Bloods Gem (7 page)

I sighed and stared out the window, lost in
thought, thinking about how to fill this emptiness. I felt anxious
but empty. Like something waited for me somewhere. I thought about
getting a boyfriend when I got there and settled in. Maybe it would
help the loneliness I was feeling. Someone to be able to go do
simple things with like watching movies or going out to dinner,
helping me shop, or just keep me company. Someone to occupy my mind
instead of being depressed.

I woke to the sound of Mom laughing.
Darkness had fallen and once my vision cleared, I saw her standing
outside talking to some gu
y. I looked up
at the bright red and yellow sign that read Pilot. Noticing the big
diesel trucks coming and going through the parking lot, I assumed
we were at a truck stop. I tied my hair in a pony tail and put my
shoes on.

Stepping out of the truck,
the wind nearly knocked me over.

“
You okay?” Mom asked grinning. The
guy next to her stared as if I had interrupted
something.

“
Yeah I’m good,” I said
yawning.

“
Go get yourself a shower hun. I've
already paid for it.” She tossed me a key.

“
What’s this?” I asked, examining the
strange looking key in my hand.

“
It’s a key to the shower.” She
resumed her conversation with the hairy guy beside her.

The shower felt good on my skin. While
washing my hair, I remembered a dream. Blood. Sitting on a bed in a
dark room someone held me down biting me. Though paralyzed, I felt
happy. A strange dream, I pushed away as I hurried to wash the soap
from my head.

The weather had turned, by
the time I returned to the truck. Mist came from my breath, once
inside I drew a blanket over myself.

Mom sat smiling at
me.

“What?” I
asked.

“I think we’re going to be
okay,” she said. I looked at her beaming, shook my head and let my
head fall back down to my pillow.

Faith

Passing the WELCOME TO
ARKANSAS sign, I was immediately taken by the natural beauty of the
state. It’
s referred to as The Natural State for a
reason.

Our old truck climbed the steep mountain
chugging the whole way. If the old thing was alive, reaching the
top of the mountain would have been well worth the effort. We
stared in awe as we looked down over the colors beneath us. Long
stretches of trees, as far as the eye could see. Each tree a
lighter or brighter color then the next. Various shades of yellow,
followed by orange and fire red. It was autumn in Arkansas.

The sunset produced a giant fiery
ball, surrounded by an array of colors. A landscape of unreasonable
beauty, as if Claude Monet had brushed it into being.
It was beautiful. Th
e complete
opposite of my prior home. I had acclimated to the California smog,
and the pollution surrounding the area in which we had lived. Here,
it was pure. Nearly untouched.

I would create new, happy memories here. I
felt at ease. This was where I was supposed to be at this time.

We pulled up to our new home.
Wow
…
it’s a
house
. Mom’s new job set us up and it seemed perfect.
A cute white house surrounded by woods. Seclusion with a bit of
land with it. In the country, nice and quiet. Away from traffic.
Perfect place to get lost in my thoughts, with no
interruptions.

“
So what do you think?” she
asked.

I shrugged “It’s nice” I said. I Didn’t want
to sound overly enthused. Stepping out of the truck, my legs were
almost numb. As my foot touched the damp ground beneath me, I was
overcome by a combination of odors. The rustic smell of burning
wood combined with wet leaves made me feel one with my new
surroundings. I smiled.

Absent furniture, with
dark green carpet and cream colored walls. The air smelled stale,
as if it had been closed up for years.

“
We can fix it up,” Mom
announced.

“
Yeah. Not a big deal,” I said smiling
back at her.

After unloading the truck, I stared at the
empty rooms. Mom stood beside me with her hand on my shoulder. “I
got an advance from work. They wired money while we were on the
road, so we could get the stuff we need to get by,” She assured
me.

“
Oh,” I coughed out.

“
Want to go to town? We’ll need beds.
Maybe we can find a Salvation Army or yard sales along the way.
Pick up what furniture we can find.”

“
Sounds good,” I said as we got back
in the pickup.

Siloam Springs is a small town. The less
people the better I thought. We drove through looking at the shops
in the downtown district. I’d never seen a downtown so small. There
was a little bookstore on the corner, mom shrieked.

We loved bookstores and little ones were
special. You could usually find first editions, often signed. We
parked along the main street, and walked along the brick walk,
making our way from one end to the other.

The third store we visited was actually a
furniture store. They had new and used furniture, cheap. Mom picked
out a sofa set that came with this huge reading chair. I drooled.
We picked out a few beds that the store would deliver to us later
that day.

Back home, we unloaded furniture.
Exhausted by the time we finished, I flopped into the reading chair
and closed my eyes, drifting to sleep. I woke in a dark room, with
glowing eyes around me. I wasn’t scared. Smiling, as if I knew
them. Growls like echoes sounded in the distance, moved closer and
surrounded me. Something tugged at my clothes, but I could not see
anything. Then I felt something biting my thigh, tearing through
it. I laughed, mocking them. Was thrown into the
air like a rag doll, and all I could hear was my
laugh echoing in the room around me.

I woke up to the smell of mom's cooking. She
was making dinner in the kitchen. It smelled so good; my stomach
growled at me. I pulled myself up from the chair and headed in that
direction.

“
Fried chicken. Yummy,” I
said.

“
Hey baby you're awake.”

“
Yeah. I must have been
tired.”

“
I guess so,” she said staring at
me.

“
What?” I asked.

“
You were laughing in your sleep,” she
said, putting a piece of chicken in the pan. I slouched over the
counter.

“
Yeah. Weird dreams”

After a large dinner I
decided to turn in early.

Waking up early, I
stumbled into the kitchen and prepared a small breakfast. After
eating, I got ready to go enroll at my new school.

I followed map directions
printed online. Seemed as if I drove forever. Finally found my exit
and slowly merged. I passed sever
al restaurants and
fast food joints, noting that Rogers was much larger then Siloam
Springs, though too populated for my liking.

The small community college parking lot was
crammed with cars. After finding a spot, my hands began to sweat,
followed by butterflies in my stomach. Taking a deep breath, I got
out of the truck and walked towards the main building. A few people
stood outside, smoking and chatting. I kept my head down and opened
the door.

Inside, the smell of oranges assaulted me. I
found the door with big letters “OFFICE” I placed my hand on the
door handle taking my time. I slowly exhaled and pushed open the
door to my future.

Mom was looking out the window when I pulled
up. “How’d it go Honey?” She asked as I walked in.

“
All signed up,” I said.

“
So what are the kids like there?” She
asked.

“
They seem fine, but I didn’t really
like go up and start talking to them or anything.”

She smiled. “I think you’ll be fine,” she
said hugging me. “When do you start?”

“
Monday. Gives me time to settle in a
little.” I walked to the kitchen to find something to eat and she
followed.

“
How did you feel when
yo
u enrolled, exc
ited,
scared, petrified?” She asked laughing.

“
I felt fine mom,” I grumbled, annoyed
by the questions.

“
Okay, I’ll leave you alone.” She
kissed my head and took the keys from the counter.

“
I’m going out. Be back later,” She
announced.

I grabbed a candy bar from the cupboard and
went to my room, took out my journal from my night stand next to my
bed and started writing, about my day and what I’d hoped for.

“
Well today I survived
being around people. They seemed almost too nice though. It was
strange how they smiled and waved like they knew me for years. I
smiled back but felt embarrassed. I got enrolled. I hope I can make
some friends here, who I can feel comfortable with. Who knows…
Maybe I’ll meet a cute guy and make him my boyfriend, I would like
that. I dunno maybe not, it might make it hard to concentrate on my
school work.

I put my journal back in the nightstand and
laid there for awhile just thinking about what I would say to
people who approached me at school.

“
Hi, I’m Faith. Nice to meet you.” Or,
“No I’m from California, not from around here.”

What would they think when I told them where
I was from? I wondered how they viewed California. Maybe they think
it’s full of violence and smog. I wouldn’t blame them for thinking
it. I was biased against rednecks and cowboys, before moving, but
still had not seen one guy In a cowboy hat…

My first day of school began
disastrously. I fell walking up the stairs to my first class. Some
guy helped me up, but I had turned bright red and kept
walking.
I had six hours left of feeling
self conscious.
I wanted to curl up under my desk and
hide.

I tried to relax but I was tense the whole
time. I let myself zone out for awhile since I already knew the
material.

It was in English class when I met Chris. A
cute guy with a nice body. Spiky dirty blond hair and green eyes.
Our class had to partner up to write an essay together and he
picked me right away.

“
Can I have you? Um can…we…” He
stuttered.

I giggled and we both turned red. “You
wanna?” I gestured to the empty seat beside me. He sat with his
head down, smiling.

“
If it makes you feel any better, on
top of it being my first day, I fell on the steps going to my first
class,” I said

He glanced up and we both started laughing.
His eyes lighting up as he laughed. It felt natural being around
him.

“
So, you're from California?” He
asked.

“
How’d you?” I looked at him
sideways.

“
Talk, things get leaked quick around
here,”
He said.

“
Ahh” I said raising my
eyebrow.

“
So how are you liking
Arkansas?”

“
Well I haven’t seen much of it, but
so far it’s decent.”

He kept staring at me like I was going to
say something else. I looked down at my paper scribbling out of
nervousness.

“
So what should we use as a subject?”
He finally asked.

I thought for a second. “How about
mythology?” It just popped in my head.

“
I don’t know much about that subject
but we can try.” He kept nodding while looking at me.

I started getting red again. “Sorry,” He
said, then quickly looked away. Before class was over he asked me
if we could get together after school to work on our essay. Of
course I wanted to, he was so cute and smart, I just wanted to be
around him.

He told me he would pick me up in front
after school and we’d go to his house to study. I called Mom and
told her not to worry about picking me up that I would get a ride
home.

She sounded excited when I told her a boy
was involved and tried to question me. I hung up without
responding.

Hoping to see Chris in my math class by
lucky coincidence, but he wasn‘t there. But later, I found him at
science class, waiting at the door for me. “Are you in this class?”
I asked.

He smiled, nodding.

We stood in the doorway flirting, until
other students filed in between us. Then he talked a friend into
trading seats with me, so I could sit next to him.

His eyes remained on me
the whole time. It felt good to be admired for once. Even with
dating in the past, which was short lived, no one ever looked at me
the way Chris did. I was flattered.

Slipping me a note under the
table,
You have beautiful
eyes
, it said. I glanced at him, smiled and nudged his
arm.

Continuing to pass notes, I sent one back
telling him to stop distracting me.

After class we went to the cafeteria,
where he introduced me to his friends. “This is Mike, David,
Melissa, Kate and Drew.” They were all very nice.
Kate was the quiet type, which fit my
personality. I c
ould see her and I being friends.
Melissa was loud, obnoxious even. When she laughed it was like
nails on a chalk board across my nerve endings. Mike was laid back.
He didn't talk much. David and Drew were much like Melissa except
the opposite sex. They were very animated when they
spoke.