"What?"
"Didn't you see what just happened?"
"I saw you toss your shoes after I got my diploma. Cool."
"Um one of them hit somebody on accident."
"Really who?"
"You mean you don't know?"
"Nope. I was looking at you."
"You'll see it all online later but uh. I kinda just hit your girlfriend in the face with one of my shoes and I'm really really really sorry about that," I said. "I wasn't aiming at anyone in particular I was just. I was just expressing my rage against overpriced designer shoes that hurt and make you fall."
You looked at me for a long time before you laughed out loud.
"Okay," I said and looked at my phone.
I checked my FB wall.
Thirty comments and counting.
Ten emails were in my inbox.
Eight had the YouTube vid attached to it.
I had thirty-three DMs on Twitter and I was answering the five texts that Karen had sent me.
I hoped my cell phone battery would last.
"Penny?" You asked.
"Huh?" I asked.
"You're really funny Penny," You said.
"Yeah I’m a laugh riot," I said.
"No you are funny. And you're also very nice. I don't know why I never noticed you before. I mean I noticed you but I didn't realize how wonderful you are until recently. I just. I just wanted you to know that I think you're great," You said.
I looked up from my cell. I stared at you.
"Um thanks. You're great too. Hannah is a lucky girl. I’m sure she loves you very much," I said.
"Who?" You asked.
"Your girlfriend Hannah. The one I just hit with my shoe. Accidentally."
"Oh her. Well that's all over with."
"Oh I'm sorry to hear that."
My phone beeped and I looked at it.
"Karen stop sending me silly texts," I said as I tapped my phone.
"Penny I just remembered something," You said.
"This video already has a thousand hits! It just happened ! Don't people have lives?" I asked.
"I remember when you slammed into the bench on the track freshman year," You said.
I looked up at you.
"You remember that?" I asked.
"Yeah," You said. "It was the most important day of my life but I didn’t know it at the time."
"Oh," I said.
"And FYI Hannah isn't my girlfriend anymore. I’m in love with someone else."
"Well whoever she is, she's very lucky."
"I hope she feels that way."
"I'm sure she does."
"You think so?"
"Yeah."
We stared at each other for a few minutes and I turned away from you and looked at my phone.
You were still staring at me.
You were smiling.
I kept my eyes on my phone as I answered emails and posted to Twitter.
After some time, my cell phone battery died with a weak beep.
"Ugh!" I cried.
"Would you like to use my phone?" You asked.
I looked at you.
You were holding your cell phone and smiling at me.
"Now that's alright but thank you," I said.
"It's okay," You said.
Dean Whitmore's loud voice poured from the speakers and everyone around us was standing up and screaming.
"Let me be the first to congratulate the class of 2012!" Dean Whitmore yelled.
I jumped up and tossed up my hat.
Students around me were screaming, hugging and crying.
I rushed through the crowd and after a few moments and a dozen hugs from my classmates I finally find Karen.
"I can't believe university is over!" I cry. I hug her.
"Me too!" Karen said. She hugged me back. "I’m sure you'll be a lot happier now."
I pushed Karen away from me. I looked at her.
"Huh?" I asked.
Karen stared at something behind me. I turned around and I saw you.
"Hey Penny," You said.
"Uh hey," I said.
"Penny," Karen said. "I'll meet you at the apartment later bye!"
Karen laughed and she turned around and rushed through the crowd.
In a few seconds she was gone.
"Would you like to walk with me?" You asked.
"I uh. I need to be getting back," I said.
"Let me go with you," You said.
"Okay," I said.
So we walked across campus and you talked to me for the first time.
I was polite enough but I did not give way to the flood of senseless emotion that had overtook me since the day I first set eyes on you in freshman year.
When you noticed me in senior year I was over you.
Which is the way these things work sometimes.
As we walked across campus, you talked about your life and goals.
Your plans to go to medical school and become a surgeon.
You told me things about yourself that I have known for years.
And surprisingly, I found myself bored and restless in your presence.
"Matthew it's been really great but I need to leave now," I said quickly.
"I can go with you," you said.
"No don't," I said. "I'm sure your family is looking for you. And congratulations. On graduating."
"Will I see you again? I need to…I'd like to see you again," You said.
"Who knows? I have to go. Goodbye."
"Goodbye."
I left the ceremony and I didn't think of you afterwards.
I was surprised.
I had loved you for so long and the fact that I was nonchalant when you finally spoke to me filled me with a grave sense of remorse.
I set aside fifteen minutes of my busy post-graduate day to think on these new and confusing developments in the realm of my fragile emotions.
After a few moments, I came to the conclusion that I had loved you so much for
so long without any form of encouragement, gentility or acknowledgement. I had lived and loved you with the bitterness of disappointment in my breast.
And thus the flame of love I had carried for you for so long had died out.
My love for you had burned itself out.
Chapter 3
I have no idea how you got my cell phone number.
I had yours for years.
I called you dozens of times during the three years that I longed for you.
I called you in the middle of the night a few times. Just to hear your voice.
At the beginning of junior year, your girlfriend Hannah answered a few times and I quickly hung up.
I had your cell, email address, IM ids and dorm room number.
I also have your home phone number.
Your mother, Mrs. Campbell, sounds like a really nice lady. She was always cheerful and very polite when I called your house during the semester breaks.
I almost choked on the blueberry almond bagel I was eating when my cell phone rang in the crowded coffee shop.
I saw your number on my cell phone after I pulled it out of my purse.
I put the phone to my ear and said hello thinking it was a prank.
I couldn't believe it when I heard your voice.
You had a one way conversation for about ten minutes and you asked if I would be interested in meeting with you.
I declined your invitation, ended the call and slammed my cell phone onto the table.
After that, I took a deep breath, shook my head and continued to devour the rest of my bagel.
You started following me after that.
I had moved into an apartment a few blocks away from campus with some friends who were having a hard time dealing with the fact that their aimless college years were over.
I was only living with them because of the reasonable rent.
I saw you in the lobby of my building.
I nodded my head in passing.
You were st
anding in the corner of the room near the mailboxes with your hands in your pockets.
I rushed out of the door before you could speak to me.
Then you came to the office where I worked.
I saw you standing in front of the large office building holding two cups of
coffee in the freezing cold.
Your face lit up when you saw me and I felt a mixture of irritation and pity when I looked into your eyes.
I took the coffee but I did not invite you in.
Then a few weeks later, you were sitting at my desk at my office.
You were dressed in a dark suit and typing on my computer.
"Matthew?"I asked.
You looked up at me with a smile.
"Hello Penny," You said.
"What are you doing here?"
"I’m working here now."
"You're what?"
"I work here. I’m a manager. So we'll get to see a lot of each other since we work at the same place."
"I thought you were going to medical school."
"I got accepted but I'm taking a year off so that we can…so that I can be closer to you."
"What are you talking about?"
"I love you Penny."
"You what?"
"I love you. Ever since the end of senior year. I wanted to tell you but I never got the chance and now I'm glad I did."
"Matthew you don't love me. What about Hannah?"
"It's over between us. She's not the person I thought she was. I love you now. Do you. Do you feel the same way?"
"Matthew I'm not in love with you."
"Penny, I'd do anything for you. Anything. Please just give me a chance to prove it to you. I'll do anything you want. Anything just name it."
You rose from my chair and you were coming towards me with your arms outstretched.
I moved back slowly. And I gazed into your eyes.
They were the same endless blue. And they were glassy and somehow I thought I saw a flicker of madness behind all of the emotion in them.
I panicked.
I actually had a full-fledged panic attack.
I watched you leap across the desks to get me a cup of water.
My colleagues gathered around me as I held my chest and gasped for air.
Panic attacks are not fun. They feel like heart attacks but are not fatal.
After I calmed down from the shock of what happened, I left the office for the day.
You followed me home in your car.
You stayed outside of my building all night. My friends laughed and giggled as they stood in the window and pointed down at you.
I thought them cruel.
My cell phone rang and rang.
I turned it off.
The apartment phone rang.
Chapter 4
My friends did not understand my reaction to you.
They knew that I had stalked you for years at university and they all wondered why I didn't want you since you were interested in me.
I couldn't explain my lack of feelings to them or anyone else.
I went into my room and cried.
Karen came in and she gave me a quick hug.
Then she pulled out a small black bag and put it on my bed.
She rubbed at my head and stared at me.
"Penny I'm so sorry," Karen said lowering her hand from my hair.
"Sorry for what?" I asked.
"For what I've done," Karen said. "You were hurting so much and for so long that I had to do something! And since I've been practicing a lot I thought I could get it right."
"Get what right? Karen what are you talking about."
"Just keep an open mind okay and let me show you something."
Karen opened the black bag and she dumped the contents onto my mattress.
Fluffy feathers, specks of dust, small rocks and thin glass vials of liquid fell onto my comforter.
"I have to tell you something," Karen said. "See. How can I explain it? Okay, sometimes these things work out and other times they don't."
"What?" I asked. "I don't understand."
"I'm trying to explain this so that you won't freak out just listen okay?" Karen asked.
"Okay I'm listening," I said.
Karen ran her hand along the items on my bed.
"Sometimes the balance of what you scribe for is outta whack," Karen said.
Karen raised a lock of shiny blonde hair in her hand.
I saw the hair and I knew it was yours.
"Is that Matthew's hair?" I asked.
"Yes," Karen said.
I looked at Karen.
"What have you done?" I asked.
"Magic," Karen said. "It was a simple love spell but no spell is really simple. The consequences are sometimes unpredictable."
"Unpredictable?"
"I thought I had it right. I mean. I tried it on a few people before I did it to Matthew."
"You put a spell on Matthew?"
"Yes."
"Karen what in the…wait…you're a witch?"
"I can do magic."
"So you're a witch."
"It comes in handy. The magic. It saved you a trip to the hospital freshman year when you fell and almost hit that bench with your face."
"You…what…I knew I felt weird when that happened. You stopped my fall?"
"Yes but that was luck. This thing with Matthew. This spell was like. Skill."
"I can't believe this."
"I'm still your best friend Penny. I love you and I just wanted you to be happy. I thought that making Matthew love you would make you happy."
And this is how I found out that my best friend, who I have known since kindergarten, was a witch.
A very powerful witch.
Just when you think you know a person.
I felt a wave of unsettling panic before I spoke.
"Karen undo the spell," I said. "Whatever you've done just undo it. Now."
"I can't do that," Karen said.
"Why?"
"It just doesn't work that way."
"Then what's going to happen?"
"Matthew loves you and he will for awhile."
"Karen just undo it. Whatever you did just undo it."
Karen was quiet for a long time. Finally she sighed and put the stuff in the bag. She closed the bag.
"Penny," Karen said. "It's going to be okay. You have absolutely nothing to worry about. What Matthew feels for you will abate in time. It'll get less and less."
"Karen just undo it," I said.
"I can't. I mean there's nothing I can do about it at this point. But don't worry. These things tend to burn themselves out," Karen said.
Chapter 5
I left my apartment after Karen made her magic confession.
I just couldn't handle it.
I was hurt, angry, confused and a little scared.
I was mostly confused.
And shocked.
I was sobbing as I rushed down the street.
I ran by your car as you were getting out.
I had to get away from all of the craziness that surrounded me. So I jumped in a high-priced cab and told the driver to go north.
I was still crying like an infant when I looked up to see that I was downtown.
I decided to get some food after my stomach growled over the loud music the driver was blasting.
I told him to stop and I stuck my twenty dollar bill in the bullet proof slot of the window that separated us.
I got out of the cab and walked down the crowded street.
I bumped into a tall red haired girl. She looked familiar but I was too upset to pay any attention to her.
She asked me if I was alright.
I said yes and I apologized quickly and kept walking.
I walked a few blocks.
The scent of cooking food assaulted me from the opened doors of the restaurants I passed.
I suddenly felt sick.
I stopped walking and held my belly.
My r
ight arm started to hurt.
I looked down and I saw blood staining my shirt near my right elbow.
I pulled my shirt up and looked at my arm.
There was a small puncture wound on the skin a few inches above my elbow.
Blood was pouring from the wound.
"What is this?" I asked.
My arm suddenly felt stiff.
The sound of loud shrill laughter suddenly filled my brain.
I looked up from my arm and I stared at the crowd.
I saw a tall red haired young woman standing a few feet away from me.
She was holding a small black bag. Her green eyes were narrowed and she staring at me.
She was smiling.
It was Hannah.
The walking crowd moved around her and in an instant she was gone.
"Where'd she go?"I asked weakly.
My vision became blurry and my head began to hurt.
My ears rang, my heart raced and I had a hard time breathing.
Then everything went dark and I was falling.
I fell onto the pavement.
The darkness faded slightly. The ringing in my ears stopped and I was able to take a breath.
I looked up at the sky.
There were a few stars in the sky.
The moon was full and shining.
My eyes filled with tears.
My body felt cold.
I heard sirens and then I saw you leaning over me.
Your blue eyes were filled with tears as you stroked my cheeks gently.
I started to shiver.
I was so cold.
You were staring at me.
You looked so sad.
"I’m so sorry Penny," You said. "This is all my fault. Don't worry about anything. I'll protect you. With my life."
Your tears fell from your eyes and they landed on my face.
I felt your tears fall onto my cheeks.
They were warm.
Chapter 6
And now I'm here.
I can't move.
The stiffness started at the wound on my arm and it traveled all over my body.
I am standing with my arms outstretched and my face is looking down on you.
I don't hurt anymore.
Sometimes I feel like weeping. But I can't.
Not anymore.
My heart is as cold as the rest of my body.
And the tears will not come.
Chapter 7
Burn (The Burn Series, Book 1) Page 2
