Falling From Grace (8 page)

I felt my breath catch and my heart race as I remembered how it only grew when I had asked him if he were talking to me.
 
It seemed an impossibility that he was referring to me when he uttered those few, mundane words that seemed to alter my world in less than a nanosecond.
 
Meet again?
 
Had we ever even met?
 
Surely he couldn’t consider my rudely bumping into him and then running away like a coward actually “
meeting
”…right?

Then again, he was part French, and even Madame Hidani made it a point to bring up the fact that the French are known to seem rude to those that have spent lifetimes dealing with courtesy and etiquette rules handed down by custom, as we in America are known to do.
 
Perhaps he thought my bumping into him was familiar?
 
My running off was glad tidings?

I shook my head at the insanity of the notion.
 
No.
 
What I did was rude in any language, any country.
 
I was fooling myself here.
 
It wouldn’t do me any good to muddle my head with more inane notions with three more classes to go, and the one I dreaded the most coming up immediately after lunch.

I shuddered at the thought of Mr. Branke’s creepy smile, his hairy arms, and his monstrous hands.
 
I doubted that he’d focus as much attention on me this year
—
now that I was the laughingstock of the entire school there really wasn’t any appeal left at all, if there had been any to begin with.
 
But I could still mentally prepare myself for this while I had the chance.

Before I knew it, the bell was ringing, signaling the end of third period and the start of lunch.
 
Nothing, absolutely nothing epitomized high school as one’s own personal Hell like cafeteria food.
 
There was just something about it that exuded torture with promises of terrifying consequences once consumed.

I looked around and saw that all of the students were being ushered out of the library towards the cafeteria.
 
I grabbed my bag and headed glumly towards the aroma of what promised to be nothing but bland and slightly burnt food, another body among the masses headed towards our gastronomical slaughter.
 
I stood in line, tray on the ready, trying to decipher what exactly was what, and what exactly was safe.
 

I grabbed a baked potato because aside from not cooking it completely, there wasn’t much one could do to screw it up; a bowl of chili, because cumin could save just about anything; a carton of milk, just in case the cumin failed, and headed towards the cashier.
 
The middle aged woman behind the register was busy smiling and laughing with whomever it was that stood in front of me.
 
I waited patiently as he gathered his change and placed it into his wallet.
 
A nice wallet.
 
Leather.
 
Expensive.

He turned around and faced me.

My gray-eyed god was standing in front of me, a tray of food in his hands, a bemused smile stretched across his face.

I felt a jerk within me.
 
The fire in my heart started to grow.
 
It was hot.
 
No, not hot
—
it was burning.

I could feel the heat rising in my chest, that scorching sensation climbing the walls inside of me to reach the outside.
 
I felt it burn through my clothes, scalding hot and real.
 
And…it smelled like chili?

It had happened in an instant:
 
One minute I was staring into the deepest pool of pewter
—
the next, I was wearing a very hot bowl of chili on my chest, while the hands of this beautiful stranger were on the back of my tray, now pressed against the burning spot that spread across my shirt.
 
His fingers were touching mine, cool, soothing, contrasting quite loudly with the searing pain that was creeping across my chest and down to my abdomen.
 
That feels nice…

His eyes widened in shock, and he stepped back.
 
If not for the burning
—
burning from the heat of food, to the burning of eyes staring in my direction, and finally the burning of embarrassment at having been so unbelievably clumsy
—
I would have whimpered at the loss of that small amount of comfort I received in our contact.
 
But I had to step back into reality and realize that I was now covered in spicy tomato sauce in front of the entire student body, and that I didn’t know how it happened.

I heard a snort behind me and I turned to see Erica and Becca standing there, the two of them red-faced, trying very hard not to laugh…or look guilty.
 
Graham stood stone faced behind the two, staring at the only thing that could keep attention focused away from me.

I turned back around to see for myself.
 
He was kneeling, scraping the mess onto
his
tray!

“What are you doing?” I hissed as I bent down to remove the bowl and ruined chili from his tray and place it back onto mine.
 
“This is my mess.
 
I will clean it.
 
Stop it
—
people are staring!”

He removed the bowl from my tray and placed it back onto his while staring at me with a bemused gleam in his eyes.
 
“I’m cleaning up
my
mess.”

I glared at him.
 
Silver eyes or not, he wasn’t going to do this to me
—
he wasn’t going to martyr himself in front of the entire cafeteria for Super Freak.
 
“It’s my chili, my bowl, my mess.
 
I should have been more careful and paid attention to what I was doing.”
 
I reached for my bowl, prepared for him to argue again, but this time he didn’t stop me.
 
He didn’t say or do anything as I placed the bowl back onto my tray.
 
He simply waited until I was done, and then he stood up and left.

“Looks like even the new guy can’t stand being around you, Freak,” Erica’s voice announced loudly, her tone full of mocking satisfaction.
 
A few people around us tittered, while someone made an obnoxious sound in response.
 
“Could you hurry up and clean up your mess so that the rest of us normal people can eat?”

Behind her, Graham’s face was deadpan.
 
It hurt.

I said nothing, just continued to clean up what I could, then headed towards the trash bin and emptied into it the remnants of my uneaten lunch.
 
I mustered up what pride I could and, with my head held as high as possible, walked out of the cafeteria
—
and out of the school.

I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew it wouldn’t be to Mr. Branke’s class smelling like chili and reeking of embarrassment.
 
I couldn’t go home, either
—
Dad was already upset with me, and I was equally upset with him, if not more so.
 
While there was a good chance he was at work, if he weren’t, coming home from school because my shirt was covered in food wouldn’t exactly be conducive to repairing our relationship.
 
I just had to be…away.
 
I couldn’t take another second of listening to Erica’s voice, or seeing Graham pretend that I didn’t exist.
 
And I definitely couldn’t stand to have
him
bear witness to the ridicule that had become my norm.

I hitched my backpack up higher on my shoulder and trudged down the sidewalk that would eventually disappear into a rocky shoulder and lead me towards the small public library that hid in rural Heath.
 
I know Miss Maggie, the little old librarian who had been working there for the past thirty years wouldn’t mind me showing up a few hours before school was supposed to let out.
 
I just had to figure out how to get a change of clothes.
 
I couldn’t sit in an air conditioned room full of books smelling like I needed some sour cream and chives to go with my shirt, but going to the mall
—
which was in the opposite direction
—
wasn’t an option either.
 

I had only been walking for about a mile, and was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t hear it approach:
 
The low rumble of a vehicle that didn’t sound like it belonged on a sidewalk, and yet was.
 
I turned around and exclaimed, very loudly, “Oh dear bananas.”
 

There on the sidewalk was the gray-eyed stranger.
 
He was on a matte, midnight-black motorcycle that looked too expensive for any average adult to own, much less a high school kid, and he wore a jacket that was just as dark.
 
His eyes peered out at me, framed in the black window of a helmet.
 
He looked like black flame.
 

With a tick of his head, he motioned for me to get on.

“Are you nuts?” I shouted, shocked and incredulous.

He again motioned for me to get on, his head jerking more determinedly.

I turned around and walked in the opposite direction, which was exactly where I did not want to go: back to school.
 
I didn’t realize that he was right behind me again until I heard him rev the throttle.
 
I turned and looked at him, furious that he hadn’t gotten the clue the first time.
 
Once again, he motioned for me to get on.

“Why?” I asked.
 
Who was I to him?

His response was another turn of the throttle.

I made an attempt to reverse my present course and head back in the direction of the library when he made that black monster beneath him growl like something I had never heard before—a shiver ran down my back, but was it out of fear or…anticipation?

“Fine!” I shouted at him, “But don’t you complain that your jacket stinks of beans and beef afterwards!”
 
I climbed hesitantly onto the back of the bike, angry, confused.
 
I looked down, my hands dangling clumsily at my sides.
 
How do I hold on?
 
The engine roared and the bike lurched forward
—
I realized as soon as my arms wrapped around him to keep from flying off that this was how it was done.
 
An automatic response, I told myself.
 
But the feeling of my arms around the waist of this person was too delicious to be automatic.
 
It was…phenomenal.
 
I could feel the warmth from beneath the jacket radiate outward towards my skin, causing it to prickle with goose bumps.

We were flying.
 
That’s what it felt like.
 
He was traveling so fast, I couldn’t make out anything recognizable.
 
So many questions flew through my head, like the buildings and trees that whipped by, each one blending into the other.
 

Where were we going?
 
What was his name?
 
Where did he come from, and why did he follow me?
 
Would there be any way for me to change out of my chili-infused clothing?
 
So many questions I wanted to ask him, but over the roar of the bike and the padding of the helmet, I knew that he wouldn’t have been able to hear me, nor I his answers.
 

I simply rested by cheek on his back, knowing that there really wasn’t anything he could do to stop me and held on tighter, enjoying this rare and unusual moment for as long as it lasted.
 
I accepted that whenever I returned down to earth, the harsh reality that was slowly becoming my life would swallow me up whole and all I’d be left with was this memory.

I didn’t want to move when we finally slowed down and came to a stop in a gravel filled parking lot that fronted what appeared to be a very large park.
 
I hadn’t been here before, and surely there wasn’t much that I hadn’t seen in Heath, what with having someone like Graham Hasselbeck as your best friend
—former
best friend.
 
There wasn’t a sign or any type of logo that hinted at a name.
 
It was just a large, open field with a few picnic tables, a solitary bench, some enormous rocks for climbing and sunning yourself, and a playground with a swing set.
 
The parking lot had four tall light poles in each corner that looked like miniature versions of the one that illuminated the baseball field behind the school.

As soon as I heard the engine turn off I hopped off the bike; it was as though the last bit of stored energy my legs contained had turned them into springs.
 
He followed, although his movement was much more fluid
—
used to it.
 
That’s what it was.
 
He was used to riding the bike, the feeling of that powerful vibration turning his insides to foam.
 
My legs felt permanently bowed, and they rattled like a penny in a coffee can after what could only have been a ten minute ride.
 
I was embarrassing myself.
 
Again.

“I always wanted to know how it felt to be a human compass,” I muttered as I held onto my thighs in a vain attempt to keep them from shaking.