The minute the words slid off his tongue, I felt as if a knife had stabbed me, digging deep through my chest, plunging far into my cold, unbeating heart. I could only stare as the knife spins in the hole, sending bits of flesh flying, causing warm, crimson blood to drip to the ground and spatter across my face. I wiped my face with the back of my sleeve, as if the metaphorical blood had actually stained it, then I felt silly. He was looking at me, steam practically fuming from his ears, his nose. I didn't know why, and I couldn't help it, but I laughed. A hysterical, twisted laugh.
"As if that hurt me," I lashed back.
Lie. It had hurt me.
His hard violet eyes bore into me, as if trying to see through the words, to find the real meaning. My dull grey eyes stared back, telling him that my words meant exactly what I wanted them to mean: that his words hadn't hurt because I didn't care about him.
Though he knew better.
His eyes turned soft, a liquid dark lavender instead of the dangerous solid purple they were just seconds ago.
"You don't mean that. It did hurt, and I'm sorry."
I turned away, furious. Was I that easy to figure out? Was I that horrible a liar?
I could feel his eyes staring at me, into me, as I walked, as nonchalantly as I could, through the crowded hall. When I was sure I was far away from him, I looked back at the place where he should've been. But he wasn't there. Instead, he was seamlessly sliding between the suddenly startled bodies of the students in the hall, making his way as quickly as he could toward me.
I gritted my teeth and bolted through the nearest door, landing in Mr. Greenman's science class. Luckily, no one happened to be there at the time other than Victor Heffer and Lillian Russell. They were both focusing on their textbooks and luckily didn't complain about my loud entrance. But why the studying?
"What are you two doing here this early," I asked, trying not to sound offensive about it. Just to make it clear that I wasn't trying to be harsh about the question, I flashed a shy smile.
Lillian smiled back, but Victor started muttering something under his breath. Something about how the textbook was wrong about the chemical elements…
"We're studying for the test," Lillian replied politely.
Oh, crap! That was today?
"Ah. Okay. Haha. I almost forgot about that. Good thing I studied!"
Yeah, right, I "studied."
I hurried to the window at the back wall of the room and lifted the heavy glass open with a grunt. I didn't want him following me, questioning me, manipulating me into saying things that I'd sworn not to say aloud.
"What are you doing," Victor asked, not even glancing up from his textbook.
Nice. Victor chose today (of all days!) to start talking to anyone besides that crazy hag of a math teacher who is, sadly, his aunt.
"Um, just hanging," I replied nervously.
I swung my leg over the side of the window.
"Literally," I added as I leapt down one floor and tumbled onto the grass below.
"Close the window, please," I shouted back up at them.
"Sure," said a voice, neither Lillian's nor Victor's.
There he was, closing the window I had just fell out of a few seconds ago, but opening the next.
I ran.
I didn't even care where I was heading as long as it was away from him. I didn't want the words to slip out of my mouth when he asked me the question that would surely be the death of me.
I was oblivious to my surroundings until a tree branch slapped me across the face. I didn't stop to take it all in because I knew, without a doubt, that I was in the forest near the courtyard. Then the thought hit me like a ton of red bricks (very much like the ones that made up my home in Massachusetts, the ones I very much missed). If I got lost in this forest, I wouldn't be able to find my way back.
Two thick iron bars, warped to fit the shape of my shoulders, fell around me, clutching me tight to a cold, iron wall. The weight and impact the bars had knocked the breath right out of me.