Fire and Ice

Chapter 18: Dates With the Bad Boys

"Dreams, dreams, dreams, dreams," I whisper as I run my finger across the spines of the books in the science section.

I'm not entirely sure if I'm searching in the right section and while I would normally ask the librarian, Mrs. Ossxan was yelling at some other students so I decided it was best to leave her be.

As I search for the book, or any book for that matter, on dreams and their meanings I think back to the conversation with Mrs. Fallen. Past lives. There's just no way they could be real. The thought of someone having lived before and then coming back to life again. It's ridiculous. I simply can't be true. . . Can it?

It shocks me that a part of me says yes, a past life could be possible and my dreams are revealing what happened in mine. A bigger part of me says no, no that can't be possible especially since the people in my dream had the ability to manipulate the elements of fire and ice. People don't possess magical powers like that. What I'm seeing in my sleep can't possibly be a past life, it just can't be.

My hand stops as my eyes land on the type of book I'm looking for. I pull it off the shelf and read the cover:

The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud.

"If you want to learn about dreams, you might as well learn from the master of psychology," I whisper.

I don't look up at Mrs. Ossxan as she checks out my book nor do I try to communicate with her other than telling her any information she needs to know like my library passcode. As soon as she hands me the book I rush out of the library and into the mostly quiet hallway.

As I walk toward the entrance I keep my eyes glued to the ground. This quickly turns into a bad idea because as I turn the corner I collide with a tall figure and we both fall to the floor. I bite my lip to keep my screams of pain locked inside, not wanting to expose them. The figure who collided with me lets out groans of pain mixed with a few curse words.

"What the hell is your—" he starts but his voice catches in his throat and his voice changes to one of concern when our eyes meet, "Oh my God, Vega. I'm so sorry!"

As I look into Toby's eyes I shiver as that coldness shoots through me once again. It says within me for a few seconds before I eventually feel it get weaker and weaker until it finally disappears.

Toby's hand reaches out and touches my arm. The contact feels like a hot iron is being pressed against my flesh and I have to pull away.

"I should go," I mumble as I push myself into a sitting position so that I can gather the few books that had fallen out of my bag including the book of dreams. I gather them back into my bag and zip it up before I get up. My body aches as I lift myself off the cold ground. Especially my butt which took the most of the fall.

"Are you all right?" Toby asks as he gets up and brushes some dirt off of his pants.

I shrug. "I've been worse." I sling my bag back over my shoulder and start to turn around to walk away. But before I can even get five steps away his hand grabs my arm and once again the cold shoots up my body. This time it is so bad it makes me jump back from his grasp.

"What do you want?" I snap.

His gaze briefly drops to the ground and he is furiously rubbing his palms with his thumb. He looks. . .  nervous. Eventually, after I don't know how long he looks back up at me and speaks, "Listen, Vega, I am sorry for what I did. I actually can't even say sorry enough. I know the simple word sorry won't make up for what I did, but for now, it is all I can do."

Looking down at my shoes I think about how sorry he looked. It had been so many days since I told him I needed space and he had given me that space. But looking back up at him and into his eyes I realize that deep down I hadn't fully forgiven him. I haven't even fully forgiven Seth so it would be incredibly hypocritical of me to forgive Toby.