Spoiler! :
I put my hood up and zipped up my jacket. Then I walked into school like I did every day, dodging people who couldn’t see me or just couldn’t be bothered to walk around me. I shoved my gloved hands into my pockets and wove in and out of the crowds, keeping my head down so that I wouldn’t have to see the dirty looks that they were all giving me. I slipped into homeroom and took my seat, ignoring Missy Lane’s daily critique of my choice of clothing. I had all ready come to terms with the fact that she and the rest of the people at this school hated me; although I wasn’t sure whether that was because of the way I dressed or because I spelt colour with a u.
Two hands suddenly came crashing down on my desk. “Safi, you’re off in a world of your own again,” Rose moaned at me.
I looked up at her through my hair. “So what?” I said.
She pulled my hood down over my eyes and I pulled back to free myself. Then she sat down behind me and poked me in the back. “Deep in thought again?” she asked, mockingly. She tucked her black hair back behind her ear, revealing her stormy grey eyes.
I turned away again and looked out of the window. “Not really,” I said distantly
Jack appeared next to her making her jump back in her seat. “Jesus Christ Jack,” she exclaimed. “Don’t sneak up on me.”
“I didn’t,” he said defensively. He perched on the edge of her desk.
They looked so much like a couple that everyone was shocked to find out that they actually hated each other’s guts – or at least that’s what they told everyone. From the way they argued to the way they dressed, everything about them suited each other perfectly. Rose wore a black corseted top, with a high neck line and long sleeves, over a pair of grey denim jeans. She had black strappy sandals on her feet and dangly silver earrings hung from her ears. Jack was wearing black jeans and a belt with the name of some band written on it in white letters. His long sleeved, white T-shirt had holes hacked in it all the way up the sleeves.
“Get off my desk,” Rose protested, pushing at him helplessly.
“No,” Jack said, grinning at her. He turned to look at me and pulled my hood down. I spun round.
“Hey,” I shouted at him.
He grinned again. “Oh, so there is a person in there,” he teased.
One of his idiot friends came over calling out, “You’re such a pimp Jack.”
I resisted commenting on the fact that this guy obviously didn’t know what a pimp actually was and, instead, pulled my hood back up and went back to staring out of the window.
“And how are you Saffron?” the idiot asked me.
I didn’t reply. He came round to the front of my desk and put his head on top of his hands. “I asked how you were,” he said, grinning.
“I know,” I said. “And I chose to ignore you.”
“Well that’s rude,” he moaned. “I’m just trying to be nice.”
I ignored him again, never taking my eyes away from the window. I always tried not to make eye contact with people other than friends and family. You see, I was freaky – and that’s not just the way my classmates viewed me. I could see stuff I really shouldn’t be able to see. I could tell when people were lying, and what the truth was. I could sense what someone thought of me and other people to. I could tell what they were thinking. I could see their past and their future. But worst of all, I could see their deaths. And the more intimate the connection between us the more I saw. It was easier with friends and family because I’d all ready seen all of them, but with strangers the flow was constant and right now, this guy was giving me one hell of a headache. He wasn’t really just trying to be nice; he was trying to wind me up. It was like a sport to him. He would strike up a conversation. Then he’d start asking really personal questions and see how long it would take for me to tell him where to go. I had to put up with a lot of stuff like this for two reasons; one, I was foreign; two, I was different. I had moved to America from England two years ago and the people at my school had always loved the novelty of the way I spoke.
“It’s not nice to ignore people,” the idiot said in a patronising tone.
I ignored him again.
“Come on, Robin, leave her alone,” Jack said.
Robin was disappointed and I couldn’t help but feel a little triumphant. He backed off and the bell rang. Everyone took their seas as the homeroom teacher came into the room. I pulled hood down a little further and stuffed my hands into my pockets.
Oh my god, he’s gorgeous, Missy Lane’s thought resonated from the back of the room. Apparently a lot of the class agreed with her, even Rose. A new student, I realised. I never lifted my eyes from my desk. Instead I got all the information I needed from the thoughts of the people around me. Everyone in the room was fixated on him. A new student was good news for me – with their attention fixed on him I should be able to slip under the radar for a few days. The teacher sent him to a seat at the back next to Robin, which meant that he walked past me. I closed myself off so that I wouldn’t be bombarded with thoughts and leaned away from him slightly to make sure that we didn’t touch. As he walked past the only thing I could see was his pair of punk style boots. They were black, fake leather, with buckles up the leg and chains hanging from the top. I looked down at my own boots; they weren’t too dissimilar, fewer buckles and a thinner sole, but relatively the same style. Great, I couldn’t help but think, I dress like a guy. Oh well.
I shut myself off for the rest of homeroom, trying desperately to ignore the almost obsessive thoughts the girls were having about the new boy. When the bell rang I got up and left the room, heading for my first lesson as quickly as I could. I had to get away from the overload of incredibly strong thoughts before my head exploded. I slipped into my maths class and took my seat. I was just reaching into my bag when Jack’s butt landed on my desk.
“What?” I said tersely.
“You were in a hurry to get out of there,” he pointed out.
“I didn’t want to risk Robin getting a chance to annoy me again,” I lied, grinning at him and hitting him in the back with my maths book to make get off of my desk. He jumped down and grinned at me.
“He’s not that bad,” he said. Maybe Robin likes Saffron. I had to stop myself from screaming “what” at that.
“He is. You just don’t notice ‘cause he doesn’t try to annoy you.”
He shrugged.
Mr Platt, the maths teacher came into the room, Robin and someone else in tow. Then I realised from the commotion in the room around me that it was the new boy. My eyes fell to the desk and I tried to shut out the thoughts of my class mates, and failed.
He really is gorgeous. That’s it; I have to make him my boyfriend. Oh please sit him next to me.
I put my elbows on my desk and my chin in my palms, rubbing my temples. I was wrong. This new boy was not good news for me.
“Hey, Mr P,” Robin said. “This is Evan.”
Mr Platt took a slip from Evan and looked at it. “Go to your seat please, Robin,” he said.
Robin looked displeased, but he complied anyway.
“Evan we only have one spare seat next to Saffron at the back,” Mr Platt said.
No. The new boy that I’d never met before, so probably had a lot to tell me, was going to end up sat next to me. This new boy was definitely not good news for me.
Evan walked down the aisle towards me. The room filled with jealousy and sympathetic thoughts. Poor Evan, having to sit next to the freak. I ignored them and made sure to keep my gaze away from him. He let his bag drop onto the floor under his desk and slid into his seat.
“Open your text books to page 198,” Mr Platt instructed. I opened my book with one hand, then looked back to the front of the class. A pen poked gently at my arm and I turned my head slightly towards it.
“Can I share your book,” Evan whispered softly. I pushed the book to the very edge of the desk and he scooted closer to me so that he could see.
“Do exercise E,” Mr Platt continued. “If you have any problems let me know.”
I looked at the exercise. It was surds, completely pointless and very boring but, for me, it was easy and there were only 20 questions. I finished them quickly and continued to gaze out the window. Evan was tapping his pen on the desk next to me, deep in thought about something. Then his pen was poking me in the arm again. I turned slightly towards him.
“What did you get for number 16?” he asked. I pushed my book towards him and indicated the question with my forefinger. “Hey, you’re finished all ready. Why don’t you tell the teacher?”
I ignored him.
“You don’t talk much do you?” he said, amused.
I shook my head. He chuckled. Then he pushed my book back towards me.
“Thanks,” he said.
When the bell rang I closed my exercise book and shoved in my bag. I made sure to look over at Evan’s book to be sure that he didn’t still need the text book, before closing that and shoving it in my bag too. I could feel Robin’s presence coming towards me. I quickly bagged my pencil case and flung the strap of my bag over my shoulder before leaving the classroom. Just as I was reaching the door Robin grabbed my wrist and spun me round.
“Where are you going?” he asked grinning.
“Leave her,” Jack said to him.
“What? I just wanna see if these two have become real good friends,” he said.
I snapped. I used my best weapon on him – my eyes. I didn’t look at people often; it was far too intimate, but when I did I could give them a death stare like none other. I fixed my best scowl on him and hissed under my breath, “Leave me alone.”
He let go of my wrist and took a couple of steps away from me. I waited until he averted his gaze, then turned and started to make my way towards the door again. Rose was waiting for me in the door way. The boys were jeering at Robin behind me and Rose was grinning at me.
“That was brilliant,” she said.
I smiled at her then pushed past her out the door and said, “Come on, it’s time for games.”
I sat on the floor watching the teacher instruct Rose on how to vault properly. The boys were just next door playing basketball. I could hear their shouts and occasionally one of the girls would ask if they could watch while they waited for their turn on the vault.
“Saffron?” the teacher called out to me. “Are you ok?”
Confused I looked down at myself only to discover that I was shaking – violently. Then the fear overwhelmed me. No, I thought, not here. I started breathing heavily, until heavy breathing turned into hyperventilating. I couldn’t breathe. I was having an attack, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I could hear the frantic shouts from Rose, telling people to get the nurse, the teacher calling out my name and the boys coming through to see what all the chaos was about. I could hear it, but it was muffled and distant, like they were on the other side of a pane of glass to me. My vision was becoming blurry. I could hear the thoughts of everyone around me, and they were loud. My head couldn’t cope with all those voices shouting at me all at once.
This is your fault new boy, I couldn’t help but think.
Well sorry. That one voice was louder than the others, and it sounded slightly annoyed. For a moment I wondered if I’d said that thought out loud. But before I could think about it too deeply, everything went black and I was off in a dreamland.
The light glaring in my eyes proved a rather rude awakening. I rolled away from it. I was lying in the nurse’s office. I sighed and considered my options. From the lack of noise coming from the other side of the curtain I concluded that the nurse must have left the room for one reason or another so I slipped out of the bed and drew back the curtain. Then I slipped my shoes on, which had been conveniently placed at the side of the bed, and made my way over to the door.
“Should you be leaving without asking anybody?” a voice asked from behind me.
I spun round, eyes panning up from the punk style boots on his feat. It was Evan, the new boy. I was looking at him properly for the first time, and the girls in my homeroom were right; he was absolutely gorgeous. His hair was black and long, coming down to just after his chin and his fringe coming down slightly over his eyes. His eyes were bright blue like daggers of ice. His features were slightly rounded and his skin was pale. He was wearing faded black jeans that were slashed horizontally all the way down both legs and a white top that was slashed to match. Then there was a biker style jacket over the top of the shirt and a studded belt and bracelets. He didn’t even look at me as he spoke, his eyes remaining fixed on the book in his hands.
“Shouldn’t you wait for the nurse to come back to check you over?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. How had I not noticed him? “There’s nothing to check over.” Even if he’d been really quiet, I should have been able to hear his thoughts.
He turned his head to look at me. His hair shifted position slightly as he moved, revealing a row of hoops in his ear and another through the lobe. “You were out cold. That’s definitely something the nurse needs to check out,” he persisted.
Why was he here anyway? “I’m fine,” I insisted. Then I turned away, having decided to leave.
“You should get yourself checked out anyway,” he said.
That’s when it dawned on me – I still couldn’t hear his thoughts. I was even trying now but I couldn’t. He was completely silent, and for some reason, that scared me. I opened the door, ignoring his advice, and left the room. I peeked through an open classroom door. It was three o’clock; school was almost over. I could go to English or find somewhere quiet to sit until the bell rang.
“I really think you should wait for the nurse to come back.”
I stopped and turned my head to look over my shoulder. He was leaning back against the door frame reading a book of some sort, still not looking at me properly. He seemed to be avoiding eye contact. Just like I do.
“I don’t think that’s really any of your business,” I pointed out bluntly. He was persistent, unlike most people at this school who had already given up on me, and it was starting to annoy me. Leave me alone.
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and my stomach dropped to my feat in a moment of panic. Then he looked back at his book. There was a moment of silence. Then he turned and started walking down the corridor. “Then we should probably go to English,” he said.
He closed his book and continued walking. I waited a few seconds then followed him.
The door opened and the classroom fell silent. Evan walked through the door and stepped to the side so that I could pass him into the room.
“Ah, Saffron,” Miss Laurence, the English teacher, said smiling at me. Her relief flooded me. This was because I was one of her favourite students, mostly because I actually read and gave her the answers that she really wanted to the questions she asked. “Are you feeling better?”
I nodded and started to make my way to my seat. Instantly I could feel the pitying thoughts of the other students towards Evan. Poor Evan having to stay with that freak. It was so kind of him to offer to stay with her. Poor gorgeous, new boy Evan. So that’s why he’d been there. Why would he offer to stay with someone he barely even knows?
“Evan, there’s a free seat at the back for you,” Miss Laurence told him.
The seat in question was close to mine. There was one person between us. It was too close. I sat down in my seat and put my hood up. Then Miss Laurence carried on with her lesson. I looked across the room from the corner of my eye. Evan was slouched back in his seat, concentrating on Miss Laurence. He was beautiful, mysterious and, I couldn’t help but think, a little dangerous.
I shrugged off my hoody and flung it on my bed. I lay down on my bed. Well sorry, those words that I’d heard over all the others, they must have come from him. I couldn’t understand it. Why would he think that? Had I said out loud what I’d thought in my head? Had I told him it was his fault? Was he apologising to me? So many questions and not even one answer. I couldn’t even ask him that was what had happened. I sat up and looked out the window. My house was always so...quiet.
Three Days Grace filled my head. It was perfect for blocking out the rest of the world. It’s safe to say that I was more than a little upset when Rose pulled the earphones out of my ears.
“You ran off before I had a chance to talk to you yesterday,” she said accusingly, though she had a smile on her face. It was one of the things that made her beautiful, and almost every boy in our homeroom wanted it to be directed at them, though they’d never admit it.
“I really wanted to get home and lie down,” I lied. I hadn’t been particularly bothered about going home; I’d just wanted to get out of that classroom as quickly as possible.
“Was the attack that bad?” she asked, hiding the mass of worry that had suddenly surged into her.
I shook my head. “I’m fine,” I assured her.
It didn’t relieve her.
“Anyway,” I said, changing the subject. “Did you want to talk to me about something?”
The smile came back across her face. “I just wanted to ask you what it was like being all alone with gorgeous, new boy Evan, in the nurse’s office.”
“You do realise I was unconscious for most of it, right?”
She scowled at me. “So you didn’t take advantage of it? You had an opportunity to get to know him before any other girl twice now.”
The bell rang before she could fly into the rant that she had been preparing in her head, so she slipped into her seat and scowled at the back of my head. The thought of the day was, unfortunately, still Evan and how much all the girls were in love with him. I looked out the window and attempted to drift off into a world of my own. Before I knew it, I was in maths, taking my seat, and he was already there next to me.
Mr Platt started his lesson. Unfortunately for me, gorgeous, new boy Evan still didn’t have a book of his own and still had to share mine. When Mr Platt told us which page to turn to I placed the book at the edge of the table and started working.
“Did you get home all right?” I had to force my surprise back down inside me when I realised that Evan was talking to me.
I nodded.
“I still think you should have gotten yourself checked out,” he said.
I ignored him.
“What was it, epilepsy?” he asked.
I ignored him again.
I couldn’t tell whether or not he was genuinely showing concern for me or not. Usually I could just look into somebody’s head and find out what their true intentions were, but Evan was blank. I couldn’t hear anything from him. So I wouldn’t risk anything by opening up to him. He seamed to give up on talking to me then. Part way through the lesson, I looked over at his book to see if I could turn the page then reached for the text book. Evan was doing the same. Our hands brushed against each other, only for an instant, and I received a flow of images. I pulled my hand away instinctively. Then I realised what I’d done.
“Do you hate me that much?” he asked.
My head flew up; I had no choice – I had to look at his face for some clew as to what was behind those words. I was confronted by an amused smile designed to hide the look in his ice cold eyes. The death stare coming from him actually gave me chills. I couldn’t even speak.
“Well?” he pressed.
I wished I could run away. It was stupid, but I was terrified by the look in his eyes.
“No,” I whispered.
Evan’s eyes went back to his book. I was glad when the bell went, even though it meant that I had social studies.
“It’s like you’re scared of him,” Jack said.
“I’m not scared of Evan,” I assured him.
“No, she’s just scared of contact with human flesh,” Rose mocked, not knowing that she was actually right.
“It doesn’t matter,” I snapped. “So can we just drop it?”
Jack pressed a button on his key to unlock the doors of his car. We climbed in and I was silent for the entire ride to my house.
I could feel him watching me as I got out of the car and started to walk towards the building. Jack and Rose were going towards homeroom while I stopped off at my locker. When I reached my locker and opened it, Evan split off from the group he was with and leant back against the locker next to mine.
“Need some help with those?” he asked, nodding towards the pile of books I was taking out of my locker.
“I’m fine thanks,” I said, closing my locker and trying to lose him in the crowd.
But he caught up and matched my pace. He held the door open when we reached our homeroom class, causing some of the girls to scowl at me as I walked in.
Why is he always with her? Missy thought.
I slipped into my seat and didn’t respond when Rose jabbed me in the back. “You’ve got your eye on Evan really, haven’t you?” she whispered teasingly.
I ignored her.
Evan finally had his own maths text book now, so he no longer had any reason to bother me. My day flew by. It was as if everything had gone back to normal. And now that Evan wasn’t bothering me he was off with Missy Lane, where he belonged from the beginning.
My house is quiet. I dropped my bag down by the stairs and hung up my blazer. I went up to my room and lay down on my bed gazing up at the ceiling. I ended up falling asleep and I had the strangest dream. A single white rose appeared and was slowly died red with what looked like blood and then turned black. Then I saw Evan and he whispered something which I couldn’t quite hear. He smiled, seemingly amused, then said it again.
“You aren’t alone.”
Then I woke up.
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