Midnight Kisses| ✓

Chapter 10

I hate that I miss you so much Emily

Mr Weinberger is inconspicuously absent which never happens. He is always here. I half suspect he actually lives in the school compound when everybody has gone home. He's like the Keykeeper, having awesome adventures, when the class balckboards and the vendine mahcnes come alive at night.

"Why are you eating in the cleaning closet?" Novahk says flopping down to sit down next to me.

"Are you stalking me?" I ask in between my turkey sandwich. He smiles and my stomach flips on itself. Somebody should tell the boy to stop smiling like that, like he just turned on a spotlight on you.

"Maybe." Caleb Harris is in my class. He probably told Novahk what happened in the class. But that makes no sense. Why would he come looking for me either ways?

"Are you here because of what happened in chemistry class."

"What happened in Chemistry class?" He looks genuinely surprised. Either is a very liar, though I can practically see every line on his face. He has laugh lines at the corners of his eyes and the light coming from the windows makes his eyes murky and swirling.

And then I notice his legs. He and I are Leg. To. Leg and you just don't ignore that. Not when I can practically feel the heat coming off him and he smells good too. Like shampoo and something fresh.

"Brad Hampton and Trisha Beckeley broke up."

"Since when have you been keeping up with the school gossip?" He's pulls both his eyebrows up. He looks like he's ready to shoot with them. My mother who is an expert in classical dance had to do movements just with her eyebrows sometimes, moving them up and down gracefully. She said to me once, it took a lot of years perfecting that technique, but Novahk does it impeccably.

"Since I got dragged into the tragic titled Hampton and his Mistress's sorrow. Mistress is Trisha by the way." He guffaws at that. I think he name is pretty lame, I was just trying to make a point but Novahk clutches his stomach and laughs like it's really funny or something.

Wow suddenly I am Miss Funnybones.

"Are you sneaking off tonight again?"

"'If you meant to see me you need not move in circles. Just ask. I will fly to your room in a heartbeat. Literally." The way he says heartbeat, it makes all the blood rush to my ear and my stomach does this weird knotty thing again. I thought that happened only when something bad happened but sitting here with Novahk is the farthest thing from bad. Maybe it's the smell.

"I didn't mean that." I mumble but Novahk smiles anyhow.

I want to ask him why? Why are you being so nice to me? I don't deserve your kindness. Why don't you pity me instead? That would help not thinking about you anymore.

But there's a part of me that fears if I ask him these questions he may wake up. Maybe he's doing that in a dreamlike that, maybe he's high and when I ask him he will remember and walk away. Or maybe it will be the disappointment that drives him away. Whatever it is, I don't want him to leave.

He helps me keep the demons a bay. They don't bother me much when I think of Novahk. They want the darkness inside me but Novahk, he's the light and they are all afraid of light. Maybe he should have been named Krishna instead. It would be an apt name for him.

"So are you going to tell me what you are doing in a closet?"

"It's not a closet."

"There are brooms and buckets behind us."

"It's practically a room," I argue. I defend Mr Weinberger . That guy cleans up after all our shit at school. He deserves some respect, at least a nice office.