Connect The Dots

Audrey



     The whole class was stunned into silence. No one spoke, no one whispered, just silence at the scene that had just took place. “If I'm not mistaken, that's three...” what did he mean by that? The only leverage I had is that is it was something between Desmond (shudder) Noah, and Wesley.
     “Okay, everyone back in the class,” Miss Campbell said as she tried to shoo everyone away from the scene. “You too, Ms. Lawrence,” she scolded as she got to me.
     “I'm going to make sure Noah's okay,” I said, and for once, she listened to me and went inside with everyone else.
I slowly walked over to Noah, who was just standing there, touching the area around his lip ring that was bleeding a little.
     “Are you okay?” I asked when I got to him.
     “Yeah, I'm fine,” he said, his voice sounded hard, but distant. He looked toward the way Desmond had left.
     “Are you sure, that was pretty intense. And scary.” I added.
     “I'm sure,” he answered, still looking down the hallway. His shoulders were tense. I approached him carefully, and slowly grabbed his hand so he didn't snap on me.
     “Let's go inside.” I tried to pull him toward the classroom, but he wouldn't budge.
     “Noah, we have to go back-” I was cut off when he suddenly pulled me in toward him. I slammed into his chest, and his grip on my arms was way to tight. “What is your problem?” I asked, not caring how harsh I sounded.
     “Sorry,” he apologized and let go of me. He looked down at the red carpet, and licked his lips a couple times. When he looked up, his face and deep blue eyes were intense.
     “I need your help,” he said.
    “With-” Wait a second... and then it clicked, and I jumped back against the locker, staring at him with wide eyes.
     “What's wrong?” he asked, confused, and looking a little hurt.
     “Nothing,” I quickly lied, “I just had a bit of a muscle spasm. I'm good.”
     Those eyes. How hadn't I seen this earlier? Those same deep blue eyes, are those same eyes as Lori, the burned, stitched up woman from my dream. The shape, the color, the thickness of their eyelashes, all the same. In fact, looking at his whole face, anyone would admit there was an uncanny resemblance between them. They even had, the same jet black straight hair.
Lori's words echoed in my head. 'You have to get away,' she said, and remembering her scratchy voice made my skin crawl. What did she mean by them? I could only think of one thing. And he was standing right in front of me. I mentally shook myself. What am I thinking? What could that woman and Noah possibly have anything to do with each other? Noah seemed like an okay kid. Why would she want to warn me from him? And what about the others, the man who was also incredibly marred, and the other woman with the honey voice. What would they have to do with Noah? Nothing. Right?
     “Anyway, I need your help,” he started, breaking me out of my jumbled thoughts, which I was grateful for. “with Desmond.”
     Crap. Okay, maybe I wasn't so grateful. “I can't.”
     “Why?” he said, with a sadness that was carried into his eyes that made me feel guilty, and also due to recent revelation, was creeping me out. And I had a tug in my gut, telling me to spill about my 6th sense.
     “I just can't,” I said instead. “Can we go inside now?” I asked, changing the subject.
     “Okay,” he said giving up. And we both walked into the classroom.
     I felt terrible. It's not like I didn't want to help. I did, but I want virtually nothing to do with Desmond, and I definitely wasn't going to tell Noah why. What was I going to say? 'The reason I didn't want to help out with the whole Desmond situation is because I can sense otherworldly thing, and Desmond isn't human. I know he looks human, but he's really not. So yeah, K' thanks bye?'
     Um, no.
     I was tied. So the best thing to do for now is to just sit back and not get involved. Wait. 'Not get involved...' it was the same thing the woman with the honey voice said. Okay, now I know for sure not to get involved. But if she was right, does that mean Lori was right too?
     STOP THINKING ABOUT IT! You're only going to get yourself more confused and stressed. Just sit down in the desk, and work on the project, I told myself.
     “So we have the idea. What are we going to do now,” I asked, but my voice sounded distant. I was wondering if he could tell.
     “Nothing I guess, so we can just chill.” he answered. He suddenly sounded so calm, when he had just been so angry and tense out in the hallway. That's kind of weird. Hold on.
     “No!” I said, louder than I meant to, receiving yet another round of dagger stares from the rest of the class. “Can we talk about Romeo and Juliet?” I really didn't want to, but I also really didn't want to just sit there, forced to listen to my thoughts.
     “Fine,” he agreed, almost too quickly. “What do you think of Romeo?”
“I kind of already made this clear yesterday. An obsessive, bipolar stalker.”
His face was one of shock. “Okay, I can understand the stalker part, but where does obsessive and bipolar come from?”
     “Well at the beginning he's all, I'm so depressed over Rosalind, boo hoo hoo, and the second he sees Juliet he's all 'never mind, she's hotter, so she's my new drug. So that's all 'what the hell?' And bipolar comes from how he can be the happiest person alive, and then the next he's all 'I'm going to kill myself.' And he only knew her for 2 weeks. That's not mentally sane.”
     “Well you have to remember it was a different time back then-”
     “Does it look like I care?” I cut him off. He raised his eyebrows at me, but it was in a playful way.
     “Well then,” he said pretending to be offended. He put his hands on his hips and everything. He even pouted a little, making his lip ring shine. I giggled a little bit. He smiled back at me.
     “Well, what about Juliet?” he said, when we both stopped.
     “Juliet is just another hormonal teenager to me, except even crazier. Which is saying something, because girls these days are nuts.”
     “She was a romantic,” Noah tried to argue with me again.
     “No. Just no. In fact, I think she was bipolar too.”
     “Oh my gosh, how bad would that be in real life? Two bipolar teens who got together?” He asked out of nowhere.
     I thought about it for a second. “Well, not that bad I guess. They have medicine for it, so...” I trailed off, and we sat there nodding at each other for about a minute straight, until we both burst into another round of giggles that came off kind of flirty to me. Were we flirting? Nah. Noah's not really my type.
And the bell rang. Time to go already?
     “See you tomorrow,” Noah said as he got his things together. Like yesterday, I responded with another week wave. Walking out the door, I went the way I went yesterday. But for some reason, I couldn't get my dream out of my head.