Finally, the thick black started to lighten slightly and the path began to open. When we reached a clearing, I realized why this was a place he loved. About fifty yards from where the trail opened up, was a beautiful lake sparkling in the reflected moon light. The most perfect night to be here, under tonight’s full moon.
He stopped about half way between the woods and the lake and dropped my hand. I felt the sting of his touch part from my flesh, the absence almost painful, but I kept walking, all the way down to the edge of the water. I stood there for a while, just gazing out over the dancing moonlight. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Who could have known this was hiding behind the wall of a forest. I couldn’t bare to take my eyes off it.
When the image was thoroughly burned into my mind, never to be forgotten, I turned around. My face coming mere inches from Kamdyn’s chest.
“That’s exactly why I love it here.” he spoke without looking down at me. “I haven’t been here since I was younger. Haven’t really had a reason to.”
“How did you even find this place?” I turned away from him again, looking out over the water. “It seems so out of the way from everything. In the middle of nowhere.”
He laughed a small, unexpected laugh. “Jayson and I found it a few years ago. As you can tell, there isn’t much to do in this town, especially with no license to get anywhere. So we used to wander around in the woods and we just happened to find this place. Since then we have had a couple parties here. Nothing like what you saw at my house. We would only invite a few people. Camp out, stay up all night. The usual teenage stuff.”
“Well, it’s beautiful.”
We stood their in silence, taking in our surroundings, but I could still feel Kamdyn standing behind me. He hadn’t moved. I knew that I needed to talk to him, that it was important to understand. For me, for him, for Jayson and all our friends. To be able to solve the riddle everyone had been trying to solve but afraid to ask. But I found now that he was here, that we were here; I couldn’t find the words to start with. All I could do in the moment was stand there, unmoving and speechless.
“You said you were looking for me?” Kamdyn said softly with surprise in his voice. Almost… laughing?
I didn’t turn around. I knew looking at him I wouldn’t able to form the questions that have been swimming in my mind since the whole thing with Samantha had started. “Yes. But you were… avoiding me. And not too subtlely, might I add.” Finally, I found the strength to turn around and face him. He was closer than I remembered.
“I… I guess I was. Avoiding you, I mean. I was trying to see…” My stomach plummeted. I couldn’t help but not let him finish, I didn’t care what his excuse was.
Now I spun around to face him, fast, shocked at his candor. “Why would you want to avoid me? What did I do?” I don’t know why but I was afraid I was going to start crying.
“You didn’t do anything.” He stopped, his mouth beginning to form more words, but nothing came out.
“I don’t understand, then. Why would you come to my house tonight and pull me out into the night if I’m so bad?”
“You’re not…!” He stopped mid sentence and closed his eyes, tight. “Can you tell me why you were looking for me?”
“Oh, sure.” I crossed my arms over my chest for comfort. “Your girlfriend attacked me Tuesday for starters.”
“What?” he nearly screamed. A look of pure wrath filled his eyes, a flash of glowing amethyst sparked, like a jewel caught in the light.
I shook my head, convinced I was seeing things. “She got in my face telling me to watch my back, said, “it’s all your fault” and ran off. You mind explaining to me what’s going on? Please? Because you seem to be the only person who can give me the right answers. But as we already established, you were avoiding me, so I had no way of getting them.”
“I ended it. With Samantha.” I didn’t say anything, but I already knew it was true. It was the biggest news around school next to the senior who ate a tub of cafeteria cole slaw on a dare. Boys. So, who didn’t know?
When I didn’t say anything, he continued. “She was… Well it doesn’t matter what she was, it was what she wasn’t. And she wasn’t right for me.”
“And it took you two years to figure that out?” I asked, trying to understand where I fit into all this. Really.
“No, it only took me about five seconds to realize it. I just didn’t feel it till now.”
“So.. I come into this how, exactly?”
“I told her exactly what I just told you.” He paused again before continuing. My patience wearing me thin, wanting answers so badly I was shaking. “And… I told her there was someone else. I guess she assumed it was you.”
Almost there! “Why would she assume that? I barely know you at all. We don’t spend any time together, inside or outside school. So where would anyone get the idea?”
“She heard about you disappearing at my party, going upstairs. And she’s jealous of you.” A smile that made me weak appeared on his face.
“Jealous of me for what?”
“You attract a lot of… attention here. Since you came, not one person has given her the time of day. No one even seems to notice her anymore. She likes the spotlight and since the spotlight has moved, she’s furious, and she’s lost.”
“So you left her because she wasn’t the center of attention anymore?” My heart hammered in my chest at the question, searching for… what exactly?
“No! I didn’t care what anyone else thought about her. I never did. She could have been friendless and selfless or anything really. The only thing that mattered was the way I felt about her. Or thought I felt about her. The way I feel about her has changed. I feel as if I have been wearing a mask for the past couple a years and finally, someone has ripped it off. I no longer look at her and see… anything. Whatever I had for her before no longer even feels real. It was fake. And now, I am fueled my something so strong I can’t control it. Like I wasn’t alive before now.”
The passion in his eyes while he spoke proved to me he was doing nothing but telling the truth. I couldn’t do anything but understand. Even though I still hadn’t really understood what he was saying.
“That’s why I’ve been avoiding you.”
I was so lost in the maze of concepts; I almost missed it when he spoke again. I looked up at him, giving him a confused look, but said nothing. My breath caught as I watched his amethyst eyes light up and burn. I knew something was strange. Glowing eyes? But I couldn’t pull anything up within me to do… anything, other than listen to his words and be lost in his eyes.
“I needed to know. If I could stay away from you. But these last few weeks, especially the last couple of days, I couldn’t do it. It just keeps getting stronger. It took all my will, my entire being, to pull myself away once I saw you. It physically hurt.” At this point, I think my mouth had fallen open, my breathing deep. But I no words could explain the feeling I had deep in my chest.
“Even today, I knew there would be no chance of seeing you anywhere, but still I couldn’t help but drive around hoping I would run into you somewhere. I knew then that I needed to talk to you, away from everyone and everything.” He looked down, into my eyes and sat there waiting for a response, but I had none. The moonlight was reflecting off the water and illuminating his face. He looked like a god. So beautiful that it hurt not to touch him. I wanted to, but I was rooted to the ground, astonished. Trying to wrap my brain around what he was saying.
Just as I was thinking about his skin on mine, one perfect hand came up to touch my face. “Do you feel that?” he whispered as he brushed his knuckles across my cheek.
“Yes.” I whispered, so low I almost didn’t hear my own response.
“In those first few seconds when we met, and you shook my hand, I knew… that I couldn’t live without you. But I had to try. I didn’t know if you felt the same way or even if you could, and I tried to ask but you didn’t seem willing to…”
&nb
sp; “It was pointless, Kamdyn. You had every girl in the school drooling after you, and you had a very serious girlfriend. Even if I did feel something, why would I assume… anything? Why assume there was even an inkling of a possibility, or that it was even real?”
“Because it is a possibility. It is real. I know you feel it. Something inside me knew it the second we touched, that this wasn’t one sided or my imagination. How can I just walk away knowing you feel the same, when I am standing right here in front of you?”
“Kamdyn, I…” I started but had no idea where I was going. It was so right so perfect, my heart hurt thinking, knowing, this person standing in front of me, I could feel deep in my soul, was someone who I couldn’t live without. Crazy, I know. But it was there, screaming at me. No matter what I told myself for the last few weeks, now I knew. I looked into his still glowing eyes and felt something click physically inside of me.
“Trystie,” he said taking my face in both his hands. “I have never felt anything so intense, so matter of fact, in my life. I was so caught off guard at first. None of it made sense. How could a stranger have such a reaction in me when people I knew and cared for could never cause such a response. I thought I was wrong or… sick. I tried to think of everything, but nothing made sense. It still doesn’t. But I know that as strange as this is, what I feel for you is something so strong I can’t control it, I can’t push it away. This thing I feel for you, this physical pull, it’s inescapable. You have to know that, you have to feel it.”
And I did feel it, but I couldn’t make myself say it. It took him this long, from the time we met, for him to understand what he was feeling and to make it real. Yet he stood here, in front of me, touching me and searching my face with those jewel-like eyes for understanding, expecting me to blurt it all out. And as much as I wanted to, there were no words for this feeling. No way for him to understand how much I wanted him, needed him, but could not reach out for him. Because I had forced myself, since the moment we met, to push this thing aside, to not accept it because it was like chasing a dream.
Both his hands were still cupping my face. His beautiful, deep, violet eyes, still looking for recognition in mine. Finally, my jaws seemed to thaw and I felt words forming in my mouth. “I do feel it, Kamd…” but my words were abruptly brought to a halt when I felt an electric shock take over my body and felt his perfect lips touch mine. The shock started at the point of contact, and traveled out through the rest of my body, engulfing me with heat like I was suddenly standing in the sunlight. I felt myself gasp as the tingling became stronger and his lips parted mine. His soft tongue gliding, teasing over my bottom lip before sliding past my teeth.
His hands slide down from my face, drifting down my shoulders and arms, finally landed around my waist, pulling me in tighter against the lean length of his body. My arms, in response, moved from resting gently against his chest, to wrapping around his neck. He made soft eager noises against my mouth in response. Unexpectedly, I felt within me a glass window being broken, letting all the sweet smells and sounds over take everything within.
He loosened his grip slowly and we stepped apart slightly. “That was the most amazing thing I have ever felt.” He whispered looking deep into my eyes. The surging in my chest was telling me just how much I agreed with him.
It was like nothing I had ever felt with anyone. I have had my share of boyfriends in the past, even ones I thought I might have loved, but not one of them came close to this feeling of… wholeness. As corny as it sounded, for the first time in my life, I felt completed, whole.
We stood there for what could have been hours, just looking at each other, unbelieving that this was even possible. But I felt it, I could still feel it, deep within me, that pull telling me that this was where I belonged and where I should stay. Even the tiny inches now separating us seemed like an empty ocean keeping us apart.
With a movement so fast I could barely track it, his lips were on mine again, slower and less urgent than before, but the feeling taking us over was the same. The heat swelled within me again and I could feel myself getting breathless. My feet lifting off the ground and wrapping around him, my arms locked behind his neck. His mouth left mine in that moment, traveling down my throat. In the middle of a groan that escaped between his busy lips, I heard music.
The music was familiar, but where was it coming from? My mind was so far off in the distance, it took me a minute to realize it was Paramore. My ringtone. My phone was ringing? Kamdyn froze, his breath warm against my neck. He brushed his lips lightly over my skin, just below my ear, and whispered, “Are you going to get that?”
Completely shaken by what could only be explained as a dream, I reached down into my pocket as he slowly lowered me back down to the ground. I picked it up quick, just before voicemail got to it.
“Hello?”
“Trystie? Is everything okay? Did you get lost?” Kimber’s voice, frantic. I could almost feel her panic through the phone line.
“No, Kimber, I’m fine. I guess I lost track of time. I’ll be home soon.”
A sigh of relief vibrated in my ear. “It’s okay, I understand you have things on your mind. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t get lost. Just let me know when you get home.”
“Okay, I will.”
We didn’t leave right away. Kamdyn sat on a large rock on the edge of the water that over looked the lake, with me wrapped tightly in his arms. Every place his skin touched mine tingled. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against his chest. We sat that way for a long time, not doing anything but feeling each other near, hearing each other breathe. Being near him was like nothing I have ever experienced. That was it, I was addicted. Now that we both allowed the cord between us to connect, the pull we felt was even stronger, like he said, inescapable. Not that I wanted to escape this feeling. Something finally felt right within me. It was strange, though. How could one person you barely know make you feel so good? When only days ago I felt so completely… broken. With such a painful past and an uncertain future, the one thing I could say I was sure about now was him.
So many scenarios ran through my head while we sat there. Pictures I had tried very hard, and most the time successfully, to push away, not wanting to see those faces. Not wanting to feel any of those emotions. I tried hard to replace the brick wall I had set up, keep those memories locked away, tight, but the flood continued. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t seem to keep my mind on the present, which for once was all I wanted. I closed my eyes and shuddered. I felt his arms tighten around me, sending a pulse of electricity through me. The second I felt it the visions cleared. The memory slide show was over. A tingling sensation flared on my neck as he pressed his warm lips against my skin.
I involuntarily sighed at the feeling, “Do you think it will ever go away?” I asked him.
“Will what go away?” he asked, his warm breath teasing against my ear.
“That… whatever it is I feel every time your skin touches mine.”
“No, I don’t think it will.” I could hear the smile in his voice, I didn’t need to turn around to see it. “I think it will only get more intense.”
God, I hope he’s right, I thought to myself and I felt every muscle in my body loosen and relax against his strength.
I didn’t ask for an explanation, even though any other sane person would. But, I guess, I just didn’t care about the why. I knew what I felt, that there was a physical reaction between us and I knew that he felt it to. Which is good, it lets me know my mind hasn’t gone off the deep end. At least, not completely.
Not too long after, he helped me off the rock and taking my hand, led me into the forest. The walk home was too quick for me. Now that this connection was made, that I knew it was real, I wasn’t ready for him to leave. I wasn’t ready to go home. I tried making the walk last longer, walking slowly up the road, and dragging down the driveway. Every time I felt we were going to fast, I felt myself slow down. Apparently I was none too subtle about it. Each time, I
would fall a couple steps behind Kamdyn, our hands still clasped and stretched their full length, I would feel a tight squeeze and a pull, as Kamdyn drew me back up to his side making me lean into him.
“Tonight is only the beginning,” he leaned down to whisper in my ear.
I knew he said it to be assuasive and it wasn’t like I didn’t believe it. I did. I just wasn’t ready to let it go just yet.
We reached the house in what seemed like record time. We stopped at the edge of the house closest to the porch, where when I first came out Kamdyn was leaning. He leaned there again now, pulling at my arms till I was pressed up against his chest.
I felt him lean down and place his cheek against my hair. “I’ll see you soon.” he whispered into my curls.
I couldn’t respond. I wasn’t ready to go inside, but I knew I needed to. His hold loosened and I felt his hand grip under my chin. He slowly, brought it up until my eyes were on his face. I got one shadowed glimpse of his features before he bend down to kiss me one last time. Before I could open my eyes, he was gone.
When I walked inside the house, all the lights were off. A soft glow over to my right revealed a small light in the living room was left on. I cautiously peeked around the wall, expecting I don’t know what, but found Justin and Kimber, wrapped up in blankets watching a movie. I walked to the entrance of the room and leaned against the wide frame, more or less using it for support. “Kimber, I’m home. Sorry I was gone so long.”
Kimber jumped slightly and turned her gaze to me, still leaning against Justin’s chest. “Trystie, honestly, it’s fine. I was just worried something happened and wanted to make sure things were okay. New mom and all, just being cautious.” She stopped and winced at her own words, but quickly replaced her faltered smile. “You’re more than welcome to stay down and finish the movie with us, now that your home.”
“No, thanks, I think I’m just going to lie down and relax. I’ll see you guys in the morning.” As I turned around and headed for the stairs, I threw a “goodnight” over my shoulder and heard two responses as I was ascended the stairs to my room, wishing, hoping, there was a bird perched outside my window.
Beautiful Nightmare Page 7