Comatose Feeling

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

No one has else has said they can see me.

Alena kept replaying those words in her mind, not really sure how she should accept them, if she could at all. The blonde-haired boy, like the previous day, was sitting in the desk and chair combination, much like everyone else's in the classroom.

She should leave well enough alone, especially after yesterday's events, what with her fainting and everything. But she just couldn't seem to shake the need to overcome her routine. Yesterday, she wanted to simply speak to the boy, possibly gain a new friend in her journey to becoming a much less Obsessive-Compulsive person. Then again, her Obsessive-Compulsive need is what got her to speak to the boy to begin with.

She wasn't ready to give up on overcoming this... this... this balance... that she felt she so desperately needed to stick with. It wasn't until she opened the notebook she'd brought with her, and tapped her pencil on the empty desk, she reminded herself, she'd made the final decision.

What happened to you? Alena's cursive painted itself across the paper, asking a double meaning question. Did she really want to know?

It wasn't like she was expecting him to take her pencil and reply, like most people would when passing notes. It wasn't like she could rip the piece of paper out of the notebook, and pass it to him either, because no one else could see him. She could just imagine a flying paper in the r air being opened to reveal the writing, and the rest fo her classmates becoming scared beyond belief.

And if no one else can see him, maybe no one else can hear him.

"You must have noticed I can talk while you write." His voice, still thick with silk, confirmed her thoughts. "And well, do you mean in general, or yesterday after you passed out after I told you you're the only one who has said they can see me? Because I think the later answers itself."

She could see a teasing glint in his eye, so she smiled in retaliation. But the smile faded when she realized where she was, and why she was writing on a piece of paper.

How about this? What's your name? She sprawled her handwriting quickly over the page, expecting his answer to be anything but a fresh name she'd recently come across.

Her eyes widened at the same time the bell rang, like a light bulb haloing about her head. She knew that name. "N...Nathanial Cross?" She whispered loudly enough for him to hear her as she gathered her belongings. Any other students that seemed to hear her didn't show it. She waited until the rest of the students filed out of the classroom, before she followed. And the ghost of the blue-eyed boy, correction, Nathanial, followed behind her.

Because she knew this name. It was only two nights before, that she'd seen it typed out on a lone paper on her mother's desk while she did her homework. It really was him.

Who else knew about the boy?

So, she knew, he was telling the truth.

She wasn't expecting anymore answers at this moment. Who could, when he probably didn't even know what was going on. Her own mother couldn't stay in their house while working on the case that was made up of this boy, so she knew he didn't live anywhere nearby. She'd seen him wandering the streets enough to know that. And what about their small town being without gossip about a serial killer? There wasn't anyway, this boy lived close to her.

She would surely recognize him from before he became this invisible human, right? Surely, she'd have seen him around?

After she'd made her way out into the hall, he'd disappeared, along with the questions she so desperately wanted to know. And that was when she'd checked her phone messages again, to realize the awful truth. Her mother still hadn't called.

When Alena walked into her FACS class fully expecting to have a POP quiz on baby needs versus wants, when she saw Victor sitting behind her own desk and chair. It wasn't until she saw the book in his hand that she remembered.

"I don't have the second book with me today." His sly smile told her what she should be prepared for is a sex innuendo, but he just held the book out to her.

"You could have told me I was right, you know? It wouldn't have been a spoiler, apparently." Alena grabbed the book from Victor's hand, thumbing the pages as she started to remember when she'd read the book. The suspense was intense. Enough to keep her on her toes, much like most of Pike's books seemed to do to the girl.

"How was it? Did you like it?" Sitting down in her chair sideways, so she can still face him, she thumbed to her favorite part.
"Not really, I hated the outcome, but I liked it enough to read the second book."

Alena appreciated that answer enough. Not everybody understood literature, and would give up. At least his Neanderthal personality wasn't as Neanderthal-ish as she once thought.

"Tell you what," she began, trying to pick her words wisely, not wanting him to misunderstand. "If you come to my house later, after school, I'll personally hand you the second book, and you can bring it back to me when you finish." She briefly caught his smirk before he could hide it away. "And no funny business. Strictly platonic."

She tapped his desk, begging him to push those thoughts out of his mind. Class was called to order, so she turned around in her seat.

It wasn't until after the POP quiz, that she could be shocked enough to drop her pencil, they were actually having decent conversations.

After lunch, after reading class, after her walk home, after unlocking her front door, and after collapsing in the lounge chair in the Taylor household's living room, she contemplated the day's events. In the early morning, Alena almost got the answers she so desperately needed. In her FACS class, she'd sat down to actually gave a conversation, correction, the second conversation about books to be exact, with the boy who would rather get in her pants than pick her brain.

"Hi."

Alena's scream couldn't be loud enough.

She would have gone for the gun she knew her mother kept in a safe under her desk, had it not been for the familiar blonde hair and ocean eyes.

"SERIOUSLY?! Do you have to give me a heart attack!?" Alena put her right hand over her heart for emphasis, breathing through her nose, out through her mouth, to calm the nerves and anxiety the boy had caused.

"I'm sorry. I didn't think I was sneaking up on you. You must have been deep in thought to miss me coming in through the door."

"Oh, Uhm..." She tried to will the heat from her cheeks. "No, not really." She stood up from the chair and waved towards the couch on the other end of the room. "I've seen you able to sit down in a plastic chair, I'm sure you can sit on cushion somehow." She went to make her way to the kitchen to grab herself a glass of water, when... "Do you... Uhm... Can I offer you something to drink?"

And how foolish could she be?

"No, thanks." The boy, Nathanial, she corrected herself again, chuckled deeply. "I don't eat or drink anything while my body, or soul, or whatever, is like this."

Smiling sympathetically, she nodded. "Of course, sorry. I just wanted to mke sure you understood, I have manners. My mother raised me, after all."

Nathanial talked as she grabbed the glass and filled it with the filtered water from the fridge. "Oh yes, the famous Alex Taylor. I've heard the name, but never actually seen her face."

And she knew, just by those words, this was the same Nathanial Cross her mother's case revolved around.