The Three Days

Chapter 2

Day 2

I was being attacked, choked in the darkness, and I was flailing hopelessly to try to escape. I could see nothing, I only felt pain. My attacker suddenly lost his grip on me and I started falling into a black void. I heard Dylan’s voice from somewhere. I suddenly landed hard on a cement sidewalk with my bare feet, feeling cold. I was in front of my school and everyone was staring at me. I stood up, realizing I was standing in a small area of the sidewalk that was closed off with caution tape. I ignored the caution tape and ran to the back of the school and a boy holding a cigarette opened a door. I walked through the door…

…And woke up. The clock said four-thirty; two hours before I usually got up for school. I took a shower and blow dried my hair. I then curled it and sat around until about six, then decided to text Alexa.

“Hey,” I typed.

A few minutes later, Alexa responded. “Is something wrong?”

I paused, thinking about my dream. After a long time I wrote, “Did we have math homework?”

“Nope.”

I sighed, and then put my phone in my pocket. I painted my nails then drove to school.

I was the first one to French class, and Dylan wasn’t there yet. I began daydreaming about him, and about yesterday. Our conversation in the Dairy Queen… sucked. I thought about the day I met him in seventh grade. He came up to me the day I transferred from another school and straight away he knelt down on one knee and proposed. I remember laughing and making out the word, “no.” He was so funny and we were instantly best friends, as weird as it sounded. We did everything together. He never stopped embarrassing me, but that’s what made him Dylan.

I stopped daydreaming to notice that there was a different boy sitting where Dylan usually sat, next to me. I noticed a few people staring and the loud chatter in the room died down to a low buzz. I noticed some movement from the boy sitting next to me. A few seconds later I looked down just to find a small piece of paper with writing on it on my desk. It read,

“Now this photo represents my past too, not just yours.”

I flipped over the paper. There was the cutout of the photo from yesterday, with Dylan and me in the photo booth. But I didn’t understand; where did it come from? And what did it mean?

I looked at the person sitting next to me, and my jaw dropped, dumbfounded.

“Dylan???” I said in a high pitched voice.

The stranger looked at me and smiled. It was Dylan! I took in his new appearance: jet black hair with a tint of red, side swept over one of his piercing green eyes and thinned. As he smiled his lips parted slightly and I noticed a stud piercing in his lower lip on the right. When he turned his head toward me the light reflected on another piercing, a bar in his ear. He wore a large black jacket with an oversized hood. He had on distressed grey skinny jeans and black DC shoes. He wore the hoodie unzipped, and I noticed him still sporting a tight tee shirt underneath.

I had always thought he was attractive, but now? I felt my cheeks burning and stared at him wide eyed, unable to look away. I opened my mouth, stuttering. I finally got out the words:

“Oh my god,” I looked him up and down again as kept smiling. I opened my mouth and shook my head slowly. “What did you do?!”

Dylan suddenly frowned. “You don’t like it?” He reached up and took his jacket off his right sleeve. “Well that sucks, ‘cause this is permanent.” He lifted his shirt sleeve off his upper arm and showed me his tight arm muscle, sporting a brand new tattoo of a black dragon with barely noticeable purple eyes.