What are you fighting for?

7. The Lake

The small path widens into a multicolored beach with every size of rock - from boulders big enough to sit on, to grains that got stuck between your toes. Beyond is a flat lake, the far shore a thin line in the distance growing into a sheer cliff face. In the black watery mirror is only the constellations, starlight so old and young.

I let myself fall on the ground, small stone crunching beneath me. I sit, legs outstretched, leaning on my arms.

On that sultry day the lake is as flat as any mirror. It lays without a ripple in the silver-blue water as if time itself had been frozen. No movement, no sound.

In twilight the surface of the lake was as smooth as black glass, as the stones I throw skip across the still water the radiating ripples catch the moonlight. After three skips the stone sinks, then once again the lake looks like glass and you could imagine walking right out onto it or skidding across the surface in your socks.

It has been an eventful day. Yeah, I guess you could say that. But it's not only the day Merce and Keon died and Adyn changed personality, it's officially the first day of the month Adyn wanted to show me his true self.

29 days left. Somehow I have to proof that he is an asshole. Usually, boys do that themselves but Adyn is smarter than that.

The stones crunch and I sense his presence behind me, tall and ominous.

"May I?" He asks, now standing to my right. My head moves to look if he has any weapons on him. Who knows if he wants to kill me now. If that whole speech was just to keep me thinking I am safe and then...
He sits down.

For a while we just stare at the sky reflecting on the surface of the lake.
Silence. But his presence is loud anyway.
I feel uneasy, unsafe but kind of excited as well. He changed the rules of the game and installed his own.

"Tell me something about yourself"
"No" I answer slowly. This is not one of those dating shows my mother loves to watch every Wednesday night. Moreover, there is this unspoken rule, that you never talk about your life back home. You are a new person in here, left the old you, the real you outside.

"My name is Adyn Ibara, I'm 24 years old, no siblings. I grew up without a mother,my father was in the military" he hums, thinking what to tell me next. A father in the military, that's where he gets his strategics from.

I turn to look at him, never have we ever been so close. I focus on his eyes, which were darting back and fourth, shining in the moonlight. Like Keon he has brown eyes, but in no way the same. They were a deep, earthy brown - the color of the earth after torrential rains. But there was something else in them, something glistening. Glistening like an old copper penny being examined in the warmth next to powerful flames that were licking the safety glass door of an old fireplace. They held secrets, the same way a pot holds layers of deep soil- cradling- because it is essential to keep the plant safe. The roots are held in place the same way his dark, liquidy eyes held so tightly onto his secrets.

His hair, dark and lustrous, had a sheen like fine hardwood. But that comparison isn't entirely fair, I suppose. Hardwood doesn't swish gently like his hair does, swaying with the words he speaks. But his hair isn't as messy as Keons.

Adyns tan wasn't all that dark, not something anyone would comment on, but it made him softer, like a sepia tone in a photograph.

The arms he is leaning on rigid, you can see the muscles through his long sleeve.

He had the kind of face that stopped you in your tracks. I guess he must get used to that, the sudden pause in a person's natural expression when they looked his way followed by overcompensating with a nonchalant gaze and a weak smile. Of course the blush that accompanied it was a dead give-away.
His bone structure was fine and perfectly symmetrical.
His face was one of upmost confidence, whatever game this man played he wasn't accustomed to loosing.

Every girl would immediately fall for his looks but I know better than that. Never would I trust a man so perfect, as far as I'm concerned the more perfect the image the greater the danger underneath.
He was handsome alright, but inside he was ugly and I'm most certain of that.

"Are you okay?" He asks, his deep voice snapping me back into reality. He has that rich, silky tone. He speaks as if he controls the world and I hate that.
My eyes shoot up to meet his for a second before I turn away.

Quickly, I jump up.
"Yup" my voice pips, not as strong and determined as I'd like it to be.
The stones making noises under my boots as I step away. But the scene of this evening shoots through my head and I stop in my tracks.

"Merce" I say without turning around "How did you get him to-" my jaw tenses up and I can't continue. I press my eyes shot and see his ugly grimace in front of me. The skinny boy with the high cheek bones that, despite the freckles on them, gave him a skeletal look.

"That's a story for another time" Adyn answers and I get sick to my stomach. Not only by the smugness in his voice but the thought of another meeting. But maybe it was for the best. If I want to bring him down, I'll have to spend time with him.