by Lana Davison
He nodded. “You might be right.”
“Are you being picked up tonight?”
“No, I’m going home tomorrow night. Casual boarding on Monday and Fridays,” he smiled.
Henry took my hand and we walked together towards the common room. I immediately felt self-conscious and hoped Leo wouldn’t see me with Henry. I wondered if I should tell Henry I wanted to break up, or would that be too harsh for the first day of school? Would he question why? Would he suspect Leo as the reason for me wanting to break off our relationship? If I left it too long would it make it worse? I reasoned that it would be best to do it now given the holidays were over. For all Henry knew, I might have met someone.
“Um... Henry, listen, I...” I gulped.
He stared and looked at me. “What? What is it?” He sensed my hesitation.
“Henry, there’s no easy way of doing this, but I... Well I, just want to be friends,” I said it quickly, afraid I might not get the words out if I procrastinated.
He stopped in his stride and I stopped too. “Why? And don’t say ‘it’s me not you,’ not that old chestnut.”
“Well, Henry. I don’t want to go out with anyone, that’s all.”
“Did you meet someone else?”
“No.” But I had met someone who had caught my eye.
“Why didn’t you say something to me in the holidays, or even last night?”
“Because.... well because it was the holidays and you weren’t around and I think if you are going to end a relationship then you should do it face to face. I would never do it over the phone, if I could help it.”
“Sit,” he said stopping and sitting down on a bench. “Talk to me. We don’t have to go to the common room.”
I sat down and continued, “And it wouldn’t have been fair to break up with you last night.”
My explanation seemed to work. He nodded. “You don’t feel anything for me?”
“Of course I do. You’re Henry, my Henry. But I must confess I see you more like a great friend than a boyfriend. Please can we just be really good friends?”
“I don’t know if I can do that right now,” he said not looking at me. “It’s not you, it’s me,” he said to himself, by way of explanation.
“Not that old chestnut,” I replied light-heartedly.
He smirked at my joke but also looked genuinely upset. “I’m not going to go to the common room. I’m going back to my dorm.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry, Henry.” I hugged him, but his body was rigid and he didn’t hug me back.
I let him walk away and I felt awful that I had hurt him. It would be common knowledge within the hour. I too decided to go to my dorm and walked sullenly to my room. Emily would still be in the common room and I was grateful to have some time on my own to contemplate everything that had happened. I flopped onto my bed and curled up.
I must have drifted off because I woke to Emily sitting at the side of my bed, shaking me gently. “Hol, are you all right?”
I rolled over and opened my eyes. “Pardon.”
“I heard the news.”
“I knew it wouldn’t take long.” I rubbed my eyes.
“Why didn’t you say anything to me?”
“Oh I don’t know Emily. I guess I wasn’t entirely sure of my feelings.”
“But now you are? I thought things were good with Henry.”
“Henry’s a great guy, I love him dearly, but not like I should. He is a great friend, but I don’t want to be his girlfriend, I don’t want to go out with him.”
“Fair enough. Do I have to set you up with someone else?” she grinned.
“No! Don’t you dare.”
“I won’t. Now come on, you’ve been in here for hours. Let’s go and get some dinner.”
I yawned and stretched out then slowly got up. I was not looking forward to seeing Henry again, but I guess I was going to have to face it sooner or later. When we reached the dining room, many of the tables were already filled. I didn’t want to look for Henry but I couldn’t help myself looking for Leo. A part of me wanted to blurt out, I’m free, I’m not with Henry anymore, but I’m sure he would know by now. I would have to tread carefully.
I looked at the food on display but today I didn’t feel hungry, there was nothing there that I wanted to eat. I didn’t want to bring attention to myself by not eating, as it would cause the teachers on dinner duty to ask if I was feeling unwell, or didn’t I like the food. I collected a tray and put some fish and cold salad on a plate.
I followed Emily to the table and as we arrived she looked over at me with her big wide sorry eyes, having realised she had taken me to the table that Henry was sitting on. I wouldn’t mind sitting there but Henry might, she moved her head to the side as if to say ‘sit over here,’ I walked past her and sat at the end of the table next to Emily, who had taken her place next to Hugh, a good distance away from Henry.
“I’m sorry about that, I wasn’t thinking,” Emily said referring to Henry’s presence.
“Don’t worry about it, it’s fine.” Henry sat next to Leo, not looking my way on purpose, but Leo was. He took a deep breath and nodded understandingly, he definitely knew.
Leo had changed into a pair of black straight fitting jeans and a dark grey polo shirt. He sat so close but, at the same time, was so far away. I picked at my food eating a couple of bite size pieces of fish and salad. I left the remainder on my plate and took it to the drop off area, so that it could be cleaned. I didn’t go back to the table to excuse myself but used the opportunity to sneak off unnoticed.
As I walked back to my dorm, I heard footsteps behind me. Leo ran up beside me.
“Are you all right? I heard you broke it off with Henry. He’s really torn up over you. I knew you were worth it.”
“Pardon?”
“I said I knew you would be worth it.”
“What does that mean?” I said almost angrily.
“It means I think your worth being torn over. You would be hard to get over.”
“And how would you know?”
“Because when I look at you, you do things to me.”
“You confuse me. I don’t understand why I’m so drawn to you.”
“And I am drawn to you. I have this need to be close to you. I want to protect you, to look after you....” He stopped, realising perhaps he had said too much.
“I don’t need protection.”
“It’s just a figure of speech. I want to be with you.”
I raised my eyebrows, “I want you too...” I trailed off in thought.
“But?” he questioned.
“But nothing. I want you too, but I can’t have you.”
“Why?”
“Because one of my best friends has earmarked herself for you, because you are Henry’s room-mate and you said it yourself, he is pretty broken up because of me. Besides you said I was dangerous for you.”
We started walking again, still in the direction towards my dorm, past the hedges and close to the woods situated behind the dorm, “I said dangerous because there’s more to me than meets the eye.”
“Cryptic puzzle again?” I argued.
He looked down at me as if surprised by my comment, but he didn’t give me an answer. We continued to stroll towards my dorm, and before I knew what was happening he held me around the waist and pulled me into the woods, he was fast, so very fast, I might not have even noticed had it not been for the change in our surroundings. We were now standing about twenty metres into the forest area. Without hesitation Leo planted a long lingering smouldering kiss on my lips.
I licked my lips enjoying the kiss, “What was that for?”
“Didn’t you like it?”
“I liked it. I liked it a lot, but what was that? You just got from my dorm to here in less than a second. There’s twenty metres between where we are standing and the dorm.” I pointed out.
“I’m quick.” He shrugged.
“Yeah, you are, and that’s an understatement.”
“Don
’t read too much into it, Holly. It’s nothing.”
“But it’s questionable, and I like answers to questions.”
“Your timing is way out. You just think it was a second.”
“No. It was a second.”
“It was more than a second,” Leo said.
“Is this you doing the ‘you say potato and I say partato’ thing?”
“Pardon?”
“Never mind.” I shrugged.
“Are you finished?” Not giving me a chance to answer, he held my head with both of his hands as he bent down to kiss me once again and I automatically moved my body forward. He moved one of his hands from my face and put it around my waist, pulling me in tight to his body. Leo’s grip was strong and I liked being fixed to him. We stopped and I pressed my lips together again having enjoyed what just happened.
I pulled away. “Wasn’t I just saying that we can’t be together?” I asked.
“Did you like it?”
“Yes.”
“So did I. Listen, Holly, life’s too short. We never know how long we will have with each other, so why not make the most of it?”
Something about the way he said this made me wonder if he wasn’t planning to be around for long, but I dismissed it, thinking he probably meant love comes and goes and while it’s good, we should just go for it. The statement was true enough, at least it was for people on Earth. Most people have numerous relationships before they find someone they want to be with for life, and even then they might divorce or have an affair. What he said made sense.
“Just be careful, Leo. I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”
“If I have to see you secretly, I will. I want to see you, Holly, so however you want it to be, it will be.”
He wasn’t giving me an out and wasn’t going to let other people come between us, between what we both wanted. It was incredibly sexy, the way he made the decision for both of us.
“You’re wild,” I giggled, “And I like it.”
“Yeah, I am wild. Wild, mad and crazy for you.” He pulled me close again and gave me another sensuous slow kiss.
“I’ve got to go,” he said finally. “I want you to think about that and about how you want me. You tell me tomorrow because, Holly Stephens, I am yours.”
And with that he left me standing in the woods, amongst the trees, watching after him. I touched my lips with my finger tips and smiled to myself. My he was game, a guy who didn’t let anyone get in his way, a genius in the classroom, an athlete, what else was there to discover? All I knew was that I wanted to know more.
Chapter Nine
Leo was responsible for the spring in my step the following day. Who would have thought I would ever feel this amazing?
“Oh, Holly you look so much better today. I’m sorry I didn’t come straight back to dorm after dinner last night. I saw how upset you were and I knew you wanted to be on your own,” Emily said as she perched on the side of my bed.
“I slept well and I think today will be a much better day, Henry will start to forgive me soon.”
“He won’t be able to stay mad at you for too long,” she assured me.
We dressed and went to the dining hall to eat our breakfast. Rachael, Jess, David and Hugh were already there. Jess and I collected a bowl of cereal and sat on the end of the table with our friends.
“Henry’s been and gone,” Rachel announced.
I nodded and wondered if that meant Leo had eaten his breakfast too. My friends seemed to want to talk about Henry and me, each one of them suggesting a reason as to why I broke up with him.
“There really is nothing to say,” I explained. “I just didn’t want to go out with him anymore, but I still want to be friends.”
.“Well, we will sit with you,” my friends said.
“Listen I don’t want it to be like that. I want Henry to feel like he can sit with us. It might take some time for him to get over it but he’ll get there.”
“Unlikely,” David huffed.
“Oh, come on, he’ll get over it,” Jess said.
“Well he seems pretty shaken up. He had no idea you were going to break up with him, Holly.”
“Neither did I,” said Emily looking directly at me.
I said nothing to that and decided to leave. If they wanted to discuss my love life they could, but I didn’t want to hear any more of it.
I got to class before everyone, including Leo. I waited for him eagerly, not sure what I would say to him. Mr Davis came into the classroom and took the register, and there was no Leo to be seen, I was both annoyed and confused by this, I had been looking forward to seeing him from the moment I woke up this morning. Where was he?
My next class was maths with Mrs Pullman, and still there was no Leo. To keep my mind occupied I worked through my text book questions systematically and as fast as I could. When I finished Mrs Pullman told me to give the others a few minutes and she would mark the questions as a group. I didn’t like to wait, it meant my mind was free to think about why Leo wasn’t in class with me. I wanted to see his face, he made me smile, just his presence seemed to bring my spirit alive, I felt fantastic around him. Was there such a thing as love at first sight? Wasn’t that how Avaloneans were supposed to feel about their chosen ones? We marked our maths papers and handed them back to one another. Mrs Pullman wrote down our homework on the whiteboard and I jotted the details into my diary. The bell went and I walked to the common room, where I would make a start on my maths homework, just so that it was done and out of the way. That was my motto, do your homework and get it out of the way.
The common room was full of about thirty students from my year, some sitting on the soft sofas and bean bags listening to music and a few were like me, sitting at a desk and doing homework. When I had finished I made my way outside and called Sara on my mobile phone. I told her I was fine and that she had nothing to worry about. I could tell she missed me.
Sara and Stuart were very liberal and let me decide for myself if I wanted to stay at school over the weekends or not. I had always thought I’d go home, even if it was for one night, given we had school on Saturday morning, but I wanted to find out if Leo would be around before I made my decision. It would be a good opportunity for me to get to know him. Where was he anyway?
I hung up the phone while I was still in the corridor when I noticed Shona Messy gasping for air. I ran over to join a group of people already gathered around her.
“What’s happened?” I asked.
“We don’t know, she took a bite of this bar and then she started gasping for air,” Melanie Clum answered.
I took the bar and read the contents quickly. “Shona are you allergic to nuts?” I asked.
She nodded, still gasping.
“Move over.” I said as I sat down next to her, right by her side. I took her hands in mine and said, “Breathe slowly. Take a long, deep breath, stop gasping and keep your breathing going and don’t panic.” I patted her hands and kept reassuring her.
Shona took a swig of air to her lungs and began to breathe deeply. She flung her body toward me, giving me a big hug. I smiled at the sentiment and patted her back.
“You’re OK,” I said, rubbing her back.
“I don’t know what you just did, but I thought I was going to die for a minute.”
“I just know how to calm people down when they are in a panic. You were panicking, Shona. If you concentrate on something else, like slowing down your breathing you take the focus off the fact you can’t breathe. I was simply using a technique to calm your body down, so that you could let air in rather than close up in a state of anxiety and despair.”
“Well, if that’s what you call it, then it works,” she said hugging me again and pulling herself to her feet. “Get that bar away from me,” she told one of her friends standing close by.
I was still kneeling on the floor when I turned around and saw Leo leaning on the door frame to the common room, watching me. I got to my feet and smoothed my school skirt. His eye
s stayed with me, intense and adoring. I walked over to him.
“Where have you been?”
“That was impressive.” He ignored my question.
“What? That?”, I said. “Oh that was nothing, just a technique I learnt.”
“Really?” he said, not sounding entirely convinced.
“Really.” I said as a matter of fact. “So where were you this morning?”
“I was having a medical check. All the new students get one.”
He was right. I had seen the school doctor on my first week.
“I assume you got the all clear.”
“I did.”
“How’s Henry?”
“He’s all right. He will get over it, but I wouldn’t.”
I gulped. “Umm... Are you.... staying in this weekend?”
He cleared a loose strand of hair from my forehead and placed it behind my ear gently. I looked into his eyes wanting to throw my arms around him but I couldn’t; we were in the common room, with too many prying eyes. He sensed my anguish and took my hand and pulled me outside.
“Come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere where I can touch you without you worrying about what other people think.”
“Don’t be annoyed. I just don’t want to hurt my friends.”
“There will come a time in your life when you will want to stop doing what everyone tells you to do, what others want from you,” he said passionately.
I continued down the corridor with him, there was no one in sight, and all we could hear were our own footsteps as we walked.
“Listen, Holly. You make me feel alive and I have a hard time being away from you. Do you know what that’s like, being held back from someone you want to be with?”
I did know what it was like as I had been taken away from my own family, but I was not prepared to explain my background to Leo, not yet. Finally we found ourselves alone in the pitch black assembly room. All we could see was each other’s silhouette. He held my hips and pulled me towards him, into his arms again. He felt so strong, so masculine and in control of what he wanted. I ran both of my hands up each of his arms and felt his firm shape, the contours taut and ripped perfectly. He was gorgeous and he was here with me right now. He gently placed me up against the wall, tilted my head back and bent down, separating my lips with his and kissed me, just like he had last night; so tenderly. I greedily ran my fingers through his hair and kissed him passionately unable to remove my lips from his, unable to stop exploring his mouth with my tongue. I wanted him so much but I couldn’t get any closer, I didn’t know how to get any closer, certainly not now, not in my school uniform, not in the assembly hall.
