Shattered Pieces

Chapter Two

A Blast From The Past

"Harry?" The question slipped out softly.
  "Alessa? You alright? You look faint." Danielle whispered. 
  I shook my head as I pressed a hand to my cheek. It felt cold, like all the blood there had gone. Careful not to smudge my makeup, I cupped my face in my hands. My hair hung in a curtain around my face. Disbelief filled my head as I replayed his name in my head.
  He wasn't my Harry. No, 'course not. How many Harry Marshal's could there be in California who just happen to my my age and look exactly like I remember mine to be? Thousands, right? He wasn't, couldn't be.
  This conversation is not really helping. 
  I raised my head to look at him again. I was shocked to find that he was looking directly at me. The familiarity of those hazel eyes coated my brain with a fuzzy numbness. I dropped my gaze again.
  Oh, yeah. That's definitely the Harris Marshal, my Harry.
  This was mental. I felt my whole body shudder. It felt like a ghost from my past was here to haunt me. Except in the form of a hunky hazel-eyed, American accented male with the body even Greek gods had yearned for.
  A lingering hint of disbelief raised my gaze to his again. This time to the small white scar at the corner of his lip. I near dropped from my seat. Anxious thoughts assaulted me.
  Oh god, it really really really was him. I'd know that scar from miles away. I was the one who gave it to him, after all.
  "Miss Castrelle," Ms Dodders' loud voice broke through the thick wall of my thoughts. Her eyes were narrowed, like she'd been trying to get my attention for quite a while. A few quiet snickers from Marlene Snider confirmed that thought.
"Miss Castrelle, please raise your hand."
My hand shot up with out any thought. "Here," I blurted out. My voice was quaking, my anxiety coming through.
Danielle knocked her foot on the leg of my chair. Concern welled in her words, "Alessa, Alessandra. Seriously, are you okay?"
I barely heard her. I was too focused on his warm gaze on me, soft almost.
  Ms Dodders turned to him, saying, "Please take a seat by Miss Castrelle, the girl raising her hand. Pay attention when I'm teaching."
  All for more than just a second, he seemed stuck there. A flash of uncertainty flickered in his gaze. He assessed me with his eyes, looking me up and down.
  He started walking towards me in quick, deft movements.
  How was it that a man his size can still seem graceful? Was there a limit to his perfection? How much has he changed?
  I realised I was looking at him for far too long. I busied myself by taking out all of my notes and looking at Ms Dodders' lesson like it would one day save my life in an apocalypse.
  The very essence of my being prickled as I felt the heat of his body just a mere few inches away. My heartbeat spiked.

Before I go on, let me guess what everyone is thinking.
Your theory: He's an old boyfriend that I had lost contact with when he was in America. I'm still desperately in love his him. I'm ecstatic and nervous about him being here but still want to get back together with him. I've got the butterflies in my belly and pin pricks because I'm excited.
Well, you're wrong. Reality is far more, well, realistic.

Harris Marshal. You guys are right about several things: I am nervous, I did know him once and I technically did lose contact with him, though I never actually spoke to him. He was an old friend, if I would actually go far as to call our relationship a friendship. Acquaintances was a better way to describe us.
He was a childhood memory, something I thought would stay as such. But fate has another plan in mind, it seemed.

My nervousness was on overdrive. He knew my secrets, secrets I couldn't bear to share with anyone. It hadn't been a choice to share them with him back then when I did. We were children, we didn't know much about how life could stab you right where it hurts.
He was looking at me, wasn't he? I could practically feel the burning heat of him staring into my soul, setting everything in me off on chaos mode. Ok, maybe not that dramatic but close. I looked away from the chalkboard to him and immediately back.
Yes, he was most definitely looking at me.
He wasn't even bothering much to hide it. He was openly staring, the level of creepiness bordering on stalker.
I licked my lipstick caked lips, the waxy feel of it on my lips made me curl my lip a little.

The lesson floated by in a daze. I barely remember what Ms Dodders taught us. Apparently, I finished the quiz without a single memory of doing so.
I leapt for relief when the bell rung. I haphazardly dumped my notes into my bag without grand decree and made a beeline for the door.
The feel of a warm hand brushing my arm made me pause and gasp again. My feet stumbled slightly before righting themselves.
I raced to the loo in a hurry. My fingers pressed to the lock, putting it in place. It stunk, let me just say that. I didn't care to notice.
I paced the dirty tiles and wrung my hands till they chafed. The familiar, yet foreign feeling of bile climbing up my throat made me choke.
After the feeling had went away and I'd settled slightly, I gripped the edges of the sink and concentrated on my breaths.
I hushed the thoughts in my head and washed my face, cussing when I noticed that my makeup was running. I reapplied it with the emergency makeup kit I kept in my bag. I looked at my reflection and stroked the brush against my skin harder. The coating was thick. I always had it on thick, it hid what I needed to hide.
I used the hand sanitiser keychain on the zipper of my bag to cleanse my hands, keeping through my routine.

1. Take 3 squirts into my palm. One, two, three.
2. Rub my palms together for fifteen seconds until the hand sanitiser had been used up.
3. Take another squirt.
4. Rub it into each finger.
5. Take another squirt.
6. Clean beneath each nail and the backs of each hand.

I exited the loo and walked to the canteen. I was halfway across the room when I saw them.
Teresa and Danielle were at Ajax's table. Teresa was practically on his lap with a love struck look in her eyes and Ajax leaning into her with the same look in his. Danielle looked to be flirting with Marx Lennon, Ajax's cousin. But that was not the sight that put me to a stop in my tracks.
Harris was staring at me again. His eyes changed colours every now and then as hazel eyes did. His eyes were now a deep forest green, ever so captivating.
Andra.
I shivered at the word. Ridiculous, I though, he's staring at you because he's remembering what a freak you were. You were such a mental case, an obsessive and germaphobic nutcase.
I wanted to looked down and just walk away. But then Danielle called my name.
"Alessa! Over here!"
Danielle was waving her arms wildly and beckoned me over. Dammit, Dani, of all days.
Teresa broke her love spell staring competition with Ajax to smile at me. "Ajax, this is Alessa, my friend. Alessa, you know Ajax," she introduced us.
"Nice to meet you, Alessa," he greeted. He was definitely quite the looker.
Then I noticed. He was the bad boy, the guy who had a smirk on his pretty face wherever he went, probably even when he slept too. But, then, he was looking at me with a soft look in his eyes. A look of sympathy.
Then I remembered. Teresa had said that Harris was a friend of Ajax's. He had told Ajax about me. The bad thoughts came again.

He feels sorry for you. He thinks you're a nutcase too. You belong in an asylum, a madhouse, in a straitjacket. You're an idiot, you don't belong here. You're a freak.

I bolted. I couldn't hold it back. Seeing Harris again had been stressful enough, hearing those thoughts again was a huge blow. But the look, the look of pity, in Ajax's, the supposedly unfeeling bad boy, eyes was the breaking point.
I burst out of the canteen's back door. The clear air made me choke. I was hyperventilating, sharp short breaths come out quicker with each passing second.
I collapsed at the base of a tree and curled up into a foetal position.
"Andra? Andra."

Oh dear god, why?