Nora Key's Secrets

Chapter 2: To Blood

  Crimson was his favorite color. Maroon was his brother's.
  He liked the color of blood. His brother liked the color of wine.
  He was crimson and made from blood. His brother was maroon and made from wine. They were so alike yet somehow always a shade different. But it was his brother who had luck. His brother was the bastard of the family, made with wine and cheap cologne while he was the definition of perfection, the golden boy. And he knew how much his younger brother resented him.

  Looking around his classroom, he sighed heavily, mentally preparing himself for the onslaught of screams and shouts from his students. He had given them a pop quiz, and all the questions were trick questions. Not that he expected any of his students to notice, but he did expect them to start yelling when their time ran out.
  He scanned the room again, seeing some people doubled over in frustration and a few others gnawing on their pens or lips. And as usual, he lingered just a bit when Nora entered his field of vision. The girl had a heavy set crease in the middle of her forehead, continuously chewing the insides of her cheeks. Switching from one cheek to the other every three or five beats. He noticed her fingernails, which were the same color of wine that his brother had downed the last time they saw each other, and even though the nail polish was chipped and faded they still managed to capture one's attention.
  Or, maybe just his attention.
  When he realized that he had been staring, he tried to blink away the sudden flush of embarrassment that enveloped him, fixing his glasses and inhaling sharply.
  The bell rang and some students screamed while others glared at him hatefully. These were the rare days in which girls didn't like him, and if asked, were his favorite days. He smiled in mock sympathy at them before turning to his desk and piling his things, shoving them into his backpack. As he struggled with the zip, he heard someone clear their throat behind him.
  Sighing, he whipped around; expecting a confused or angry student. But instead he got caught in Nora Key's deep sea eyes. And all of a sudden, he was reminded of when he was 16 and going through his rebellious phase. He had crawled out his window, scraped his hand, and snuck out with his father's car. All to spend a night under the stars with a girl. They had parked in a meadow near the woods, and had climbed on top of the car. With her head nuzzling into the crook of his neck, her body was pressed to his. His arm hugged her waist, caressing her as they gazed at dead stars and wondered where he'd be ten years from now. It was 2 in the morning and the spring air had nipped his fingers.
  Everything about that night was beautiful. It all felt like a dream. That was how he felt when he locked eyes with Nora Key.
  "What can I help you with, Ms. Key?" He asked tiredly, even though he was anything but tired inside.
  Nora straightened her back. "It's just Nora." She replied coldly.
  "Oh- uh, of course." He stammered, taken aback from her tone.
  "I'd like to know one thing, Mr-"
  "Just call me Silas."
  She stared coldly at him. "Like the madman from Stonehearst Asylum?" She retorted, unamused with his attempt to be nice.
  Silas didn't respond. He had no idea who that was.
  "Well, Mr. Reed, what I'd like to know is why were all the questions trick questions?"
  He swallowed dryly, contemplating whether to tell her or not. "I just wanted to see who would notice." He finally answered.
  Nora narrowed her eyes. "So, whoever noticed gets an A?"
  "No, more like whoever can answer the questions in a rhetorical sense, and or, question the question itself would be more likely to get a high score. B-But it has to make sense, of course."
  "Isn't that more philosophical than psychological?"
  "What? No no no no, it-it is psychological. In a way, I'm testing your ability to think outside of the box and look at things from a different perspective. If you weren't the one taking the test, you would've noticed sooner or later that they were trick questions. But since you are under pressure, your mind does the most logical thing and tries to connect the questions with fragments of your memory to try to create an answer but since they are trick questions you get confused and also because-" he stopped abruptly as he realized that he had started rambling. Nora looked almost bored to death. "That's it, really." He concluded.
  "Okay." She replied, turning around and walking out, leaving him in the dust.

_

  He was walking to his brother's classroom, not because he wanted to but because he was broke.
  He always hated Silas. The fucking Golden Boy had this thing about him- this sense of perfection that hovered over him like a trophy- that made him want to punch his face in.
  He didn't understand how they both managed to look like their father with the same long nose, black hair and wood brown almond eyes. He hated the drop of Chinese blood his father had. And he hated how it was passed down to him and his brother. God knows how much he would've liked to be born with his mother's sandy blonde hair, her strong jaw, her straight nose and her hazel eyes. So of course, he did the next best thing. He dyed his hair blond, but somehow, he ended up looking strange. The blondness of his hair disagreed with his white skin, the only characteristic his mother gave him (his half-brother was tan). But, he was determined to be as different from his half-brother as possible, so determined that he ended up shaving his head.
  As he strutted into the classroom, flashing a hot little brunette his signature smile, he scanned the room for Silas. He was caught off guard when he saw Nora Key walk up, when her blue eyes looked into his. For half-a-heartbeat, time slowed and he admired her. He admired her skin and those questionable faint little scars on her chin and cheek, her faded out hair, and the small crinkle in the middle of her forehead; the ghost of an angry frown. But then time resumed and she shoved past him. Breaking him out of his daze.
  "Loki? What are you doing here?" His brother's voice ricocheted off of the empty room's walls. He hated hearing his brother say his name. He hated anyone saying his real name. He was Logan and that was the name he intended on keeping.
  "Silly," he replied, using his brother's old nickname that has followed him around since elementary. "I need some cash."
  Silas' breath hitched. "What, why? How much do you need?"
  "700?" Logan replied, shrugging apologetically.
  His brother's face fell. "Why do you need so much?"
  "Reasons."
  Silas' shoulders drooped. "Alright, what did you do?"
  "That, my friend, is not for you to know." Logan smirked. His brother didn't need to know anything about him.
  Silas sighed. "I'll... tell dad. I haven't been paid yet." He pulled his backpack onto his shoulders, fixed his glasses, and looked at his younger brother, defeated. "I'll call you when the, uh, transaction's done."
  Logan nodded and turned on his heel, suddenly finding the empty classroom suffocating. There was always something about emptiness that seemed to choke him up inside. Though he'd never admit it, not to himself or anyone else, he's always been terrified of emptiness.