Till Forever is Ours

06.

THAT NIGHT I DREAMED THAT IT WAS VERY dark, and the dim light there seemed to be radiating from Yelena's skin. I couldn't see her face, just her back as she walked away from me, leaving me in the blackness. No matter how fast I ran, I couldn't catch up with her; no matter how loudly I called, she never turned.

Troubled, I woke in the middle of the night and couldn't sleep again for what seemed like a very long time. After that, she was in my dreams nearly every night, but always on the periphery, never within reach. The month that followed the accident was uneasy, tense, and, at first, embarrassing.

To my dismay, I found myself the center of attention for the rest of that week. Michelle Jones Watson was impossible, following me around, obsessed with making amends to me somehow. I tried to convince her what I wanted more than anything else was for her to forget all about it— especially since nothing had actually happened to me— but she remained insistent. She followed me between classes and sat at our now-crowded lunch table. Billy and Peter were even less friendly towards her than they were to each other, which made me worry that I'd gained another unwelcome fan.

No one seemed concerned about Yelena, though I explained over and over that she was the hero— how she had pulled me out of the way and had nearly been crushed, too. I tried to be convincing. America, Billy, Peter, and everyone else always commented that they hadn't even seen her there till the van was pulled away.

I wondered to myself why no one else had seen her standing so far away, before she was suddenly, impossibly saving my life. With chagrin, I realized the probable cause— no one else was aware of Yelena as I always was. No one else watched her the way I did. How pitiful.

Yelena was never surrounded by crowds of curious bystanders eager for her firsthand account. People avoided her as usual. The Shostakov family sat at the same table as always, not eating, talking only among themselves. None of them, especially Yelena, glanced my way anymore.

When she sat next to me in class, as far from me as the table would allow, she seemed totally unaware of my presence. Only now and then, when her fists would suddenly ball up— skin stretched even whiter over the bones— did I wonder if she wasn't quite as oblivious as she appeared.

She wished she hadn't pulled me from the path of Michelle's van— there was no other conclusion I could come to. I wanted very much to talk to her, and the day after the accident I tried. The last time I'd seen her, outside the ER, we'd both been so furious. I still was angry that she wouldn't trust me with the truth, even though I was keeping my part of the bargain flawlessly. But she had in fact saved my life, no matter how she'd done it. And, overnight, the heat of my anger faded into awed gratitude.

She was already seated when I got to Biology, looking straight ahead. I sat down, expecting her to turn toward me. She showed no sign that she realized I was there.

"Hello, Yelena," I said pleasantly, to show her I was going to behave myself.

She turned her head a fraction toward me without meeting my gaze, nodded once, and then looked the other way. And that was the last contact I'd had with her, though she was there, a foot away from me, every day. I watched her sometimes, unable to stop myself— from a distance, though, in the cafeteria or parking lot. I watched as her three colored eyes grew darker day by day. But in class I gave no more notice that she existed than she showed towards me. I was miserable. And the dreams continued.

Despite my outright lies, the tenor of my e-mails alerted Eleanor to my depression, and she called a few times, worried. I tried to convince her it was just the weather that had me down.

Billy, at least, was pleased by the obvious coolness between me and my lab partner. I could see he'd been worried that Yelena's daring rescue might have impressed me, and he was relieved that it seemed to have opposite effect. He grew more confident, sitting on the edge of my table to talk before Biology class started, ignoring Yelena as completely as she she ignored us.