FALL (DIMENSION Series #1)

CHAPTER 43

I had many questions for Derek, but it was hard to say anything at all. The moment was overwhelming. After he'd ignored me for days, he was right next to me now. I was vaguely aware of the other kids around us. As was always the case when he appeared, I didn't really see the rest of the room, or the cafeteria. Everything blurred while he stayed in sharp focus.

     I stared into his eyes—they were like liquid. The gold speckles were stationary, but the bands of light and dark green seemed to move. Like they were glimpses into something deeper, like rivers running to the ocean. I was mesmerized. And more than that—I was restored. It was as if looking into his eyes the power or healing me, of knitting together the broken pieces of my soul, or something. I finally felt like I could breathe again after days of unbearable sadness that had made everything in me seemed reduced. Even my lungs had felt smaller, like it took more effort to breathe. But things were getting back to normal. Like his presence was inflating my previously depleted organs.

     The question on the tip of my tongue was: What happened? But it seemed at once too broad and not broad enough. No single question could encapsulate the myriad of questions I had milling around in my mind. Or begin to address the very strange things we'd been through. He'd left me, had left Bluffside, and possibly even this realm, to go somewhere. And I gathered he hadn't gone voluntarily. He'd been taken. And I couldn't make out where he'd been taken, but I thought it might be somewhere that wasn't part of the earth. That might not even be part of the universe. I couldn't shake the image of how the sky had looked right as he returned. I'd lost some memories but that one remained intact. The sky broken up into pieces that looked liquid-like, like shiny three-dimensional disks or a series of small lakes.

     "Can we go somewhere?" he asked, and his eyes looked soft, like they were melted. Like the rivers inside them had turned into lava.

     "Sure," I said, and set down my still-empty tray.

     I felt someone touch my elbow and realized that Julia was still next to me. She'd been there all along. She was staring at me, her mouth agape. She was shocked that Derek was talking to me. Like everyone else, she'd noted his new acquaintance with Isabelle and I was certain that she felt sorry for me. But she hadn't really brought it up. Maybe because I'd deliberately steered the conversation to her current crush—Clay, with the aquiline nose. I couldn't bear the thought of being pitied by Julia, or anyone, for being shunned by Derek. My interactions with Derek weren't anybody's business but my own.

     "I'm leaving," I said to Julia. "See you later." I pushed my hair behind my ears and walked off with Derek.

     He slowed his pace until I was next to him and we were walking together. And he stayed close to me. I thought it was unmistakable that we were walking side-by-side in a way that was more intimate than people who weren't together typically walked and I thought everyone noticed. I could see heads spinning in our direction.

     Where's Isabelle? I thought and for an instant I pictured her in her bright yellow sweater and high-heeled black boots, watching us from some unseen corner. It irritated me that she always wore the right clothes. Cool pieces that she carried off with a casual indifference—like she wasn't really trying, when I knew those outfits must have taken some serious planning. Whereas I was mostly in jeans. Today I was wearing a black V-neck sweater I felt good in—it was more edgy than my other sweaters. I wanted her to see me walking off with Derek. I wanted her to feel what I'd felt whenever I'd seen her with Derek. A series of earthquakes inside me. The destruction of whatever was left of my heart and my insides. Those parts of me that hadn't yet been completely eviscerated when Derek had first stopped talking to me. And started hanging out with her.

      "Are you okay leaving?" Derek asked once we were outside, and he motioned back to the school building.

     "Yeah," I replied and squinted in the brightness of the midday sun. Even after everything that had happened, I was ready to go anywhere with him.

     "We can take my jeep," he said, and walked over to a black jeep.

     So, this was his new car then. I hadn't seen the black GTI since his return and had wondered about it. It seemed Isabelle hadn't been the only new addition to his life. The jeep was new too. Or new to him, at least. I could see that it had had a life prior to ending up with Derek. It suited him—this rugged vehicle that had clearly done some off-roading.

     "So," he said once we were seated.

     "Yeah," I replied. There were so many things to say that they seemed to cram up in my mind. And only the most mundane things came out. I had gone monosyllabic. And soon I feared I'd lose even more of my ability to speak. I might go pre-verbal or something.

     He started driving. We both rolled down our windows. I could sense that we needed air. There was a heaviness between us and we needed space to expand to allow us to let down our guards. To become the people we'd been before. Before he'd left Bluffside and returned as someone I didn't really know and who didn't know me. And worse that that: someone who didn't seem to want to know me.

     It was a beautiful fall day. I knew it but I couldn't really take it in. I stared out the window and sky and stretches of turning trees were blurred together into smears of bright blue and orange and yellow and red, like an abstract painting.

     "You're different," I finally said. It hadn't been a planned sentence, but it was true.

     He nodded.

     "Why?" I asked.

     He shrugged.

     "I'm never quite the same when I return." He was staring at the road not making eye contact and I knew it wasn't easy for him to talk about this unspeakable thing. He'd just made an admission of sorts, and that was huge. He'd referred to his absence from here. I was happy for this reference to an event that almost nobody else knew about. It made me feel close to him.

     But at the same time, I had a sense he wouldn't say much more about it. Despite being in his car next to him, he was somehow removed from me. He was here right now, but I didn't know where he went when I didn't see him. Things had changed. I was pretty sure he was wandering around in another place now. Even though he was in Bluffside, he was accessing an unseen part of it. He seemed to be in the midst of a wilderness full of things I didn't know about and couldn't understand.

     I'd been left on the sidelines. It had been difficult to be ignored. To see Isabelle bask in the attention she got from him. It seemed to give her even more confidence and to make her more beautiful—Derek's presence in her life. Or more accurately: his ongoing presence at her side.

     "I've been meaning to talk to you," he mumbled, and I saw frown lines form on his face.

     "Yeah?" I asked. I was at a loss for words.

     Don't let him off easy, I silently instructed myself. The handsome boy next to me had been running around with another girl. And not just any girl, but the most popular girl in school. And he'd not bothered to tell me why he'd stopped seeking me out. Instead, he'd flaunted his new-found togetherness with Isabelle, and ignoring me until now. I bit down on my lip. He owed me an explanation and I was going to get it. 

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NEXT NEW CHAPTER TUESDAY -- SEPTEMBER 15 

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