Safe and Sound (Watty Awards 2012).

Chapter Eighteen.

Author's Note: I'm going to be super busy this weekend, but I hope that this chapter sustains you until some point next week. (:
I hope you all like it. As always, feedback is welcomed. 
Remember that this story is for the Watty Awards so please vote if you enjoy it.

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Chapter Eighteen.
Kyle’s Point of View.

My gaze followed Madeline as she walked through the door and into the noisy, bustling form room. Her head hung low, lolling heavily on her narrow, sloping shoulders, and her body was slightly slumped, giving the impression that she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. She walked slowly toward me and Charlie, her feet dragging on the floor. It looked as though it was taking all of her strength just to walk from one side of the room to the other. She took her usual seat beside me, dropping into the chair with a barely audible sigh, her bag falling to the floor by her feet with a loud thump that caused several other students to glance in our direction before returning to their conversations.

I caught one of Madeline’s hands in my own, lacing my fingers through her long, thin ones. Madeline lifted her head to look at me, a ghostly smile flitting onto her features for a fleeting moment before it was once more replaced by the thoughtful yet haunted expression that had recently become more and more frequent. Under her eyes, resided dark mauve shadows that made her face appear paler than usual. Her usually full lips were pressed together so that they formed a thin line, the thin, sensitive skin going white beneath the pressure.

Madeline had been like this for two weeks now, and every morning I found myself hoping that maybe today would be the day that she smiled again. Smiled properly, I mean. I didn’t know how, but I could see right through all of her fake smiles- the ones that she forced onto her face. The smiles that she managed to fool everyone else with. She had all of her guards up; barbed wire fences that she had constructed protect herself from the world. I couldn’t comprehend why she had to keep herself locked up to such an extent, and I didn’t know if she would ever let me in.

I didn’t know if it was something that I had done or not, but Madeline had been growing exceedingly distant from me since our date two weeks before. She wasn’t acting...physically distant, but mentally...well, she didn’t really seem all there. Her eyes seemed to be permanently glazed over, and she was often distracted. Sometimes her lips would move of their own accord, and she would murmur unintelligible words beneath her breath. If I called her out on the fact, she would look at me with a blank, vacant expression, a confused frown setting a gentle crease into her freckled forehead as though she had no idea of what I was talking about.

The fact that Madeline was constantly preoccupied made me edgy and nervous. I desperately wanted to ask her what was going on- I wanted to help her! But I had no idea if she would accept my help or reject it, so I kept my thoughts to myself. However, these stupid thoughts were continuously biting at me, clawing at the inside of my head with their sharp talons. Every time I looked at Madeline when she was unaware, I caught that sense of insecurity and pain which appeared to radiate from her small frame. This insecurity and pain of Madeline’s affected me in a way that I would never have thought was possible. I constantly found myself leaning toward her, my hands wanting to move in her direction as I wanted to hug her, to comfort her. However, I was unsure if I should or not. I didn’t want to risk Madeline pulling away from me completely.

I pressed a kiss to the beautiful girl’s forehead, my arm looping around her shoulders as I leaned my head lightly against hers, her hair brushing against the sensitive skin of my neck. Madeline leaned against me, her own arm subconsciously wrapping around my waist as she leaned against me, a sigh falling from her lips as she parted them slightly.