I shook my head in shock. My stomach turned. “I think I’m going to be sick,” I gulped, my body starting to sway.
“Oh, my God, Lila! I think you need to go to sick bay,” Jackie advised as she helped me steady myself.
I nodded, unable to put any more words together.
I felt vulnerable, and uneasy. Feelings I didn’t want to feel. I thought I’d figured everything out, they were dreams, and he didn’t exist, but now, only moments ago, he walked straight past me. I had seen him for real this time, hell, the whole school had seen him.
So, he was real after all. What the hell did all this mean then?
Jackie insisted I go to sick bay, and I didn’t object. She offered to stay with me, but I knew how much she needed to go to class, so I sent her on her way.
The school called my parents and let them know I wasn’t feeling very well and it would be better if I took the rest of the day off. It was nice to know they would happily answer the school’s phone calls, but not mine.
The school nurse wanted me to go to the doctors and get checked out, but I convinced her it was just the stress of finals making me feel this way. I thought it would be better to leave out the fact I thought I was going slightly insane.
I sent a text to Jackie to let her know I was going home, and ask if she could take notes from some of the classes for me. I couldn’t afford to fall behind now in my school work.
When I got home, Anne greeted me at the door and rushed me up to my bedroom.
“Here,” she insisted, handing me one of her ‘green goodness’ juices.
“Thanks,” I said, taking the glass in my hand and drinking from it.
She stood quietly as she watched me take sips from it. Surprisingly, with all the kale, spinach, celery, and God knows what else was in it, it did taste pretty good.
I raised my eyebrows at her hovering. “Are you planning on standing there until I’ve finished it,” I mused.
She crossed her arms. “Until you drink every last drop.”
Although her body language told me she was being serious, she couldn’t hide the smile that crept onto her lips.
I’d already felt better by the time I’d gotten home, but Anne wanted to look after me, and when I’d finally finished the juice, she continued to check on me every five minutes making sure I was okay, until she went home at six.
I wasn’t one ever to get sick, but I quietly liked the attention Anne gave me. It felt nice to be looked after every once in a while.
I tried not to think about him anymore as I spent the evening catching up on some study. Thankfully, Jackie had followed through with the study notes, emailing all of them to me when she got home. I barely made it until nine at night before I was well and truly spent, and called it a night. My eyes no longer wished to be open, and quite frankly, I didn’t think I would be able to cram any more study into my brain anyway.
***
I took Hayley to school the next day and as usual, she had her head buried in her phone, texting like mad. Normally, I would ignore her excessive texting, but each time I heard her receive a message, she wouldn’t stop giggling.
“What on earth are you laughing at?” I asked, slightly irritated. It was like being kept in the dark about the world’s funniest joke.
“Oh,” Hayley laughed, “just something Poppy said about James.”
“James?”
Who was James?
“You know the new guy.”
“What new guy?”
Hayley put her phone down and stared at me as if I was an alien. “Seriously, Lila?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
She rolled her eyes, like the good sixteen year old she was, and said, “James is the new guy. Apparently, he came to school and enrolled yesterday. He’s like amazingly good-looking. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone like him before. Bree said she even saw him rock up on a Harley before school started yesterday. How freakin’ sexy is that? I wonder if he has a girlfriend? I mean, with a face like that...”
I zoned out, as my mind focused on what she’d said.
James. His name was James.
My mind went in auto-pilot as I turned in the student car park at school, and made my way to the closest free parking spot; my mind racing with thoughts of James.
So, he was going to come to our school? What grade was he going into? He looked my age, only way more mature, but why would he transfer to our school with only a few weeks of the school year to go?
As I pulled into the free parking space, in between the BMW sport car and Mercedes Benz, just the usual kind of cars you’d see, my foot slowly pressed against the brake as I saw James standing only a few feet in front of the parking spot, and staring at me once again.
This time, he wasn’t an angel or dressed like he was yesterday. He was dressed in our school uniform.
“So can I? Lila!” Hayley yelled to get my attention. I turned towards her and she was standing outside the car with the door open looking at me.
“Um…” I stammered, dazed, looking back at James, but he was gone. I scanned the area quickly, but he was nowhere in sight. He had vanished.
Hadn’t Hayley seen him too?
“Lila!”
I shook my head. “Sorry, what?” I said looking back at her.
“Can I stay at Poppy’s on Friday night? There is this movie out with Channing Tatum, so we want to have a chick flick marathon.”
“Yeah… Uh…”
“Are you sure you’re still not sick? You’re acting super weird.”
I took a deep breath. “I’m fine,” my words sounding a little more confident than before. “You can go to Poppy’s and have your drooling session.”
Hayley laughed, “Cool, thanks!”
She waved at Poppy approaching our car, and dashed off quickly to meet her.
I turned off the engine, and as I got out of the car, I continued to look for James, but he had vanished.
Now that I had seen him in our school uniform and everyone was apparently talking about how he was the new guy at school, I headed off to my first class, English, curious if I was going to see him again.
I took my usual seat quietly and waited for class to begin. Students piled into the room taking their seats, while Ms Stone began writing dot points on the whiteboard in preparation for our lesson. She was an older woman, maybe in her late fifties. She had a fuller figure, with curly red hair in waves. She was a strict teacher and demanded the best from everyone, but no matter what, she always seemed happy. Sometimes, it made it hard to read her when she was angry, because she’d still be smiling away.
I had barely even opened my pencil case when I heard the normal chatter of students suddenly come to a halt. I put my pen down, which I’d been using to doodle on my page, and looked up to see what had caused the sudden silence.
James.
Even though I still had a million unanswered questions, at least this answered a couple. He was definitely a new student in our school, and apparently in my grade.
He stood at the doorway, an exercise book and pen in hand.
Ms Stone stood to her feet and walked towards James quickly. “Hello, I’m Ms Stone. You must be the new student, James?”
James nodded and smiled politely, “James Taylor.”
Ms Stone turned towards the class, who had all taken their seats and were hanging on every word that came out of James mouth. “Class, this is James Taylor. Some of you may have met him already, but for those of you who haven’t, he is new to our school. Now, although he will only be with us for a few short weeks, we need to make sure we all welcome him with open arms and ensure that he has a splendid time at Eden College.”
I heard the girls in the back row giggle with excitement.
“Thank you, Ms Stone, I can already tell the next three weeks will be that of an enjoyable one.”
Ms Stone blushed and busied herself on the whiteboard quickly, as James made his way towards the back of the room. I slid down my chair slowly a coupl
e of inches as he passed me, my eyes fixed on the paper in front of me. Now that he was here, and he was real, I was almost scared to make eye contact.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him take a seat a couple of rows back from me, next to Dale. The two seemed already to know each other as they smiled and chatted amongst themselves.
I couldn’t wrap my head around it all, and he was here in my class. He was real. I kept going back to the conclusions I’d rationalised before. I must have seen him on TV or in a magazine or something, and subconsciously dreamt about him, even though I couldn’t be sure I’d been dreaming at all.
I stole a glance at him, trying my best not to make my interest in him obvious. He was exactly as I had remembered him. I held my gaze on him, hiding half my face behind my shoulder as I studied him intently, knowing I would look like some creepy stalker if he caught me looking at him, but I couldn’t help it. With all the things that had happened to me, I knew it wasn’t just curiosity that kept my attention on him. There was something about him, something I couldn’t explain.
Dale’s attention moved towards Maddison and Kassidy, two of ‘Eden’s Finest’, or so they liked to call themselves, anyway. They were gorgeous, no doubt about that. They both had beautiful, long blonde hair, skin to die for, and perfect teeth, but they were all beauty and no brains. They spent more time in front of a mirror than they did actually learning anything.
They seemed just as interested in James as I was; only I wasn’t flicking my hair towards him and batting my eyelids.
They must have caught Dale’s attention anyway, as they began chatting about something that I couldn’t make out.
Dale was transfixed on every word, but James looked disinterested. Instead, he turned his head away from them and began writing in his exercise book.
Maddison and Kassidy seemed slightly irritated by this, as they looked in his direction laughing at whatever they’d said, but James’ focus didn’t budge. Either he had something really important on his mind, or he was blind.
I’m going with blind.
I didn’t have to wait to test that theory, as his head tilted up, his eyes meeting mine. It was only for a second, as I looked away quickly when he saw me watching him, but for that brief moment when our eyes had meet, his dark brown eyes had sank deep into mine, and I was sent into a heightened sense of emotion. My breathing had quickened and my heart pounded furiously against my chest. I couldn’t be sure, but as I looked towards the front of the class I felt as if his eyes stayed on mine, I didn’t dare look back though. Instead, I spent the rest of the lesson obsessing over the thought that maybe he was watching me, and maybe… just maybe… he’d know the reason why I couldn’t get him out of my head.
3… OUT COLD
I pulled the towel tightly around my chest.
“Why do we have to do this?”
“What?” Jackie replied as we both walked out of the girls change room with towels wrapped over our full piece school swimmers. “Swimming or the socially awkward encounters with the boys in our grade looking at us like they’d never seen girls in swimmers before?”
“Both,” I groaned in reply as we made our way towards the diving blocks at the end of the pool.
I had survived English this morning, but I couldn’t promise I hadn’t made a fool of myself. I spent the entire lesson with my head down like my neck had been permanently kinked in that position, although that wasn’t unusual for me, when it came to class discussions I couldn’t talk above a whisper. Even Ms Stone noticed my behaviour and questioned if I was okay. To top it off though, when the bell rang to signal the end of the class, I nearly took out the door as I stumbled into it on my quick exit out of the class.
So much for trying to stay invisible.
I didn’t doubt for a second that I’d embarrass myself again, especially when I discovered that James was also in my Physical Education class.
I’d taken a lot longer than usual to get changed into my swimmers, trying to come up with some glorious excuse for not participating. In the end, I told myself I would just have to suck it up and get on with PE class, I couldn’t avoid James forever.
“I wish there was an easier way, but Mr Avery will fail us if we don’t do this, and failing phys ed means not graduating. Anyway, you’re a great swimmer. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“I know. Mr Avery knows that too. It begs the question as to why I have to swim in front of the whole class.”
Jackie shrugged sympathetically.
There was nothing I disliked more about school than moments like this. It wasn’t the sport side of it that I didn’t like. I happen to be really active. It was the mentality of the girls and boys when we all saw each other in swimmers. The confident, popular girls, walked around in their swimmers in confidence as the boys basically drooled over them. They could care less about the swimming side of it, it was a time to show off their bodies and they welcomed it with open arms.
I had an okay body in my mind. I had slender legs and proportionate waist and hips. I was comfortable with my body, until I had to wear them in front of the other girls in my grade. I’d like to think I’m a tough chick that can face any problems with confidence to succeed, but the way I felt sometimes around those girls, crushed me.
“Miss Kingston, you’re up,” Mr Avery said as he ticked the boxes on his clipboard.
I handed my towel to Jackie and nervously made my way to one of the diving boards. I pulled my hair up into a tight bun on the top of my head. We only had to do a one hundred metre freestyle sprint, so I didn’t worry about any goggles. My eyes had become used to the chlorine from the countless amount of hours I spent in our pool at home.
I tried to blur out my surroundings. I knew all the girls would be staring and gossiping to each other about me, no doubt, and everyone else on the starting blocks. Who knows what the boys were thinking about? Boy’s brains were a mysterious thing.
I didn’t look at anyone beside me as I stood on the diving block and took my diving position. I closed my eyes as I waited for the sound of the starting gun.
My heart hammered against my chest and my breathing was hard. I just needed this moment to be over. I could feel eyes burning into me like a hot iron.
“On your marks…get set…” The piecing sound of the gun rings in my ears. I took a deep breath, diving into the glassy pool. I pushed myself underwater, taking advantage of the power the dive had given me. I reached the surface and took a deep breath.
One. Two. Three. Four. Breathe.
My arms pulled my body through the water, my legs kicking with force as I counted my way through each stroke. I barely noticed the other swimmers around me. I was in my element.
I pushed my body just that little bit more with each stroke. I knew I must have been near the halfway mark, but then my focus shifted as the water began to change… I started to notice the once clear water had become streaked with soft textures of colours… coral red… pacific blue… creamy butterscotch…striking mulberry…so many colours. They all swam around me, moving harmoniously into the beautiful new colours and patterns. I barely had time to make sense of it all. Its beauty mesmerized me. So mesmerized in fact that I’d forgotten where I was and what my purpose was in the moment. Only moments after the lights had first appeared, I felt the sharp thud, as my head hit the end of the pool with enough force to knock me out cold.
I don’t remember much after that, only the warmth on my cheek as I regained consciousness. My eyes opened for a split second and all I could see was a bright, white light and the outline of a blurred face looking over me. As the white light faded, the face became more vivid and recognisable. It was James. His hand touched my cheek gently as he looked over me in concern.
The heaviness of my eyes hit me without warning, and I felt the sudden urge to cough uncontrollably as the water left my lungs.
I was rolled onto my side, gurgling as the water mixed with the air I needed, and so desperately craved to breathe. I listened to the voices a
round me murmur words of encouragement and words of shock and disbelief. I knew then that, if no one were talking about me before, they sure as hell would be now.
I waited until my breathing was under control before I was rolled back onto my back. I felt lightheaded and confused. When I opened my eyes to look for James, he wasn’t there. Mr Avery, Jackie, and nearly the whole class had taken his place.
I could see the concern etched across Mr Avery and Jackie’s faces. I braced myself for the million questions and an overbearing amount of nursing that was about to come. There was no way I could explain what had just happened without sounding as if I was losing my mind, and after the past week, I was starting to think that might just be the case.
***
I said thanks to the tuck-shop lady as I handed the correct amount of cash and took my chicken sandwich and chilled juice. As I walked beside Jackie away from the line-up of the other students, all waiting not so patiently for their lunch, Maddison barged straight into my shoulder.
“Hey!” I said looking over my shoulder as Maddison walked past, seemingly unconcerned with the fact that she’d just walked straight at me.
She turned her head and scowled at me, then continued to walk with Kassidy towards the lunch line.
“What’s her problem?” I said, rubbing my shoulder. “Swear to God, she is the moodiest person I’ve ever met.”
Jackie shrugged her shoulders. “She’s pissed about what happened at swimming this morning.”
“What?” I looked at Jackie in disbelief.
“Apparently, she’s claiming you did it on purpose to get attention, and particularly, James’s attention.”
I growled as we made our way to the edge of the oval and sat down to eat our lunch.
“Because that’s exactly why I did it,” I replied sarcastically. “I swear I hate high school sometimes.”
“Don’t worry about it. Dale’s having a party on Saturday, so I’m sure she’ll find a way to make the attention come back to her.”
I started to laugh. “She’s probably already got her minions planning her great comeback.”
Angels of Moirai (Book One) Page 4
