The Craft

7. Attack

7. Attack

The next two weeks flew by like a blur. I got up, got dressed, had breakfast, went to school, came back home, did my homework, had dinner, went to sleep and then repeated the whole cycle again. My life seemed meaningless.

Most of my friends stopped talking to me because I hardly ever talked to them, if they asked me a direct question, I'd give monosyllabic answers when I could. I lost count of the number of times everyone asked if I was alright, and I always gave the same answer: "Yes."

But the truth was I wasn't alright, I was far from it. But there was nothing anyone could do even if I told them that, because they had no idea magic existed, let alone how to send me back in time.

Miss Lloyd was off because she was ill, so we had a supply teacher, I think Miss had the right idea, and I considered pretending to be ill – but I decided it wasn't worth the effort I would need to go through. Also, what would I do? I'd have nothing but free time, and I knew I'd only ponder over Caleb. No – I needed the distraction of school and homework.

My social status slipped until I hit practically rock bottom, everywhere I went people were whispering about me and staring at me, but I didn't see the use of saying anything to them. I didn't care about how popular I was anyway – I never had really.

Liz was the only person to stand by me, she didn't understand what had happened because I didn't tell her, but she stuck up for me if people said anything about me while she was around. Everyone quickly caught on, and whenever I was with Liz and we walked into a room that fell into silence, I knew they had been talking about me. But I didn't care, like pretty much everything else these days.

I only kept my grades high because otherwise I knew my mum would be worrying about me, and I didn't want her to.

I never went anywhere after school anymore, and the only visitor I had was Liz when she'd invite herself in.

I honestly have no idea why she stayed with me, why she felt the need to protect me, because I didn't speak to her much either.

When the weekend rolled around mum took Luke and I to the local cinema, but I truthfully couldn't have told you what the film was about, who was in it or anything, because I just stared blankly at the screen. The only thing I was thankful of was that because Luke was there we didn't go and see a romance – that much was as far as my knowledge about the movie went.

When I exited school the first day after I had told Caleb to stay away I was half-expecting to see him standing in front of the school steps, but when I remembered what had happened the night before, I felt my heart break all over again.

That night I was terrified that he would show up in my dreams, and if he did I knew I wouldn't be able to resist him – it was like I had drug withdrawal symptoms. But he didn't, and it was the same every night afterwards – just before I went to sleep I was frightened I would see him that night, but every night he didn't show up I felt both relief and despair.

I kept seeing platinum blond hair and Ocean blue eyes everywhere I went. One time I was doodling in the back of my book in geography, and when I came to my senses I realised I had drawn Caleb (or at least tried to since I had never been that good at art). I had instantly ripped the page from my book and crumpled it up into ball, only to look up and see every student and my teacher staring at me as if I was a crazy person. And I supposed by the way I was acting, how could I blame them?

After class I knew I had a problem, I'd been denying it before but I no longer could. So I did the first thing I could think of. I threw myself into the arms of another man. Graeme was all too happy to have me back, and so I started dating him again. But whenever we kissed, it wasn't his lips I imagined on mine or his hands holding me against him – it was Caleb's.