Nocturnal

There were several heartbeats of silence. My fingers were still curling into Phillip's arms, his muscles coiled underneath my palms—they felt harder than rocks. His electric blue eyes were flabbergasted.

"What did he mean?" my voice croaked dryly, my hands were getting sweaty—he was so hot. The air was turning saturated, like oxygen kept being consumed all around us. "How are you putting people in danger?"

Another shallow, controlled breath made it past his full lips—then came what I hadn't been expecting at all. He was laughing. I was standing on shaky legs waiting for some big reveal and he was laughing.

I let my hands fall away with a gaping mouth. Phillip shook his head looking at me through long, sooty lashes—he shook his head some more leaning on the tree trunk, a heavy after-laughter sigh escaped.

"I'm sorry," he gave another charmed induced chuckle before sobering. Looking me in the eye, he sat down on a huge tree root, patting the place next to him. "We need to have a serious conversation, you better sit down." His face still had the remains of a smile, but the lines of it were much more serious than ever before. "Come on, Nina, I don't bite."

I rolled my eyes at his joke, sitting down with crossed arms and across from him—not at all where he'd wanted me to.

"Well?" I said testily. "I'm waiting." And I was getting tired of doing so. Was he entitled to superhuman powers like I was? Wasn't he? Fact, fiction? I needed to know.

"Okay," he leaned on the tree comfortably. "Remember when I said my brother's overprotective?" I gave a stiff nod. "Well he's also over dramatic—I blame drama club for that."

"Drama club?" he was the quarterback of the football team, how could someone that high up on the popularity chain be—

"Yeah, he was in it during our freshman year." Oh. So he liked acting? Interesting. "Anyway, my brother thinks he has to keep everyone safe." He sounded disaproving—and to me that didn't sound bad, but I knew it was impossible. You couldn't keep people safe all the time.

And...

"Safe from what?" my eyes got bigger, waiting for the thing that could turn my life around—

"I don't know—everything?" he gave a one shoulder shrug, looking pensive. "I think it ranges from rescuing people who are about to get hit by a car to the common cold." Phillip cracked a sardonic smile. "I hope he draws the line at disarming bombs—he never paid much attention to chemistry."

I couldn't contain a smile, a shaky one. That wasn't at all what I was dying to hear. On another hand, what had I been expecting? 'Me and my brother are mutants that escaped a lab, so now, we're out every night saving people from danger'? I needed to stop watching Saturday cartoons with Henry, they were putting me off... But still—the speed, the tingle—

"What you heard has to do with Vanessa." He stated simply, no beating around the bush. And now I was seeing Phillip serious, Cameron-serious. Who knew they were capable of looking like the spitting image of one another? "Do you know what happened to her, yet?"

"I... I don't." I confessed.

He looked down to the ground for a moment, jaw flexing.

"Here's the short version," he faced me. "Vanessa's father liked the occasional hunt. Since V was ten he took her with him—kinda weird for daughter-and-father bonding, but everyone has a guilty pleasure." Right. Only I don't think I disagreed with Phillip watching an epic movie like Titanic as much as I did with hunting. "They went on one of those trips. They weren't that deep into the forest when a mountain lion got the jump on them—" I widened my eyes, throat going with the words I heard next. "She watched her father being torn apart. He was trying to hold it off so Vanessa could run—of course she... didn't." Who would? I'd be paralyzed by fear—by the scene but most of all, how could I leave knowing my father would die? Vanessa thought the same way. "She got bitten by it—it wasn't serious—she managed to get a hold on the flare gun, shot it straight at the animal—it ran." I stared at Phillip like he'd just finished telling me the most horrific story ever—and that was hard considering my grandmother used to tell me stories about all sorts of evil entities, like demons, vampires—mom hated that she did that. "She didn't attend the last week of school—obviously—and no one saw much of her during summer." He ruffled his hair looking far off. "I've helping—or trying, to help Vanessa, you know, cope. She's skittish around people," I'd noticed. "Cam says she's always on alert—waiting for someone to jump her." Yeah those worried glances she kept giving everyone, like they were... poison to her, they made sense now. "Cam thinks that I'm pushing her to socialize too much and because of that people are in danger."

"He's a douche," I rolled my eyes feeling bitterness for Cameron I hadn't felt in a while rear its ugly head. "At least you're trying to help her come back—he broke up with her. I don't think that helped." Dawn was right, I understood her side. Vanessa needed people to help her, not just stare. I didn't get why she pulled away from her best friend. Then again trauma changed people.

"His point is that I'm forcing it on her, making her socialize—he's afraid she might snap... at anyone." He murmured.

I fixed my eyes on his. It made sense now. Why he left with her—Phillip was her coping-buddy. He was doing the best he could to keep Vanessa from going over, from attacking someone, from believing she was still in that nightmare. Cameron was worried about collateral damage. I snorted at that.

"Anything else you'd like to know?" Phillip smirked catching me off guard.

"Huh..." he traced my hand absently and... his skin wasn't blazing hot like I thought it had been before—it was warm from being in his pocket. God, I was an idiot—a desperate idiot. I couldn't even remember what hand Phillip favored for dribbling. I would say the right one—but only 'cuz he wasn't a lefty. If I was honest with myself—something I hated—I hadn't been paying attention to his skills. I couldn't keep my eyes on something for too long. I owed it to years of sleepless nights, that's why I took vitamins to help me focus—they didn't work properly after a while.

I blinked to attention, "Sorry, what did you say?" see what I mean? To my dismay I seemed to be the only freak around. I needed to get my feet on the ground and not scare away a guy who—against all odds—liked me. I should be enjoying my life, not looking for things that weren't there. "I have a real bad attention span..." I smiled shyly.

He chuckled, "I think I can handle that." His fingers slipped between mine—his face leaned forward. "I asked if you've been sleeping well? You have... dark circles—just a little."

I touched the purple bruises as if I could feel them, mocking me—haunting me.

"I... I had insomnia last night." The only liar here... was me apparently.

It suddenly hit me—a ton of bricks bulldozed onto my shoulders. All this time that Phillip had been trying to know me, I was hiding. Hiding because I knew what happened when you took risks, when you let someone too close—I was scared. Scared that... that if I let a person in—that I'd screw things up, I would slip up by saying, mentioning something from the future—something that would come to pass and then... then I'd be a freak here too.

I snatched my fingers from his hand—his eyes bored into mine with confusion. I was up fast, turning to the river. Phillip's eyes were on me, this time I knew he was watching me.

"Nina?" I heard him brush off his clothes, straining them—before he walked closer. His presence right behind me. "What is it?"

I let out a mirthless laugh looking off into distance, into a deeper part of the forest. I hugged myself with doubled tightness. My problem was that I couldn't believe a guy like Phillip could be interested in me—I sighed. I thought the only way he'd want to be around me was if he was like me—or I like him.

But my reasons... they were excuses. I kept making them up—until my paranoia turned into full bloom hallucinations. I shook my head lips pressed together. I hadn't even seen Cameron do anything out of the ordinary, and that was because there was nothing. I fainted because that night I'd gotten three hours of sleep—filled with dreams. It had nothing to him.

"You really didn't pick the best person to crush on." I turned to face him, feeling something choked up climbing up my throat. "I'm not even your type." A laugh bubbled from me, sounding quaky.

His head tilted gently. My arms fell to the sides, eyes fluttering when his fingers brushed away my wavy locks—wisps of warmth jumped from Phillip to me, I could feel something within me yield—the blood pumping throughout me wasn't going as fast as before.

"What Sam said was stupid and uncalled for. I don't have a type. I'm interested in you 'cause I like you—I like your goofy smile—the one you pull up when you have no idea what people are talking about—I like your shyness, I like how I make you laugh—I..." that rendered me pretty speechless. "You're beautiful—inside and out. That's not easy to find." The delicate grace of his features rested my fears. "I never wanted to share this place with anyone—but you're pretty damn special to me." His hand ran down my arm—fingers slipping into mine, coaxing mine into holding on.

"How do you do that?" I spared a gentle smile.

"Do what?" his head leaned down—our noses brushed. His was warm, making mine feel like an iceberg.

"You always know the right thing to say. I never know how to talk to you... not without feeling all awkward."

His head turned to the side for a second, then back at me. He smacked his lips before speaking.

"I practice in front of a mirror everyday." The straightness of his face fell apart as Phillips lips tipped into ten billion dollar smile, I laughed letting my head lean into his shoulder. "You just have to let yourself go, Nina, just be yourself." He wrapped an arm around my waist, combing my hair—it felt good. "Trust me,"

That was the problem. Trust.

"I'm scared," I murmured. "I'm scared of getting hurt." Things were easy with Phillip, they flew out of me like a river carried to the ocean—like I could share everything with him, that scared me. "I'm afraid if I let myself be happy for even a minute... that the world's just going to come crashing down—and... and I don't want to feel this way." His hands hugged my hips as he pulled from him.

Phillip leaned his head to my level looking tenderly into my eyes.

"You don't have to," he whispered. "I can help—I'm here for you, at least, I want to be."

I braced my palm in the middle of Phillip's chest.

"You just feel to good to be true." A guilty grin gripped his lips for a fleeting second. "No one's ever been like this—this nice to me. It doesn't feel real."

He nodded biting his lip. Phillip was doing his best to understand. The sun setting behind the trees was a lovely scenery, it made the river's water glint—but the real show of color happened on Phillip's face. The rusty color of his hair looked amplified, the shining in his eyes was brilliant like a blue diamond.

"It's getting late, maybe we should—"

Go, I swallowed the word as hard lips settled on mine. My eyes were wide—open. I saw his slipping closed, the last emotion behind them told me I should enjoy—let go, like mom kept saying, and enjoy. There was never a right time for anything, or a right way of doing things.

I forgot I'd just met Phillip and lowered my eyelids. Reality was this—all of this—and he was savoring my lips in a soft wonder, exploring them inch by inch, knowing their taste. My hands gripped his shoulders as his hands sunk into my hair, keeping us pressed up. I tilted closer pushing the gentlest way I knew how. It was chaste. Phillip was completely, utterly pure calmness—but strong. His lips weren't at all soft like they seemed.

I drew breath, flickering my eyes. My heartbeat wasn't jumping like a ping-pong ball, it was steady. A weight fell from me, though. Everything about the world seemed ten shades brighter.

"What was that for...?" I managed huskily.

Phillip cupped my cheek rubbing a thumb along my blushed skin.

"To show you how real it all is. All you have to do..." he lips brushed my ear. "Is let yourself feel." I was still gripping his shoulders, I didn't let go. "I'm not planning on going anywhere."

I felt compelled to smile—really smile, it wasn't shy and it didn't feel awkward. In that moment I wasn't thinking about anything but the moment—it felt good. It was a moment where I felt stupid for having doubts, a moment where I felt... normal.

Phillip smiled back pressing a kiss to my cheek. I felt weightless and the world wasn't ending.