Time Lifts the Light

My second class of the day was Latin. The mysterious Daniel Hawkins wasn't in my class, but Mikey Douglas was. As he walked into class, I noticed that he was at least a head taller than everyone else, Ms. Warren included. The bottom hems of his slacks fell at his ankles, exposing half of the star on his high-top Chuck Taylors. He sat down and struggled to stay awake throughout Mrs. Warren's ramblings about present active participles.

I began to think about that gold pocket watch. The tiny hands that were frozen beneath the glass. The date that refused to change... It was the only thing reassuring me that what had happened last night wasn't a dream. I thought all about it as I walked to my next class, Art III. Before I'd even gone into the room I could tell that he was there. His distinct voice rang out above everyone else's, calling to the teacher.

"Ms. Perry! Ms. Perry!" he yelled.

Ms. Perry was young and beautiful. Her silky black hair was tied back into a knot and secured with bright red chopsticks. I stood at the front of the room, waiting for her to tell me what to do.

"Not now, D.B.," she sighed, tucking a wisp of black hair back up into her bun.
"Hi," I muttered. "I'm new... I don't know-"
"Go take the empty seat next to D.B.," she instructed. "Don't worry, I won't make you introduce yourself to the class."
I smiled at her, relieved. "Thank you."
"Mr. Hawkins, please raise your hand," she called over her shoulder as she ushered a few last-minute stragglers into the room.

I turned to see a hand raised casually in the air. Daniel looked at me with no sense of recognition. In fact, he didn't seem very interested in me at all. He was more concerned with getting Ms. Perry's attention.

"Ms. Perry!" he called, his hands cupped around his mouth. "Hey! Michelle Perry, I drew you something!"

I sat down on the metal stool next to Daniel and stared at the scar in his eyebrow. It was thin, but fantastically white, stretching diagonally from the crease in his eyelid to about a centimeter above his dark brow. He must have felt my eyes on him because he finally gave up on Ms. Perry, sighed, and allowed his arm to fall limply to his side. He turned to me.

"Daniel," he said.
"What?" I asked, startled.
"I'm Daniel. D.B."

My head buzzed. Should I ask him about...?

"Oh... Hi," I replied awkwardly instead.

He turned down the corners of his mouth, trying not to laugh at how uncomfortable I was. I scowled at him, which only made him pitch a small fit, snickering silently into his hand. He hastily disguised it as a violent coughing/sneezing attack.

"S'cuse me - uh, bless me. Sorry."

He scratched his head and cast a sidelong glance at me. I pretended to look though my backpack for something very, very important. I was entirely consumed by my search. Yes, it was utterly urgent that I found this mystery item hidden in the depths of don't look at the scar, don't look at the scar...

"You know what the B stands for?" he asked suddenly.
"Huh?" Don't look, don't look...
"The B. In my name."
"Oh... No, what?"
"Band-Aid," he muttered under his breath, grinning.

I blinked. Then I realized he was joking.

"It stands for Booker. It was my grandfather's name. Daniel Booker. Sounds pretty stupid, huh?"
"Sounds fine," I said and - damn! I was blushing! I felt the red crawl through my face.
He laughed and rubbed the back of his neck.

"I'm-"
"Indigo. I know. You moved from New Mexico, huh?"
Somehow my gaze drifted back up to his scar.

Ms. Perry clapped her hands. Everyone fell silent. Well, except for D.B., that is.

"Ms. Perry, I drew you something!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.

The class laughed as Ms. Perry rolled her eyes and walked over to D.B. He handed her a folded sheet of lined notebook paper and leaned back in his chair, grinning from ear to ear. Ms. Perry opened the drawing and stared at it, amused. The class was fixated on her, collectively on the verge of laughing.

"I'm flattered D.B.," she said dryly. "Shall I put it up with the others?"

D.B. nodded and the entire class burst out in giggles. Ms. Perry walked up to a small cork board and tacked the picture up. We were close enough to see the details of the drawing.

It was just a rough sketch, but I could tell that D.B.'s talent for drawing was far beyond anyone else his age. He'd drawn himself and Ms. Perry at the altar, getting married. The folds of her dress fell elegantly at her feet and curved slowly with the rest of her body and her -- rather exaggerated -- chest.

D.B. had drawn himself in a tux, but with no shirt on underneath. He'd made his chest muscles defined and his stomach ripped.

I didn't have to look very close to tell that the other pictures were D.B.'s also. Ms. Perry and D.B. sitting at a candle-lit dinner, Ms. Perry and D.B. holding hands in the park, Ms. Perry and D.B. watching a sunset. It was a running gag with her.

Everyone howled with laughter, but D.B. pretended not to notice. He pushed the hair out of his eyes and winked at Ms. Perry, who looked towards the ceiling and muttered something that sounded a lot like, "Help me."

Even I couldn't help but smile.

D.B. didn't talk to me, or anyone else for that matter, for the rest of the hour. He was completely focused on a drawing of his friends - Kim Marcolini and Mikey Douglas. He had the photograph sitting next to him for reference.

Kim had her face bunched up in laughter and Mikey was holding her hand, showing off his toothy grin. They were both standing on the roof of an old car, and it looked as if they were dancing. The strange part was, Kim was in a tight turquoise dress, and Mikey had on an oversized dinner jacket.

I pretended not to be spying on him and counted down the minutes until lunch.

-_-_-_-

Mikey was shooting spit-balls across the lunchroom through a straw. Kim was trying to get his attention, flirting with him and tickling his neck with her long slender fingers. He shrugged her off and she huffed in annoyance. D.B. rolled his eyes as he picked at his food.

I ached to go over there. I feasted my eyes on the trio, soaking up as much information as I could. It was as if I was trapped in some strange dream.

My last class of the day was History. Turns out, we'd been studying the Renaissance for the past two weeks and I was about two hundred years behind. I sighed and drew tiny stars and planets all over the calendar Mr. Cross had given me.

D.B., Kim, and Mikey all entered the room at the same time, laughing and whispering excitedly. Somehow, they all looked windblown and disheveled. Their excited twitters died as Mr. Cross rapped his knuckles on his large desk.

"Sit!" he barked. "Michael, button your shirt!"

Mikey looked as if he'd just swallowed something slimy. He buttoned up his shirt hastily. Kim made her way over to her seat, head down. Mr. Cross looked at her accessories with disdain.

"Daniel, would you mind telling the class where your tie has gone?"
"My huh?"
"Your tie, sir," Mr. Cross growled. "The tie that is required by the school board to be properly fastened around your neck for the duration of the school day! The tie that represents the fine education you would be getting if you didn't insist on coming in late to every one of my classes!"
"Oh. That tie," he muttered, giving Mr. Cross a dark look. "It's in my pocket, I think."

Laughter.

"Mr. Hawkins... Must we do this again?" Mr. Cross sighed.

Daniel shrugged and shuffled over to the desk directly to the left mine. He pulled a few things out of his pocket and dumped them on the desktop before locating his tie and fitting it into a knot on his neck.

Mr. Cross nodded and pulled out a warm-up for the overhead.

Amongst the items that D.B. had emptied out of his pockets were:
- 2 sticks of Juicy Fruit gum, including a piece of already chewed gum balled up in it's wrapper
- 3 crumpled scraps of paper, which he absentmindedly smoothed out and looked at while he was supposed to be paying attention (a sketch of a giant ant wreaking havoc on a car, a self portrait - his nose had been erased from the center of the face multiple times and then, finally, relocated to the middle of his forehead, and a cartoon drawing of various foodstuffs having a party inside a refrigerator)
- 1 battered copy of a book of "Calvin and Hobbes" comics
- 2 plastic wind-up toys (one in the shape of a gorilla, and the other a polar bear)
- 1 golden pocket watch, with the letters "D.B.H." carved into the front.

My heart stopped. He clicked the watch open and turned around to wink at Mikey, who sat behind him. It was the watch.

The same watch.

He caught me looking at him.

"What?" he asked quietly.
"N-Nothing!"
"You spying on me or something?"

I wrinkled my brow and frowned at him. He chuckled.

And that's when all doubt had been removed from my mind. Daniel Booker Hawkins had been in my room last night.