FALL (DIMENSION Series #1)

CHAPTER 28

Derek's eyes were getting darker by the second. Like two lights being dimmed down right in front of me. I had to find a way to bring him back. I couldn't deal with what was happening. I had to see the shades of light green in his eyes. I had to bring him back to being mentally present with me right now, right here.

      "I'm glad you came to see me," I said. It was the first sentence that popped into my mind. And it was also the truest thing I could have said.

      He nodded. And then I saw it, his eyes getting lighter again. I wondered if I had succeeded. If I'd figured out a way to make him stay. And if bringing him back was in any way related to the sentence I had just spoken. It seemed to be. And if it had been, then maybe speaking out those sentences that lurked in the depths of my soul was what was needed. Maybe those sentences would be the right words at the right time. The words that would make him stay.

      "I'm glad to be here too," he said.

      And although his eyes had been restored, his voice was lower, more serious. I had a sense of foreboding. Like I was about to find out some things I really didn't want to hear. The moment when it might have been able to kiss had passed. I could feel it. We were in a different sphere now.

      "The stars," I said and looked up at the sky.

      This was my weak attempt at staving off the things I could sense he was going to tell me. The things I didn't want to hear.

      He nodded and looked up. He proceeded to point out groupings of stars to me, speaking about the way things were structured. He used scientific terms I'd normally be interested in. But I was too mesmerized by him to listen closely to what he was saying.  He was next to me and he was talking to me. And at this moment it felt like all the stars in the sky were mine. His presence had placed them within reaching distance. The stars belonged to me. And I didn't need to know what their placement in the sky signified. I only needed to know that they were mine.

      Still, I nodded and managed to ask some questions. But what I really wanted was to talk about him. There were so many things I wanted to know about him.

     His skin was smooth in the moonlight. I wanted to touch his face, run my fingers across his cheeks. To feel what his skin felt like. But even more than that, I wanted to break into the space beneath his skin. Those chambers of secrecy that made up the essence of him. I wanted to know why he was the way he was. Why his eyes were two shades of green sometimes but clouded up at other times. Why he seemed to take flight from his body sometimes. Why he appeared at my house out of the blue with no forewarning. And if he would always keep doing it. I wanted it to be true. I wanted him to keep showing up uninvited for the rest of my life. For the rest of our lives.

      "I hope to visit you often," he said.

      And again I had the sense that he was reading my mind. It made me happy that he seemed to be so in tune with how I felt. But it also scared me. I didn't think I could bear it if he knew all of my thoughts. I could feel myself flushing.

      "I'd like to sit under this tree with you and stare up at the sky," he continued, and my heart sped up. These were definitely romantic words. There was no denying it. I was flooded with emotion, too happy to speak.

      "But," he said, and my heart sank, "there are things you don't know about me."

      I nodded and sighed. Our earlier conversations had already established that there were things I didn't know.

      "Will you tell me?" I asked. "Will you tell me those things?"

      It was his turn to sigh. The golden specks in his eyes turning into bronze ones.

      "I will try," he said. "I'll tell you as much as I can."

      It was quiet for a while and the breeze was cooler now.

      "I like you," he said as he looked into my eyes.

     I flushed with happiness and held his gaze for as long as I could. And then looked away. This was the one sentence I'd been dying to hear from him. That he liked me.

     I looked sideways at the stars and they seemed even closer now. Like I could reach out and grab a fistful and hold them in my hands. I knew I was euphoric, but I could swear that it wasn't just my perception. The sky had changed. It had been altered. The stars seemed to be leaning in, as if they were listening in on our conversation.

      "I like you," he said again. And my heart lurched again. "And it's because I like you that I can't subject you to things."

      "Subject me to things?" I stammered. I wondered if he knew that I wanted him to kiss me. I wondered if that's what he was referring to and my face felt even more flushed than before.

      "I'm not the right guy for you," he said. And at that, my heart deflated. It was contracting, all the air draining out of it.

      "Are you alright?" he asked and he leaned over and placed his hand on my wrist.

       My wrist was instantly on fire. Like I'd slid on a bangle of fire. But a friendly kind of fire, one that warmed my arm without burning it.

      "Why aren't you the right guy?" I asked. I didn't know how I was even managing to speak. Maybe it was because I really had to know. I couldn't take it any longer. All the weeks of longing for him had crashed to the surface.

      I needed to know why he didn't think we were right for each other. And then I needed to talk to him. And for the first time I didn't feel scared at all. I suddenly knew exactly what to say.

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NEXT NEW CHAPTER—TUESDAY, APRIL 7

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