chapter twelve

CHAPTER TWELVE

 

"Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news hath but a losing office, and his tongue sounds ever after as a sullen bell, rememb'red tolling a departing friend." William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part two.

 

 

The knock on my door pulled me out of my half-sleep stupor and I groaned, rolling over onto my shoulder and squeezing my eyes tightly shut. The knock flooded my head again and I pulled my pillow over my face to conceal some of the hollow sound.

My head was still clouded with subconscious fuzz, the world around me still half a dream. Once more the door knocked and I flung the pillow off of my face exasperated.

“I’m sleeping, go away.” I croaked, my eyes still squeezed shut. The door creaked open, letting in the cold air from the living room, “I am fast asleep mom.” I pretended to snore and an amused chuckle caused me to snap open my eyes.

“Mom?” I asked suspiciously.

“Nice bed head.” The familiar voice mused.

I rolled my eyes and sat up in my bed, keeping my warm blanket wrapped around me, “and who let you in?”

“Your mom was just on her way out the door, said I could go wake you up.” Jayce explained. He stayed in the doorway.

“Oh she did did she? How thoughtful.” I sighed half heartedly, “you can come in you know. I mean, you might as well; there’s no chance of me going back to sleep now.”

 

Jayce strode over and sat on the edge of my bed, “well. Get up, let’s go, we’ve got studying to do.”

I furrowed my eyebrows unsure if I wanted to know what was going on. “Study? For what?” I asked sceptically.

He pulled on my blanket and I clutched it to me with equal amount of force, “you want to learn braille don’t you?”

I thought of the small notebook he had given me for my birthday and nodded, “right now?”

“Yes right now.” He jumped to his feet and grabbed a hold of my blanket. I tightened my grip in anticipation of the pull, “up and at em.” He yanked hard and my arms flew in his direction along with the comforter.

I squealed as the cold air pierced my homemade cocoon. “it’s cold!” I whined, scrambling to retrieve my blanket back out of Jayce’s hands.

“I don’t think so.” He laughed as I lunged forward and missed. “Do you really think you’re quicker than me?”

“I scrunched up my nose, “I have reflexes like a chimpanzee!”

Jayce burst into laughter, “a chimpanzee?” He managed to cough out between mirth, “where the hell did you get that from?”

I frowned, “it’s the first animal that popped into my head okay.” Jayce began laughing again and I glared, “I’m glad you’re amused.” I reached over and snatched the blanket from him while he was preoccupied, grinning smugly. “See. Chimpanzee.”

 

Jayce regained his composure, “oh Sisi, you have one strange thought process. It’s a good thing you’re cute.” He let out one last chuckle.

My cheeks flushed hot crimson with his last casual words and I tried desperately to hide my embarrassment. He grabbed my arms and pulled me out of bed, “alright, fun’s over, time to learn.” He said with exaggerated enthusiasm. He spoke as if he hadn’t just said anything edifying. How did he do that? Act so cool and collected all the time, as if he had no worries.

“Alright I’m up.” I mumbled once I recovered my words.

 

We moved into the living room, kneeling in front of the coffee table. Jayce unzipped what must have been a backpack of some sort and pulled out some papers.

“Alright. Well I brought a few books on techniques to learn Braille. I’m not too sure how difficult this is going to be but I’m sure we can figure it out on our own.” I nodded eagerly and shuffled closer to the table, resting my hands atop it.

 

“Okay, let’s see. The introduction.” He flipped a few pages, “the Braille cell consists of six embossed dots. If we were to number the dots, the left column going vertical would be numbered one, two and three. The numbers parallel in the right column would be four, five and six.” Jayce read, “Okay so I’m assuming the Braille cell looks kind of like a domino.” I loved his voice, so soft yet masculine. I could listen to him talk for hours and never bore. I always wondered if his face matched his attractive voice.

“Okay. Domino. Got it.” I said finally.

 

“The six dots can be combined in sixty three different ways to create letters, numbers and punctuation. The letters A to J all use the dots one, two, four and five, which is the top two thirds of the domino.” Jayce picked up my hand and placed it over the book letting me feel each combination of tiny bumps, while reading out what letter was what.

“By adding dot three to the cell we can now create letters K to T. Once you learn the first group of letters- A to J- The next set is the exact same, only you add one dot.”

 

I frowned, scrunching up my nose, “What do you mean?”

Jayce cleared his throat, “Well for example; the letter A is made by dot number one. Imagine your domino with dot number one shaded in. Then the letter K is made by dot number one plus dot number three. Letter B is created with dot number one and two, and then letter L is made by dots one, two plus three. So if you were to line up two rows of dominos that make up letters A to J- one row on top of the other- then add dot number three to the bottom row, suddenly all those letters go from being A to J and turn into K to T.”

I visualized the two rows of identical dominos then shading in the same added dot to each. “Okay, I understand now, I’m guessing the next group of letters will be made by simply adding one more dot to the pattern?”

 

“You got it. For letters U to Z you take the dominos representing K to O and shade in one more dot on the domino; number six. Really all we have to do is memorize the first group of letters and then we will know the whole alphabet like pro’s.”

            A wide smile spread across my face, “I have to admit, this is a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.” I narrowed my eyes mischievously, “And you know what that means; I’ll be able to decipher your mystery birthday gift sooner than expected.”

            Jayce laughed amused, “Well I guess you better study your little heart out then.”

 

I stared in his direction for a moment, wishing I could see him. “That was really nice you know, doing something like that for me.”

Jayce shuffled, “No big deal, I have a lot of time on my hands.” He joked.

I shrugged and stretched out my back, “Still. It means a lot to me.”

 

Jayce’s hand rested lightly on my arm and my heart raced with the warm touch. I couldn’t keep myself from moving closer to him and soon I felt his sweet breath on my cheek. I closed my eyes but he abruptly let go and moved away, I frowned disappointed.

“Someone just knocked on your door.”

I sighed and got to my feet, “Of course they did.”

 

The heavy thumping I hadn’t heard before now echoed down the hall as I made my way over.

“I’m coming.” I called irritated as another knock vibrated the door. I called out before unlocking it, “Who is it?”

            The frozen voice of a familiar friend answered, “Austin. Let me in, it’s cold.”

            I twisted the lock and Austin stepped inside, shuddering the snow from his shoulders, “Man. Just when you think winter is ending you get a day like this.”

I smiled weakly and closed the door. I was happy to see Austin but I had been looking forward to some time with Jayce.

“What’s wrong?” He asked noting my apparent disappointment.

I glanced over my shoulder then back again.

His voice dropped, “Is someone here?”

 

“Look, Austin. Right now is probably not the best time.” I cowered my head ashamed, “how about we get together a little later?”

Austin snorted, “You never have time for me anymore. I mean seriously Quinn.”

I chewed on my cheek; I couldn’t deny the fact that he was right. “I do want to see you; I’m just in the middle of something.”

Austin sighed, “Fine. I just came here because I wanted to talk to you, will you give five minutes? That’s it, just five.”

I looked in his direction, blinking blankly while I sorted out my thoughts, “Alright. In my room.” I peeked my head around the corner, “Hey, I’m just talking to Austin for a minute, look at the next lesson and I’ll be right there.”

 

I followed Austin into my room, closing the door behind us. We sat on my bed, enveloped in an awkward silence for a moment.

“So what’s up?” I asked trying to sound casual.

Austin cleared his throat, “I just... really need to say something, I might sound crazy but I’ve been thinking a lot lately.” I gulped back my growing anxiety and waited.

 

“We have been through a lot Quinn. We’ve been best friends since I can remember and you know me better than anyone. What I’m trying to say is, I’ll never meet another person like you, and I think the reason why it hurt so bad when you dumped our friendship so long ago, is because I care about you.”

 

I grabbed his hand, “I care about you too and I already said how terrible I feel about what I did.” I felt a little guilty for wanting to rush our converstion.

Austin pulled his hand away, “No, you don’t get what I’m saying. I care about you.” He sighed and mumbled the next words, “I love you.”

 

I nearly choked on my saliva, “what?”

“Don’t be like that. I know you must feel the same right? I mean the way we are with each other...”

“No, no, no. Please don’t say that.” I shook my head wishing to erase the conversation.

“Trust me, I thought of every possible explanation for the way I feel, but don’t know what else it could be. What else could it be?”

I shook my head again, “you don’t love me.”

“Yes I do. You can pretend I don’t all you want but I do. I just want to know if you feel the same.”

 

I stumbled over silent words that never made it passed my lips; Austin must have taken my silence as the answer he wanted. Before I knew it his warm lips were on mine, his body close, pressing against mine. I didn’t know what to do, my mind raced and I sat their frozen. Austin pulled me closer to him, his mouth pressing harder on mine and I finally wedged my arms in between us prying us apart once I regained my composure.

 

“Stop.” I finally blurted and he drew away.

“What’s the matter?”

I touched my lips as if they now carried an everlasting wrongness, “No. I don’t love you.”

He paused, “but you have to, I thought-“ I shook my head, feeling terrible.

 

“It’s Jayce.” He said venomously. I looked down, not wanting him to see the emotion I couldn’t keep from my eyes.

“Tell me.”

I had never really admitted to myself that I had feelings for Jayce, but denial had to end at some point, “Don’t do this to yourself.” I pleaded.

“No. Tell me.” He insisted. I shook my head in protest. “Just say it. I know you want to so just do it.”

I sighed, tears pooling my eyelids, “I love him.” The words released a ball of heavy weight from within me and it felt good to finally admit to myself what I had always really known. I loved Jayce. The new realisation made me smile although I felt horrible for hurting Austin once again.

 

“I knew it.”

“Austin please.”

“Why?” He asked with a tone of misplaced anger.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know why you love a complete stranger? Well that’s a shocker.”

“Don’t be a jerk.”

“Isn’t it true though? You barely know him Quinn.”

“I know him well enough.”

Austin laughed, “Well enough? How long have you known him? How can you possibly be in love with him?”

Blood rushed to my cheeks, “Does it matter?”

“It matters to me.”

I slammed my fists down into the mattress frustrated, “I’m sorry that I don’t love you but I’m not going to lie and say I do Austin. God, why can’t you just accept that?”

“I will never accept that because I know you’re just lying to yourself.”

I looked to the ceiling frustrated, “no, I’m not. You’re a great person, my best friend but that’s all we will ever be. I know that’s not what you want to hear but I’m sorry, that’s the way it is.”

 

He paused and recollected himself, “Does he even know?”

I pursed my lips, “Know what?”

It was his turn to be annoyed, “How you feel? He doesn’t does he.”

I looked to my friend, “no.”

“How do you know he will love you back then?” His questions were more like statements then anything.

“I don’t.”

 

“But I love you, why don’t you see that I am what’s best for you?”

“Austin, I can’t force myself to feel things I just don’t. I didn’t choose to love Jayce but I do and if he doesn’t feel the same way then I don’t know, but it still doesn’t change the fact.”

“So that’s that then.”

I shrugged, “I’m sorry, but yeah.”

Austin climbed to his feet, “I really hope you don’t end up regretting you’re choice.” He slammed the door behind him causing me to jump and left me in my room by myself with my spiralling thoughts and forming tears. Now what.

 

Austin couldn’t really be mad at me for this; he just needed to cool off, to open his eyes. Then he would accept the way things were, he had to. I don’t think I could handle losing him. I sighed and wiped off my face before returning to Jayce.

Reviews

[Luna Northstar]

AHHHHH!!! I don't like Austin... No, but really, this was a great chapter. Everything was so happy, she was learning braille with Jaycee, and everything was great, and then Austin ruined it..... I can't wait to see what happens next.