Spoiler! :
Stop and Stare ~ Part Seventeen
Zoey - Continued
When we started walking again, I held my head up and made sure to concentrate on my surroundings. I was safe and I had to teach myself that. There was one problem though: a distraction. It was a distraction in the form of a buzzing sound, otherwise known as William’s voice.
“Hey, William, my lace has come undone,” I said, stopping. “Go ahead with the others. I’m just going to tie it quickly.”
William hesitated, but as I bent down to tie the lace that wasn’t undone in the slightest, he shrugged and continued walking. He hadn’t appeared to have noticed the fact that my laces were tied to perfection, which included a double not as well as the loose ends being tucked in half inside my shoe. I pretended to fiddle with my shoes until I could no longer hear his footsteps, and when I stood back up, I was relieved to see that I couldn’t spot him anywhere. Thank God, some peace and quiet. Rather chuffed with myself, I continued along the pathway. When I caught sight of them all again, I’d make sure to stand beside Beth, Austin or Jade instead of William.
I’d been wandering for a good few minutes and there was no sign of either of my friends, not even William. Nonetheless, I held back, breathed slowly and carried on pulling my feet along the forest pathway. After another couple of minutes had passed, a drop of sweat ran down my forehead. Where were they? Had I taken a wrong turning? Blooming hell, how many wrong turnings could there be? I mean, I was in a forest. I froze. I wasn't just in any old woods though, was I? I was in one that stretched for miles, and one that I very rarely even set foot in. Who knew how many different pathways there were in this place? I squinted in hope of getting a better look, but that hope was being sucked out of me as the seconds passed. All that surrounded me were trees. Trees that looked as though they'd swallowed up everything else this world owned.
Calm down, Zoey. Calm down. Calmness is key and panicking gets you nowhere. My legs were beginning to shake now, but I still forced them onwards. Oh, God, why did I have to be so careless and purposely lose track of William? Another drop of sweat ran down my forehead. My veins throbbed. I’d already been lost in this forest once... I couldn’t be lost again.
I wasn’t safe now, was I? I was on my own. A group of one.
I clenched my teeth together until I could practically feel them grinding into each other. Inhale. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Exhale. No matter how many times I tried my breathing technique, the panic only seemed to be rising. Another drop of sweat. Where was I? Everything looked the same... just trees and mud. I started rubbing my hands together. Why had I been so foolish? This place was dangerous, and when I was on my own here, it was fatal.
Suddenly, I spotted what appeared to be a patch of light coming from the left side of the pathway. Was it...? I quickened my pace as I neared it. Yes! It was! It was an opening! Had I somehow walked in a circle and arrived back at my neighbourhood? Or maybe I was near Amber Fountains. I would have preferred it to have been the first one, but right now, even the second option was tempting. Stepping over some overgrown brambles, I clambered my way into the opening with a smile on my now sweaty face, but as I wandered further, the smile began to tug further down my lips. When I caught sight of the ocean in the distance, it was as though all of my organs collapsed. This wasn’t right. I wasn’t near Amber Fountains or the safety of my neighbourhood now. I had no idea where I was. I needed to turn back around. I had to.
There was something hard in my throat as I turned back towards the way I had come, and I soon came to realise that it was all of my emotions trying to break out of me. Where was I going to go? Would it have been best to have just kept going to see where that opening led to? My breathing was fastening and the cold sweat was trying to drown my body now. What if someone found me? Someone with bad intentions? Someone like the person who attacked Aimee. Oh, God.
“Zoey?” A hand on my shoulder.
In an instant, I let out a horrendous scream, then spun around. Just as I was about to swing for the owner of the hand, I paused with mine in mid-air. Every inch of my body that could have lit up, lit up, and I almost collapsed with relief.
“Charlie?” I stammered.
“That’s the one.” He winked at me, then paused. “You okay? You look kinda pale, Zo.”
“No, I’m fine. I just fancied a wander,” I lied. No way could I tell him that I was lost.. I quickly changed the subject. “Where is this exactly?” I asked, standing on my tip-toes to peer over his shoulder, but all I could see was the top of the shimmering ocean.
Merely standing beside someone I knew had settled the feelings in my body: the feelings that had previously been spreading manically inside of me. As Charlie’s peculiar eyes locked with mine, the worry drifted away so suddenly that it seemed to leave my emotions numb. When I lifted my hand up and rubbed my neck, I noticed that my pulse was still raging, but I could feel it slowing down every second.
Charlie’s eyes widened slightly as he smiled, causing two dimples appear on his face. “You’ve never been here before?”
I shook my head, and before I had the opportunity to say anything else, he took hold of my arm and led me towards the direction I’d only just turned away from. I was more than glad Charlie hadn’t taken hold of my hand because it was drenched in sweat. My heart still sounded as though it was beating in my head, but my pulse had become far less energetic now, which was a good sign.
“Hang on--William said you’d gone home... Do you live in a forest or something?” I asked as I dodged a pile of shrubbery in my way, and I only just managed not to touch the germ-infested leaves.
Charlie looked over his shoulder at me. “Yeah, I’m gonna do it later. I fancied coming here for a bit first.”
“Okay, well, where is ‘here’ because this is taking age--”
Within a blink of an eye, the filthy leaves and the disorderly bushes had disappeared, and placed in front of me was something that was on my doorstep, yet I’d never even heard of it before, let alone been there. Something marvellously enticing. I was at a cliff-side, but not the kind of cliff-side I had imagined in my head. It wasn’t jagged and crumbling, or a dull grey colour with patches of brown, and it wasn’t hanging over a steep drop that ended with even more rock. It was nothing like that. This cliff had a wide surface area, and the surface of the cliff itself was exceptionally flat. It was as though it had been chiselled until it was smooth enough to be able to slide over it.
As I lifted my eyes up and away from the cliff, they almost flew off the edge of it when they caught sight of what the giant rock was towering above. The drop itself was a long way down and I could see that, but if someone were to fall off the edge, they wouldn’t have collided with hard rock, but the unmoving waves of an enormous ocean. An ocean that was even smoother than the cliff’s surface, and one that was so vivid, it looked as though someone had spilled a pallet of blue paint over it. I'd been to the beach near my house, so I'd seen the ocean before, but I had no idea about this place.
All I could say was, “wow.”
Charlie laughed beside me as he jogged lightly onto the cliff. In length, it was at least twenty feet long, so there was plenty of space for someone to walk along it. In a slight daze, I followed Charlie and I myself was soon feeling the smooth rock underneath my feet. Now that I was actually standing on it, I could tell that there were uneven parts to it, but it didn’t make it seem any uglier than before at all.
“Nice, innit? It’s good if you want some quiet and you wanna think, or if you’ve gotta lot on your mind. Mum used to take me here all the time when I was a kid.” For a second, his smile faded, but the dimples soon returned. “Hey, look at this!”
Charlie nodded his head at me as a sign for me to follow him. He soon started jogging again. This time, he moved along the right side of the cliff until he reached the point where it came to a sudden end. As I looked closer though, I realised that the cliff hadn’t actually been cut off as such. There was a thin pathway that looked about just over half a foot wide, and it appeared to have been created from what was left of the crumbled rock that connected the piece of cliff we were standing on to the piece opposite it. There was no bottom to this pathway though, only a thin strip of rock connecting the gap between the two adjacent cliffs. It was like an unnervingly narrow bridge. Charlie stopped when he reached it.
“That’s a bit dangerous,” I muttered.
“It’s taking its time to break completely though.” He bent down slightly and cocked his head. “I’m determined to be here when it does.”
Charlie stood back up and strolled over to me. With a sigh, he sat down on the cliff's surface as he rested his head on one of the small growths of the rock. He was half sitting, half lying down.
“Are you gonna sit...?” He looked up at me.
“It’s, um... dirty.”
I expected him to roll his eyes at me, but instead, he said a quiet, “here.” He sat up and pulled his arms out of his jacket until it was completely off him. He then spread the jacket across the ground beside him before patting on it. “That alright?”
It was impossible to not let a genuine smile spread across my face as I sat down on the jacket. It was weird: a nice weird, but certainly unusual that Charlie seemed to be so relaxed right now. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever really seen him like this because although I couldn’t be certain if it was just me delving too far into things, he always appeared to be on edge about something. Here though, right now, he seemed happy.
Suddenly, a thought hit me. All of the things William had said earlier came splashing into my mind. Should I have said anything about what William had told me? I started scanning Charlie as the question remained in my mind. He was leaning back against the rock behind him with his eyes shut. I had to. I couldn't have bared just to leave it for me to continuously wonder.
“Charlie?”
“Mhmm?”
“Do you think I’m annoying?” I almost whispered the words.
He opened his eyes before turning his head to face me. “Huh? No, why? Am I supposed to think that?”
I chuckled. “Well, no, I’d rather you didn’t. It’s just that William said something.”
“What did he say?”
I ran my tongue across my lips. Should I have told him? I mean, if he’d actually said what William told me he had, he wouldn’t be asking me this, would he? Did William lie to me then? I glanced back at Charlie. Or was Charlie himself lying? No, I’d definitely tell him about what his brother said because I wanted to hear Charlie’s side of the story. That was only fair, right?
“He just said that you told him you thought I was really annoying, or something like that.” I shrugged.
He raised one of his eyebrows, making it look as though he was trying to restrain himself from saying something. “He probably understood me wrong. I didn’t say anything like that though, I swear.”
“So you don’t think that then?” I asked. “That I’m annoying?”
Charlie shook his head. “Nah, you’re interesting.” He began collecting some of the gravel from the cliff by circling it with his hand. “More interesting than most of the brain-dead idiots around this place. Kinda quirky, I guess.”
No one had ever called me quirky before. Come to think of it, no one had called me interesting before. I’d had weird, annoying, obsessive, paranoid, freak, weirdo, and even things like controlling, but never quirky or interesting. As my thoughts progressed, I paused them for a moment. I hadn’t ever been with Charlie on his own before, not like this. I’d only ever been with him when Austin was around, considering those two were glued together. I wasn’t sure whether it was because of his surroundings or because of the fact that Austin wasn’t around, but Charlie really did seem different now.
He was wearing a long sleeved shirt, so I was beginning to notice dirt stains piling up on the ends of his sleeves as he fiddled with the gravel. I was tempted to say something, but he didn’t seem at all bothered by them, so I left him to it. I was about to start chatting again when a vibration in my pocket made me jump. I pulled my phone out to see that I had a new message.
“Sorry, hang on a second,” I mumbled.
With a sigh, I opened the message on my phone to see that it was from Jade. For rather obvious reasons, she was asking me where I was. I was about to text back when I paused. I didn’t technically know where I was, not really. Okay, I was near the ocean, but how to actually get here was beyond me. I looked up and straight ahead of me until my eyes were set upon the calm water. I could see that it was moving now at a slow, but perfectly timed pace. Staying here wouldn’t have done any harm, right?
Now that was observing the cliff more thoroughly, I noticed that there were some lumps of rock growing out of it. They looked nothing like stony pimples, but uneven waves that had been frozen in time. There were also some areas where the rock looked as though it was growing old and maybe even crumbling, hence that rock bridge, but it only added to the quirky beauty of the landscape before me.
“So, how long have you been coming he--”
I suddenly realised that the space beside me was empty. Where on earth had he gone? I began glancing around, but my head froze completely when I started looking to my left. Charlie was standing on the narrow bridge where the cliff had crumbled over the years.
“What are you doing?” I snapped at him with my eyes wide.
“Whoa, chill out. Don’t worry, I always do it.” He took a step forward, which caused me to flinch. “Besides, considering I’m facing your way, it does mean I’ve already been across it once.”
He had a point, but that didn’t settle my nerves at all. That bridge couldn’t have been much over half a foot wide, and there wasn’t a comfortable bed of cushions waiting for Charlie at the bottom if he slipped. He took another step. Oh, God, this was doing hell to my paranoia. The sun was facing him, so the concentrated grin on his face was instantly emphasized, but it only made the anxiety inside of me grow. Another step forward. Then another. This time, when I flinched, Charlie chuckled a little.
“Zoey, trust me, I’ll be fine.”
For a moment, the strong but soft tone in his voice comforted me. But then he stepped forward again. My heart attempted to leap out of my chest. As he started walking at a faster pace across the ruined rock, my body tensed and my heart made another break for it. I couldn't look away though. Not for a second.
“What if you fall?”
“Dunno. I’d probably die or something. I ain’t ever really thought about it.”
There was a subtle smile on his face now. How that was even humanely possible was beyond me. He was making his way across a painfully narrow rock bridge that looked like it could have snapped in half at any time. Judging by the expression on his face, he couldn’t have been doing anything better. Not a single thing. The sun had hid itself behind some clouds by now, but his smile was still easily noticeable.
Charlie stepped forward. I flinched. Another step forward. I almost keeled over. My mind was yelling at me to turn away, to shut my eyes... But I couldn't. I just stared. One more step forward. As Charlie lifted his foot again, his arm flew out and his legs wobbled. I froze until he regained his balance. Oh, God, oh God. Oh, God. What was wrong with him? Did he want to get himself killed? Charlie took a smaller step forward this time. He was inches away from the stable part of the cliff now. Come on... He took one more wobbly step. My heart bashed against my rib cage. Come on... He wobbled again, but simply chuckled in response. Another step forward. Come on... One more... Come on!
The moment his feet touched the stable part of the cliff I was sitting on, every part of me exhaled a great deal of relief. He was blooming lucky he hadn’t gotten himself killed. When he sat back down beside me, all I could do was gape at him. “Well, if you’re going to risk a violent death, you may as well do it interestingly,” I muttered.
“Exactly.” He stretched his legs out. “Hey, what do you think of Will, by the way?”
“William? Your brother?” Charlie nodded in response. “Well... he’s clever... and he seems quite polite.” I made sure not to mention the way he’d rambled on about one subject for something like twenty minutes which resulted in me wanting to fall asleep.
“So you like him?” I swore there was some kind of forced tone in his voice.
“I don’t fancy him, if that’s what you mean, but he seems... nice enough. Why?”
Charlie shrugged. “No reason. You just seem like the kinda girl he likes, that’s all.” He was playing with the dirt again. “Hey, what’s up with Beth and Austin? They were eating each other’s faces off when I left.”
I laughed, and I was glad that the conversation had turned from William. “Beth always gets very... into her boyfriends, and she cries for ages after breaking up with them. Mind you, it’s kind of bizarre because she gets a new one by the time a week has passed.”
Charlie laughed as well, but I soon spotted the smile fading. “Listen, I’m sorry about disappearing and, well, all of the other stuff.” The sombre tone was creeping into his voice: the one that I hadn’t heard once since being on this cliff. “You know, the thing with Jax at the club and whatever else I’ve done. I screw a lot up, even if I don’t mean to.”
“Don’t be so harsh on yourself.” When I looked at him, he turned his attention back to the ground. “To begin with, I’m thankful for what happened with Jax. The boy’s a creep. As for the other stuff, I really have no idea what you’re thinking of. I mean, sorry to get all sentimental and corny, but you’re thoughtful.” I nodded at his jacket that I was sitting on. “You’re not arrogant or judgmental considering you’ve never insulted me about any of my weird habits, and you, well, you’re just nice. You’d be surprised at how rare that simple aspect is in people nowadays.”
Charlie gazed at me as though he’d never received a compliment in his entire life. He was silent for a good minute or so, but I noticed a smile eventually planting itself onto his lips. As the sun burst through the clouds, every single feature on his face was enhanced, but there was only one thing I could actually concentrate on. It seemed almost preposterous to not look at his eyes as the contrast between the two of them was more distinct than ever.
I’d seen heterochromia on an animal once, but I’d never seen it like this on a human before. Rather than having some flashes of different colours dotted around in his eyes, which wasn’t all too uncommon for a human, Charlie’s varied in colour completely. While his one eye was a bold green, the other was an almost clear blue, and both colours were cushioned in the white of his eyes. I nudged closer as though I was desperate to get an even closer look. Charlie’s skin was rather pale and now that I was nearer him, I could spot patches around his face where he appeared to have the remains of bruises, but those imperfections were easily dominated by his distinctive eyes: the ones that were now scanning my face.
“Your eyes are... they’re, like, wow...” I said the words without even thinking, and as I realised that I’d spoken my thoughts, the blood madly rushed to my cheeks.
“They’re Mum’s.” The way he spoke with a distant sound in his voice made it seem as though he’d just said his thoughts unintentionally like I had seconds ago.
I wasn’t an impulsive person, heck, I was the complete opposite, but what I did next had anything but thought behind it. With my stare still stuck on Charlie’s eyes, I inched even closer towards him. Then some more. My eyes were closed when I felt my warm lips brush against his. For a millisecond, we both opened our eyes, but it didn’t take long for them to close again. My heartbeat was pounding in my ears as Charlie’s lips moved against mine. Every inch of my body was tingling, and the longer his lips stayed connected to mine, the harder it became to remember to even breathe. I'd shared a few kisses with boys before, but this was entirely different to anything I'd ever felt.
Charlie brushed some of my hair off my face, then ran his fingers through it. His hands must have been awfully dirty from sticking them in the gravel so much, but to my deep surprise, I honestly didn’t care. Too bad it was over all too soon.
Looking back, it was probably a stupid time to think about it, but as the kiss became more intense, all I could think about was Aimee. She'd gone out to meet her boyfriend the night her life was stolen from her. I wondered how many times they'd kissed that night, or maybe even done something more. She'd never kiss her boyfriend again. She'd never kiss any boy again. My body was stiff and my lips were hesitant now. Everything about this kiss right now with Charlie felt right. Everything except for the way Aimee was creeping into my mind. I couldn't do this.
____________________
Click here to read STOP AND STARE (PART EIGHTEEN)
Gender:
Points: 44360
Reviews: 1087