent word. Just his name. But my jaw was moving too quickly, I couldn’t speak.
“No one is here, Fay. You’re alright.”
I shook my head. I know what I saw. I’m not crazy!
I realized then that I was completely naked, dripping wet, and crying.
I met his eyes and they were surprisingly tender. I wanted to ask why he was there, in my bathroom while I was showering, but I had to bite down on my lip to keep it from quivering.
Sensing my uneasiness, he said, “You are safe with me.”
After I could move on my own, Warren left me to my privacy. I didn’t see how he left…he just disappeared. I quickly dressed in my cotton pajamas and rushed out of the bathroom, egger to get away from the shower.
My heart hadn’t resumed its normal beating pattern even as I threw my dirty clothes into the hamper and turned down my sheets. In fear of Corrigan’s return, I left my light on.
I sat crossed legged on the corner of my bed, pulling at my fingers.
What was happening to me? Was the dead, or unexplained non dead, Corrigan some kind of character from the Grudge that I made up in my mind? Was I that creative to even create such a vivid apparition? Why would I scare myself so horribly bad?
“Fay?”
I jumped to my feet.
Warren was leaning against my open window with his arms crossed over his chest. So that’s how he keeps getting into my house.
“Can you please just tell me what’s going on?” I whispered. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
He didn’t answer my question. Instead, he asked his own. “What exactly did you see in your shower?”
I shook my head and began to run my fingers through my damp hair. “Corrigan. He grabbed my ankle. He was sitting on the floor. Just sitting there. Was it really him, or did I make it up?”
Warren nodded. “It could have been your subconscious. Or, it was someone trying to send you a message, using Corrigan as a mailman so to speak.”
“What kind of message? Because he didn’t say anything, he just scared the shit out of me.”
Warren chuckled and moved for the first time. He crossed the small distance between us and wrapped his arms around me. “It’s over.”
I gripped his shirt tightly, trying to pull myself closer to him. My body began to shake with sobs. “I’m scared,” I finally said.
Saying it had brought some relief to my body, as if a weight had been lifted. And even though I was lifted even a fraction, I was still shaking hard. My teeth chattered no matter how hard I bit my lip. I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead against his chest.
“I was expecting this reaction last night.”
Had it only been last night?
He rubbed my back, still trying to calm me.
“This is entirely my fault,” he finally said. “If I just stayed a safe distance away from you, the resistance would have never suspected a thing. But I couldn’t.” He pushed me away from his chest, but still held me at arms length. “I liked being close to you too much. It was way too selfish of me. I can’t believe I was so stupid.”
I brought a hand up to his cheek. He closed his eyes at my touch. Despite my body’s thrashings and tear stained cheeks, I smiled at him. It didn’t feel forced at all. His hand covered mine on his face. Being surrounded by his skin made my whole body come to life.
I leaned towards him, letting my lips brush against his.
“Thank you, Warren. I owe you my life.”
He shook his head. “You owe me nothing.”
About an hour went by before Warren could finally calm my hysterics enough to have a conversation with me.
“How can you keep coming in here and my mom and sister never hear you?”
He smiled proudly. “Just another trick up my sleeve. Humans usually can’t see or hear fairies unless we want them to, or they are given the gift of sight by an elder. I’ve never seen that happen.”
“Oh,” I said. “But they can hear me.” I lowered my voice as I spoke.
Warren shook his head. “I have you under my charm at the moment.” You’re telling me. “You could scream if you wanted to and they wouldn’t hear it.” He sat a little straighter, pleased with his handy work.
I sat silently, just staring at him. He seemed to be a normal human teenager. And yet, under that exterior, he was a magical air fairy. “Tell me more about you.”
“What do you want to know?”
“How old are you?”
He chuckled. “I’m seventeen. Almost eighteen. I’m still growing just like you. I haven’t stopped aging yet.”
“How does that work?”
“I’m not really sure,” he said, puzzled. “Perhaps it’s just magic.”
“At this point, I could believe that…sort of.” I hesitated before I continued, daunted by the topic. “Once you stop aging, you’ll never die?”
“We do. When we are ready. They want to make it a law now, to start to grow old after one lifetime. But the kings and queens have yet to pass it.”
“Why would they even want death? That doesn’t make any sense.” Nothing in his world made much sense in mine.
“We don’t want to take advantage of the gifts we have been given. Well, some of us that is.”
“Will I ever meet them? The kings and queens?”
“Sure, if you really want to. I’d love to bring you home.”
“Now?”
He paused, then said, “you need rest. We have school tomorrow.”
I groaned. Back to reality. “What about you? You need rest, too.”
He nodded. “But that’s what school is for.”
I couldn’t help my smile. “That’s not fair. Why should I have to go to bed and you don’t?”
He laughed, the little movement shaking my bed. I silently wondered if my family could hear it. “You’re so cute when you try to be stubborn.” He put his hand on my cheek. “Good night, Fay.”
*
I tried and succeeded at pretending that the weekend didn’t really happen. Everything was just fine. Warren stayed close to me as much as he could throughout the day and that comforted me. It didn’t look like was trying to protect me from what ever evils he hid from me. He acted like a boy who was really into a girl. He acted like my boyfriend.
He walked me to each of my classes, holding my books as we went. We even sat next to each other at lunch where my picture perfect false reality faded.
I had carried a water bottle around with me all day, like usual. But I had to refill it at the water fountain twice by the time lunch came around. I chugged my milk carton before I touched my salad.
“Are you alright?” Warred asked me.
I replied, “just thirsty.”
He looked around for a moment, stood up and said, “I’ll be right back,” then walked away.
“So are you two a thing now?”
Fawn, Foster, Warren, and I became our own little group at lunch. Warren and I sat on one side of the table while Fawn and Foster sat on the other. Jenna and a few of the other people who drooled over Fawn’s every move filled in the gaps around us. I felt like I was finally apart of the in crowd. Then I remembered…I’m the destined queen of fairy land.
I shrugged. “It’s complicated.”
“What’s complicated about it? He is so into you it’s insane. If you don’t like him, don’t lead him on.”
“This has nothing to do with my feelings for him,” I snapped.
Fawn began to ask another question, but stopped when Warren came back to the table.
He pushed my salad away and placed a fruit cup with a plastic spoon in font of me. I eyed it curiously for a moment, and then looked at Warren.
“Just try it,” he encouraged.
I opened the cup and put the spoon inside, scooping up a sliver of a peach. I put it in my mouth. I savored it for a moment before I swallowed, only to take another bite. And then another.
“Do you like it?”
I nodded then swallowed the piece in my mouth. “It’s really good.” After another bite, I asked, “what brought this on?”
“We like the natural juices. There are things in it that you need that milk can not give you.”
In a whisper, I noted, “it wasn’t like this before.”
He shrugged. “Now that your body is willing to accept who you are, you are changing. Which means I’ll have to teach you how to glamour before you start to show.”
“Show?”
He nodded. “People may start to get suspicious when your hair turns red and your skin tan. And not in the get-your-hair-died-and-go-tanning sort of way. It will definitely look odd.”
I nodded, unable to say what I was really thinking. Which was, oh crap, I’m turning into a flipping fairy!
I still love this part! 
Nutty