I N V I S I B L E // styles

Chapter Three

After what seemed like hours, I sobered up. I could feel the tear stains upon my flushed cheeks. My eyes were blurry, my fingers trembling as I stood from the concrete and shook off the leaves. He stood, staring off into the vast area that surrounded us. When he breathed out, a white cloud of air swarmed around his lips and his pale skin matched it. He almost blended in with the whiteness of the clouds above, the white in the air when he breathes. His eyes were dull yet they shined from the musty brown that surrounded the dark green of his eyes.

    “Can we leave?” I mumbled, holding my breath as I watched him turn slightly, his back that was facing me now dismissed as his eyes scorched into mine. I felt my body tremble, my mind leaking through the folded parts that held the gun in his glove department and his cat like eyes and the needed threaded in his pocket. He nodded curtly and walked to the car, his stance wobbly and his chest was heaving when he sat in the drivers seat.

    I stationed myself beside him, my eyes staying planted ahead of us as he drove us throughout the trees trucks and crushed leaves. The rain was cradling the windows as we swept through neighborhoods. He didn’t seem to care much about the law, he went as fast as he wanted, without so much as a care towards breaking the speed limit. I sat beside him, trying to conjure up something to say even though I knew he wouldn’t answer me, the silence was slowly killing me.

    The ride was quick and silent, I never spoke, I couldn’t shake the feeling that a handgun was threaded in the glove department just inches from my shaken fingertips. I rapidly piled my belongings into my arms and bolted from the car, my body trembling against the rain that dribbled down my back as I ran up the few stairs it took to land on my porch and as I turned, I heard the blaring engine of his beat up car sound throughout the air. My wet, sticky hair cascaded over my neck and slanted across my cheek as I gazed back, watching wordlessly as the boy I had grown to only see beyond everyone else, drove away, his hood perched upon his head and his eyes a dark chocolate swirl. His car skated down the street, hitting every muddy puddle along the way, I felt a ghost of a smile form upon the edges of my lips and I sighed, grasping onto the porch ledge, closing my eyes as the rain slid over my flushed cheeks and into the indent of my neck and collar bones.

    “Jenna?” I heard my mother’s worried voice cast over the foyer as I approached the front door. I glanced inside, seeing her dash throughout the house, searching for a way closer to the door. I looked through the screen door and I can see her frantic eyes as they scanned her surroundings before her eyes latch on mine. Her feet halt and her body stiffens, her lips part and a strained gasp flies out. “Jenna, what happened?”

    I glance down, looking at my now soaked clothes and my drenched hair, my jeans had mud stains lingering throughout them. I gazed back towards my mom, smiling slightly as I stepped into the foyer. Her hand was placed lightly on my shoulder and she looked beyond me, staring off into the distance.

    “Nothing,” I waved it off, flinching from her touch and racing up the stairs, leaving her as she continued to stare endlessly out the front screen door. I landed in my room, slamming the door and sliding down the back of it, my head resting upon the white wooden door as my knees curled towards my chest, my bag was discarded upon the flooring and my hands planted themselves upon the flooring, holding me steady as I felt like I would crash at any moment. My mind was racing but I felt like I knew nothing. I closed my eyes, the image of the needle impaling into his skin seeping through the folded depths of my mind. I suddenly felt helpless, holding myself in my room as the light sky dimmed and the rain pulsed against the house harder. The moon was soon the only light that was lit in my room.

    Soon, it was all black again. I glanced up, my eyes scanning the ceiling that was bleak, bare. I wanted the lights back, the lights that reminded me so much of home. This wasn’t home, I wasn’t even close to home. This was temporary, just a house I was living in but it wasn’t home. My head was aching by the time I stood and examined my room, papers were scattered around and books and clothes were piled on top of them. It looked like home, but it didn’t feel like it.

    The next day at school, he was there, standing at my locker. The same outfit as the day before, as the week before. His ankles knotted at the ankles and his hood was up, blocking out his vision from the world surrounding him. His arms were crossed and I could see his lips pursed as he shook his head. I walked towards him, not bothering to touch him as he refused it the day before. He noticed me before I could say anything and the minute he saw me standing just inches from his stance, he backed away and removed himself from my locker, gesturing towards it.

    “You’re kind of scaring me now,” I whispered, low enough for no one to hear but loud enough for his ears to catch. “You don’t talk, yet you answer the questions in every class. You don’t let anyone touch you, yet you’re always close enough, within arms reach. You don’t talk but you listen. I can see you but no one else can.”

    He shrugs, I hadn’t expected to answer me, seeing as the only time he speaks is when it’s quiet and he just had to say the answer so some question that no one knew. I closed my eyes, leaning against the row of lockers, feeling tired and useless as I was drained from the events that occurred the previous day. I glanced over towards him, his face straight ahead, staring intently at the rows of lockers that seemed endless as they stood side by side along the hallway wall. His lips were parted just slightly and he was breathing out his mouth, his lips capped and almost white. His eyes were a mesmerizing emerald dimaond and his hair swept over his forehead, cascading just above his eyebrows, swooping over his face, like a curly charcol main to a hourse. His arms were folded over his chest, his sweatshirt covering most of him as his hood was perched upon the tip of his head and the sleeves of the sweatshirt were tangled over his fists. He looked beautiful when the sun hit him, his pale skin shined like snow on a sunny day. It was like he was glowing.

    “Hey,” Kara’s voice made me snap my head over towards her, she was rapidly walking towards me, her ponytail bouncing as she moved and her eyes transfixed on my figure as she tried her hardest to shove past the teenagers scattered around. As she made her way closer, my eyes wandered over towards where he still stood, stiff and taunt, Kara didn’t even glimpse at him and as she got closer it appeared like she’d run into him. On a natural instinct, to prevent her from barging into someone, I gripped her arm and pulled her aside. Her eyes widened slightly at my actions and she glanced around us, her eyebrows narrowing together as she thought.

    “Sorry,” I managed out, breathing out slowly. “You were about to hit someone,”

    Kara shook her head, her hair cascading over her shoulder as she did so. “No I wasn’t,” she protested. “There’s no one there,”

    And once again I was hit with the fact that he wasn’t real. The boy with wild, eyes that illuminated wherever he was and needles threaded within his pocket and a handgun stationed perfectly in the midst of papers from years and years ago, wasn’t actually in my line of sight. He wasn’t real. And he would never exist. As long as no one could see him, he was nonexistent, never really there, an impractical dream, a hallucination. It was like he was utterly and entirely invisible to the human eye.