Beautiful Nightmare

by Stotz, Chrystie Q.

  Nothing stops time, so inevitably school needed to start again. But in some way, I was happy that it did. As much as I enjoyed the days I could sleep late, not have homework and just hang out with Kamdyn or Jayson; there was just something about the down time when I was home by myself. My mind wondered too much for me to be left alone so often, so school was my salvation and some what a relief.

  Much of the morning was a blur and I seemed to spend the majority of it, still, trying to figure out what happened in my dream. I had explained to Jayson that I remembered nothing of what had completely freaked me, and him, out, but I didn’t mention the soreness on my neck. Upon later inspection, I saw that there was in fact a light mark on my neck that looked suspiciously like a hickey. I stared at it in confusion for a while, unsure of exactly how it could have happened. Nothing happened when I touched it now, no pain whatsoever. But still, nothing substantial from the dream to explain, well, anything.

  Nothing big about my schedule had changed as the new semester began. No more study hall, instead I had Photography and thank God, Spanish was over and in it’s place I had a free period.

  The day, just like every other, started off the same. I had English and History, a combined class that I still shared with Jayson. It still had two teachers, two classes and took two periods, but the teachers preferred to work together and taught the classes as one large two period combo. When I walked in today, I was completely distracted. I had too much on my mind the last couple of days to even acknowledge a change in the classroom atmosphere. I walked right by everyone, not even noticing their snickers and whispers. I took my normal seat all the way in the back row and started unpacking my books for class, when I heard my name.

  “Trystie? Do you mind if I sit here?”

  I heard that voice before. It was so familiar and made my body stiffen with alarm, but I wasn’t sure why. I sat up slowly, leaving everything my hands were on in my bag and sat back in my chair, looking up.

  “Do you mind if I sit here?” he asked again with his hand placed on the back of the chair.

  “Umm… no. Go ahead.” I quickly turned to go back to what I was doing, ignoring the fact that he was sitting next to me and that the entire population of girls in this room were staring at us. They were all awed by his demanding presence and they looked at me with jealousy. Ridiculous!

  Definitely ridiculous, but I would have had to have been dead not to notice that even the air around him was different.

  I finished unpacking my bag and sat up in my chair, overly conscious of him so close to me. He is a good looking guy. Ah hell, why lie? He’s completely gorgeous, but no better looking than Kamdyn or Jayson. All three of them seemed to be different than any other guys at school. But other than that, there was nothing overly attention stealing.

  Odd that at Kamdyn’s party, where I first had met him, it was hard for me to look anywhere else.

  I was lost in my own thoughts when I heard the teacher yelling my name across the room. “Ms. Night, I have volunteered you to help Mr. Century out for a while. Since you are both new this year, I thought you would be most helpful. Help him catch up with the work we are doing and get comfortable. I also need you to share a book for a while until I can unearth another copy somewhere.” Mr. Hadam flashed me a big smile, than preceded into his lecture about Shakespeare. Suddenly it felt more like love connection than English class.

  Unbelievable. Without a glance in anyone’s direction, I reached down to grab a pen out of my bag. A hand shot out and grabbed my arm. I felt this kind of magnetic pull from the direction the hand had come from. I stared at the offending hand. Slowly, I dragged my eyes up the arm and over the shoulder to look Halo directly in the eyes. Beautiful eyes that were way too close to mine.

  “Have another one for me?” he asked almost silently.

  “Another what?” I said, trying to pull my arm free, but it wouldn’t move.

  “A pen. Please.” He smiled slightly before releasing my arm and snatching the pen I grabbed for myself out of my hand. He turned back in his seat without a thank you, without any kind of acknowledgement, nothing. He might as well have just picked up a discarded pen off the floor instead of lifting then pen from between my fingers.

  I narrowed my eyes in his direction, if only hoping that he felt my evil stare he refused to meet. Reaching down to grab another pen for myself I turned my attention toward the lecture and nothing else.

  The two periods flew by. I had never paid such close attention in the class before but it was a welcome distraction. At least until the next class when I could manage to get away. The bell rung loudly, pulling me out of my self induced trance, and everyone ran quickly out of the classroom. Jayson sat up, grabbing all his things and stood next to me, waiting.

  “Jayson, you don’t have to wait for me today, I think I’m going to head to the nurse before class. I’m getting a headache.”

  I barely looked at him as I threw my things into my bag. I only looked up when I still felt him standing there. When I met his chocolate gaze, his eyes shifted quickly to my left, giving me a quick nod, he walked out of the room.

  Completely ignoring the person beside me, I turned my attention back to packing up my bag. I didn’t look over toward him as I got up, or as I walked around him. Even when I heard him get up and follow me toward the door, something in me felt stubborn enough to want to ignore everything about him. I had only made it a couple of rows when Halo came up behind me and grabbed my wrist.

  I spun around, enraged, to face him, while simultaneously trying to rip my hand free from his grip, again.

  “Do you have a problem with personal space?”

  Instead of a reply, what I got was a smile, which infuriated me.

  “What do you want, Halo?”

  His grin only became wider at the sound of his name and the gem colored eyes sparkled. Completely unnerving.

  “It looks like we are going to be spending a good amount of time together.” As he spoke, he loosened his grip to slide his fingers down, interlacing them with mine. He took a step toward me, forcing me to retreat, my back pressed against the wall. “I’ll be over at six thirty.” His free hand came up, pushing the hair away from his face as he started to lean down, as I leaned as far back as the wall would let me. I would have crawled in it if I could. I forced myself to break eye contact and I heard a noise that could only be described as amusement. He released me and he was gone.

  After Halo’s abrupt but very welcome retreat, I noticed that the headache I felt just slightly coming before, had come roaring up on me and a quick trip to the nurse ended up with me drugged and laying in the dark in the nurse’s room with a cold wet cloth over my face.

  By the time I finally left the nurse, it was time for lunch, which I was hoping would make me feel better. I dragged myself down the halls and somehow, without really seeing, found my way to the caf. I had made it there before the last lunch wave had completely left, so I waited patiently against the wall in the hallway for the remaining stragglers to head back to class. It was extremely relieving to walk into an empty lunchroom and walk straight up to the counter and order food I knew was freshly prepared. Not having to wait in line was bliss.

  I ordered my usual, a plate of French fires –extra salt today- and pink lemonade slushy. Not the most healthy of lunches, but it was delicious. Just as I picked up my tray to head toward our table, students started filing in and scattering throughout the large room.

  I had a seat at our usual table and covering my eyes from the bright lights above me, started to shovel salt coated fries into my mouth. I was so focused on eating and making my headache go away, I wasn’t even aware that people had started to fill in around me. Jayson had come in and took his usual seat beside me, shifting closer to me when I didn’t acknowledge his company. He placed his arm over my shoulder, pulled me in and kissed the side of my forehead. I smiled slightly, at his attempt for me to feel better, but made no move to do anything other than finish my fries hidden under my shaded
face.

  Within only a few short seconds, my slowly progressing headache turned into a full blown migraine that I knew wasn’t going to go away. I felt my eyes falling downward, my stomach plummeted making me nauseous. The room felt like it was spinning as everything within my eye sight got fuzzy. I knew Jayson and Lauren and Alex were all screaming something, at least it felt like they were screaming, but I couldn’t make out anything. Everything about my world right now seemed broken. I had finally reached my breaking point when I felt someone lift me up.

  My face was safely tucked into someone’s chest, shielding me from any light as we walked swiftly down the hall. I thought I was being carried back to the nurse, but when I was put down, on the ground, without opening my eyes I knew there was no way that I was in the nurse’s office.

  I kept my eyes tightly closed, too scared to open them and see the world spinning out of control, sending piercing pain through out my entire head. But then I felt someone sit down beside me, put their arms around me and pull me down to lay my head on their lap. So without opening my eyes, I laid my head down and prayed my headache away. As I was laying there, his hand came up and softly stroked the side of my head and face, when I realized, I have no clue who this is. I stiffened and braced myself to sit up, anticipating the shooting pain that would follow when he placed his hands on my shoulders, holding me down.

  “It’s okay Trystie, it’s just me.” Kamdyn’s voice was calming and quiet, reassuring. “Who did you think it was?”

  I sighed, still keeping my eyes closed, but relaxed against him again, letting him continue to run his fingers over my face. “I didn’t know who it was. But I was hoping it wasn’t…”

  “You can open your eyes now, we are in the black room in the photography department. And wasn’t who?”

  “Halo.” I answered frowning and turning my face into his leg. “Don’t worry about it, it’s not a big deal.”

  “If he’s bothering you than it is a big deal, at least to me. Let me talk to him.”

  “No, I don’t think it needs to be taken there just yet, okay? Trust me, if I need someone, you’ll be the one I call.”

  Once he started moving his hand again, along my face and hair, I noticed that I felt the tingling of his touch again. I rolled back over and looked up at him, but it was so dark in the room, if I didn’t feel him touching me I would never had believed he was in the room with me. I heard him laugh as I was searching the blackness above me for his face.

  “You can’t see me, can you?” His beautiful laugh filled the room and comforted me, quieting the pounding in my head. Until I realized he was laughing at me. In response, I stuck my tongue out at him. The second I did it, he stopped laughing and went silent.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Don’t do that,” he said almost in a whisper.

  “Do what, I didn’t even move.”

  “Don’t stick your tongue out at me.”

  I was quiet for a moment, stunned into silence. It doesn’t happen often. “You can see me? How?”

  “I don’t know… I just can.” He huffed and quickly changed the subject. “Are you feeling better now?” He leisurely dragged his fingers down my cheek and across my neck.

  “Yeah, actually. I didn’t realize it was so bad ‘til it was too late. Usually…” I stopped mid sentence feeling Kamdyn’s body tense. I sat up, without even thinking about my head, and turned to face him even though I couldn’t see him at all. “Kamdyn, what’s wrong?”

  He didn’t say anything, not a word or sound escaped him as his hand reached out lightly touching my neck again. Realization dawned on me then. He was touching the barely noticeable mark on my neck that appeared after my dream. I shivered and looked down as I recalled the nightmare that evoked nothing but pain.

  “What happened? Please tell me.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Trystie,”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How could you not know?” I felt the tingles of our skin contact caressing down my arms and closed my eyes. When I didn’t respond, he signed and kissed my forehead. “There are many things we need to talk about. We both know that. But right now it isn’t as important as this. You are more important to me than anything. Please, explain to me what you can. Tell me what happened.”

  I realized then that I wanted to tell him everything. Not because he seemed so concerned or because I thought he could help, but because I needed him, for whatever reason, to hear what I went through. At least what I could remember of it.

  “I had this dream…”I took a deep breathe, let it out slowly and began when I left his party on New Years, ending when I woke up screaming with Jayson by my side. The worst part about telling him wasn’t that I started crying again, or reliving that sense of dread I felt in my dream, but that he felt bad because he wasn’t there. It was almost as if he could feel exactly what I was feeling.

  After apologizing for a few minutes, he asked the question that I couldn’t explain myself. “What does that have to do with the marks on your neck? It looks like someone bit you.”

  Then I remembered.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The details of my dream came back completely unfocused, but I remembered most of it; the foggy, empty parking lot, the dark woods, running, being compelled to run, being pushed forward and when my stubbornness appeared in my dream, refusing to continue the dark force showed it self. The only thing I didn’t remember was who this person was, if he was a person at all. But I knew it was a he, that he may have killed Drea and that he bit me.

  I had explained all of this to Kamdyn, as it had reappeared in my mind, but he didn’t seem to buy it. In fact, I think he was trying to say I was delusional and still in pain from my migraine. He just wouldn’t listen. The one person I thought would understand, didn’t.

  He had somehow convinced the office that I needed to go home and insisted that he be the one to drive me. I’m not sure how he managed it, and I didn’t ask. Before I knew it we were pulling down my long, dark driveway.

  It was a very overcast day today, looking like it was going to snow any minute as I stepped out of his car, grabbed my bag and headed toward the door. I walked with my head down, shielded from whatever light there was in the sky. When I got to the door, Kamdyn was already there waiting. I looked up at him, completely confused. Still I asked no questions as I found my key and opened the door.

  It was only around twelve thirty when we got to my house, so I flopped down on the couch and Kamdyn went into the kitchen to make me some more french fries and find something for himself. When he came into the living room with our food, I had closed all the blinds and curtains, making the room look like a cave.

  We listened to music as we ate our food and even though I was feeling much better, I could still feel the pain just lurking around, waiting for me to do anything so it can pop back out. I finished my fries quickly and sat back, closing my eyes. I peeked between heavy lids when I felt Kamdyn move besides me. The couch shifted and I looked to see him leaning back, his eyes focused on mine.

  “You feeling better?” he asked with a smile that told me it wasn’t just a simple question.

  “Yes, much. Why? What are you plotting?” I asked suspiciously, narrowing my eyes.

  “Nothing really. I was just thinking.”

  “About?”

  “Well, if your head still hurt a little, we could do something that would, I don’t know, take your mind off of it so it will go away.”

  “And what exactly is this something you have in mind?”

  A slow crooked grin appeared on his face and his eyebrows danced on his forehead. No words needed. Before I even got the chance to say or do anything, his arms found their way around me, pulling me up into his lap. He ran his hands lightly over my face and around my eyes before slipping it behind my neck and pulling me down to meet his waiting lips.

  After Kamdyn had to leave, I decided to take a shower to clear away any lingering headache that remained. Just as I s
hut off the shower, I heard a knock at my bedroom door. Thinking it was Kimber coming up to announce she was home, I yelled “Come in,” as I wrapped the towel around me and headed for the door.

  But when the door opened, it revealed someone I would have never expected. Halo was casually strolled in, backpack flung over his shoulder.

  “Looks like I got here just in time,” his deep voice sounding very musical as he walked past me to fling his bag on the floor and throw his jacket on top of it.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  He bent down and pulled on the top of his backpack. “English, History, remember? I did tell you six thirty. And I have something for you.” He dragged his bag over and pulling out a few sheets of paper. “Classwork. I’m in your Photography class, too.” He handed them over with a smile on his face, but said nothing else as I held my towel tight and reached for them.

  I tried pulling them from him, but he held on tight, making me struggle to pull them out of his hands. I was tugging so hard when he finally let go, I stumbled backward almost landing on the ground and losing my towel. Halo’s beautiful smirk widened as I tightened my grip on my towel and headed toward the bathroom.

  When I came out, Halo was flopped comfortably across my bed with his eyes closed, for all the world looking like he belonged there. I was hoping when I came out that I took too long and he would be gone, but unfortunately, wishes don’t come true.

  At least mine don’t.

  “You would think with all the catching up you need to do you would have gotten started while I was getting dressed.” I said as I walked into the room, a damp towel in hand while I scrunched my hair.

  “Maybe, but then what excuse would I have to spend some time with you?”