“Huh; not too shabby,” she said out loud.
It was definitely one of the trees in her dream. She picked up her pencil again and started drawing another tree. This one was shorter and had a smaller trunk. It was more bushy than the last.
“I think you’re onto something, Luce,” she murmured to herself, completely surprised at her ability to remember what she had seen.
Lucy added more foliage to her drawing and drew until the loud tone of the school bell startled her. Looking up, she saw the aging Mrs. Roth call the class to attention. With one last glance at her work, she turned the notebook over so the drawing was face down on the desk.
As Mrs. Roth explained the requirements for the class and droned on about dress codes and technology rules, Lucy felt something hit her hand. She looked down and saw that it was a neatly folded piece of paper with her name on it. She didn’t know where it had come from and she didn’t want to draw attention to herself by looking around the room.
Written on the paper, in very neat cursive handwriting, was a simple note:
I didn’t know you were an artist.
Lucy refolded the note and glanced to the side of her. There was no one in the desk next to hers and she was certain that no one in front of her had deposited the note, which left only the people behind her. Cautiously she turned her head around, hoping to avoid attracting Mrs. Roth’s attention. Behind her, she saw a boy named Nick Paulson that she had known since the third grade. She held up the note to him with an inquisitive face, and he shook his head pointing his thumb to the person seated immediately behind him. To her surprise, she saw Benjamin softly grinning at her. The note was from him.
I’m not, I just doodle really well.
She reached back and handed the paper to Nick, who sort of glared at her with a face that seemed to suggest that passing notes and using him as the courier was absurd. Lucy managed a pleading smile, and Nick dropped the note on Benjamin’s desk.
Giving him enough time to read and respond, Lucy turned around in anticipation of another note. That’s when she saw Samantha sitting right next to Benjamin. She was texting at light speed under her desk, not noticing anything that was going on around her.
Lucy spun back around, overcome with jealousy and anger. She fumed for just a moment when the piece of paper hit her hands again. She clutched her fist tightly before picking it up and opening it.
Do you like the rainforest?
Lucy flipped the notebook over and looked at her picture. Though she had been in many rainy Oregon forests, she had never been in an actual rainforest. From what she had seen in school, she could buy that what she had drawn was an acceptable image of a rainforest. When it hit her that her dream had taken place in a rainforest, she looked immediately back at Benjamin, who smirked and nodded as if to confirm her realization. Knowing he was only confirming that it was a rainforest, she connected her dream to its setting. She quickly jotted down an ambiguous response to pacify his curiosity.
I didn’t really mean to draw a rainforest. It just sort of turned out that way.
She folded the paper back up and reached back to hand it to Nick. His head was down on his desk, so she tapped him on the head. He shook it repeatedly. She tapped him a little harder and saw Samantha’s head pop up from her cell phone and look directly at her. Lucy recoiled and faced forward again. Just as she was about to turn around and lob the paper at Benjamin, the bell rang and the class of the living dead jumped to its collective feet and headed for the door like cattle from the pen. Having avoided the rush, Lucy turned to see Benjamin being hauled away like a bewildered child out the door. Samantha was certainly eager to show him around.
Outside in the hallway, Lucy could almost feel the cacophonous vibrations caused by Samantha’s voice.
“This is Liv and Sydney and Megan,” she started out.
The introduction of the entourage was underway. Lucy visualized the faces of the who’s who of Marshfield High School.
“… and this is Maddi and Devin, and over here is …”
Lucy shut it all out as best she could. She had started gathering her things when she heard a familiar voice from the doorway.
“Hey, Lucy.”
It was Mark. She nearly dropped her backpack when she looked up and he was leaning inside the doorway looking directly at her.
“Oh, hey, Mark,” she said ambivalently. “What’re you doing here?”
What the hell kind of question is that? she immediately thought to herself.
“I go to school here,” he responded with a toothy smile.
Lucy laughed nervously. “No, yeah, right. I meant what are you doing … in here right now? Do you have Mrs. Roth next period?”
“No, I was just—”
“C’mon, man; let’s go.” He was interrupted by Seth, one of the many boys Lucy and Kat had grown up with.
“Hey, I’ll see you around,” Mark said to Lucy with a wave, as he was all but pulled out of the doorway.
“Oh my gosh,” Lucy said under her breath. She immediately whipped out her phone.
Lucy: mark JUST said hi to me.
The response was almost instant.
Kat: SEE!!!! i told u he liked u
Lucy smiled to herself, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath of what felt like a new year.
“Ms. Higgins, you know the rules. Not in my classroom,” Mrs. Roth’s firm voice boomed across the room.
Lucy shuddered in surprise and slapped her phone shut. “Oh, sorry, Mrs. Roth. I’ll put it away.”
She stowed the phone in her pocket and headed outside. Despite the elation she felt at Mark’s salutation, she couldn’t help thinking about Benjamin as she walked through the door. She wanted him to be there, but she didn’t want what was attached to him to be there.
***
“Can you believe how ripped Dave got over the summer?” It was only lunch time and Kat had already made a full assessment of all the boys in the school.
“I guess football is good for something,” Lucy replied flatly as she scanned the large cafeteria.
“Hey, I’m a fan of anything that produces bigger muscles,” Kat replied.
As they walked to get in line at the pizza bar, Lucy craned her neck to see over the tops of the teaming crowds, looking left and right.
“What are you looking for?” Kat asked as she handed Lucy a tray. “Or should I say whom are you looking for?”
Lucy looked at Kat like a kid with her hand in the cookie jar. “What do you mean?”
“He’s right over there, Luce.”
Kat pointed an elegant finger straight across the cafeteria, and immediately Lucy saw Mark staring in her direction. Her heart both flipped and sank simultaneously. She was elated to see Mark, and even more so when he waved his hand at her, but he wasn’t necessarily her target. Lucy waved back with a half-hearted smile and a sense of social terror.
“Why is he waving at me in here?” she said, turning to hide her face by choosing a slice of pizza from the bar.
“Because he likes you, Lucy. What is the matter with you? Go over there.” Kat sounded frustrated.
“What? No, I can’t. He’s with all the guys and …”
“Oh shut up, we’re going. Put this down.” Kat grabbed Lucy’s tray and set it on top of the bar. She grabbed Lucy by the wrist and started to drag her away, but Lucy resisted.
“No, I’m not going over there.”
“Why not?” Kat was now definitely frustrated.
“Because … it’s just …”
Kat opened her eyes wide as if to say ‘Well? I’m waiting!’
“In the cafeteria, seriously?” Lucy asked, expressing her own frustration.
“Yeah, why not?”
“I don’t know,” Lucy answered, turning around to grab her tray of pizza and to pick up a bowl of broccoli and cauliflower. “It doesn’t feel right yet.”
Kat’s shoulders fell. “Are you serious? The guy went out of his way to say hi to you while he was with his me
at-head friends. He likes you!”
Lucy swiped her ID card at the cashier’s stand and started walking toward a table. Kat snagged a piece of pizza and followed her.
“I just need time to process it.”
“Okay,” Kat said. “Just don’t process too long. Guys are like puppies: short attention span.”
The two girls sat down and started eating. Lucy continued to look around the cafeteria. She was trying to be subtle about it, looking like she was stretching.
“It’s that other guy isn’t it?” Kat said as she watched Lucy.
“What? Who—I mean, what guy?” Lucy buried her attention in her pizza.
“You know who I’m talking about. I spend the first day of school doing nothing but sizing up the smorgasbord of guys. You’re looking for the new guy, Benjamin, because he’s the guy that brought you to my house the other night.”
Lucy sat stunned. It was the truth, but she couldn’t tell Kat that. It was too irrational.
“No, I’m just stretching.”
“Shut up, you’re looking for Benjamin Raven. It’s okay. He’s cute, but he must be some sort of snob to be hanging out over there.” Kat jerked her head toward the side of the room behind Lucy.
Lucy turned around slowly. At a table not twenty feet away she immediately saw Benjamin, and practically sitting in his lap was Samantha. Lucy grimaced at the sight when suddenly Benjamin’s head turned away from the seemingly ebullient conversation and looked directly at Lucy. His green eyes paralyzed her for a moment; then she shot back around to face Kat.
“Some guys are just natural snobs, I guess,” Kat said, taking a bite of pizza.
Lucy stared at her lunch and didn’t say anything. Her breathing was accelerated a bit, but Kat must not have noticed because she was already onto her next topic of conversation.
“So, like I was saying, the reason I saw Dave was because he totally came up to me and asked if I wanted to go to the dance with him on Friday.”
Kat’s mundane conversation was enough to wake Lucy out of her trance.
“Really? Is that good? Didn’t you like him in fifth grade or something?” she responded.
No longer feeling hungry, she picked up a piece of broccoli and examined it in her hand. It was almost brown it was so overcooked.
“Yeah, he was so cute back then. Remember when we both had braces and Princess Samantha was making fun of me. He told her to go put her head out because it was on fire. Remember that?”
Lucy weakly smiled and nodded her head. Benjamin’s green eyes were still burned into her mind. As she twirled the broccoli she closed her eyes. Two bright green orbs floated toward her. They were mesmerizing. Suddenly they were attached to a face, Benjamin’s face, and Lucy wished she could reach out and touch him. She tried to imagine it happening.
“Lucy!”
The darkness turned white as Lucy opened her eyes.
“Are you okay? Seriously, you seem a little out of it today.”
Lucy dropped the vegetable from her hand onto her tray. “Yeah, I’m fine. I think I’m just … tired, I guess.”
“Well, you better wake up, honey, ‘cause I’ve already got a date for Friday, and I have a feeling…” she turned her head in Mark’s direction. “… you’re about to have one, too.”
Lucy looked over and saw Mark’s beautiful profile, his straight jawline and handsome features. She couldn’t help but smile, but she knew the pecking order in high school. His taste for her could change at any moment.
“We’ll see,” she replied as she stood to walk her mostly-full tray to one of the large plastic tubs for dirty dishes.
“Well, we’d better do more than see,” Kat responded. “You gonna eat that?” she followed up, pointing to Lucy’s tray.
Lying in the center of her tray was a perfectly fresh, green, and raw floret of broccoli. Lucy looked curiously at it. It must have snuck in there with all the cooked garbage vegetables in her bowl.
“No, go ahead; it’s yours.”
She sighed as she found herself halfway between the man of her dreams and the man in her dreams.
***
Lucy sat in the quad after school waiting for Kat, and hoping to see either Mark or Benjamin. Unfortunately, she knew Mark probably wouldn’t show up because of football, and Benjamin was probably unlikely to show up without Samantha.
“Hey, Luce!” Kat’s voice came up fast behind her. “Dave’s going to give me a ride, is that okay?”
Lucy turned around to see Kat right next to her, and standing about twenty feet off was Dave, holding Kat’s bag.
“Yeah, that’s great.”
“You feel any better?” Kat asked, clutching Lucy’s shoulder.
“I’m fine. Go. Have fun.” Lucy winked at Kat, who stood up and flashed a gleaming smile.
“I’ll do my best,” she said, then turned to run back to Dave. “Call me later!” she yelled over her shoulder, and Lucy waved her on.
Looking up at the afternoon sky, Lucy saw that dark gray clouds had filled the expanse. Figures, she thought. “You were supposed be a good day,” she said to the cosmos. “Now, I’m just confused.”
She stood up and grabbed her heavy backpack. Taking the stairs back down to her car, she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. It was a text from Kat.
Kat: going for ice cream with
dave at six, you in?
Lucy: no, you go. have fun. i’ll call u
later
Kat: OK, *hugs*
As she approached her car, she noticed a motorcycle right next to it. Sitting facing away from her was the tall, sinuous figure of Benjamin. Lucy’s overworked heart beat heavily once again. She didn’t know what to do because that mysterious internal force was drawing her to him, but deep down she had no idea why.
“Hey,” she called out to him.
She had absolutely no idea what to expect, but at least he was there, the winner of her after-school sweepstakes. As he sat up and turned around, she noticed he had been reading a book.
“Hey, yourself,” he said with a smile.
“So, how was your first day of high school? Was it everything you thought it would be?” Lucy asked. She could feel herself getting a little heated. All day he had hung out with Samantha; she had to have had him brainwashed by now.
Benjamin bobbed his head back and forth. “It was alright. Your friend, Samantha, is quite the character. She asked me out to a dance on Friday.”
Lucy closed her eyes and sighed heavily. “She’s not really my friend; we’ve just known each other forever. That sort of happens in small towns.” She tried to not look completely dejected, but her shoulders couldn’t help but sag.
“Bad first day for you, huh?” Benjamin asked, watching Lucy throw her backpack into her car.
“Meh, it was fine, I guess.”
“Well, maybe tomorrow will be better.”
“Here’s hoping.” Lucy wanted to stay and talk with him. Her entire being screamed to be with him, but she was tired. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess,” she said.
It was hard for her not to sound despondent as she spoke, so she just got in her car, started it up, took a deep breath, and closed her car door.
***
By the time she made it home, she had all but forced Benjamin Raven from her thoughts. She knew she couldn’t compete for him and she knew what she had to do, but it was something she didn’t want to do; she had to somehow forget about him.
Slowly walking upstairs to her room, she dropped her bag on the floor and flopped onto her bed. She had to think about something else, something that wasn’t Benjamin Raven. Reaching over, she pulled her backpack to the bed and pulled out her literature book. She hoped it would be a distraction, but she knew it wouldn’t work.
She leaned her head back against her headboard and dropped the heavy weight of the book in her lap. She thought of Mark and Benjamin, both in her head at the same time. Mark was real, but Benjamin had a mysterious draw. Mark was interested, and Benjamin wa
s anybody’s guess. Lucy felt her eyelids getting heavy, and it wasn’t long before she was back in the rainforest.
Ferns covered the forest floor like a blanket. The tall trees loomed overhead like ancient pillars and Lucy walked again toward the west, noticing that it was more comfortable with shoes on. She hoped to see the person she knew deep down was Benjamin. In spite of her plan to forget about him, she felt the need to see him one more time.
The golden light of the sunset filled the trees and Lucy remembered the direction she had traveled the last time. Coming again to where the cliff had been, she looked around. Where are you, she thought, but there was no one. Her heart sank a little.
“Hello?” she called out. But still there was no one.
She sighed and walked toward the precipice. There was a building or structure of some sort the last time she looked over it. The excitement of getting a better look carried her closer to the edge. She hoped to see it in better detail this time. As she started walking toward the cliff, a voice came from somewhere near her.
“Lucy.”
It was Benjamin.
She froze in her tracks and spun toward the sound of the voice. She didn’t see him until he stepped out from behind a tree. He stood darkened against the light of the sun. He wore a jacket and jeans, and for some reason there was the sword again.
“Benjamin,” she said. “What … where am I?”
Immortal Light: Wide Awake Page 6
