Elaine
Pulling the hoodie lower to cover my eyes I sigh, trying to shroud off the moon light seeping softly through the windows. Lowering my gaze I watch the angled hue relish the tiled floor of the schools corridor, stopping right as they reach the tip of my boots.
The very corridor were students were prohibited with severe warnings to not loiter around after school hours. The one I was lounging in.
The cold wall behind me served as a comfort for my spine and whole of back with my legs lazily crossed by the front as I sat, more like half laid. A tab that I occasionally leer over, forgotten beside for more than fifteen minutes now as an angry Electro blared from the lone stuck headphone.
In short if anyone were to see me now, they could mistake me for death or a psycho with all due respect and I won't even as much as scowl at the remark.
But I did frown, grunted and grumbled some undigested words to myself from the very nick of the second when he started acting the way he did, like-like the way he shouldn't.
Not a moment was I Ieft alone. Minus the bathroom and my room. By the way he regarded my every move and the breath I took from far or near told me he just needed an invite even as to do so. Alex was a mystery when he refused to do anything, by anything I mean going as far as to permanently rest his facial features under a sculpted mask made of iron, but now when he actually used them, he became more of a mystery. The worst of a kind.
Not just to me, but to the whole of academy.
It took one boy, one day and one smile to set the school on frenzy. He was trending, and so was the picture of him with the gorgeously breathtaking curve of positively smiling lips at me.
The attention was too much on me, more then what Ian told me to go for. Stay low.
But what that happened isn't exactly that one would call being ambiguous.
Surprisingly to see our face, my face plastered over the mobile screens of every baffled, confused and oddly gawking students with hostile glares failed to make me anxious like before. Instead I found myself rubbing my temple with the index. Soothing the low tread of headache before i decided once and for all.
By evening I had the smoothly running surveillance of the Academy's honorary block, Elite's hallway and café de Flore's present status at my service. Hence the tabs on my tablet kept me updated.
Two hours of victory, the time lapse since my last encounter with Alex when i had dressed up as a thief and sneaked out of my own dorm high on my toes. Only to see him round the hallway with a bottle of water and stony scowl on his face. The creasses of disturbed essence that all three of us carried since we left the principal's office.
A problem to ponder upon later. A theoretical practice that starts in a week. A main cast who looks like they would rather strangle each others neck even before the real action of play begins.
Outside the cabin is when both Edmund and Alex fixed an extremely unfriendly glare at each other, it involved clenched jaws, icy daggers and fisted palms. And a pinch of ignore the girl in between till they saw it fit to part.
I breathed a sigh of relief to see them both disappear across either corridor. A happiness which was butchered short when Alex mightily barged into the next class, a little late. A little cold. A little like himself. but still there. In my class.
Long story short, he leered at the device in my hand. A flick of recognition swirled on air as he narrowed his gaze, with wide eyes I cursed my stars though I don't believe a micron in zodiacs.
Do the people actually think that the humongous ball of toxic gases in space plots and aligns in a strategy to fu-k up your life?
Excuse my language. But right then I needed someone to blame and so the ball of gas be it.
With that I took on running, and him following my footsteps. Only if he had followed the human resources class so religiously.
I hear him scream my name to stop, it drowned with my own panting and wheezing. After a while he gave up, probably aware that he had no choice, not when I have a complete package of escape Alexander mission under my grasp.
And the rest of it is history.
A sanctuary of peace and -
Clinck.
I assumed that real soon didn't i?
Plucking the ear plug out, I sit up rigid.
Clank.
"Who's there?" The low rumble of footsteps causes a sharp enquiring question to echo, my voice bounces the walls of the empty hallway.
I don't expect an answer, probably because my conscience believed that who ever it was probably would like to play some mind games with me before revealing their entire self. Like everyone did till now.
But to my surprise the calculative clinks of heels never stopped or ceased, not until it grew louder along with the silhouette of a girl. My eyes stayed stoic over her persona even after her body draped itself with the shades of light. The face of the red head, who I had named chilli in the past for my own sake of amusement stood there, looking like she cared less about anything else as she stared over the glowing night sky.
"Scarlet" I whisper to myself, testing her name that I remember from the time Alex mentioned about her in the terrace. When he had given her the ultimatum to stay away from me. She did obeyed his wishes solemnly, but it doesn't mean I wasn't the subject of her glares or vengeful imaginations.
Since I was a pro to such scenarios, I got used them faster than the light that strikes before thunder does.
Past apart, something about her presence here screams that she's here to lull her facts in different diversion rather than making me feel pathetic about my existence.
"It'd be a lie to say I wasn't surprised to see Alex the way he was today" her soft words swiftly traveled the space between us like breeze as she absentmindedly stared out with her arms crossed across her chest, the index of her left caressing her bare arm, coiling like a snake, then flitting back.
I don't answer as I squint my gaze, sniffing in a cold breath as I tilt my head to watch the sky that for some reason now held a certain gingers subaqueous interest.
"How was it to be the reason behind his smile?" I close my eyes letting my head fall back, letting the wall play the comfort of a cushion.
"I dread it. Anything that has to do with him" I admit with an honesty that only came out as the result of the tiredness, a fatigue that I was drunk in. Lies, betrayal, death and enigma. What else left for a person to latch on to. So that they won't change.
I don't.
I don't have anything to loose.
As for sanity? Was there any?
I am drawn back by the hiss of her chuckle, breathy. Void and dark.
"Smarter then everyone gives you credit for" I feel her eyes on me, but I don't give her the satisfaction to see me frown at the slightest. Pulling my legs closer I bent my knees resting the right arm over them, my watch glistens, the one that was parceled to me by Ian. A tracker inbuilt. A leash.
"Sober then the crazy I took you for" I retort smirking as she clicks her tongue.
"That day in washroom_" she pauses, slurping the words inside gracefully. Waiting for me to react or possibly shift with embarrassment. A flick of shame. A touch of fear.
When her scrutinizing gaze meet a perfectly raised indifferent eyebrows of mine, a slight frown crowns her forehead.
"Your scars. They reminded me of someone else. Someone who used to be my strength." Licking my lips I fix my eyes on hers, indicating that she has my full attention.
"It reminded me of Alex"
I hated it, the way my insides melted and wildly flipped. Warmth spreads, it trekked through my veins.
"What possible scars could a rich, pampered boy could bore? Is that what you are thinking?" she smirks as I grit my teeth, the annoyance visible as she kept beating around the bush.
"I don't have time or patience for your rhetoric statements" I snap timidly as she shakes her head, the thick red hair making a halo, falling till her waist and that's when I actually see how beautiful she was. A perfection so evil.
Her aura tonight was new. It was the stance of a person who knows. Knows things that others don't. A superiority.
The one I started to embrace since yesterday.
"Why do you think he got his shoulder inked?" As if on a sly voyage, my memories carries me to the day I first witnessed the lone wing of an angel while he changed with his back to me. After the accident.
The day he gave me my first taste of deception.
I never got to ask him about it. I was in no place to question about his story behind when I could never be able to share mine.
"That's how he decided to hide his imperfections. But his inner scars were deeper. So he built walls so no one look past it. Ice and anger." She declares proudly shifting as she walked towards me. Each step elegant and lazy like a cat until she crouched down, with one knee to the ground and other bent to support her elbows. Just like me.
"That is until you came into the picture" she spits maintaining a poisonous smile. I throw her a look of boredom at her obvious smell of jealously. But she grabs my chin under her cold grip, making me look at her.
With the free hand I coil my fingers upon her small wrist and pry it off.
"Don't you dare touch me. Ever" there must've been the steel of threat in my tone that caused her eyes to waver a friction of nervousness.
Even I should be scared of the outcome each hour that dawns on me has. I wasn't me. I wasn't losing myself anymore. I was already lost. Gone.
"I am here to warn you Elaine." She seethes "Trust me when I say that Alex lived in darkness way too long. He has seen blood and turned his back towards the one who begged for mercy. I've seen this world up close, they value money over lives. Lust over love. Sin over innocence." Like a gush of water over sponge I absorbed each analysis of hers. As much as I could with a face so cold, it even cemented my heart beat for a second.
To know she just wasn't tormenting me with the knowledge of his world. To know the I belong in them. With them.
"Why now? Why the warning?" I breath, letting the act carry out the weight from my chest. Futile.
At my query her lips quirks, a naughty and diligent glint in her eyes. She sees it, the way her revelation effected me. But she doesn't know just how complicated it was. What a sensitive crux it holds in my life. That I can't run away from, Unlike my relationship with Alex.
"I saw the way he looks at you. Like you are the only source of light to his darkness, the one that he failed to escape. He thinks of you as the purest of angel. Like a moth to the flame he's drawn towards you." She stops to smile like she's reminded of some sensitive memory "I don't see the Alex who could shred the deepest secrets of a person with just a stare so cold. Instead I see a boy In abysmal love who can't see through the sweet girls innocent lies"
My heart rate picks up in a strategic manner. The sweat gathered over my palms were enough to alert me of this girl.
She was just not the girl who bullied me in the past. Just not the one who Withered an apology, succumbing to the demands of Alex. And sure as not the one who was dumb.
Instead her demeanor scaled of careful observation. A girl who calls him Alex, the name he prefers only the people close to, call him by. The girl who has read me in the most raw and crucial tenor.
"What do you mean by lies?" Meeting her firm gaze with my own, I pour the little ounce of nonchalance into my utterance.
The side of her lips rolls, as she chews them. Eyes running over my face in inspection.
"I don't know what is it about you that made you so special for the clique to notice you. Sweet and gullible. That's what I thought you were. That's what everyone thinks you are." She inspects her nude nail paint.
"But it's the day when I cornered you in washroom. The way your grey eyes diluted into black when I saw your skin. Your imperfections." Still her attention captured as she grazed the laminated coats as she spits the words. Her snarls would have made me flinch, but it didn't. Instead I lethargically inhale her scent, classic rose and vanilla. Too innocent for her.
"There was so much pain" my jaw ticks in mock as she strains. Fake."But there was something else that was terrifying, an anger so intense. A hate so dense"
My heart hammered contrary to the blank treatment I was giving her. I was a book, and she read me like a critique. And oddly I let her figure me out. Is this how it felt, to be bare and careless. If yes, then oh it felt good.
"At that moment I knew you were everything else but what you tried to fool us with. And congratulations! You had us all fooled at some point, still are" she takes the tab, touching it to life before letting it fall back to the cushion of my lap.
All while a cunning smile playing across her face as she scanned my work. And that's when I had enough of her lunatic presence.
"What you are trying to prove exactly scarlet? Pitying me for what you did?" I growl clipped and irritated. But not the least intimidated. Probably the emotion that she wished to extract out of me.
"Oh don't be such a prude. I am not helping you or warning you in any sense. It's Alex I am worried about. He doesn't realize the fire you are, he can't see what I can. While you blame him of annihilation, I can see what ever you are hiding Is far worse. You have seen worse. But I see the promise in your eyes. You are equally destructive. The one thing Alex hates the most is being lied, as ironic as it sounds. lies had hurt him the most in past, and when he's hurt, he destroys himself and with him the the cause."
I suck in a ragged, tortured breath silently blinking. Scarlet closes her eyes smiling, as if inhaling and bathing in my uncertainty. My guard crumbling, yet so strong.
"What do y_"
" Leave him." She snaps her ice open. Her voice hesitant yet determined. Suddenly desperate. I frown as she scowled angrily. She was fuming by now. Maybe my indifference ticked her way too much then I expected.
"Go date someone who is your match. Someone like the new barista in school, they say he's hot. Perhaps naive enough to not see pass through your facades. Or the foreign exchange artificial preppy students from those wanna be private schools who are here for a months advanced learning. Someone of your status." She eyes me with disgust, her composed posture now exploded. Her emotions all over the place. And to my dismay I actually enjoyed seeing her like this. Miserable and tortured.
"You may be a fox, but no match for a wolf" she hisses getting on her feet, a lucid gust of air kisses my skin at her shift. I smile watching her frown down at me.
And that's when I decided to add a twinge of fuel towards her burning passion to haunt me.
"Not a wolf. I am a fox? If so, you should be aware of the weapon I carry. Manipulation." Her small fist curls to the side, the light outside much more prominent as the night grows.
she opens and closes her mouth to form a retort. But I beat her to it.
"How do you know so much about him? Alexander" She answers me with silence. I tug at my hoodie, freeing my face of any hideous aspect. Presenting my curiosity.
Shocked at my blant actions she takes a step back. Her eyes cascading to the side. Back-forth until it rests at me again.
"He could have gotten rid of me that day. When I_ I bullied you. But he lets me off with just a warning. He can crush the future of any student under his foot and no one would question him. But he, would never do that to me." She runs a hand over her perfectly styled curls as she takes a countable steps to leave. But halts, titling her head to look at the floor beside. "And that's all you need to know. For now"
And then I sat there till the footsteps faded. My eyes fluttered closed as I repeat the entirety of our conversation. All sorts of wrong emotions nipping my heart. I spent an hour more till I couldn't stop the hunger from consuming me.
The primitive human urge to eat something helped me tune off the chaos for a while. Sneaking out again from the building I found my feet, and hunger direct me in the direction of cafeteria.
The door slides open like usual, but it's the light decor that I first hand witnessed after ignoring the dinner here for one consecutive month has me impressed. Large modern chandelier that slept in day smugly glowed in night. The chatters and aroma of sizzling hot chocolate and coffee beans teased my nostrils.
In short this cafeteria at night was better then the A- lister one of the town I lived in.
I spot few students in varied uniform. Red blazer, grey pants and skirts. The exchange students. I recall. The buzz since morning that they arrive tonight. A charity disguised as generosity for twenty or so students. That's what the academy thinks of them.
They were shy and nervous, so out of place, sticking out like sour thumbs. Like me, I thought as I adjusted my hoodie back.
The girls of the Academy were dressed in cloths that could put the price tag of whole of macy's combined to shame and they did the pretty good job of making the few girls in corner insecure about their uniforms with just their eyes.
so familiar. But just how much of it had I brushed it off as nothing. Was I that used to them?
The guys were another story, some had already appointed the young boys as their waiters as they rushed on to the designated tables with tray full of food. Testing their victims limits, waiting for them to fall or stumble, embarrass themselves in any way as they chuckled and laughed.
"Don't"
The kid with blonde thick curls stops at my command. Inside I was shivering, but out? I couldn't let his pure young mind get jeopardized, mere for the sake of dead humanities entertainment.
"You said something?" he wrinkles his freckled nose, hoisting the boxes in tray up as they threatened to detower, closing up to his neck as he watched me through his golden rimmed glasses.
"Don't do it" I said my gaze flicking low to the edibles that he hugged closely as I followed the line of vision to the table were few jocks and boderlined so called badboys of the Academy sat, their features screwed in animosity as I conversed with the kid.
The blonde lad gulps as he eyes them decently before turning to me, reluctantly giving me a once over.
I wanted to roll my eyes at that. It was the judgement, as he calculated and weighed whose command would cost him more.
"Hey geek, the girl is even low for someone as you. Stop hitting and carry on with the task" it took ever ounce of my feeble nerves to not crack under the mirth that resonated from someone that hollered from the ascertain table.
It died, the jocks laughter faintly by the passing second when no one, not a single soul joined him. Contrary to it all heads watched him with looks of sympathy and horror. As if he committed a sin.
I frown when his bulky friend grabbed his arm in an alarming attention.
"I am sorry, but I don't think I should be listening to y_"
"Do as she says" the squeaks of the blonde stirs off as he staggers slightly at the sound of such dominating authority that spreads over the hall which had now acquired a morbid silence. A silence so thick that it was sick.
And to know who it was behind my back made it ten times worse.
I wasn't afraid of anything. Even death lost it fervor the day I wanted it to embrace me into its nothingness, the day I resorted to my first cut. But falling in love with him again is a catastrophic thought.
I feel him walk to us, take steps that he knows will be devilishly scary towards who ever it bought him near to. when he's beside me, I circle my arms around, hugging myself tight as I lower my eyes to the ground.
The cold heat that ignites were our arm lightly brushes, causing me to shudder inwardly.
From the corner I watch him grab the tray from his hands, the shivering clutch of the boy looses instantly.
I jump when he drops it to the floor, the crash causing the contents to spill and twirl on floor.
When I lift my sight, my conscience shakes it's head in amusement. At the cowardice my body replicated contrary to what I felt a meanwhile ago with scarlet.
What is it with Alex that my guard crumbles? My bravery evaporates and all I want to do is present the actual vulnerability in me to him?
What could I possibly expect from a boy who now looked like he was plotting a gruesome murder as his eyes locked with the particular jock like a predator?
It was hollow. His eyes like the most beautiful gem but just a precious stone with no emotion. Like he was reincarnated, shaped and made by the devil himself.
No mercy
How cold are you?
Destroys himself and with him the cause.
What made you this way?
And when he took a step forward, in a reflex I place my hand on his arm, the touch felt scorchingly hot even through the layer of his shirt.
As if realizing it for the initial time he looks at me, it must've been the perplexed and weariness painted on my face that he thought of as humiliation or embarrassment as his eyes softens. Hoods over in apology and closes for a brief second in an act of self control.
He was considering, he stopped from what ever he was about to do. Was it me?
Will he do that when he knows I lied to him so much?
Will he nod at me like he's doing now, indicating that he's okay. That He understands?
But the distressing way I assessed him now made me antsy, to wonder of a day if I will be able to understand him. Forgive him. Mend him.
No.
I turn away from those gentle eyes, searching for a home in mine. A gaze so powerful yet the genuine desperation in them.
The students comically part as I trudge in the lane that'd lead me to the cafes counter, I could sense him tail on behind me.
Thinning my lips I press my waist across the edge of the island as the murmur buzzes around, Alex rings the bell for me. His palms dabbing over the fancy metal alarm to catch the attention of the new much talked about since morning barista who had his back to us. I grab a bottle of water from the vending nearby.
His broad chef suit clad shoulders goes stiff, for some reason his posture slouches as if he's yawning. And with ever so unprofessionally deprecate attitude he turns.
I choked on the sip of water when his face comes into view. In his tall glory, ever present black rimmed glass and wide mouthful fake grin was the one who I would perceive anywhere.
"How may I help you little one?" Aiden cooed as i coughed in a manner that broke all the protocol of a fine lady's etiquette.
A hand concernedly patted my back as the grin of the so called barista glowed at my struggles.
"I assume you are surprised to see me here in the place of Mr. Danilles. The most celebrated Ex-Barista of stuarts Academy. But I am here to make sure you little one's don't miss on much" he accelerated an italian accent that I never knew he had. With a bewildered saucers for eyes I watch him as he paced till he was in front of us, both the hands clasps, with a counter in between in which he placed them competently.
"When I am not here I serve at the lavish Elites lounge. Were I concern my sole concentration on safety of lovely students like yours regarding their diet and health in general. So now, what is it that you'll like?" I gawk at the end of his speech, a whole minute seem to pass before I felt someone on my right wizz past in the line.
"she'll like the usual. Caramel Macchiato with honey instead of sugar" in a speed of light I snap my neck towards the girl who held the the voice so familiar. The red uniform like the rest new exchanges was adorned by the girl whose blonde hair use to remind me of sun and persona of a con artist.
Narrowing my eyes I glower at her, a disbelieving sigh escaping my lips as she smirks at me while elegantly twirling a strand of her hair as she conceitedly chewed on a gum.
And when she opened her mouth again I wasn't sure as what to make of my life anymore.
"Me extrãnas amigo?"
To hear her ask if I missed her in the most nutured spanish accent had me weak on my knees. Not because it was sexy, but I was losing my rationality by the second.
But I hold on to the little bit of it as I face Alex, who stood by my left, silently talking this all in. The guy who no doubt was anyhow involved in matters as such. I mustur up the most menacing look of the century that a seventeen year old girl can pull off.
He regarded my baffled reaction with stiffled smile. Amused, that's he was.
But instead of giving him the satisfaction of the one expected question by his side. I blurt out an entirely divergent subject.
"I am not choking to death anymore" I state as his brows furrows down immediately while mine raises threateningly.
"You can take your hands off my waist. Now"
***