No Turning Back

The Boy Behind the Mask

I tapped my pencil against the table as I stared down at my psychology book. I was in the library trying to pass time as I waited for Jayden to get here. Surprisingly, we had gotten along pretty well over the course of the week. We did argue but it was the fun light hearted arguments that guy friends had – nothing serious. While Jayden did still poke fun at me and give me indirect playful threats, I just tried to be myself and be nice. I could tell that he was starting to loosen up around me which was a good thing. Yet, I still found it ironic how he hated me just a few weeks ago and now we're best friends – all over the course of me getting my teeth knocked in and apologizing. It was weird but I guessed that Jayden found respect for me throughout all that. It did take a rare certain strength to stand up to one of the kids like him plus I had the nerve to genuinely apologize for initiating it in the first place. Maybe he saw that I wasn't like most of the other kids in our school. Maybe he was finally starting to realize that I was different.

I jumped as I felt a hand softly slap me in the back of my head. I quickly turned around in my chair to see Jayden standing behind me with an amused smirk on his face. His emerald eyes were bright with mischief and I could tell that he was pleased with my response. Unconsciously, I felt a smile arise onto my own face at the sight of him. "Hey," I said. "Was that hit really necessary?"

"Yes," Jayden said simply as he sat down beside me. "Remember: just because we're being cordial doesn't mean that I can't get sneak shots." I rolled my eyes at him before I noticed he had sat down the fourth book of Tiger's Curse on the table. Jayden raised an eyebrow at my surprised look before he followed to where my eyes had gone. "Oh yea," he said. "I'm pissed at you. That's what the hit was for." I raised my eyes back to his face to see that he was staring at me with a straight face.

"You're pissed at me? For what?"

"About the ending of that series." I opened my mouth to interject but he held his hand up. "Nope, I don't want to hear it. I cried and I felt like a teenage girl and that was not okay." A laugh escaped from my lips without my consent as I shook my head at him. "You're evil. You broke my heart. If there's more tragedy in that Mortal Instruments series I'm reading next than I'm going to straight kick your ass from here to China."

"Then I guess I'm in a lot of trouble," I said as I smiled at Jayden. "I'm surprised you read all four books that fast. I wasn't expecting you to finish them so quickly." He shrugged.

"I thought they were interesting and they held my attention pretty well. Besides, I like to read at night and I was having a hard time sleeping so I passed the time with them."

"You couldn't sleep this week? Do you have problems sleeping often? Do you have insomnia or something?"

"No. I just can't sleep sometimes." Jayden's voice had lowered when he said this and I figured that there was more to that statement than what he was letting on. I wanted to question more and get the truth out of him but at the same time, I didn't want to push. We were making progress with getting him out of his shell. I didn't want him to close back up on me. I was enjoying the less-mean side of him. He pulled his notebook out of his bag and set it on the table. He opened it and flipped through various pages of drawings to reach one page that had a new unique drawing on it. He grabbed a pencil and leaned on to continue putting the final touches on it. "Don't overanalyze it," he said without looking at me.

"I'm not," I said. Jayden rolled his eyes, showing his disbelief at my statement. While I did want to comment on his gesture, I was too distracted by his drawing. This time, he had drawn what looked like an angel. The creature was a male with a very detailed, muscular build. He was shirtless and only sported a pair of dark pants. Behind him were huge, voluminous wings that were stretched out in all of their glory. Jayden had drawn the wings to seem both strong and delicate at the same time. I could see a good half of the feathers that made up the angel's wings. There was also a detailed tattoo of a cross on the inside of the angel's left bicep. His arms were constrained up above him by thick black chains that flooded down from the top corners of the page. There was a mixture of raw sorrow and pain on the angel's face, his mouth wide open as if he were screaming in agony. My eyes flicked to Jayden's hand that was lightly drawing various bloody cuts and bruises on the angel's body. "What happened to him," I asked curiously.