by Joshua Laack
Chapter 4
Andrew sat in his chair for English, waiting for the bell to ring. He couldn't help groaning to himself as he worked to keep his eyes open. The worst part was that as tired as he was, it was only going to get worse as the day progressed. The one positive thought he had was that he didn't have work after school.
Andrew worked at Grocery Mart, one of a couple of small, locally owned grocery stores in town. He did everything from stocking shelves and cleaning aisles to cashiering and bagging goods. Being such a small town store, there were not many employees, so whoever was there did whatever was needed. Andrew didn't mind the job. It paid poorly, but the hours were decent for someone in high school and the job wasn't overly taxing. It was busy enough that it often distracted him from thoughts of life and there were some good moments.
He worked two or three days a week which brought in just enough to pay for the gas and insurance for his car and buy a few things like the fantasy books he wanted to read. He was also trying to save money for college.
That was the other big promise Andrew had made to himself. He was going to get as far from this place where the darkness held him as he could. That started with college. After that, he didn't know where he would end up, but he was certain that it would not be here. There was no way he could stay here like this.
The bell rang and snapped Andrew out of the tired daze he sat in at his desk. Mr. Davies had the class reading Hamlet together. After everyone quieted down, someone started to read while Andrew did everything he could to keep his eyes open.
He was a bit disappointed to see that Josefina wasn't in the class. Having her in all three afternoon classes had been nice, so a small part of him had hoped that she might be in more of them. He started to think about the girl with the glow and the strange things that had occurred the previous day.
Andrew didn't know anything about her. The only thing he knew for sure was that there had been some kind of strange connection between them. The current that flowed at their touch was something that had never happened to him before and he was curious about it. What caused it? Would it happen again?
As he sat there, head now resting on his hands, Andrew imagined her glowing face in front of him as she caressed his face. That electricity sparked between them and she quietly admitted with a little blush in her cheeks that she wanted to stay with him for the rest of eternity. Of course, being the gentleman that Andrew was, he softly caressed her cheek as well and smiled back at her. Then he whispered his own desire to be with her until the end of time.
It was a beautiful dream during which the cloud hanging over Andrew's shoulders pulled back. He was so lost in those thoughts that he didn't notice that the darkness faded or see the other shadow that fell over him to replace it.
“Mr. Marks!” A throat cleared directly above him. It didn't fit into the daydream at all. The sharp voice and the following sound destroyed the beautiful setting and his dark cloud came rushing back to fill the void.
Andrew started up from his desk and looked up into the face of the heavyset and balding, sixty something, literature obsessed man who stood beside his desk. It was not a happy face at the moment, not that it had ever looked happy.
“Uh..” Andrew cleared his own throat which sounded as though he had swallowed several frogs. “Yes Mr. Davies?” Several members of the class laughed at the surprise and the red in his cheeks at the interruption to a fantasy that he didn't care to leave.
“Would you care to join us on page 31, starting with Hamlet's second line?” Andrew cleared his throat again.
“Ah, yes sir.” He turned the pages as quickly as he could, trying to catch up to the rest of the class. “O throw away the worser part of it...” Hamlet's lines were his only focus for several pages and then the torch passed on to the next victim. After he finished his turn at reading, Andrew tried to continue to focus, but it was a struggle. He kept shaking his head, both to keep himself awake and to clear the daydream that returned each time. Andrew didn't understand why was this getting to him so much? She was just a girl and likely a girl that would want nothing to do with him like the other girls here at Jefferson.
He heaved a giant sigh of relief when the bell to end first hour rang, releasing him from the grasp of his daydream and of literature that was not as fun as the books on the shelf at home. As he walked to his locker, Andrew thought to himself that the day was going to last forever. He took to long at his locker contemplating how tired he was and then he had to rush to get to Spanish class before the bell rang again. There all thoughts of sleep and the length of the day fled from his mind.
When he stepped into Spanish class, she was sitting there, right beside his assigned seat. The boy who normally sat there was sitting back in one of the previously empty seats. Andrew frowned at the shuffle? Not that he minded her sitting beside him, but he didn't understand why the teacher moved them around. He sat down in his seat, still pondering the move.
“Hello Andrew. How are you today?” Andrew glanced over at the source of the silvery bells that rang like music in his ears. That strange aroma he had first noticed the previous day filled him once again and those astonishing sapphire blue eyes pierced into him. The glow that only he seemed to see still suffused her figure. Andrew's heart skipped one beat, but continued without any of the other strangeness it had employed at their first meeting.
She was smiling, lips dark red against the paleness of her skin. She didn't seem to be wearing any makeup, but her skin was flawless anyway. Seeing that, Andrew was self conscious of the acne upon his own face, not that it was bad, but compared to her smooth cheeks, it stood out in his mind.
He realized that it had been a long moment, and he still hadn't answered her question. Not wanting to seem rude, he rushed to fill the silence.
“Hi. I'm doing fine I guess. You?”
“I am doing well, thank you.” Andrew sat there for another moment before he realized that he should say something else to keep a conversation going instead of just sitting there like a fool. He never talked to anyone at school but the teachers and Jason, so this conversation was somewhat harder than he had imagined in his daydream.
“Um, so why, uh, why did you come here, ah, I mean move here?” He felt like groaning in frustration. Much better, instead of sitting there like a fool, he just sounded like one. She smiled anyway, or maybe because of it.
“You sound as if you don't like it here that much,” she said. Andrew shook his head.
“No, I don't like it at all. I plan to get out of here as soon as I can.” She grinned at him.
“I love it! It's a quaint little place.” Andrew raised an eyebrow, but didn't turn to show her the expression. Who said quaint? Maybe it was a thing from wherever she came from. It sounded natural coming from her lips, as if she often spoke with words he never would have considered using.
“There is nothing good here for me,” Andrew said after a moment. She looked at him, those eyes piercing down to his foundation.
“Where will you go,” she asked? Andrew shrugged, a little bit in response to the question and a little bit to try to dislodge the unnatural feeling of being seen to the core.
“I don't know, and I don't care. Anywhere but here is fine with me.” At that point, the teacher called the class to order and their short conversation came to an end. There was no real chance to continue during class either. It is difficult to whisper in English during a class about Spanish without getting noticed, and Andrew's Spanish wasn't even close to fluent enough to converse.
On top of that, he still couldn't believe that she would want to talk to him. He was the outcast. He was not part of the popular crowd where she would fit in quite well. Andrew was disappointed though. It had been nice talking to her and listening to her voice even if his own words were awkward and crude in comparison.
A few minutes into class, the hairs on Andrew's body stood up again and the feeling of eyes on the back of his head was even stronger than it had been the day before. The difference was tha
t today, it wasn't fleeting. It appeared and it didn't go away. He began to grow anxious about it. It obviously wasn't Josefina since he could see her face beside him and she wasn't staring. Andrew tried to glance inconspicuously around the room, but as on the previous day, no one was taking any interest in either him or Josefina. He tried to shrug it off, but the feeling persisted. It grew in intensity as the hour passed until the feeling of the eyes was driving him wild.
When the bell rang, he gathered his books and headed once again for the lockers. He was going to say something about finishing the conversation to Josefina, but when he looked up, she was disappearing down the hall. She moved quickly despite her shorter height, which couldn't have been much more than five feet. Andrew wondered where she was headed in such a hurry.
She wasn't in chemistry, which didn't surprise him, though it did disappoint Andrew a bit. He frowned. Now that she was gone, the feeling of being watched was gone as well. That seemed strange since it couldn't have been her in Spanish. What was going on?
Andrew tried to turn his attention to the class, but he couldn't focus. His thoughts twisted and turned in his head, back and forth between the bright light that filled his vision and the strangeness of the events surrounding her. Why was he so obsessed with her? He had seen her in a few different classes and spoken to her briefly. No reason came to mind beyond a feeling of a connection and of course, the fact that she was a beautiful girl that just happened to glow.
Even though that was more than enough reason for some guys to obsess over a girl, it didn't seem like enough to him. There were other girls in the school who were quite beautiful, and none of them had ever filled his thoughts like this. What was different about this girl? What was different about Josefina Sanchez?
While the first group of students ate lunch, Andrew had study hall. Andrew and the other seniors ate with the juniors during the second lunch shift. When he walked in, Josefina was smiled at him from where she sat and then waved him over. Andrew went to the empty seat next to her.
“Mind if I sit here,” he asked tentatively? She continued to smile as she shook her head.
“Not at all,” she replied. Andrew smiled back and sank into the chair.
After a moment of awkward silence, Andrew brought up their previous discussion about leaving this town after graduation. After that, conversation was far easier than he feared. They spent the duration of the period discussing different places that he might like to go when he broke free of the hometown grasp. It was fun to imagine exotic places and she was quite skilled at describing them so that he could envision himself being there.
“You describe all of these places as if you had been there yourself,” he commented after a while.
“I have,” she said with a nod, “I have done a great deal of traveling in my years.” That sounded as strange to Andrew as her use of quaint, but he couldn't put his finger on why it sounded so odd. In truth, he didn't care. She was strange, but he knew that he was too. He stared out the window for a moment before glancing back to Josefina.
“I wish I could travel like you and see all those places.” She brushed his arm with her fingertips, though on the shirt not the skin. He was disappointed to notice that there was no electricity at the brief touch.
“You can if that's what you want.” Andrew nodded at her words, but he didn't see that happening. His final thought in study hall was that he was destined to be stuck here for the rest of his life.
After the bell rang, Andrew headed to his locker to put away the homework he hadn't even looked at. He slammed the door and spun the lock before heading to the lunch room.
When he stepped into the line of students, he turned slowly, scanning the room for Josefina. He didn't see her anywhere. A voice behind him made him jump and he spun around.
“Looking for someone?” She was right behind him, though Andrew was positive that she had not been a moment before. His cheeks turned pink at her notice of his search.
“Uh, not really,” he stammered into the silence. She smiled, probably laughing at how awkward he was.
“Do you know what they have to eat today,” she asked? Andrew nodded.
“Yeah, today is hot ham and cheese sandwiches.” There was a grimace in her features when he said that and he smiled at her. “I know what you mean. The food here is horrible, but it is better than not eating at all.” She shook her head.
“I'm not sure I can agree with you on that. It smells terrible.” He tried to sniff the air, but didn't smell anything out of the ordinary. Maybe she had a better nose than he did.
“You could always get the salad bar if you don't like the main meal, though the options there aren't a lot better.” She smiled, but shook her head.
“I don't think that sounds appetizing either. Maybe I will just skip eating today.” She looked up at him. “Would you mind if I sat with you anyway?” Andrew shrugged and tried to keep the thrill of that idea from his face.
“That's fine with me.”
“Where are you planning to sit,” she asked, looking around the room? Andrew spotted Jason already sitting down by himself at one of the tables. He considered abandoning his friend so he could have her to himself, but realized he couldn't do that. He pointed to where Jason was already sitting down.
“I sit with my friend Jason, the one with the longer black hair there.” She nodded.
“Alright, I will see you shortly.” She walked over to the table and sat down across from Jason. The surprise on his face was hilarious. No one ever sat with them, ever, and now there was an attractive girl sitting across from him. It didn't look like he knew how to handle that. Andrew was not sure that he did either.
Before long, he was through the line and moving to sit down. For a moment, he couldn't find the table, and once he did, he wasn't sure that there would be room for him. The table that had been empty only minutes before was packed with guys. In fact, looking around the room, Andrew noticed a definite grouping in the tables nearby as well. It was as if Josefina was a black hole and all the males in the room were drawn in toward her. The circle of girls around the outside edge of the cafeteria looked less than happy.
Andrew was about to give up and sit in the outer circle when he saw that there was one empty seat, right next to Josefina. He didn't know how she had managed that, but was not about to turn it down. He walked toward the seat, weaving his way through the crowd that was all leaning toward the gravitational center of the room. As he moved to set his tray in the empty spot, he found about six boys all standing in the way.
“She's saving that seat for someone else. Back off geek.”
Andrew's heart sank. Of course the seat wasn't for him. How could it be?
“Actually boys,” interrupted a melodious voice coming from the creature now standing at his side, “the seat was for Andrew.”
Andrew's heart rose just about as far as the eyebrows on the opposing faces. Josefina maneuvered herself through the surprised, but wholly unnecessary body guards, pulling Andrew with her. With a great deal of grumbling at the result of the confrontation, the other boys returned to their seats as well. Josefina leaned over to whisper in Andrew's ear.
“Would you please agree to go on a date with me?” She grinned at the expression on his face when he turned to stare at her. “You will understand the reason in a moment.” His poor heart was racing again. Andrew was going to have a heart attack if it did this every time that she was near. He tried to hide the trembling excitement that he felt as he nodded his agreement to her proposal.
“Sure.” She smiled a small half smile as he wondered what she meant when she said that he would understand. At this point he didn't think he would ever understand anything. No one liked him. And he didn't like anyone else. That was the world that he had come to be comfortable with. Now someone was breaking those rules, and he wasn't sure how to deal with that just yet. A part of him, how much he didn't know, was glad that the rules were changing. If some rules could change, maybe others could as well.
Maybe freedom was possible after all. But of course, that thought was short lived, like all hopes he ever had.
Moments after the thought, Andrew understood what the real purpose of asking for the date was. Several voices from guys that appeared to have been doing more thinking than eating piped up at about the same time, asking Josefina for a date. The ones who had spoken all glared daggers at each other. Several others who looked as though they wanted to ask the same thing, but just hadn't gotten the courage yet, all glared at the ones who had. A massive fight was brewing and Andrew wasn't sure if there were any real way to prevent it.
“Sorry boys, but I have already agreed to go on a date with Andrew,” Josefina interjected in her musical voice. All those glares turned to incredulous stares in his direction and he felt a flush rise in his cheeks from the sudden scrutiny. Jason's eyes were wide and he was staring at his friend.
After a moment of stares and some grumbles, the whole situation just dissipated. Jason was still staring though and his mouth was open a little in his surprise.
“Yes,” Andrew asked him? Jason's mouth closed with a snap.
“Uh, I always thought you didn't date,” he muttered in explanation.
Andrew was trying to still act excited for his friend, but it was difficult because he now understood that the real purpose behind Josefina's question was that the whole thing was made up. She just wanted to avoid the attention of the other guys. Of course she didn't want to go on a date with him. Andrew's stomach sank and he felt disappointment flooding through him. The food on the plate looked even less appetizing than it had before.
Andrew realized as he was sitting there that Jason had been looking for an answer and was still waiting. He shrugged.
“Just never met anyone else before that I was interested in dating,” he finally said. Jason nodded, knowing what Andrew meant. Of course, it seemed that most of the girls in school were self absorbed snobs, not that attractive despite their good looks. Josefina didn't seem that way, though Andrew supposed it could be an act.
As he sat there, he wished that the date could be for real. He did feel a connection to this girl and wanted to spend more time with her, but he didn't have much hope that it would happen. No one liked him and he didn't like any of them. That's just the way it was. His world would never change.
Andrew felt the darkness of depression filling him. It was on top of the dreary gray world he was used to. This new depression was an inner pain while the one he was used to was a gray blanket obscuring his vision of the world around him. The combination of the two was almost enough to make him want to give up on this pathetic life. A voice whispered in Andrew's ear.
“Do it. Give up. There is no point.” He nodded. There was no point. Giving up would be so much easier.
Josefina reached out and rested her hand on Andrew's. He felt current jolt through him. The whispers vanished and he heard the same growl he had noticed before passing out the previous day. The bleakness around him lightened and the depression faded into the background. Andrew looked into Josefina's eyes.
“What is going on,” he asked? “I don't understand.”
“I am not entirely positive myself, but I have an idea,” she replied. “I will tell you what I can when I am able,” she smiled a half smile at him before continuing, “possibly on that date I asked you for.” The combination of her touch and the hope contained in her words broke the depression the rest of the way and pushed the grayness back enough to calm Andrew. Her words brought promise of answers, though how she knew them, he didn't know. They also brought a small ray of hope that maybe she did want to go out with him after all.
The rest of the day passed in that reduced hazy gray. It threatened to grow a few times, but somehow Josefina was always there when it did and her touch or a word or two pushed it back. There was something so different about this girl. Andrew just couldn't understand what was happening to him. He was used to the steady blackness with the occasional blurb of light and in the two days since he had met Josefina, it had jumped back and forth and up and down so much that Andrew felt dizzy. He hoped Josefina's answers might be able to help him get it under control.
Andrew lay in his bed that evening and stared at his ceiling just as he had in the morning. For some strange reason, he was no longer tired. He lay there pondering the things he had come to believe were so certain in his life. He knew he was going to be alone. He knew he would never understand this darkness in his life. He knew the rules and he had always followed them. But did it have to be that way? Could there be a brighter future out there for him?