CLASS:
THE SPEED AT WHICH YOU TRAVEL
WRITTEN BY ZARIUS
(Contains spoilers for "Nightvisiting")
Ram made his way home with a smile on his face.
He kept the smile beaming even as he entered the quiet, still and chilled interior of the corridor awaiting him as he slipped through the door of his house.
His Dad was still out. He wondered if he had missed all the action.
The evening of the enchanted vines. Like something out of a fairy time. He thought about two lost souls in the concrete forest who found their way to a large house and from there almost fell victim to a cosmic force that had their friend under a spell, almost.
It wasn't quite Hansel and Gretel, but there was something truly 'grimm' about their circumstances.
And then he thought about April again, her smile, her eyes, her touch.
Her kiss.
She had made the process so simple for him. The way she was and how she expressed herself, he couldn't believe someone like her was waging constant war with herself; she was gentle, but not fragile. She was complete...concrete even.
It was that strength that perhaps gravitated him to her.
As he entered his bedroom, he looked around for signs of Rachel, or the creature that had attempted to make a claim to be her.
Not that he would have given it a chance.
He fled before such a conversation could begin.
He had spent the last couple of weeks mourning so much already, Rachel had lingered the longest in his mind besides his coach and his leg, and above all else, his innocence, his confidence. Inside, he was through caving in to how much reality had bent around him, now he was on the mend, and confronting a ghost so raw in Rachel was something reserved for the part of him that thought backwards.
He was moving forward, moving faster than many others had. He wanted to be ahead of them all; something in him compelled him to find something to connect to in the universe. He couldn't do that if he were as fragile as glass.
Perhaps that's what compelled April to kiss him; she sensed the need to connect, to move faster than anyone, to pick up the pace. She also knew when to take it slow that night as Ram offered to walk her home, and her politely declining.
Restless, yet relaxed. Composed in spite of chaos, there was much to learn from this girl. Ram didn't know whether or not it would reach some kind of vast distance, it all depended on the speed at which they travelled.
The smile stayed with him.
He felt good about it.
It fit. Like a slipper.
A concrete one.
For nothing worthwhile should ever be made from glass.