by Keya Jay
Chapter 7
Azalea began to write down all the details of her dream but she stopped when she realized the first connection. She underlined the line in her dream and a line in Llorel’s section, it may have been just a dream but it counts if it connects me to Llorel, she thought.
Azalea continued to record the dream while Jaiden just stared at her and waited patiently for her to finish. When she was finished she closed the notebook, but she didn’t hand it to Jaiden.
“I forgot to ask you Green why did you come here?” he asked after she closed the notebook and sat it in her lap.
Azalea immediately threw done the notebook and began to pace the room. Something happened today, she told herself, then she stopped mid-pace.
“This morning” she spoke aloud.
“What about it?” Jaiden asked out loud.
“This morning in class I was angry I snapped out at your sister. But whenever I get so angry I kind of bite the inside of my mouth, it’s a bad habit,” but in a weird way the blood is soothing, she added silently to herself, “but when I did it this morning I kind of drew attention to the blood and when I stopped it I ground my teeth together to mask the pain. When I did this this morning… Let me remind you Llorel was not in the classroom, but when I did it he was suddenly right beside me pulling me out of class.” Jaiden stood up at the mere mention of Llorel’s name. “When we were in the hallway he said that I needed to drop the biting habit or else I was going to regret it.” Jaiden balled his fist up at his side.
“He threatened you?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“Look Jaiden listen,” Azalea said placing her hands on his chest to try and calm him down, the gesture didn’t work. “Look right now his threat was actually useful.”
“Useful how?” he asked looking every bit confused.
“Well if you’d listen! In biology class Stacie-Ann handed me an invitation to her costume party.”
“So? What did the invitation say?”
“It’s not about what the invitation said it’s about what Stacie-Ann said when she handed it to me.”
“So what did Stacie-Ann say?”
“Can you let me finish? When Stacie-Ann handed me the invitation she said and I quote, ‘I thought I’d give this to you, seeing as though Llorel’s gonna need his food present’.” Jaiden’s faced turned from anger to utter confusion in a nanosecond.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know, I asked the same question and she laughed at me, so I got angry and I bit down hard on my bottom lip. Stacie-Ann and Maria were laughing their way to their seats but Stacie-Ann stopped walking and laughing to glare at me as if she sensed my blood, then her eyes turned from her normal pale blue to a black coalish color.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked again.
“I don’t know Jaiden but I’ve only seen eyes like that one time and they were in my dreams, except they weren’t on Stacie-Ann they were on me.” Jaiden automatically reached for her notebook and read the section titled Dream.
“Why are there three sections?”
“Because the first section is the dream that I’ve been having for as long as I can remember, it would always stop after I got bit and I would always wake up screaming. But for a couple of day’s I’ve been dreaming about Llorel.”
“Like what kind of dreams?” Jaiden asked overly curious. Azalea rolled her eyes knowing exactly what he was implying.
“They were still nightmares but they played the scene of him in my garden over and over again.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know you ask that a whole heck of a lot, maybe if you read the Llorel section you’d know what I was talking about,” she said flipping back to the Llorel section so that he could read it, Azalea waited patiently for him to finish.
“Wait you met Llorel 2 days before either of you went to school?”
“No, not necessarily, I’ve seen him 2 days before school started but I didn’t know him.”
“What do you mean he came out of a grave from within your garden?”
“Just what I said there was a grave under a row of flowers and I’m pretty sure he was in it.”
“Green if this psycho came out of a grave in your backyard then he is not normal,” Jaiden bit out in frustration. This is the first time he’s used that tone with me, I’ll try not to take it to heart, she thought.
“I know that Jaiden I’m not trying to say or prove that he is anything but abnormal.”
“Why is the fact that he killed mostly all of your flowers underlined?”
“Read the underlined section in the dream, they’re one in the same they are connected somehow.” He did what Azalea told him and then shook his head.
Ok well finish telling me what happened to you today.”
“Well that was it, Stacie-Ann’s eye’s turned black, and she watched me all day in class until I left for art. I threw the invitation away and slipped up by telling Dorian that I didn’t want to go to the party because I didn’t want to be looked at as someone’s food of choice. I could of bit down on the inside of my mouth to stop me from saying anything but Llorel was right beside me and I didn’t want a repeat of what happened in AP Math. After art I saw Stacie-Ann and Llorel in the hallway together. They were holding hands while Llorel whispered in her ear, as sweet as that sounds I could tell that Llorel was telling Stacie-Ann something she obviously didn’t want to hear, but when she tried to pull away he would hold her hand tighter.”
“Ok well my later comment still stands, I think you should focus on you for now as crazy as all this shit is I believe you 100%.”
Really?” she questioned, she couldn’t believe it was that easy to get Jaiden to believe the crazy things she had just told him; for sure she thought that he would be skeptical about it all.
“Really, I know you and you wouldn’t go out of your way to make up something like this. I would believe you know matter what you tell me, I will always give you the benefit of the doubt.” Azalea walked over toward Jaiden and threw her arms around his neck, he squeezed her tight and she almost wanted to cry, not because it hurt but because she knew how much he cared for her. “I’m here for you no matter what, you’ll always have me, don’t ever feel as if you have to go through anything alone, never again,” he whispered against her ear. This time it was Azalea who squeezed him tight and she was reluctant to let go she could tell that Jaiden was not backing out any time soon.
Lea walked through the door with Dorian not far behind her.
“What’s with all the hugging?” Lea asked smiling from ear to ear obviously seeing more to it than just a hug. Azalea let go of Jaiden and turned to Lea with a mocking smile.
“It’s nothing Lea, we’re just studying.”
“Mmhmm well I just came to tell you that I’m walking Dorian out.”
“Alright I think I’ll go too,” Azalea said reaching behind Jaiden for her notebook when Jaiden grabbed her wrist. Azalea looked up and met his intense gaze.
“Be careful Green, if something happens I want to be the first to know.” Azalea finished the reach until the notebook was in her grasp.
“Full time job remember?” she said pulling her wrist out of his hand to walk downstairs to the front door.
“Soooo?” Lea asked holding the door open.
“Soooo what?” Azalea said trying her hardest to act clueless.
“What she meant to say was: are you and Jaiden a thing?” Dorian said stepping into the car.
“No we are not a thing, we are not an it we are just people like everyone else,” Azalea said knowing that Lea would get angry because she wasn’t taking her serious.
“Are you and my brother together or not?” She asked before they stepped into the car.
“Not,” she said closing the car door and putting on her seat belt.
“What’s taking yall so long?” Lea asked pulling out on the road. Azalea knew she was waiting for an answer but she should know
by now that she wasn’t going to give her one. Azalea wished she could say that they rode in silence but just because she refused to talk didn’t mean Lea did. Lea dropped Azalea off at home at around 9 so Azalea went straight toward the back of her house to water her plants. She’s been trying to be more experimental with her gift but she’s not so sure of what all she’s capable of doing, so she’s been trying to stick to the basics.
One night when she went to water her plants she was beyond angry and she was getting angrier by the second. She just wanted to go to bed and sleep it off but she just knew that she would have the dream again which made her even angrier—if possible. Azalea only meant for a little drizzle to start so that she could water the plants but she made it thunder storm and she does believe that it affected the whole entire world.
Azalea watered her plants and went to bed. She changed out of her clothes and put on something more comfortable to sleep in. She saw a flashing from over on her night stand, so she walked over toward the flash and saw that it was a phone that had created the flash and she already had a message.
: Hey Z, Mrs. Lady Tyrant insisted that I give this to you, she said that there had been a lot of people trying to get in touch with you, and of chorus I programmed all of your friends and family’s number inside of it. Nite Z.
Azalea finished the message and scoffed at the family part. What family could she have possibly given her the number of that she would even consider talking to? Azalea deleted the message and went through her contacts. When she pictured herself with a phone she never pictured herself with one as nice as this. As Azalea went through the contacts she stopped when she came across Dave’s name. She just knew that if Dave’s name was in here than Roses name had to be in here somewhere. The names were in alphabetical order so after Dave’s name she came across Desire’s. Azalea finished fishing through the contacts and then her heart stopped right after Lea’s name there was Llorel’s. Why would she give me his number? I can’t even imagine him using a phone, she thought as she sat the phone back onto the nightstand and slipped under the covers. Azalea pulled out her notebook and created a new section titled Stacie-Ann and began to record everything that had happened today. She put her notebook under her pillow and soon after that she was on my way to sleep.
