Taking What's His

Chapter One

"Delilah!"

Who's calling me? Where am I?

"Delilah!"

Who is that ...?

I can hear the voice as clear as day, but it is too dark to see anyone nearby.

"Delilah!"

It's the voice of a boy, screaming out my name. His voice is so sad as if he's close to tears.

Who are you?

My surroundings gradually become lighter. For a single moment, I saw him, reaching out to me. Instinctively, my own hand stretched out to grab him, but before our fingertips could touch, he vanished.

•••

"Delilah!"

I slowly opened my eyes, squinting at the soft morning light that filtered through the sheer curtains in my room. "Delilah!" I heard my mom yell again, no doubt too busy trying to rush out the door to wake me up without screaming at the top of her lungs.

"I'm up," I croaked, just barely loud enough for her to hear. The sound of the front door slamming shut was my only reply.

Sighing, I let my eyes flutter shut once again, trying to remember what exactly I had been dreaming about. Whatever it was, it left me feeling unsettled. "Just great...what a wonderful way to start a new day," I muttered under my breath, wiping my clammy palms on the bed sheets as I opened my eyes and blinked in the sunlight. I sat up slowly with a yawn, leaning back against my headboard as I stretched and gazed about my room.

Half emptied moving boxes were scattered everywhere, and the stuff I had unpacked was strewn about the room, waiting to be put away. My new room was lovely, I had to admit; it was bigger than my room back home, and the walls were a soft white while the floors were a dark cherry hardwood. Across from my gold, Maison canopy bed was a large bay window that let in plenty of natural light and looked over the evergreen forest beyond. My desk was situated underneath the window and was already piled high with books I had bought for the fourteen-hour drive from Culver City, California to Wolf Pine, Oregon. My mom had insisted on buying new furniture, and had allowed me to pick what I wanted for my room; everything was a polished ivory, from my vanity and 9-drawer dresser to my bedside table and armoire. On the walls hung some of my favorite artwork, in watercolor hues of blue, purple, and green. A gold-framed full body mirror was mounted on the wall next to my armoire and was directly across from my bedroom door.

My room was really the only thing that felt like home to me now. At first, it was an unsettlingly large and empty space, but as everything was shifted around and put away it became safe and familiar. My own little haven, whose comfort I really needed right now.

I have to finish hanging up all my clothes today after doing laundry, and I still need to clear out those three boxes in the corner...

My thoughts were diverted as my phone buzzed and lit up with a notification. Glancing at the screen, my eyes landed on the small text underneath the time that read Monday, August 27th. Under that was a text message from Regina, my best friend since 8th grade.

[Regina: Try and have fun today! You gotta tell me all about it later, alright? Love you, xoxo!]

I groaned, the realization hitting me that today was supposed to be my first day at Wolf Pine High. Was I ready for this? Not by a longshot! I had only moved schools once, back when I was seven and my parents and I lived in Nevada. Since then, I had been attending the same middle school and high school with the same people for five years; moving at this point would be social suicide! Not that I was much of a socialite anyway. And it didn't help that I was enrolling about four weeks late into the first semester, although I guessed that living in a small town, everyone already had their friends picked out anyway.