Agape: Chapter 2

more characters to learn :D

Ayla

 

            I hate him. I hate him. I hate him.  Ayla’s brain says as he walks into the science lab and takes his seat next to her. Stupid alphabetical order…

            “Just finished my homework in the bathroom.” He smirks. Ayla wished she could just smack that smirk off his face. His perfectly tanned, unblemished, beautiful… fac- AH! STOP THAT!

            Dan sits down and starts talking to her. He says awful things, she knows he’s joking, and her brain tells her to hate him. Her heart thumps and she hopes he can’t hear it.

            She’s confused as to why she doesn’t tell him off. But then maybe not, her heart was thumping for a reason, you know. Mrs. Dotter starts the class and Ayla zones out. Vaguely, in the back of her daydream, she hears the pouring rain and that just adds to her fantasy.

            “So where are we going?” Ayla asks again.

            “Chris is sick, so we’re going to my house.” She knew that, she just wanted to hear it again.

            “Ugh,” she fake complains “why don’t we just go walking when Chris is back?” Dan shrugs. “It’s probably going to rain…”  She adds. He looks up and as he does the sky opens up and it starts to pour.

            “Great.”  Now up until here, the daydream could actually be reality, Dan turns to Ayla and cups her face in his hands and kisses her.

I wish that would come true… She begged to anything that was listening. Out of the corner of her eye she watched his arm, the wiry muscles moving even when he wasn’t, so… languid and graceful.

            “Mr. Ross, would you like to share what ever it is you’re writing with the class?” Mrs. Dotter asked jokingly.

            “Not really.” He says, folding up a piece of paper and putting it in his pocket. Mrs. Dotter doesn’t press further; she just goes back to drawing Mickey Molecule. Dan reaches over and draws a-you know- the thing a boy has? - on Ayla’s paper.

“Thanks so much for that.” She whispers sarcastically, scribbling it out with her pen. The quiet girl who sits across from her giggles quietly, as quiet girls do. Ayla looks up. The girl’s green eyes look at them knowingly, as if she’d figured it out. Ayla wouldn’t be surprised if she had, this girl was a straight A student who always freaked out when they had a science quiz, studied with Ayla for a few moments and then was the first one done. Had she ever made a hint that she liked Dan?

Ayla watched the clock tick slowly, the minutes trickling by until finally the minute hand reaches the twelve and its two o’clock. Finally. She gets up, slings her messenger bag over one shoulder and picks up her stool to put it on the table. She drops it. Dan catches  it and lifts it up with one hand. Not really impressive but nice reflexes. They leave with the first busses even though they’re supposed to wait until they announce that the walkers are okay to go.  They walk out the door, Ayla shaking and hoping she won’t let anything slip. She never has.

           

 

Dan

           

              Did Ayla know? She better not. Dan tortured her and teased her because he didn’t know what else to do. He was the trouble maker, or one of them, and usually went out with girls because of their looks, not personality. He went out with a freshman girl last year, no one made a huge deal about it, they were too scared to. He didn’t purposely hurt anyone, yeah, two weeks ago he did break Ashley’s finger, but it was an accident! Sure, she had blood running down her arm and it made her almost pass out at the sight of it, but… accidentally! While they walked down the stairs to the main entrance Chris turned green.

              “Chris, are you okay?” Ayla asked him in a whisper. He sat down on the stairs and put his head in his hands and moaned, “No,” he vomited onto his shoes, “no, I’m not.”

              Dan’s one weakness: sick people. He wasn’t good at comforting, wasn’t the best caretaker, and puked at the sight of puke. He looked away.

              “I’ll go get the nurse…” A nearby freshman says. He returns with the nurse and she takes him into her office, then hands the freshman paper towels.

            “Um, he’s not my friend; I don’t want to pick up his puke.”

            “I’ll help.” Ayla makes a gulping sound, “Ugh.” Dan hears the ripping of perforated paper towels and then Ayla comes up and taps his shoulder, “It’s all clean Dan, you can look.”

            How did she know, was he that obvious? Warily, he turns around, hoping it’s not a trick, it’s definitely something he’d do to her. It’s really all clean. Huh.

            “So are we still walking?” She asks.

            “I don’t think so; I’m not feeling great…”

             

               

             

           

 

Cammi

 

            “C’mon Jeremy, can’t we take a break from studying? We haven’t done anything fun in forever.” Alex must be a lot of fun. A little voice whispers in her mind. She ignores it, she’s been hearing it the past 24 hours since she met the guy and she’s learned to disregard it.

            In a flash of daring she crawled over her blue comforter and kissed him. She used to get sparks, now they were dulled after years of the same match being struck. He kisses her back to not hurt her feelings but she knows she can’t convince him to go any further… unless…

            “I have to go to the bathroom.” She says and runs off. She closes the door, goes out the other one into her mom’s room she opens the top drawer of her dresser and looks in. Perfect. Her mom is the same size as her and she puts the purple silk on. Cammi and Jeremy have never done it and she’s never wanted to before, she just wanted to make out, which they have done plenty of times and this was how to get it.

            She walks in and leans against the wall.

            “Hi.” She tries to say seductively but she ends up giggling. He laughs to and she sits on the bed just sitting there. He reaches over and kisses her, just like she wanted. They shove the books off the bed and make out. It doesn’t last long and they go back to doing homework. Cammi still didn’t feel any sparks, or very little any way.

            She remembers their first kiss, when she was a scared 8^th grader; well it was in the summer, going into eighth grade. They were at the park and sitting on the swings. Cammi still missed the swings from elementary recess. He jumped off when his swing hit its peak and rolled and got up laughing. He stood behind her and pushed her swing, they’d been dating for a year and half now, it must be a middle school record. Suddenly instead of pushing her he caught her around the waist and spun her around. He brought her to his lips and she knew she was in love.

            Those were the days… She wished she could remember what love like that felt like, but she couldn’t. And she wanted to, desperately.

 

Raina

 

            Raina’s alarm was especially annoying. Most alarms you just want to throw it out the window, Raina’s was an alarm that sent cats to the ceiling in fright and you wanted to shoot with a machine gun. Her parents wouldn’t buy her a new one so she woke up to, “IT’S FRIDAY IT’S FRIDAY GOTTA GET DOWN ON FRIDAY…” Every. Day. She wakes up and smacks it off the table to shut it up and gets out of her cozy and warm fire colored bed. She bought the comforter because it matched her hair. She stumbled blindly to the bathroom and her brain repeats a line from a dream: Brush your hair, you don’t want Will to see you like this. You don’t want will to see you like this? What had she dreamt about? And “don’t want will” makes absolutely no sense.  Whatever, she obeyed it and brushed her hair anyway. She makes her side bangs in a French braid and then puts the rest of her hair into a pony tail and straightens the waves out of it. She puts on eyeliner and mascara around her jade green eyes. Then she walks, a little more steadily this time, to her room to get dressed. She picks out a sea green shirt with a silver rose on it and dark blue skinny jeans tucked into tan Uggs. She goes down stairs and pours some Trix cereal and eats, trying not to sleep in the rainbow breakfast. She looks outside. Omigosh, it snowed yesterday, in October!

            At school Alex was waiting at her locker, they hadn’t really talked yesterday, they only had one other class together and then lunch, but she couldn’t find him at lunch and they couldn’t get a seat together in English.

            “Hey,” she said hugging him.

            “So, I guess we are dating.” He laughs.

            “Yes we are.” She smiles up at him.

            “Well then…” He smiles and bends down to kiss her, still smiling. They walk to AP history holding hands.  During announcements the principal also says, “Homecoming is coming in four weeks! Get ready!” Immediately all the girls break into excited chatter.

            “Ashley, you still up for dress shopping tonight?” Raina asks.

            “Of course! I’m so excited!” Then a girl named Nikole walks into the room. She’s late and about to drop her backpack and books and everyone looks up. There’s a collective gasp and then more chatter. She completely transformed. Her hair was so silky it was to be coveted and she looked absolutely gorgeous. She takes her usual seat next to Will and Raina leans forward to her.

            “Wow, Nikole I love your hair today! You look so pretty!” A compliment Raina didn’t usually give. Nikole beams and tries to hide it.

            “Thanks, you too.” She mumbles and turns away. This girl was going to have to get used to attention because she was going to get a lot of it. Especially the male sort of attention.

 

 

Ayla

 

            She sneaks looks at Dan throughout all her classes, which they have all the same. And every time she does she gets a flood of warmth and happiness. Yesterday he was worried that he’d throw up, so he walked home, and Ayla caught up with some friends and walked around town and then home. It snowed and rained but about an inch of the fluffy white crystals coated the ground. Walking up the front steps, something crunched. She bent over and picked up a frozen piece of paper with her numb fingers. Fumbling slightly she unfolds it. And with each word glowing warmth grows inside of her. Until on the last four words she screams and jumps up and down.

            I’m sorry. I truly am. I’ve been horrible to you. I call you fat when you aren’t at all. When your bangs fall in front of one eye I call you emo. I shouldn’t. I’m so sorry, I am horrible to you and I don’t know why. Okay. I do.

 

I lo     I love    I love you. "Dan

            This is what he was writing in science. And so-o-o-o-o-o much better than her fantasy.       

 

Demi

           

            I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here. I REALLY DON’T WANT TO BE HERE. Demi’s mom had finally done something Demi didn’t want her to. She signed Demi up for therapy. When she had come home crying yesterday and accidentally rolled up her sleeve, her mom saw the scars.

            Now she was sitting in the plush blue chairs of the waiting room. Waiting for Dr. Matthews. She hears footsteps and looks up, a guy about, twenty two years old turns the corner. Another patient. She wonders what’s wrong with him.

            “Demi Swanson?” He says.

            “Yes?”

            “Hi, I’m Dr. Matthews, you can call me Bryce.” WAIT, WHAT? This incredibly hot twenty two year old was her THERAPIST? Great. He holds out his hand and she tentatively takes it and half-heartedly shakes it. 

            “Come with me.” He leads her to a room with one of those couches that the crazy people lie down on and cry. Oh my God. I’m crazy enough for a couch-bed???  She sits down slowly on the brown leather. She looks at Bryce. He has black hair, smoky grey eyes, a strong nose and a hard jaw.  My god he’s gorgeous…

            “So, Demi, I’m Bryce, and we are going to be talking about your feelings.”

            “Oh God.” Demi murmured.

            He smirks and says, “But we usually start with a bubble test. I’ll give you a sheet of paper with questions on it, there are five choices: never, a little, some, more, a lot. Okay?”

            She nods. He hands her the piece of paper and a pen.

            Do you feel safe at home?  Answer: a lot. (meaning all the time.)

            The next few questions don’t apply, but the she reads: Are you depressed, self diagnosed or doctor diagnosed? Answer: a lot

            In the past month, have you self harmed? Answer: a lot

            How often do you have nightmares? Answer: more

            She sheepishly hands him the test when she’s done, as he reads through it he makes the annoying doctor “uh huh”’s and “yep”’s.

            “So, Demi,  when did your depression start?”

            “After summer camp.”

            “What happened at summer camp?” He says tenderly.

            “I- uh- I was planning to "uh- have… you know: it with my boyfriend when I overheard him talking to his friends about me, in a mean way, and then,” This was the part she hadn’t even mentioned to Alex that she had heard, “he said that tomorrow he was going to- and I quote- ‘Hook up with Felicia, I don’t think Demi’s going to be, satisfying, you know what I mean?’ unquote and I just… left.” She turned red the whole way through, and that was the longest thing she’s said since it happened, except when she was screaming at Alex.

            “You left camp?”

            “Well, yeah, but that’s not what I meant when I said that, I meant I… was just gone, after a few days I wasn’t… me.” She had never opened up this much to someone. Maybe it was the way she thought Bryce’s eyes looked into her soul, or maybe it was because she could see what he saw when she looked into those eyes: A beautiful, strong girl.

            “Is this you?” He gestured to her black ensemble.

            “No…?”

            “You don’t sound sure.”

            “I’m not, am I supposed to have a breakthrough on my first day at the shrink?”

            He laughs.

Author's Note

I really hope no one's offended by the Goth thing, I meant nothing by it, its just how Demi is :)