Chapter 2: 2: Unsuccessful Invite

I didn't meet my friends for the rest of the day. So it was one big paining blur. However, I did bump into my crush Lisa. I know, it's crazy. She is so pretty it sometimes hurts me, She never would like me anyway. She was so mad, walking away from something or someone, Her curly red hair bouncing off her back, her green eyes, a deeper shade than mine burned with intense anger. She looked straight ahead as she stormed, pushing everything out of her way. So, I was one of those and now my back felt like it was on fire. She slammed me so hard against the locker a level of hatred I wouldn't wish for whoever she was arguing with.

Alvah.

I know what you are thinking and I thought the same, how come? Alvah hadn't stayed in school enough to make friends let alone enemies. She seemed pretty mad too. Her thick eyebrows furrowed as she scrambled her hand through her locker, running her ebony black her back all the time. It was almost unbelievable how shiny it was with a few strands not sure if they were gray or silver. She pulled her face out of the locker her eyes met me, standing right in front of her. Her glare alone made me adjust my standing position three times and all of them didn't feel right. She was beautiful. I don't usually just say this about goths. They are like the dark version of clowns or something. I mean, I bet she was, smoky eyes, dark purple lips a nose ring that sat so perfectly under her nose she should have been a model or something hung up a wall. Her black hair that gracefully fell down her back popped her paleness, even more, snow-white could not have been any prettier. She was in a choker, and a sweater with sleeves rolled up to her elbows that went up to her knees and her knee boots took over from there. All black. Well, she definitely did pull the sweater off

"Nate? What?" she finally spoke and I felt my heart start to pump like it was the first time it pumping. I felt closer to the thing that I felt heading for me, I could almost smell it. It crept under my skin and rushed along with my blood. Maybe, it was here.

"Are you okay? I mean you look okay but that didn't go so well..." my voice came out weird, even I did not recognize it. First, she gave me a few blinks like I was wearing underwear on my head and laughed sardonically. Her laughter was a perfect mixture of evil and elegant, just like her.

"Listen, thanks for caring but I think am fine. I do not need anyone watching out for me. I can take care of myself." Her voice was deeper than an average female's should be, powerful, calm, and sexy, for a person clearly disgusted by me, it was. I don't know why she was acting like this, was she ashamed that I had seen that side of her? Her being treated like trash...or was I just looking so out of shape and highlights to be the one to ask if she was okay, I simply did not understand.

"OK, well it did not seem like it. You are new here, it is wrong for her to treat you like that. You know, you can hang with me and my friends sometimes. Ruby, she is pretty badass. Lisa cannot treat you like that with her around." I gave up that thing where I try to act cool because everything about me screamed I wasn't and I swear she practically winced at how hard I was trying. The hallway was empty then. Everyone had gone to class. I should have been bothered that I was running late but I was not shaken. Even though I was scared , I was more proud of myself for having the balls talk to her. My dad always told me to help people even when they cannot help you. That is his definition of being a functional human being. And I was seeing how it was not giving me inner peace like he promised it would. What it was giving me was a conc. orduor. My sweater was all soaked on the armpits I could not set my arms down in peace.

"Stay away from me."She finalized and walked past me, bumping her shoulder onto mine and living her scent behind. It was sweet and complicated. The kind you expect to smell from an empty tin of fabric softener. I sucked in deep breaths trying to get it all into my lungs before it could all go away. One of those things you don't want to stop. Something about her made me want to just be there. She was annoying as hell but I wouldn't leave. She had a way of looking into someone's eyes where you cannot break contact and turns you inside out.

***

On the way home, I tried to fight the gut feeling. I even cried just to release some of the emotions I had bottled up the whole time but the feeling stuck. As I approached home. I whispered a prayer hoping that everything would be okay. That mom would be downstairs to ask me how my day had been. She never gave up even though I always gave her the same answer. "same old" They adopted me when I was fifteen and I still treated them like strangers.

My mom was pushing too hard just trying to squeeze into my bubble. My dad believed in giving me time and space. As if we had been dating and are now trying to move on. He would suggest something like a trip or an adventure. To which I would say no, and tell him the tonnes of assignments I had piled that would not do themselves. I connect with books to a spiritual and emotional level. Nothing is more real. Truth is, when both of your parents are the country's best therapists, you don't trust them, most of the time they are studying you and proving themselves right.

I flipped the front door open. There was no aroma floating up the air or old jazz music floating up the air so both my parents were not home yet. I shrugged my backpack off my shoulders and rushed to the fridge to get something cold to wash down the thirst down my throat. But before I could get there, my phone buzzed from my pockets. I immediately pulled it out and slammed it against my earlob. It was my dad. His dead fish face had popped up on my screen. I thought it was weird since we haven't reached that point where we call each other. Not yet

"Hello? Hello .please? Is this Nathan Huggins?" An unfamiliar male voice feigning calmness asked. My heart shrunk. It felt as if there was some wax in my pipes, I couldn't breathe right.

"Yeah. Why?" I pulled out my glasses and moped the nits of sweat glistening on my forehead with my palm which was just as sweaty, am not sure I was making a difference.

"There is no easy way to say this kid..."I stopped listening, there were keywords I tried to lockout but words like an 'attacked' and 'wild animal' and 'drained' referring to my parents. They echoed at the back of my mind. It really was the dream. I did feel responsible, for not telling them about the dreams when I had the chance. Superstitions state that talking about a bad dream reduces the chances of the bad thing happening. The phone slipped through my fingers and clattered on the floor. I went down with it not too shortly afterwards.I guess the feeling was the same: Shattered, destroyed with no hope of ever being fixed again.

Remember that thing, that shitstorm I was talking about? It had finally landed. I knew what he was going to say before he said it. My eyes pooled in tears before I collapsed onto a one-seater couch, trying my best to get my breath in check. I could feel a pain swirl through my head. Like something was going to explode out of my skull. I grabbed onto my hair and let out that bloodcurdling scream I had pushed down for a long time. Breaking down so intensely, it physically hurt my heart and I thought I was gonna die from the pain ripping through every inch of my body.That was all the consolation I could get. That I could die, that this had an end