Chapter 2
“Savanna. Maree. Ryder.” my Mother, Elena, practically yelled at me; using my full name in emphasis of her bad mood. Sometimes I think we were only given a middle name to know when we were truly in trouble. “It’s ten-thirty and your Father and I were worried sick.” She held out an accusing finger. “And who was that boy?”
It felt like the little bubble of privacy that I had left, just shattered into a million pieces; leaving shards or penetrating glass scattered over the floor.
Somehow it also felt as if she had pushed open the door to the bathroom and caught me naked in the shower; all my insecurities put out in the open.
A little spark of anger shot through my body. “Mum. First of all, Max is not my Father. Do you remember where my Father is, do you? Well, he is in prison!”—I snapped, bringing things from other arguments into the conversation—“Max is just as much of a dick as my Dad, I know that. But he still isn’t my biological parent! I don’t have a Father. Get that through your head.
“Secondly, I noticed the time and I'm sorry it’s late. I had to clear my head. Thirdly, that boy has a name, Jai, and he had the courtesy to walk me home in the dark—yes I know, we are in the city now, and he could have been after more than just my phone number, but he did do anything, okay?” I huffed, rolling my eyes.
Her eyes widened, “You gave him your number? —”
I cut her off. “Last of all, I'm tired and I'm going to bed!”
Normally Mum and I didn’t argue over petty things such as a curfew, but tonight I think the lack of sleep was getting to the both of us.
I was rather annoyed that she had kind of ruined my night; it had gone from dreamy and mysterious one minute to a miserable and cranky mess the next.
I stormed off to my new room, slamming the door behind me so that it echoed a loud thud. Collapsing onto my bed I heard Mum yelling something along the lines of, “Chase Morgan would have been a horrible father!”
Its not that it isn’t true; Chase was my real father and he would have been a horrid parent—I can’t imagine that the knife I was sent for my tenth birthday was really an appropriate present for a child.
Chase Morgan: a short red-headed man with a fiery temper, and a large crooked nose which was the centre point on his face—it was nearly obvious enough to draw the attention away from his fiery hair.
I was glad I hadn’t picked up any features from my father, but Mum told me once upon a time that he was a good looking man... back when he was younger.
The last time I had visited him was when I was twelve—four years ago—I had told him that I didn’t want anything to do with him, and that he deserved to rot in that hell hole he had been living in for almost all of my life.
I could feel my eye lids becoming heavy, too heavy to keep open for much longer. I glimpsed the pasty white ceiling one last time before I let myself drift off into a deep sleep.
The street was eerie and colourless. Only one or two of the street lights worked; covered in a thick layer of what looked to contain spider webs, dirt and any germs the wind could splatter it with. The ground was made of cobblestone mixed with chucks of some sort of rubble. In the distance I could make out a silhouette distorted in an unnatural way, twisted by darkness.
At first glance the creature looked like an enormous, black dog—yet far more menacing, more frightening. There was no way that any being inside that thing was human.
I screamed.
I woke up screaming. I was clutching my heart like it was my only survival, struggling to breathe as I rolled over in my twisted sheets, with cold sweat covering my body.
I was panicked; partly because of the nightmare, and partly because I knew that my dreams always came true—just another side affect of being a freak.
In the past I had only ever dreamed of the answers to a test, a upcoming class trip, a fire alarm or if I was lucky; my birthday presents. I welcomed those things to come true, but in this case—I hoped I would never walk down that street.
I was still wearing last night’s clothes, and they were hitched up around my limbs in a distorted manner. My hair was a tangled mess which a bird would be happy to nest in.
I yawned as I sat up, pulling the blinds open to reveal that the sun hadn’t risen yet.
Max walked into the room looking irritated and a bit anxious, before he let out a curse word under his breath because he stubbed his toe on one of my many scattered boxes.
Insert four letter word here.
“Just a dream, Max,” I reassured him as he turned swiftly on his heels—watching where he walked as he closed the door behind himself.
I rolled over, stuffing my head underneath my pillow; in an attempt to drown out the world.
I woke up again to feel the sun beating down on my skin and the irritating buzzing of my phone against the bed side table. I stuck out my hand blindly and searched for it, until I realised that in my attempt, I had knocked it into the floorboards.
I moved onto all fours on my mattress and stretched out like a cat before I poked my head under my bed, in search for my vibrating phone.
My hand finally closed around the small flip phone, and I pulled it under the covers with the rest of my body.
The screen illuminated the darkness under the doona, showing the image of his cute poising moment in front of my camera last night. The screen read,
“TWO NEW MESSAGES FROM, JAI PAYNE.”
I smiled goofily at the thought of him, before opening the message.
I had been lying underneath my warm, violet donna for hours, curled up while texting Jai. We had talked about anything and everything—I had shared the insignificant details about my life and he shared his, in a weird way even the little things were important.
When he had text me and asked if I wanted to meet him at a park around the corner, I was out of bed so fast that I managed to get a head rush—causing myself to sit down and regain my balance.
Once I was up properly, I pulled on some denim shorts, pinned some hair back and wrapped a cardigan around my shoulders. Rushing into the kitchen I quickly grabbed a piece of bread, forcing that into my mouth before I made my way to the bathroom; splashing water onto my face, brushing my hair and teeth and then applying lip gloss.
As I made my way out of the door, I stepped onto a floorboard that creaked, making me cringe. After a few seconds I realised that I hadn’t woken anyone up, I scrawled down a note and locked the front door behind me.
I started walking down a path that Jai said led me to the park.
I was halfway through listening to my new favourite song on my iPod, when I got a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was like a tingling that alerted me that I was being followed. I pulled out the headphones and spun around on the ball of my foot.
Jai.
I exhaled and relaxed as Jai jogged up to me.
He was dressed in dark skinny jeans and a light grey singlet, with some sort of weird symbol imprinted onto the front. His black eye was barely visible anymore, and his blonde hair was tousled around his face, in a messy but styled way; a way that I would only describe as his.
“Hey stranger,” He called to me as he finally stopped next to me. He was smiling a broad smile that was probably designed to melt girls’ hearts all over the world.
“Hey, yourself,” I replied, playfully nudging my elbow into his side. He grabbed my arm, stopping me from nudging him again and stopped still, looking down at my hand.
Slowly he laced his fingers with mine and then looked back up to meet my eye.
“Is this okay?” he asked nervously, not letting his eye contact slip from mine. I bit down on my lip and tried to focus on forming words. But my attention kept slipping back to the feel of my hand in his, the warm tinging that was floating around my heart.
Instead I just nodded, smiled and then flushed red.
The rest of the walk was in silence; not awkward, but kind of peaceful. Each of us knowing that nothing really had to be said as we walked hand in hand, listening to cars zoom past and the trees whistling in the wind.
“What have you done without me since last night?” he asked me, while rubbing circles into the back of my hand with his thumb. His lingering touch was leaving me no option other than to do everything in my power to not let out a sigh of pleasure.
“Since when, did my world revolve around you?” I said looking up at him, the sarcasm leaking from my voice.
“It always has, you just didn’t know it then,” he grinned and pulled me over to a swing seat.
We sat down opposite to each other; the sun was shining high behind Jai’s head. Making it look like he had an outer worldly glow to his appearance.
I caught his eye and couldn’t help match his smile. As we were staring into each other’s eyes, time stopped.
For a second I sat there wondering what it would be like to kiss Jai. My gaze dropping to his lips, wondering what it would feel like to have his lips pressed against mine.
Would they be hard or soft? Is he a slow kisser, or hungry and fast? I thought and felt as the colour burned my cheeks.
His eyes were piercing through mine, and I could swear that for a second he saw the real me; the one without the façade of a perfect family, the one who is now horrified to go to sleep in case she had a nightmare, and the one who feels like she doesn’t even understand herself half the time.
“What would it take for you to go out with me..?” he suddenly asked.
“I’m already in a public place with you, what more did you want?” I asked, hoping that the answer would be something I could keep locked inside my heart.
“I don’t know. But I bet if we make out, we will both find out what that something was.”
“As if that will ever happen,” I giggled—forcing the laugh, it was the only thing that kept me from staring with my mouth agape.
“Your loss,” Jai said as he swung the swing back and forth in a gentle movement, stretching his legs out in front of him like he didn’t have a care in the world.
I sat there for another second just staring at Jai, wondering what it would truly be like to kiss him. For an instant I imagined him leaning closer and taking me in his arms—
“Savanna..?”
“What?” I said, staring down at the bark beneath my feet, with no clue of what I was really looking at. The pieces were just dancing around beneath me because I was too embarrassed to look at him.
“Were you just looking at me like you wanted to kiss me?”
“Yeah right,” I said, forcing another laugh.
“Nobody’s watching if you want to, you know, try it. Not to brag, but I'm somewhat of an expert.”
I ignored him and answered his earlier question. “Umm—I didn’t do too much after I saw you last night—mostly slept,” I said nervously, bitting down on the inside of my lower lip.
“Highlight of my night too,” he said smiling. “Your life is so boring without me in it—”
“Of course,”—I dramatically placed a hand to my forehead—“how will I ever live without you,” I said mockingly.
“You will have no prince charming or knight in shining armour—what a horror. Who will fend off the dragon and the ugly step sisters?” he was even more dramatic than me, lunging forward like he held a sword and plunging it into an imaginary dragon.
I just laughed.
“I will never be able to go on,” I yelled, stepping forward. Bringing myself into the dramatic scene that Jai had lain in front of us. I brought my hand up to fan my face and then allowed myself to collapse backwards onto the bark.
But before I managed to hit the ground, Jai caught me and lowered himself underneath me on the ground. My head was resting in his arms and my body lay sprawled in the chip bark next to the swing set.
“Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! And, lips, O you. The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss. A dateless bargain to engrossing death!” Jai whispered.
“Shakespeare?” I asked, positive I was right. I had watched Romeo and Juliet a million times, and ever time my tears would spill.
“Yes,” he said, lowering his face so that the shallow margin of air between us was all that separated our lips.
Once again I placed my hands on his chest, allowing my thumbs to rest perfectly into his collar bones. Then slowly pushed him into a sitting position. “Jai,” I said firmly.
“I know, sorry,” he said and squirmed underneath me, moving his legs so that he was stretched to his full height.
His features twisted into an expression that showed how upset he was for getting carried away, getting caught in the moment.
But I didn’t regret it.
“Jai,” I whispered. I sat up and grabbed both of his hands and wrapped them around my back. “Jai, don’t be sorry.” I nudged his shoulder with my chin and then rested my head in the hollow of his neck—surprised at how well we meshed together.
“So—what happened in your life, before you met my charming self?” he said, coming back to himself as I could hear the amusement encrusted with his voice.
We separated ourselves from our huddle on the ground, and Jai pulled me to my feet, slowly we both sat back onto the swings again.
“Hmm,”—I began, hesitant to start—“...Well, long story, I used to live in the middle of nowhere before Mum married Max, then we moved here. School was... boring, yet I was always at the top of my class, I'm one of those real nerdy girls.” I eyed him, making sure that I hadn’t bored him to a premature death. “Not going to run off now that I have told you I'm a nerd?” I asked sarcastically.
“Not yet,” he grinned.
“You don’t want to listen to my boring life.” I sighed.
He raised his eyebrows, giving me an expression that all but spelled out ‘Duh’.
“Keep talking.”
“Fine. Umm—I'm not one of those girls who have dated the whole basketball team. I’ve only ever had—one, two, three, four—four boyfriends; not serious though, just in case you were curious.” I said, bobbing my head; trying to think of something else to say. “Oh, I got dumped by my most recent boyfriend”—I stopped to count the days—“fifteen days ago, because I was better than him. But maybe it had something to do with him thinking I was a total nutcase, with, and I quote “evil effing powers.” It freaked him out, like it would for any sane person in the world.” I added bitterly, and shrugged my shoulders.
“Did he really say effing or were you editing out the swearing?” Jai asked, truly amused for the time being.
“Nope, he really did say effing,” I grinned.
“Geez, you picked yourself a keeper,” Jai said, one of his amused-yet-self-satisfied smirks spreading over his face. He leaned towards me and whispered. “I’ll give you a pointer, real men don’t take out the fun of the word, they just say fuck.”
I couldn’t help giggling at this, before I remembered the point of the conversation.
“Anyway... I wiped his memory of ever telling him what I could do.” I said, stretching my legs out in front of me as I rocked back and forth on the swing. “My Father is in a top-security prison for the gifted, and I recently found out it was because he used his powers to murder some guy just after I was born. Apparently I was too much to handle,” I sniffed, trying to hold back the sudden tears that had formed in my eyes. “What do I care right? He wouldn’t have been a good father anyway.”
“You might not care about him, but you do care about what role he was meant to play in your life—am I right?” Jai spoke softly, going all Zen master on me. If I hadn’t been watching his mouth move, I wouldn’t have even realised he had spoke, my mind was filled with drifting thoughts.
Like the crushed feeling inside my chest when I realised that I didn’t have a father to take to ‘Fathers day lunch’, or I didn’t get a big talk about responsibility from the man of the house.
Slowly Jai shifted off his swing, moving around to stand behind me. He captured my hands in his, before slowly slipping his arms around my waist, resting his head on my shoulder as he hugged me from behind. It was soothing to know that he was trying his best to comfort me, to make me feel better even though he didn’t really know what was going through my head. He didn’t even have to understand what was wrong, he just knew I was upset so he wanted to hold me and make everything better.
“Yeah, a father figure would have been nice,” I smiled sourly. “Max is an asshat.”
“Asshat?” he asked, running his hand along his jaw.
It was a word that I had picked up a girl at my last school.
“When someone’s head is so far up there ass that they wear it as a hat.” I explained and shrugged beneath Jai’s arms.
“Well isn’t that a bit of a disturbing mental image...”
“Anyway,”—I said, getting the conversation back on track—“I’ve had these powers since I was fourteen—and I still don’t know a damned thing about them. I mean I am getting good at some of the pretty sparky shit and lighting up a room, but I don’t really know what I'm doing...”
I wasn’t really sure why I was spilling my guts to Jai, but something about him made me want to make sure he knew me.
Even though my life is like a mine field disguised as a playground, I wanted Jai to know even the littlest things; from boyfriends to the appalling story of why my Dad was locked up.
I kept my gaze locked onto a cloud, so that Jai didn’t have to see the different emotions sweeping over my face.
The story of my life wasn’t a very happy one, but it was what made me who I am; a puzzle of a teenager, who is filled with raging hormones that affect the safety of her secret. Her anger often overtakes her mind when it comes to emotional pain and a whole lot of bad choices.
In a lot of ways, it’s like finding out that the light at the end of the tunnel is your enemy shooting at you.
“You can wipe people’s memory?” Jai’s eyes widened. “And you have had your powers since you were fourteen?” the expression that filled his face was stunned.
“Yeah—I can wipe pretty much anyone’s memory,” I answered, thinking back to when I had cleared my Mothers memory until she told me I could go to a party. “So, I'm guessing getting my powers at fourteen is weird too, right?” I asked, not sure if I really wanted to hear the answer, because I had a feeling that I already knew, due to the expression on his face.
“I’ve only ever heard of one person that could wipe memories, and that’s the Professor at my school.”—he ran his hand along his jaw, something that I was starting to become familiar with.—“we normally get our powers at the age of ten, passed down through generation,” he said, consumed in his thoughts.
I pushed my shoulders back ever so slightly, curling into the cocoon that Jai made with his arms. “Well, it was my Fathers gene that made me this—this—this outcast. He told me once, that I was destined to be powerful... whatever that means,” I stated in a matter-of-fact tone.
“You Father was right, you are destined to be powerful. But there is one thing you are wrong about, you are not an outcast—you are pretty close to perfect.” He unwrapped himself from me and came to stand in front of me, I could feel his eyes burning into me as they danced over my body, lingering over select parts. The corners of his mouth tilted up into a smile that spelt pleasure, with a capital P.
The rest of the day passed too quickly for my liking. We had talked about the most bizarre things, yet in context they were totally relevant. We had swung on the swings, flirting on and off for hours before we went for a walk—hand holding was involved, which I was totally pleased about. When he had walked me home, I managed to score a quick kiss on the cheek, before once again, Jai walked off into the darkness of the night.
Once I was inside I flicked the lock and leaned back against the cool wooden door, smiling girlishly up at the roof. I let out a sigh that could have retold all my feelings in that one exhale of breath.
Usually I didn’t fall for guys, the number of guys that I would actually pay attention to was rather slim, confined really.
Normally I would be too guarded to actually let a guy within my radar, but I guess there is an exception to every rule.
Jai was my exception.
I like Jai Payne. I thought, practically shrieking it inside my head.
I hadn’t realised that my Mother was in the same room until she cleared her throat.
“Who is he?” she asked, knowing in that motherly way of hers exactly what is going on in my head. She was looking at me with a smile filled with happiness and enjoyment; she was all but glowing with joy.
She hadn’t seen me this happy since I had had my first kiss, and I hadn’t even really kissed Jai. A peck on the cheek didn’t count; I mean really kiss, the way it is supposed to be—dramatic, pleasurable and preferably involving tongue.
“Who?” she repeated.
“Jai Payne,” I said, trying not to smile as the sound of his name filled from my mouth.
My mother grinned. “Details,” she said, acting like a school girl.
I blushed. “Ruggedly handsome, smart, blonde, kind, romantic, witty with chocolate brown eyes that go on forever...” I could have kept rambling on, but I stopped as my Mothers laugh grew louder.
“Specific details, ones that will give me information about this boy,” She laughed.
“Mmm—Jai is Seventeen. He lives three houses away with his fifteen year old sister—Sage, and mate—Caleb, and the boy’s parents. I met him the first day we got to the city and he walked me home like a true gentleman. He is intelligent, and gifted—like me.” I held my hands up and gestured quotation marks in the air as I repeated “gifted”.
My Mothers expression changed, just as I had imagined. There was a mix of happiness, confusion and shining like a beacon was shock.
“Gifted? How?” she spoke with uncertainty.
“He has abilities just like me. Special talents. Gifts. Powers.” I beamed a huge smile that the expression that washed over my Mum’s face.
“Just—Umm—behave,” she muttered, as she turned; leaving the room, visibly unsure of what to say.
Just over a week had passed; all I really remember doing is either being on the phone to Jai or finding every living moment of my time to go for a walk back to our special park again.
Each time Mum caught me on the phone whispering to Jai, they either beamed a smile at me or took the opportunity to laugh at my crush on him.
Today was the day that Mum and Max had arranged for me to start school; I was dreading being the new kid. I was soon to become the one that people stared at all day, just trying to figure out if they wanted to know me, let alone talk to me. Truth be told, I wanted to spend my day with Jai, not some stuck-up, blonde girly girl that was destined to bully me for not wearing pink.
As I slowly crept down the hallway and into the kitchen, I tugged a gray cardigan over my shoulders. I rummaged through the pantry until I found a box of cereal, pulled out a bowl and spoon from a cupboard and finally topped it all off with some cold milk from the fridge.
I downed that quickly, dumping it into the sink as I donned my schoolbag; tip-toeing down the remaining hallway for the door, desperately trying not to wake anyone up.
Locking it behind me, I shoved my headphones in but was soon interrupted by a voice in my head.
“Oi, Cinderella. You dropped your pen.” I turned around, pulling out the headphone. To my surprise Jai was standing a few feet away smiling brightly, some of his shaggy blonde hair dangling loose into his eyes.
My attention was quickly drawn away from Jai as I noticed he was standing between two others; dressed rather well for going to school.
The Female was a well proportioned blonde; her hair was cut short and spiked around her face with absolute precision, not one strand of hair dared to fall out of line in her pixie cut. Her eyes were a dark chocolate like her brothers and drew no attention away from her outfit. She wore massive bright pink heels with Jimmy Choo scrawled across one of the straps that attached the shoe to her ankle. There were black leggings underneath the baggy pink top which read, Classy and fabulous in black calligraphy.
To put it simply, she was petite and gorgeous.
The male was rather casual; he was tall and looked to be nearly as well moulded into shape as Jai, the muscle definition was not so obvious on this boy. His hair was black and cropped short like seen in the military. There was a small piercing in the cartilage at the top of his ear, which shone brightly in the sun. The top he was wearing was white with a memorising black pattern twisted around it, making the black of his hair match nicely with the shirt. Dark denim shorts hung on his hips and a pair of lime green thongs clip-clopped beneath his feet.
“Are you going to say hi or do I have to introduce you first?” Jai thought to me, his words dancing around my head; feeling like they bounced off every corner of my mind.
Slowly I bent down and picked up the pen I had dropped and begun to twirl it through my fingers.
I opened my mouth a few time, but couldn’t manage to any get words out, instead I stood there like an idiot who didn’t know how to form words.
“...Hey—I'm Savanna... Ryder.” Finally I managed to get the words out. But I spoke so nervously that I felt I might start rambling on about nothing, I did that sometimes; I called it word vomit.
“This is Sage”—he elbowed his sister in the hip; causing a scowl to form on her lips, doing everything but audibly hissing.—“
And, this is Caleb.”—when Jai elbowed his mate in the side, he was rewarded with a strong version of a hip and shoulder thud from behind.—“well, you already know me,” Jai said, massaging his hip with his right hand, before giving me a very cute two-fingered salute.
Sage snapped the smile right off my face as she cleared her throat and took a step towards me. “Hello—how do you know my older brother?” she spoke, her voice layered with charm; but the underlining tone couldn’t be anything other than unwelcoming—which wasn’t hidden very well.
I peered across at Jai, wondering if he could do the talking. I wasn’t sure how much of what we had been doing was important for his sister to know—not that we had been doing anything that I couldn’t tell her, but I didn’t feel comfortable telling her that the relationship between us was undefined as of yet.
“I—ahh—met Jai at Hades a while ago, he brought me a drink and we got—talking.” I whispered nervously, looking down at my fingers fidgeting with the pen. I felt like I was being held hostage and demanded to retell information—information that I didn’t posses.
Jai looked at me with a weaken-your-knees smile then at his sister, lastly back to me before he burst out laughing.
“What?” I asked him. Was there something on my face? I thought, quickly skimming my hand over my cheek before staring at him. I thought to him this time, “What?”
“Nothing,”—he started, bitting down on his lip—“just that Sage intimidated you. I can tell from that cute look on your face,” He said, breaking off into laughter which soon died done as he noticed the colour flushing my cheeks. “Oh, shit. I’ve embarrassed you, again. Sorry.”
He strolled over to me, snaking his arms around my waist. “I am sorry, Ann. I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” he whispered into my ear. His voice was very gentle, making my pulse whoosh and the blush on my cheeks worsen.
Jai had just called me Ann, which means he has given me a pet name. I wasn’t sure where that put the two of us, but I certainly didn’t object to the pet name, it wasn’t too bad.
He seemed to notice my change in expression, because he placed his hand on my cheek, his thumb rubbing circles into my skin. It was an intimate gesture and I was wondering how to tell him that I liked the pet name he had used, trying not to sigh out loud at the touch of his hand on my face at the same time.
“I have to go to school, are you coming?” I asked, blinking rapidly.
He blinked in confusion now. “Wait—you’re not serious about going to a Mundane school, are you?” he queried, with a grin plastered to his face.
Sage and Caleb both shot him a look that would have clearly said; ‘shut up Jai, what are you telling this stupid girl?’
“The Mundane school?” I asked, utterly confused.
Why would Jai call it Mundane? As far as I knew it was called Saint...something High School. I was a bit taken back—what did he mean?
“Not the Mundane school—a Mundane school. It’s where the humans go to school. Mundie or Mundane is another name for a human.” Jai raised an eyebrow. “I thought you knew that...” he looked puzzled for a moment, but soon shrugged it off.
Sage grabbed Jai by the arm and reefed him backwards with a strength I didn’t think such a small girl would posses. Words flew from her mouth extremely fast, the same way I had spoken to see if Jai could understand me...
I could understand every word Sage said and it knocked my mood down a few pegs. She obviously had decided that she didn’t like me very much, throwing in the odd scowl at me.
I chose not to listen to the rest of their conversation.
I turned around and started to pace in the direction I was headed before I had stopped to talk.
God, I was stupid. I thought as I let out a shaky exhale of breath. I had imagined Jai’s sister would want to meet me and we could have been friends, but obviously she preferred to bitch about me to her brother—so much for that thought.
“Savanna—Ann. Come back,” Jai yelled before he was suddenly in front of me.
I didn’t normally use the speed side of my abilities very much, because I hated running—with a passion. Jai clearly didn’t mind though, as he was in front of me within seconds.
“I'm sorry, princess.” Jai said as he captured my hand in his, entwining his fingers with my smaller ones. “Sage is just being—Sage.” Jai said, like it was the best description he could manage. “She has always been a bit overprotective, but since it’s just the two of us—me and her—she sometimes takes the role of a mother. I am sorry Ann.” He had called me both of the pet names, and strangely, I didn’t really mind being called either—I was becoming used to it.
He tugged me over to a wooden bench off the sidewalk and sat us down, holding both of my hands in his lap.
I sat, looking down at my feet pathetically, but once again Jai cupped my cheek in his hand and then tilted my face so that I was looking at him.
“Don’t cry...” he whispered in my ear, so close that his breath tickled the back of my neck, causing goosebumps to rise on my arms.
“I'm not crying,” I told him, even though I wasn’t one-hundred percent sure of my answer.
Jai proved himself right when he run his thumb across my cheek, a teardrop resting on his skin.
“I’m pathetic,” I sighed and closed my eyes.
He scooted closer to me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders; pulling me against his warm chest as I layed my head on his shoulder.
My hand was resting on his chest and I could feel his heart beating a bit quicker than average; like the proximity of our bodies was affecting him as much as it affected me.
The butterflies were doing looped-e-loops in my stomach.
“Come with me today, please.” He whispered, leaning forward so that his lips brushed my ear as he spoke. His scent enveloped me, and his cheek felt vaguely scratchy against mine. “You can’t go to a Mundie school.”
I knew what my heart wanted to do, but my brain was trying to be logical. For that moment I wanted nothing more than to stay exactly where I was; clutched to Jai’s chest. However, that was when reality kicked in....
“Jai, I can’t miss my first day of school,” I spoke with disappointment written all over my face.
“Technically, we are going to school...the ‘School for the Gifted’,” he explained, and I could feel the grin make its way to his face.
I paused for a moment, allowing myself a brief second to think over the decision that truly only had one possible choice.
To follow my heart.
“I will come with you, but you are explaining this to my Mum.” I giggled, lifting my head to look at his smile—a smile that could piece my world back together. I couldn’t help matching his expression as he pulled me up with him, not dropping my hand.
“Your Mum isn’t a wulfen who will bite my head off for stealing you away from school, is she?” Jai asked nervously, caressing my fingers in his.
“A what?” I asked.
Jai tilted his head back and laughed faintly. “Never mind,” he said, shaking his head in humour. “What I meant is, she won’t hate me for taking you to a different school, will she?” he asked, the corners of his mouth slanted up.
“I'm sure you will be fine. With the amount of times you tell yourself yours stunning—I’m positive you can convince my Mother to like you, and your fancy school.”
“Like you really disagree, I’ve noticed you checking me out quite a few times,” he said smiling. “With my stunning looks and my boyish charm, how could you have resisted?” My cheeks flushed, and for a moment I thought they might spontaneously combust.
