FALL (DIMENSION Series #1)

CHAPTER 4

I was aware that Julia was still looking at me, waiting for me to start walking. But I was unable to move. She shrugged and turned to walk to first-period English.

     "So," Derek Nash said as he pushed himself off the wall and leaned in close to me. "How are you doing, Ellie?"

      His sudden nearness was intoxicating. My head was spinning, but I still somehow realized that I hadn't answered his earlier question. Of course I hadn't. It wasn't the first time this had happened with me. I had a tendency to get lost in thought and I sometimes forgot to speak. It was embarrassing. Especially now, when I was inches away from the boy I'd been admiring for weeks.

      "I'm good," I managed. I looked straight into his eyes.

      I noticed something new. Up close, his eyes were two shades of green. A lighter shade of green around the pupil and a dark band of green toward the outside of the iris. With little specks of gold scattered across both shades of green. His eyes looked like jewels. They were intense, and there was something otherworldly about them. It felt as if they could see beyond my own eyes. Like they could see all the way inside me. Like into my soul, or something. I could barely stand it.

      "How are you?" I managed to ask. Not wanting to appear as foreign as I suddenly felt, like a person from a distant country who wasn't used to speaking English.

      "I'm good," he said.

      I nodded at him. I was dumbstruck. A river of thoughts coursed through my brain, but none of them helped me to think of something to say at this moment. You're having a conversation with Derek Nash, I thought, and that was the only thought in my mind. It was ironic that I'd had endless imaginary conversations with him. And now that he was here—right in front of me—I couldn't drum up a single sentence.

      "A leaf," he said and before I could move, I felt his hand on my shoulder. The place where his hand had touched me became very hot. Like a real burn, but without the sting.

      He held the leaf up for me to see. A bright green-and-yellow leaf. It must have landed on me during my walk. I took the leaf from him and our fingers touched and there was another little pocket of heat unleashed. This time onto my fingers. I felt myself flushing.

      "Cool bracelet," he said, nodding at my mother's charm bracelet. I flushed more.

      He smiled at me. Reflexively I smiled back at him. But immediately the warning signals went off in my brain, lighting up like emergency exit signs. They reminded me that Derek Nash was an easy smiler. He smiled at all the girls at my school. And his smiles were meaningless. Once this realization hit me, my smile froze.

      "Are you okay?" he asked and half-squinted at me. He must have seen the change in my face. My smile was gone now.

      "Definitely okay," I said. I had found my voice. And something else as well. A surge of irritation. It was true that Derek Nash was beautiful. Physically perfect with intense eyes and a dazzling smile. But I was annoyed at myself for being so taken with him. For being so happy to be the recipient of a smile that was meaningless.

      "Do you know physics?" he asked, startling me.

       "I'm not taking physics," I said. The situation was becoming clear to me. He was talking to me because he was looking for someone who knew physics. But it wasn't clear why that was the case. Having memorized his class schedule, I knew he wasn't taking physics either.

      "I'm not taking physics either," he said. It felt like he could read my thoughts and was repeating them back to me.

      I nodded.

      "But isn't your father's a physicist?" he asked.

      I nodded. My dad was known in his field but mostly I just thought of him as my dad. A big and gentle man who tended to lighten things with his easy-going manner. But clearly Derek was looking for someone to talk physics with. The reason for this wasn't immediately obvious. But what was obvious is that he hadn't said hey to me out of the blue. It had been premeditated. And it was related to physics of all inane things.

     "So, you must have some physics discussions with you father?" he continued.

      I half-nodded.

      "I know we're part of the multiverse and not the universe," I said and halfway rolled my eyes. Of all the Derek Nash discussions I'd acted out in my imagination, none had ever been about my father. Or about the multiverse. My dad, like many physicists, believed that our universe was just one in a group of universes. And they referred to this group of universes as the multiverse.

      Derek's eyes widened in response, like I'd said something remarkable.

      "Of course you know about the multiverse," he said under his breath, sounding pleasantly surprised, as if I'd told him something really good.

      "Why do you ask about my dad?" I continued. I was definitely irritated now. Now that I knew that it hadn't been anything about me, that had caused him to speak to me. "Do you need a recommendation letter or something?" In the past my dad had written recommendation letters for others. To colleges and summer programs and such.

      Derek shook his head.

      "I was just curious," he said. And he flashed me another brilliant smile. One that stayed on his lips despite my lack of a return-smile back at him.

     I noticed a change in his eyes. The light green part of his eyes had turned the same dark green as the outer rim. And the golden specks seemed dimmed. His eyes had a flatness to them. An emptiness. As if they could no longer see the depths of before. They'd become guarded. A little lifeless even.

     "I'll see you around," he said, still smiling. But the smile seemed vacant now, like his eyes. "Until then, have fun in the multiverse."

      I watched him walk away. The black jeans and the black t-shirt and the black backpack. I knew something new about him now. He had an interest in physics. Though the reason remained unclear.

      I was late getting to first period English, but thankfully Ms. Galardi didn't give me a hard time about it. Julia looked at me with wide eyes that demanded to know what had transpired in the hallway. But I shook my head at her. It wasn't possible to talk about it.

      I slid out my notebook and I placed the leaf Derek had handed me between two blank pages. It would be flattened out and preserved as if it were something rare and special. I had a tendency to hang onto things—a sentimental streak. I sighed. The leaf wasn't the only thing I'd be preserving. I'd be carrying around all the sentences Derek had said to me, too.

     I thought about his eyes changing like that. Like they signaled a change within him. As if his curiosity and his intensity had been turned off, like a switch being flipped.

      Strange, I thought. And then I started taking notes and he was temporarily erased from my mind.

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