Loving You In the Dark

Chapter 10 - Too Dark

My shoulders throbbed, my arms, abdomens, and leg muscles still had a lingering ache that refused to disappear despite my efforts. I used every bit of strength I had to rise from the pool.

Practice had been even more intense, with championships running around the corner, so Coach Chang made us do 4 x 100 medleys, with timed 25 meter freestyles until each and every one of us on the team got lower than 15 seconds. He even incorporated using weight lifting to train us outside the water, putting even more stress on our already-sore muscles. For a 2-hour session, I had never got out of the water so tired.

"Hey, Sebastian, you still haven't told us who's the lucky girlfriend," Pierce, one of the members of the swim team, asks as we approach the changing rooms. Other guys crowd around me and him, bombarding me with stupid questions like: 'is she wild in bed?' 'Does she like it rough' 'is she dominant?'

They kept pointing to the hickeys and bite marks I acquired from Samuel, treating it as if I had just won a prize, glorious to man. 

In truth, my mom refused to make me skip swimming without a valid reason, and she had thrown my one-piece swimsuits (that at least would've hidden the spots on my chest, and the hickeys on my neck) into the laundry without me knowing. On the day where I desperately needed my dirty pile of swimwear, had to be the day my mom decided to be generous enough to put my clothes in the laundry. I let out a disappointed sigh, heavy with regret.

The moment I stepped out of the changing rooms, clutching my throat with my hands and desperately covering my skin, I could feel their heated stares. Even Coach Chang made a remark saying, "Looks like Sebastian had a rather busy night?" Every guy laughed, and most girls gaped with open mouths. I glared at everyone with furrowed eyebrows and a frown.

"Wait," Ezekiel says dramatically, putting a hand up in my face and the others. "Was it Quincy Ha? You know that girl-"

"No! That's crazy! I don't even think of her like that," I say in response. People always assumed Quincy was my secret girlfriend because me and Samuel hung out a lot with her, or rather she hung out with us a lot.

"Damn, you really broke Victoria's heart," Pierce says. "You know she really liked you," he adds on with a proud smirk on his face, flexing his lat spread on the first mirror he sees. I don't want to dishearten him, but it really just looks like he has giant bat wings protruding out of his back.

"Yeah, I bet you're happy, you can finally get Victoria. You're welcome," I responded, knowing fully well how much Victoria, another girl on my swim team that qualified for the championships, sort-of had a crush on me. She was horribly awful at hiding it; blushing when I was literally 10 feet trying to frantically get away from her vision, and her friends did her no justice because they would always expose her crush on me themselves.

After everyone delved into the new conversation of a girl in Ezekiel's class becoming impregnated, I slid on my shirt hastily, trying my best to ignore the ache of my arms whenever I lifted them up, and then my navy blue jeans next.

With my jacket tugged on my body, I adjusted my black hat as I waved goodbye to my teammates and carried my gym bag with me.

Ever since my father had taken an afternoon shift in his job, I had to take the bus to return home from the pool. Which I didn't mind because, looking from all other perspectives, I didn't look like I held any valuables with me, and these streets weren't known for violence. But just in case, I kept a pocket knife tucked in the pocket of my jeans; it had been given by my dad and I knew very well how to use it.

My hands fumbled for my phone, smiling to myself as I dialed in Samuel's number. I had an idea of just recording his voice to avoid the problematic system to calling, when I could just have a portable Samuel voice-recorder I could bring and listen to whenever I wanted. 

I glanced up at the night sky, consumed with eerily dark blue and splattered with tiny stars, twinkling white.

A sudden shudder ran through my spine, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up. My eyes searched my surroundings, as my fingers caressed the smooth, but sharp blade of my knife.

I had seen a black figure run through the trees around the rather-empty plaza, in my peripheral vision. I was certain and sure I had not imagined it, but it was there.

Everyone who told me about self-defense, always reminded me about one thing: never to panic in a situation like this. Over and over again.

But it was as if all control had fallen away from my grasp; I stood on the ground with my feet glued, defiant to move. My heart pounded inside my ears and refused to stop, not even when I could feel my heartbeat in my fingertips, reverberating through my whole body. Yet, I couldn't move; a sense of dizziness struck me while being accompanied by the lighthead throb of my skull. What would I do? What should I do? What can I do?

A finger ever so slightly touched the fabric of my jacket, and the finger's owner was met with my pocket knife threatening to slice his neck.

"Hey! What are you-?" He muttered, his hands behind his head and face pale with shock.

My eyes ran over his features, putting my small knife back into my pocket once I realized he wasn't wearing a black jacket, black pants or looked like someone suspiciously stalking another.

"Shit, I'm sorry. It's just, I thought I saw someone kinda odd and creepy, y'know? And I thought it was you so... you get the point? Also, are you okay?" I blabbered on, apologetically feeling bad for possibly almost endangering an innocent person's life.

"Yeah, I guess I'm alright. But I almost shit my pants," He half-heartedly chuckled, probably still regaining his composure. He handed me a piece of brown leather, with patterns engraved on it. I recognized it almost immediately as my wallet.

"Uhm," he cleared his throat. "I saw it fall off, and I just wanted to return it to you,"

A smile beamed off my face, extremely grateful for this random stranger to do such a great thing and almost put his life at risk. "Thank you; if you didn't come I never would have realized. I'm so sorry I... did that," I say awkwardly.

He puts his hand out; his fingers long, and his palms slightly chalky. "It's alright. I never caught your name?" He says, flashing me a pair of eyes of brown hues. I can't clearly see his face in the moonlight unfortunately, but I can pick up the prominent details, like his hairstyle and the shape of his face.

I take his hand, curling my fingers along with his. "Sebastian,"

I see a slight grin shine in the dark, "I'm Isaiah. Hope we meet again,"