How His Gift Saved Me

The Missing Story

A/N: Just to be clear, this is the beginning of Liese’s story she's writing.  It is her story.  Note the main character in her story's name is Leigh Hayes, much like her own name Liese Haines.  In her story, she is writing about herself, but using an altered name for the character that embodies herself.  Also, there have been some comments, and I want to explain that this is supposed to seem immature in form.  Liese is an immature writer.  Just hang in until the end and it will all make sense!!!

 -Leigh-

"What the hell is this?" Tom asked.

My face turned beet red as my mortified expression only intensified.  I avoided connecting with his glaring gaze as he held a balled up dirty sock pinched between his forefinger and his thumb.

"You seriously need to clean out your backpack, Leigh.  Eww! What the..." he cried as he pulled his hand out of the bottom of my backpack which appeared to be covered in a crusty film of what could have been pretzels in another lifetime. God, just when I thought this couldn't get any worse. "Was it possible to die of humiliation?" I thought to myself.

My creative writing partner, Tom, was currently rummaging through my backpack on a mission.  Mrs. Welch’s creative writing elective class was partly what brought us together. We edited each other's work, so we talked through a lot of the personal essays we wrote.  He didn't technically need to be in the class, seeing as he was a "big bad senior" and I was just a junior, but he loved to write and so did I.

About why he was digging through my bag, I… I kind of… sort of… may have… lost his paper. Okay, okay, I did. I lost it. I put it in my backpack the day before, after our class.  The last thing I remembered was reading his essay and putting it into my red folder.  When we paired up to discuss our edits, it was gone.  Poof! Just like that.

You know that feeling you get the moment you realize you've totally and completely let someone down? Where your heart plummets into your stomach while your stomach simultaneously creeps up your throat, and you feel like vomiting? Yeah, that was how I felt that morning, only ten times worse. I bet you're thinking, "Why doesn't he just print a new copy?"  Ah, there's the rub. His paper was four pages handwritten. 

Before I handed my bag over to him I already looked through all my folders; I even retraced my steps to my other classes.  I stormed out of the class, running down the hallway to ask my other teachers if they'd seen it on the floor by my desk in their classes.  I hunted for that paper to no avail, all the while Tom sat silently in his chair.

His tanned arms were folded across the front of his blue v-neck, which clung to his muscled physique in a most flattering fashion.  His face wore an unusually serene expression, his thin lips neither forming a frown nor a smile.  Wisps of slightly curled tawny hair hid his eyes from my view.  I couldn’t read his expression, which was unusual for me.  I had a knack for seeing through people.  According to Tom, reading people was my gift.  I didn’t call it that, though. I was just overly observant, which was something I realized not many people do. 

But after my innumerable failed attempts to locate the missing story, Tom decided to take matters into his own hands.  He had composedly leaned across his desk, which was paired up front-to-front with mine.  He placed his hand on my shoulder, which caused me to immediately cease my frantic search through my bag.

I lifted my eyes to meet his gaze for the first time.  His eyes.  There was nothing special in their appearance.  They were a drably slate blue color and somewhat round in their shape.  Some may even say they sat a little too close to each other.  Despite their lackluster manifestation, Tom’s eyes did possess a distinct talent.  If my “gift” was reading people, then Tom’s “gift” was the subtle language he spoke using only his eyes.  The embarrassment and shame I felt for losing his paper was no more, as he peered into the depth of me.  He didn’t say a word.  I held his gaze as I absentmindedly felt down, picked up my bag, and handed it to him.  I felt my cheeks redden.  I knew should have cleaned out my backpack!  Only God knew what he’d to find in there.