Shadow Seed 1: The Misbegotten

by Richard M. Heredia

  ~ Chapter 14 ~

  (Fall – 2017)

  Ramona

  I was no more than ten feet from this mystery girl when I heard Leda yell at the top of her lungs. “JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP, SANDRA!!!”

  I turned back in time to see Leda stalk off over the breezeway toward the Boy’s Gymnasium and the Football field below. Sandy gazed after her with her back to me just shaking her head in consternation. Their little argument had definitely boiled over. I wished it was me they were fighting over, because it would serve Leda right.

  I chuckled and swung around and almost slammed right into her. She must have heard the commotion, saw me and came to explain why one of her friends had gone ape-shit.

  It was plausible, right?

  “Oh shit, I’m sorry,” I said in a rush as I pulled back before I squashed into her breasts. My brain instantly recorded them as large for a girl her age.

  “It’s my fault really,” she spoke, her voice was rich and melodic. “I have a bad habit of getting too close to people, into their personal space or whatever.”

  Because of her three-inch heels, I could stare directly into her eyes without looking down. She was tall for a girl, I thought, looking into her gray-blue eyes, noticing the flecks of black. Instantly, I was enraptured. They were very, very rare for a Latina. Her face was full, her make-up was impeccable, showing off her miraculous eyes and rounded out her thin lips. Her nose was of medium size, but thin from top to bottom. Her hair tended toward dark brown, but was highlighted with lighter shades, lustrous and bounced when she moved.

  I eased a step back, so she wouldn’t feel like I was crowding her. I extended my arms outward, palms facing up – the universal gesture for apologizing. “No, no, really, I should be more careful. I was just a little distracted by your friends.”

  She stared at me for a second or two, letting a smile creep across her face, and when it reached her eyes – she blossomed. She was even prettier than before. She was downright captivating. “Ah crap, I’m sorry for Leda. She can get pretty loud when she wants to, and, unfortunately, she seems to be getting loud more often nowadays than she had in the past. She just pops-off sometimes, which is so embarrassing at times…” she trailed off her smile waning. “She wasn’t always like that, though. And, she’s getting worse too - much worse - especially since she started going out with that stupid boyfriend of hers. He’s been really fucking around with her head, telling her she’s cheating on him, that she’s ugly or fat. You know, real grammar school shit. The worst of it, though, is the fact she doesn’t blame him for any of the shit he is putting her through. Instead, she blames every other guy out there like all the rest of you guys have anything to do with her twisted relationship. She completely overlooks that asshole’s behavior. No matter how much Sandy and I try, she just ignores the truth and usually storms off like you just saw. Pretty pathetic, if you ask me.” She seemed surprised she had said so much, so soon.

  “Hmm,” I hummed, taking a quick glance back where the other girls had stood. They were both gone now. I felt her light touch on my arm and my eyes returned to hers.

  “Sorry about all of the theatrics, I just wanted to meet you in more… uh, more… well, in a different way than I usually meet guys.” She clasped both hands before her waist, her shoulders coming together slightly. “It was kind of important to me, although I’m not quite sure why yet.” She giggled suddenly. I realized she was very nervous. Her eyes were wide and she was breathing deeply, but her hand did not move from my arm.

  “So, what’s this all about then?”

  “I just wanted to meet you that’s all,” she waivered, but didn’t crack. Her dazzling smile was back in all of its glory.

  “Cool,” was all I said as I extended my hand to her. “I am Estefan Ernando.”

  She took my hand with the hand she had resting on my forearm, gripping me delicately with a series of squeezes, repeating every time our hands reached the apex of each shake. “And I’m Ramona Cervantes.” Her eyes were boring into me. She held onto me even when the greeting commenced. “You must think I’m stupid, right? Or, do you think I’m a bit of a weirdo for doing all of this, huh?”

  “Stupid?” I answered with a question, “Naw, just formal or traditional, but not stupid. Pretty, maybe; stupid, no.” I figured the truth was the only way to go with this girl.

  Her smile turned a little devilish. Her eyes narrowed with mock suspicion. “I heard you were real slick with the chicks, but no one said your slickness was more like smooth. You tell that to all the girls you meet, tell them they’re pretty, huh?”

  Oh, so now you’ve heard some things about me. I jerked my head, taken aback, shaking my head in the negative.

  Her eyes narrowed even more. “Yeah, I bet you do,” she concluded, taking a step backward, abruptly looking me up and down, while she bit her lower lips – a thing she always did when she was being mischievous. The entire time, our hands remained clasped together. “You’re too smooth to not have done this kind of thing on more than one occasion. Am I right, Mr. Track Star? You’ve had lots of practice with the girls, right?” She was smiling again, sarcasm dripping from her words in torrents.

  Mr. Track Star? I asked myself. So, someone had been doing a little research on little ole me… I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not, but when it was a knockout like Ramona most guys really wouldn’t give a fuck. Pathetically, I was one of them.

  “I don’t actually, well, not a lot as you’re implying. I might from time to time,” I began as the incredulous look in her eyes remained on me. I could see she didn’t believe me for one second. “I don’t!” I repeated louder than before, but her look did not change. “But, I don’t lie unless I absolutely have too, so why start now. You are pretty, so let the truth be known…”

  “Ah, I see, you tell it likes it is.” She had a sage-like expression on her face. “I get that, but I still don’t completely believe you,” she replied thoughtfully, squaring her shoulders with mine, still holding my hand.

  I merely shrugged, looking down but up through my eyebrows at her, trying to negate the half-smile trying desperately to erupt about my lips. I really wasn’t a ladies’ man like she was making out, though I couldn’t help but feel flattered by her comments. It was the crushing weight of self-consciousness that was making me grin like an idiot.

  It has always been tremendously hard to hide my feelings from Ramona. On that day, she proved no different, she saw my struggle and figured it out at once. “I’m making you nervous, huh?”

  I shrugged again, but forced myself to look in her eyes more directly.

  “I’m right.” It was not a question this time. She stated it as fact. Then, out of the blue, she pulled me toward her with the hand that held mine. I tried to hide my surprise, suddenly wondering if I was in over my head with this girl. I came within a step of her. I could smell the perfume she was wearing, Vera Wang Princess¹. I will never forget the playful blend of floral, fruity, and bakeshop smells. I looked over her face uncertain of what she going to do.

  She ignored everything that was undoubtedly raging across my face. “I was just playing, Estefan. I’ve wanted to meet you for a while now, but you were always with that tiny girlfriend of yours. So, I just asked around about you in the meantime, to see what people thought about you. I was hoping, if I was lucky, you guys would break up, so I could get to know you…

  “I noticed in the past few weeks, you’ve been making your rounds around campus alone or with your friends, so I figured this would be a good time to make my move. You know, before you hooked up with some other girl. I wanted to approach you in a way that would stick out in your mind, because I didn’t want to fuck it up or get it wrong. But when you told me so quickly I was pretty, I just remembered what some of the girls said about you, that’s all. I promise.”

  I was suddenly curious. “And what was that, exactly?”

  “They said, if you liked a girl, you could be very charming, almost irresistible and that you always se
emed to find a way to say the right thing at the right time. A few even said they’d have messed up on their boyfriends, if you’d’ve asked them to be with you.” She grimaced for me to understand. “I was just unsure if you were using your ‘powers’ on me, that’s all I’m saying.” All the play had disappeared from her tone. She was serious.

  They would’ve let me screw them! Really? Who the fuck had said that!?! Then, the import of her words sunk in and I pulled my mind from the dregs. The girls had said that about me?!? I had never considered myself in that manner. I didn’t go out of my way to get laid like a lot of the other guys I knew did. I always felt they came on too hard, I’d look less in the eyes of the girls they came onto. I mean, sure, I got my share of the pussy walking around campus over the years, but I didn’t recall trolling around looking for every loose scrap of tale that crossed my path. That wasn’t me; I was not like that… was I?

  “My powers?” The words bubbled up to the surface, didn’t make sense. I spoke before I knew I had done so.

  Ramona smiled with an accompanying chuckle. “That’s what they called them, your ‘powers’.”

  “My ‘powers’, really?” I was shaking my head in disbelief. “But, like I said before, I’m not the type of guy who wants a whole bunch of notches on his belt, you know. I want a few… well, maybe more than a few, but they’re making me sound like some kind of sex maniac or something.”

  “Actually, they said you never came across like that. Rather, they said you just knew what you were doing and you did it well. They weren’t bad mouthing you or anything, don’t get me wrong, but that intrigued me. I guess I was just looking too hard for it and jumped the gun.” She breathed out explosively for some reason.

  “What is it?” I asked, bewildered by her strange reaction.

  “I bet my friends told you I was acting weird. I bet they said I was suddenly incapable of talking on my own, that I’ve become uncharacteristically shy.”

  I nodded in affirmation, Leda’s comment about Ramona becoming suddenly shy registered.

  “Well, they’re right; I am acting like a ‘tard. I’m usually comfortable around guys, maybe even a little forward, you know? I’m not afraid to put myself out there. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a total bitch. I don’t go messing around with every boy. I just don’t act like those little miss prissy girls do around boys. I’m myself, you know?” I nodded again. I was beginning to wonder where she was going with this. I could feel my brow furl. Ramona noticed at once. “I don’t hurt people’s feelings either. If I like a guy and he’s taken, I don’t go for it anyway, uncaring if I hurt the other girl’s feelings. I’m not like that, I can wait.” She stopped, her eyes darting about my face. “Crap, I’m not making any sense, am I?” She let go of my hand and rotated from me, softly stomping the heel of her pump on the concrete we were standing on.

  “I’m just not sure what you are trying to tell me,” I prompted, hoping she could get her thoughts straight.

  “I know! I sound like a pendeja!” she turned back with a pained look on her face.

  I mouthed the word, “no”, indicating she wasn’t a pendeja. She definitely wasn’t a stupid girl.

  “Well, you’re just being nice, because I know what a pendeja sounds like.” She laughed ruefully, craning her neck toward the sky. She stayed that way for a time before she gathered herself and went on. “This is all going wrong. I wanted this to be perfect. I just don’t know what is wrong with me. I can go with the flow if I have to. I can be crazy-fake fatal and shit, if I want things to go my way. I can play games with the best of them, but I didn’t want any of that shit with you… So, why is this so fucking hard for me to tell you!?”

  “What are you trying to tell me?” I asked with a degree of urgency I wasn’t sure I should be feeling. What the fuck was she talking about?

  “Well,” she began. I could see that this was a matter of some substance for her. “I wanted introduce myself and tell you that… umm… that I like you,” she blurted it out louder than anything she had said previously. Yet before I could respond or even think a clear thought she continued. “I usually don’t just go around telling boys I like them, either! I let it marinate for a while, you know, but I didn’t want to this chance slip away. I didn’t want you to go after some other girl before you knew how I felt, especially since all the girls bemoan of your ‘powers’.

  “Dammit, I sound like such a fucking moron!” she exclaimed and made as if to leave.

  “Wait, Ramona,” I implored.

  She stopped after half a step and turned to look back at me, the vestiges of moisture in her eyes.

  Shit, this really means a lot to her, I thought understanding for the first time she really did like me – deeply - which suddenly explained her strange behavior.

  “Don’t go.”

  “Why, Estefan? Doesn’t it weird you out that I researched you? That I just came across like some hard-up bitch in heat, who’s gotta have hers?” She said it like she was pulling a Band-Aid from her arm, doing so as quickly as possible, so it wouldn’t hurt as much. Her eyes were hard and icy with self-loathing.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” It was all I could say as I walked toward her. “So what, you wanted to find out about me, big deal. I wasn’t like you were trying to steal my underwear or something, right?”

  She rolled her eyes and grinned, her white teeth flashing before me.

  “I can see this whole thing you put together this afternoon was important to you, and if this is true, then why leave? Because some things came out wrong, the plan didn’t go perfectly? I don’t even really know you yet. But you won’t give me the chance to get to know you. You don’t think true feelings, honestly expressed, don’t make me wonder about you, at least a little? I don’t know about these ‘powers’, but I guarantee you, I’m not a dickhead. And I won’t let you walk away, crying - no way.”

  She reached out and touched my hand with just two or three fingers inside the cup-like structure forming my palm. Her eyes seemed to well up and became honest and real. We locked gazes. “Leda said I was stupid for having feelings for you when you didn’t know I even existed. She was dead set against me telling you how I felt. She says I’m just gonna get hurt, that you’re gonna use my feelings against me, because she believes all guys are mean and heartless. I know she’s gone off the deep end, but, some of what she said scares me, even though I don’t know for a fact that’s not how you’d act. But, at the same time, I couldn’t just do anything either. I might miss out on the chance…”

  It took me a while to take it all in. I know I stared for a while, weighing what she had said, trying my damnedest to comprehend how someone could want me like that, from afar. It was astounding. I glanced around the huge building surrounding us, my sight flicking from one colorful door to another. There seemed to be a hundreds of them. I looked down into the Quad proper, watched a Custodian sweep a pile of leaves across the concrete. Could this really be happening? Was my luck changing that dramatically? Two girls had told me they liked me on the same day, in the same fucking hour, wow! It was hard to comprehend, especially after weeks of absolutely nothing happening on that particular front.

  She had turned to look out at the vista as well, though, through all of this, she was still touching me. Even in profile, she looked sculpted, everything in place, as it should be – she was immaculate.

  I blinked a few times, clearing my mind. “Well, I would venture to guess that Leda is not a good person to take advice from when it concerns matters of the heart.”

  She nodded meekly and looked adorable. She faced me squarely once again. “What does Sandy say?”

  Her face brightened in an instant. “She told me to go for it.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Because Sandy would’ve done the same thing, I didn’t say that part out loud. “Well, I think her advice is sound, so what do you say? You wanna forget all of this bullshit and just hang out and see how things go?”

  Her eyes pop
ped out of her head. It must’ve been the last thing she expected me to say. Her hand finally left mine and came to her mouth of its own volition.

  “Well?” I asked her, reaching for the hand at her mouth and took it within my own.

  Her eyes followed them as they came to rest in between us. She didn’t move or pull her hand away.

  “Look, take some time, we don’t have to rush into anything. I’m willing to get to know you. Despite knowing you saying you liked me, I’ll make sure I don’t use it to my advantage. I’ll try to keep it preserved by not doing anything stupid. But,” I added, louder than before. Her eyes met mine, a cute furl in her brow, “I will tell you, though, I like you too. You are one heck of interesting person and… bonus for me… you’re gorgeous, girl.”

  “Oh… my god…,” was all she could muster as her eyes darted from her hand to my face and back and forth a few more times.

  “Is that ok with you?” I tried again.

  She chuckled nervously, almost distantly as if her mind was a million miles from her body. She glanced back down at our hands and slowly drew hers out of mine, another shaky laugh emerging passed her lips. She seemed to catch up with current events, taking a deep breath. She steeled herself and then she smiled that wondrous smile of hers. It spread across her face. Her eyes lit up as she peered into mine once more.

  I remembered thinking I could probably stand there and stare back for the rest of the day when she uttered…

  “They were right.”

  “What?” I asked frowning again and was about to ask something when she placed her hand on my shoulder. Her blue-gray orbs focused on me. Whatever it was I was going to say, I suddenly couldn’t recall. To this day, I can recall those eyes, perfectly somewhere between blue and gray; I can see each sprinkle of black interspersed with those lighter, brighter hues. They seemed to shift and dance in the waning light. I was so engrossed in them, I didn’t realize she was leaning closer and about to speak.