The Forgotten

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

            Tony treaded through the woods, not paying attention to anything. He didn’t hear anything, not even the silence. Some part of him was disappointed that she wasn’t there today. He decided that he should sleep under his uncle’s roof tonight.

All day, he had been looking through news articles from previous years, looking for a name. A name he needed. Articles after article, he searched. And he found the name, or actually names, that were key to the answers he wanted. He would let his uncle know of his plans; surely, his uncle would support him. His uncle didn’t care what he did.

            Tony lay on his bed, blocking all provoking thoughts and images. It was at this state that he got the most rest. The rest of the time, he was fighting something in himself. He wondered what she was doing now. Cozied up in her room, worry free, probably. He didn’t know how long he could keep telling her that he was Isaiah. Knowing his real name, he thought, could lead her to knowing a little too much of a lead on who he was. That’s if she remembered and recognized him. He’d dreamt of her in the darkness, but only once, and it was her smile that brought a little light in the darkness. But the light was brief, but the effect lasted enough to give him note of what he would go back to when he came out of the dark. But it turned out the light was the reason for the darkness he found himself in. Suddenly, his time of rest was over. He was stressing again as the images came back. The clinging was so loud and piercing, though very distant. Tony turned, covering his face with the pillow, trying to block the sound. But while trying to block the sound, he was suffocating himself. Suffocation would be the sure way of ending the noise forever. When he felt himself loosing breathe, he released his clutch on the pillow and laid there, a little stupefied. Then he felt nothing and heard nothing. As suddenly as he started to get some rest, he started to hear the soothing hums from the dark and relaxed even more. He reached in his pocket and touched the bead, brought it out, and examined it. It was a purple crystal-like bead with a clean hole pierced into it. It was smooth in his hands. Somehow, that gave him comfort as he just distracted his mind with it.

            He’d falling asleep, thinking of that smile. It was the smile he always remembered because of how genuine it was. Veronica rarely smiled like that. He knew only one person whose smile could stop him right in his tracks. He’d seen the smile before. Pictures, maybe from his past. He was surprised how he couldn’t fill in the blanks until today. Most blanks at least. He wouldn’t hurt her; he only wanted to hurt the one who hurt him, no one else in the process. No one else unless they were in the way of his plans.

            Isaiah came into the library and brought in a bag of chips with him. He spotted her in the same place and position she was the day before. He took a seat next to her and dropped his back pack on the table. “Need any help?” he asked, looking into the brown eyes he’d just caught the attention of. She gave him a penetrating look as he’s just broken her focus. She didn’t want to make a comment as they both knew who the tutor was among them. “Hey” she blankly said, looking back down at her work.

He ate some chips and offered her some but she took the whole bag and put it in his back pack, taking one and eating it. “And you’re supposed to be the bad boy? I’m disappointed” She said, smiling to him in an almost challenging manner that caused him to raise a brow. She made him speechless as he didn’t expect this from her, especially in the way she looked at him. Isaiah only stared at her until she got uncomfortable enough to look away, back to her work. He wanted to know more about this girl in front of him. She was a mystery; he could tell.

“Anti-social much?” he asked her

She suddenly looked up at him, taken aback by his statement. “No.”

“Then why do you avoid interactions?”

She shifted in her seat. He saw too much. She didn’t like that.

“Because people will always expect things from me at the end. When they’re done, they’ll just…” she paused for a second and thought for a minute “move on.” She looked down at her paper and he saw her effort to remain strong.

He pressed his back against the chair until it hurt. The one who is always used.

“Sounds like you have multiple talents. You’re a social person.” His expression and tone were serious as he spoke.

Her head remained down so he continued “You’ve just been hurt enough to give up, am I right?” he asked.

“You don’t know me. Assumptions aren’t always the accurate” she started to doodle on her paper, drawing mickey mouse. He smiled at it and picked up the book she taught him with. “I understand” he said, “I’m sorry”

She stopped writing when the apology escaped his lips so easily. She was surprised by it. Most apologies she got were not real. People were usually sorry that things didn’t go the way they planned for it. A thief is usually only sorry that he got caught, never sorry for the things he took away from someone.

She smiled at that. He was accurate.

He reached into the bag of chips and ate some.

“May I?”

“Sure, feel free to.” After he said that, they started sharing in the bag of chips, sometimes reaching in at the same time. But once when it happened again and their eyes locked, she though it the best time to kill the mood.

“Why are you in a lower level of learning?” she asked him.

It was his turn to shift in his seat. “Isn’t it obvious?” He looked at her, meaning to intimidate and discourage her from asking any more questions. “I didn’t think my education was important then. Now, I have to graduate” he explained.

“And the dean’s yesterday?”

“well, that was about my records” she asked, with interest in her eyes

“You have a record?”

“Yea, are you scared of me?” She stopped to think. He wanted her to be afraid of him and she could see it.

“No; I fear no one” she scowled. “And you’re a no one”

He nodded to that and pushed his bag closer to him “ok then no one likes to share their food”

“So you do?” she giggled, pulling it back to the center.

He smiled, lost in thought for a second before the bell rang. He watched her spring up and grab her stuff. “Bye. I’ll see you at the tutoring center” She was up and gone before it stopped ringing.