FALL (DIMENSION Series #1)

CHAPTER 8

We walked and talked. I was quieter than usual, but I didn't think it was noticeable since Nisha had many stories to share.

      Nisha was the kind girl who instantly lit up a room. Or a forest for that matter. Her face was striking. Large dark eyes and a swirl of thick, dark hair, and gorgeous, almond skin. And when she moved, people tended to stop what they were doing to stare at her instead.

      Nisha studied modern dance at a school of performing arts in a neighboring town. It was against her parents' wishes. Her father was a software engineer and her mother was a pediatrician. They didn't really understand Nisha's passion for dance, but they tolerated it. In the woods, she was lithe and quick. She moved like a gazelle.

      Nisha and Neal led the way and I was a few steps behind. The walking had a hypnotic quality to it. One foot in front of the other. I went into bright pockets of sunlight and out of those again, into thick shadows. The fallen leaves were a carpet underneath us. A lavish enmeshment of yellows, browns, oranges, and reds. Our footfalls were muted by the layers.

     I tried to banish Derek from my thoughts, but I was still preoccupied with the way in which he'd left yesterday afternoon. With empty eyes and a blank-looking smile plastered across his face.

     Again I wondered if he might be on the spectrum. That theory offered an explanation for his sudden absences from himself. That was the only way I could describe it—the way in which his essence seemed to take flight from his body from time to time.

     But maybe he became vacant around me because I wasn't his type. Maybe he liked tall blondes, like Veronica McCall. And maybe becoming distant was just his way of exiting a conversation. I bit my lower lip. I knew my reasoning didn't fully explain his behavior. Even Neal had noticed Derek's strangeness and the way he sometimes spaced out.

     I stopped considering Derek's mental afflictions and conjured him up in my mind's eye. He was beautiful, there was no other word for it. With his dark hair and his green eyes. His muscular arms that were tan and perfectly formed. Whatever confusion I found myself in about his strange absences from our conversation, didn't change the fact that he was gorgeous. A perfect looking boy.

      The incline steepened. My calves burned, but the exertion was worth it. Along with the out-of-breathness came the views. We paused for a while to drink water and to look out over the trees below us. Their fall leaves were drizzled with sunlight. Some were such a radiant red that they looked like they'd caught on fire.

     "So stunning," Nisha said.

     I nodded. It turned out Derek was no match for all this beauty surging in. He was relegated to a quiet corner of my mind. I finally started feeling like myself again.

      "What are we doing after?" I asked. The hiking was just one of our Saturday rituals. We always did something else too. Usually lunch and a movie at Nisha's house. But sometimes we got takeout and rode around in her car, scouring the streets for new places or things. Not that there was that much to scour the streets for in Bluffside. Our town wasn't super small, but it wasn't a city by any means. Things tended to stay mostly the same. Trouble was hard to find here.

      Trouble used to be hard to find here, I corrected my thought. Ever since Derek had made his appearance, trouble seemed a lot easier to come by. I'd not had this kind of mental anguish prior to meeting him.

      "My house?" Nisha asked. "My mom's out of town but we could order pizza."

      "Yes!" Neal said enthusiastically.