Look at Me

Hayden looked out at the night that rolled quietly past. There really wasn’t anything to see, but then there really wasn’t anything to say either…
He wanted to talk to Paige, but it was impossible with the other two in the car. Terry was emanating nervous verve like the energizer bunny. She kept shifting in her seat and popping another piece of bubble gum in her mouth. She was probably chewing at least three sticks of it at the moment….
And then there was Gabriel. He was staring at the windshield with empty eyes. His expression betrayed nothing. Hayden wanted to speak with him too. The other boy had something he’d wanted to say when he first came up to him on the street corner. He’d warned Hayden about Our Lady of Sorrows and it had sounded like he was speaking from personal experience.
Hayden doubted the place was as bad as all that though, because he knew what bad was like. He knew what it was like to be afraid to go home. He knew the stomach clenching terror that took hold and refused to let go, because everything inside him had known it wasn’t safe to step into his own living room. A Catholic orphanage would be…unpleasant, but it would only be for the rest of the year. And it couldn’t be as awful as what he’d know before.
Gabriel’s words still bothered him though, because he’d said, “They’ll know exactly what you are and they will HATE you for it. Just like they hated me.”
How could they possibly know what he was? No one had ever guessed at what he was…
But, Gabriel was giving off a really strong idiot vibe and probably wasn’t nearly as careful as he was. The strict Catholics had probably seen him change, thought he was a demon or something and thrown him out of the school. If that was the case, that was really more his fault then theirs.

Normal people couldn’t be expected to accept what they were. People just couldn’t understand what they hadn’t touched with their hands and seen with their eyes. If they hadn’t experienced it themselves it simply wasn’t real…even if they had all the clues that led inevitably to the truth.
The only person that had ever defied that general rule was sitting next to him. Her face was framed in a halo of gold from the gaslights they were passing and right then she didn’t look like she could possibly exist. Because how could someone so lovely actually be real?
Her pale gold hair fell in soft disarray around her shoulders and her clear blue eyes were staring off distracted, but her beauty was painfully obvious. It was in the sprinkling of freckles that were absolutely adorable placed on her nose and the kind curving of her mouth…
Her lips, they were so soft and amazingly sexy. He could still hardly believe he’d actually kissed her. Hayden had imagined it a million times, staring at her across a classroom and knowing she was never going to stare back.
He’d thought maybe what he felt was something like what someone in prison felt like looking at a patch of blue sky. Through a barred window, they could see the outside world, but it was so unbearably out of reach. It was just there to torment and prove how far they had fallen from grace.

***

Dark hair the color of the night outside Paige’s window fell in choppy layers, hiding Hayden’s eyes. His beautiful arcane eyes…
She wished he wouldn’t hide them. They were the alive color of new green leaves flecked with small specks of sunlight. They were also a window into what he might be actually thinking…and that was why Hayden hid them. He didn’t want her to know what he was feeling and that automatically meant it couldn’t be anything good.
So, Paige slid closer to him ever so slowly and brushed aside his silky fringe of hair. She leaned in and whispered, her lips inches from his ear, “Don’t leave me Hayden. Not when I’m sitting right here.”
His face turned toward hers in surprise and his striking eyes were looking straight into hers. Paige saw the fear in them and the sadness…
She placed her hand reassuringly on his chest, her skin making contact with his. Hayden drew in a deep breath then and she felt a shudder ripple through him. His eyes dilated and filled with what looked suspiciously like…want.
It probably would have seemed funny, despite everything, Hayden was a teenage guy at heart, but she had felt the same rush of awareness. It was like a need that was winding through her…the need to touch and be close to him. He was right there and he wasn’t pulling away. The smooth marble white skin of his chest was sooo tempting…
Hayden’s hand raised and smoothed down her rumpled hair and he said in a whisper only she could hear, “Remember…I love you too much to disappear.”
Love. Oh God, he’d said it again. He’d said he loved her…
Without thinking, Paige pressed her lips hard against his and said, “And I love you too much to let you…”