Some Kind of Magic

I wanna scream.
Wanna scream your name.
Star light, star bright, can save.
You're my wish tonight.

“You need any help moving this stuff into your car?” Travis asked the brunette as she walked from her room with a bag filled with paints and a stack of canvas’s under her other arm. As she shook her head, a heavy sigh escaped her lips as she stumbled through the living room and out of the front door. As her feet in her moccasins slapped against the cement, her heart beat pounded in her chest. Every time she was outside she was prepared to see those beautiful brown eyes that she was trying to escape. The same brown eyes she hasn’t seen in the last week.

Trunk open, she dumped the boards into the trunk messily and then put the bag of paints to the left of them. As she straightened the paintings out into an orderly stack she turned and gasped as her eyes collided with the soft brown ones that haven’t left her mind in the last week. As they both stood there, eyes locked on the other, every word that they were going to say washed down their throats.

Silence consumed the two of them for a few minutes before Vanessa cleared her throat and looked down. Muttering something about getting her things she started to walk away, but only she had only managed to get three steps away before Zach grabbed her arm and turned her back to face him. “Why are you moving?” the words slipped past Zach’s lips easier than he had anticipated. Once the words were in the air, awaiting a reply, Vanessa sighed heavily and looked down, running a hand through her long brown hair.

“I need to get back on my feet”, she looked up at Zach and quickly looked away from his perfect face and adorable brown eyes. “I need to get my own place and start focusing on my job.”

“Is it because of me?”

“Why would I move because of you, because we had sex? That’s the last thing on my mind, Zach. It was an accident, that’s not going to make me get my own place”, she snapped and watched as the little amount of glitter in Zach’s eyes faded to dark. “I was just thinking that morning, and I realized that the only way I would get back on track is to get my own place and start focusing in on my new job”, her eyes lifted and met Zach’s. The defeated look in them gave Vanessa a knot in her stomach, but she fought threw it. “You’ll find a great girl someday Zach”, as she placed her hand on Zach’s shoulder, she felt shivers start to run up and down her spine.

Without thinking, she moved her hand over Zach’s shoulder and pulled him in for a hug that he accepted quickly. As Zach pulled the girl tightly against his chest, he leaned down and put his chin on her shoulder. Inhaling her perfume, he shut his eyes tightly and sucked in a deep breath. As they pulled away, their eyes caught each others. Faces just centimeters away, their ragged breath bounced off of the others lips. Shivering, Zach moved his face a little closer to Vanessa’s. As his lips brushed over hers, a shiver rocked her body and a second later they simultaneously applied a small amount of pressure.

Lips pressed together, Zach pulled Vanessa back into him, applying a little more pressure that Vanessa unknowingly accepted. As their kiss deepened and their lips entered a heated battle, Zach’s hands slipped down to Vanessa’s hips. Waddling back, he pinned her between him and the car and as his hands slid up Vanessa’s sides, her hands wrapped around Zach’s waist and pulled him in closer.

After a few more minutes of a heated lip locked battle, Zach broke the kiss and started to attack a specific spot on Vanessa’s neck. As a soft moan escaped her mouth, the flashbacks from a week ago when Zach had done the same thing to knock the sense out of her came rushing back into her head, and just as Zach finished leaving a red mark on her neck and went to kiss her lips, she jerked back slamming her head against the car behind her.

“Ouch”, she whispered as her eyes snapped shut and her hands left Zach and went to the back of her head now pulsing with pain.

“Are you alright, Vanessa?” As soon as Zach’s hand met Vanessa’s she tore her hands away and blinked hard, looking up at the boy standing before her.

Shaking her head a little she nodded and looked over at the house, the front door wide open. She still had a bunch of canvas’s to take and a suitcase filled with clothes. “I have to get back to moving”, she whispered in a small voice as her body moved from between Zach and the car. Her feet pounded heavily against the cement as she started to walk up the sidewalk. Halfway to the door, Zach’s voice had stopped her.

“Is that it?” He asked; annoyed. “You’re going to kiss me like that and then walk away?” His brown eyes were holding so much hurt, but the small promise Vanessa had made to herself was echoing loudly in the back of her head. “Should I even bother loving you Vanessa? Are you ever going to let anyone get close to you?”

Zach’s hands were balled into tight fists. His heart was aching in his chest and all he could focus on was the girl standing with her back to him, shoulders slumped down. “Vanessa, just give me a chance!” He screamed, slamming his hands against the window of the car, but as he waited for her reply, he felt every ounce of hope drain from his body.

Seconds dripped by and after what felt like hours went by, Vanessa walked back into the house and slammed the front door shut. Zach stood there for a few minutes before he turned around in complete rage and spotted Vanessa’s painting. The sudden urge to take the paintings and ruin them anyway possible ran through his head, but as he spotted the familiar red and black pattern on the front of one, he curiously walked over to it and shifted the one lying on top of it of a black and purple park scene.

Sucking in a deep breath, he pulled the painting up to his face and examined it. Jerking his head back a little, he tilted it to the side and sighed. It was him, all dressed up in his uniform, winding up to take a shot. The background was a swirl of light red and black, and on the side was, in big bold letters, was ‘Parise’ with a number nine under the ‘e’.

“Dude, I swear one day you’re going to kill that girl”, Travis voice rang through the front yard startling him. Dropping the painting back into her trunk and quickly turning around, Zach came face to face with his smirking teammate. As he rolled his eyes and went to walk around him, Travis stuck his arm out and pushed Zach back to his previous spot. “You know where she’s moving?”

Zach looked taken back for a moment. His mind had hit a brick wall and his eyes just locked onto Travis’s shoes. Why would he know where Vanessa was moving? He hasn’t talked to her since she ran out of his place after everything was going perfectly fine.

As Zach shook his head looking at Travis for the answer to the question he was now curious of, the front door flew back open with the brunette walking down the path, another pack of blank canvases under her arm, and a duffle bag. For the first moment Zach admired Vanessa and her strength to carry these things, but as she threw them in her car without a word to Travis or him, the bitter taste that had filled his mouth before returned.

“You’re not even going to say good-bye to the guy that let you stay in his house for a month and a half?”

“Shut the fuck up, Parise”, the brunette snapped sternly as she slammed the trunk shut and quickly turned around. A few pieces of wavy hair fell from her face and back into place on her shoulder. After Zach and she had connected in a stare, she took a deep breath and picked up her hands, clenching and unclenching her fists, she just turned around and slammed her right fist into the window and then stomped back up the walkway, blood dripping from her knuckles, two stunned boys standing by the mailbox.

Zach and Travis stood there for a few more seconds, letting the serenity of the front lawn drown out the shock that had washed over them from Vanessa’s sudden and alien actions. As Zach finally gained the courage to move, he cleared his throat, informed Travis he would see him later, and then headed back down the street to his house with the image of Vanessa pounding her fist into her car window flashing through her mind over and over again.

“So how’s the place?” Alicia chuckled through the phone twirling her hair. Vanessa on the other end sighed heavily and slowly lowered her body down to the freshly polished hardwood floor of her open living room. Pulling her knees into her chest, she shut her eyes; tried.

“It’s absolutely beautiful”, she gushed thinking about the building surrounding her. One bedroom, high ceiling, simple bold colored walls, beautiful cherry wood floors, shimmering stainless steel appliances and gorgeous views of the Manhattan Skyline across the Hudson River; it was Vanessa’s dream home. “The furniture is supposed to come tomorrow, I’ll have to go buy some appliances and what not, I’m using up all of the money in my savings account, but I need these things.”

“What’s something you need, I’ll buy it for you?”

“No, Alicia”, Vanessa snapped opening her eyes to see a crack of lightning through the huge window in her living room. “I can do this on my own, thanks for the offer, but I got this”, Vanessa’s words were persuasive and oozed confidence, but as she sat in the middle of her vacant living room, the beads of water beating down against her windows, she felt small, alone, vulnerable.

Alicia informed Vanessa that once the house was furnished that a party was in order. Vanessa obliging without much pressure from Alicia, they bid each other a goodbye. As the cell phone was set down next to Vanessa on the floor, it suddenly came back to life, the front screen lighting up with a small envelope.

As she picked it off of the floor, confused, she pressed the ‘view now’ button and held her breath as she read the name, ‘Matt’. The phone clattered against the hardwood floor as her eyes scanned over the next few words. Heart in fast paced motion, she quickly scrambled to her feet and ran to her purse sat near the staircase that lead down to the first floor with the kitchen a room that she would use as her office, and dining room.

Keys in hand, she quickly walked through the front door and out to the driveway where her blue car sat. Unlocking the doors, she scrambled into the driver seat and turned the car on. Clothes damp from the rain, she started the car and quickly fiddled with her remote for the garage door. As she put the car in drive, she watched as the door slowly pulled up, her heart thumping loudly in her chest.

Once her car was in the garage, she quickly closed the door and set the alarm code. Running to her back door, she walked into the basement level of the house, set the alarm code for the house, and quickly ran through the rooms and staircases of her home, slipping occasionally because of her wet bare feet and the freshly polished floors. As she reached the spot in the center of her living room where she had dropped her phone, she fell to her knees and through eyes fogged with tears; she grabbed her phone and opened another text message.

Manhattan skyline view, it’s beautiful. I hope that we can just talk. I miss you, baby.

A loud clap of thunder shook the house as the heavy sound of rain beating against the windows filled the room. Again and again, loud claps of thunder would rock the house. Every few minutes, a new text message from Matt would arrive on her phone. Vanessa, curled up in a ball and started to shake, wishing that the boy she walked away from earlier was holding her close, chin on the top of her head, rocking her back and forth keeping her safe.

The next clap of thunder was followed by the shutdown of anything electrical in the house. Screaming, Vanessa quickly ran over to the light switch and violently flicked it on and off, hoping that eventually the light would come back on, but after another loud clap of thunder shook the house, she gave up on the lights and let the more important electrical appliance float into her mind, the security system.

Chest tightening, the brunette walked down the steps and to the front door. Shutting her eyes, she placed her hand on the black piece of plastic hanging off of the wall, hoping that when she moved the covering, the little green letters would light up the room, with the seven lettered word, ‘alarmed’.

Taking a shaky breath, Vanessa opened her bright blue eyes and watched as the room stayed dark. Everything was out, every electrical appliance, including the security system. At this point, the brunette could only find the energy to run back up to the living room and collapse in the center, shaking from the sobs falling from her mouth.

On the floor next to her lay her cell phone, vibrating every now and again with a new text message from Matt. Every new message would go into more detail about where she lived, how much he wanted to talk to her, how much he missed her, and how bad he wanted to kiss her. Every time that Matt would get like this, madly in love with her due to his seven drinks, he would adore her, but the second she did something against him, he would get angry. Angrier than the first time she met Zach due to his violence.

And now, if he did find out which house was hers, all of the security systems were down, if he broke a window no alarms would sound. No one would hear her screams for help through the thunder, no one would have any clue what was going on. Vanessa was alone, just like she had always wanted, but she didn’t want to be. At this moment, with all of the thoughts rushing through her mind, she only wanted one person with her, Zach.

“Fuck me!” Zach screamed as all of the power in his house shut down. His brown eyes were still fixed on the television, waiting for it to turn back on, but after another loud clap of thunder sounded from outside, he realized that he would have no power until this thunderstorm was over.

As he stared into the dark television screen, a heavy sigh worked its way until it forced itself between his lips. “I guess I’ll just go to bed at”, he whispered as his hand stretched out next to him and grabbed his cell phone. Flipping it over, his eyes scanned across the little ’10:13’ in the right hand corner. “Ten o’clock, what am I five?” He snapped at himself as he got off of the couch, stretching, and headed to his bedroom.

Lying on his bed, on top of the sheets, he pinched the bridge of his nose and let all of the crazy thoughts running through his head take control. How was Vanessa doing in her new crazy expensive condo? How did she punch that window and just walk away? Was her hand broken? Was she mad that I had yelled at her, or was she mad at another reason? Was her power out? Was she alright?

As the thought faded into the back of my head I rolled over onto my stomach and shut my eyes, trying to force sleep upon me, but as soon as a calm state fell over him, the loud ring signaling an incoming call rang through his room.

Grabbing the phone, he put it up to his face and read the name. ‘Vanessa’

He was stuck. What was he supposed to do? He was tired of her using him, kissing him and walking away, but how could he just ignore her like this. He loved her, but couldn’t stand her all at the same time.

The cell phone went off and seconds later started ringing again.

Was Zach Parise, an all-star hockey player really going to just lie down and let this girl walk all over him?

The cell phone went dark, and seconds later started ringing again.

Sighing heavily, Zach rolled over and shut his eyes tightly, hoping that after this she would just leave him alone, getting the hint that he was done, done with kissing her and having that hope that she came to her senses but then being rejected. Instead of him being rejected, it was her turn.

Zach’s body was molded into the bed, eyes shut, when the ringtone for receiving a voice mail rang through the room. Instead of rolling over and forcing himself back to sleep, he sat up, rubbing the small sleep from his eyes and grabbed his cell phone quickly dialing the voicemail number and punching in his password.

You have one new voicemail

*Beep*

“Zach, it’s me Vanessa. I… I’m so scared. Matt’s been texting me, he knows where I live, and he’s drunk. All of the electric in my house is out, and so are the land lines and the security system. I… I just don’t know what to do, and I have no one else to call. I… I just wish you were here”