I'll be honest, I had no idea what to write for this chapter, but at least I think I could get out some rather interesting things. Fav, follow or review, also I'm coming (in some way) to the end of this story, so again I inform you that updates will take a little longer than usual, also school's killing me slowly. Without further ado, enjoy :)
A new me
I don't quite understand how the plan of coming back to the dorm to rest after a very long day filled with magic and summoning that could be considered as things beyond the grave to bring back a dead guy for him to stop being a bunch of energy, besides pulling into action an amazing prank against someone else, can end up in a sleepover.
The four of us are clustered in Mal and Evie's dorm, the three of them are walking from one side to the other with their phones in hand while I devote myself to look at my feet dangling over the side of the comfortable bed of Evie, noticing the remains of mud and some branches who managed to entangle to the shoelaces.
All three of them are researching on the internet something like 'what should I do if my friend was dead a couple of minutes ago took a nap and he stopped breathing for about an hour, he didn't died again and he opened his eyes like if nothing had happened', and I don't think they're going to find put the results that could fill their research. Freddie also took a nap because of the energy cost and they never caused the same fuss than with me.
Somewhat exaggerated.
Finally I take off my boots and socks, feeling relieved to not having my feet caught in such a small pair of shoes. I didn't expect to grow up so much and in that little time because of the preservation magic, but I must admit it's something that I like.
I let out a snort and pick up the chinos along with the shirt that Evie just created with her sewing machine and get inside the bathroom of their dorm, still not getting used entirely to change clothes in front of someone else and knowing that I'll be ignored for a while. Not even with Jay around I felt confident enough to show my body in that way, and that heated moment we had was something like a moment I forgot what I usually do.
I guess some things never change, and I hope they don't.
I strip in front of the mirror and stay just in my underwear, finally noticing the changes my reflection is showing me before taking off my last cloth and taking a short shower while they continue with their research.
Yeah, it's true, I'm taller, I have to duck my head slightly to see me in there. I also notice that my shoulders had became somewhat wider, my chest is still as flat as before except for the tiny muscles that could be developed because of tourney, my abdomen is also under the same conditions, and my arms seem to have thinned out a bit more, like the branches of a tree that's about to be cut off. Still there's no line at my sides that can divide my torso from my waist, and my thighs are still in some way the biggest part of my whole body, my legs have a very soft layer of hair that begins to thicken that wasn't there before, and my feet could almost be from the same size as those of a giant. As I suspected it, my crotch also grew slightly.
I let out a small laugh and finally I can enjoy the sound of my new voice since it's not something completely new anymore, though it's still a bit scary for another sudden change.
I still have the scars produced by mom, even a new one shaped like a waning moon above my navel (courtesy of Freddie's candle). Another thing I notice is that there are quite dark circles around my eyes, like if I hadn't slept five days straight, and I don't remember noticing that they were as dark in that occasion when I spent three days without sleep.
I shrug my shoulders and get dressed again, brushing my wet hair off that stays on my forehead and sometimes gets in my visual field, not without sparing me a wink and a smile before stepping out. I need a cut, or maybe someone can fix it in a certain way.
"Did you found anything interesting?" I ask while I sit back down on Evie's bed, barefoot and devoting them a small smile.
"Nothing that doesn't end up in something like 'call emergency services for a respiratory arrest and needed for resuscitation'" says Evie, sitting next to me but burying her face against a pillow.
"It was just for a moment, I don't think it will happen again" I say, trying to devise some sort of excuse. "I stopped breathing for a whole month, I wanna think that I should get used to it again".
"You know that doesn't happen in that way, it's about an autonomous process in the body what we're talking here; you just can't stop breathing for your own will" snaps Mal, using something that surely she read her research, or perhaps she also plunged her head in some books from the library in her spare time.
"I know it" I run a hand through my hair and dry the excess of moisture in the T-shirt, "I'm just looking for a solution so you can go to sleep. You three look too exhausted to even stand".
All three of them share a look, a nod, and finally a small sigh. They know I'm right, and even if Freddie slept the same amount of time that I did still it's remarkable that she needs a long night's sleep, or whatever that someone who can do voodoo magic can dream.
"I wouldn't like that to happen again and this time no one is alert to try to help you" she says, sounding frightening but genuinely worried.
"I don't feel tired actually" and that's true, it's like if, though it's about to be midnight, drowsiness was something that my body doesn't know or it has lost it by the spending of so much time in the darkness of the underground.
I cross my arms over my chest and I cringe myself a little, feeling something in my chest that seems to be moving, like a shiver and something that's shrinking my heart, similar to that feeling of being stabbed when Jay told me what happened with Audrey, or rather when he tried to say it.
They also seem to notice it because Evie settles by my left, Mal to my right and Freddie in front of me. The three of them puts a hand on my exposed limbs and that relieves me a little, just enough so I can uncross my arms, not for me to stop cringing and my teeth to chatter.
"How is it?" Freddie asks, she lows intensity of her voice so many octaves that the new sound almost seems new to me. "How is it… to be on the other side?".
This is a conversation that I would like to have alone with her, she knows more or less how things work in the underworld, not like Hades and all those things he could do before being exiled to the Isle, but anyway she seems to understand how it operates to be the other side of the lifeline, in that world where time elapses, the atmosphere is always dark and cold, any shadow could try to attack you; the total opposite of the lifeline.
I didn't really die then and however it seems like if I had experienced it all firsthand. Is that possible, or I just try to show myself as empathetic and kind with things that I find somewhat difficult to understand?
"You know that I never left, not entirely" I lift my head with my shoulders hunched, looking Freddie's bright eyes and her curious look, which in some ways reminds me of that one from a curious look of a cat.
"I know that, but your body died, how does that feel?" she reformulates the question, exacerbating what I feel now.
"It was… it was…" I hesitate a bit, trying to cluster together all the things I felt then in a few words that are meaningful and representative, "it was like… falling asleep. Yeah, that, it was like going to sleep slowly, but not sleeping tight or in a comfortable bed, it rather was like to do it on the floor, over a block of ice… like when mom made me sleep in front of her coat closet to protect it from threats" I shiver by the memory.
I think I should clarify there that I did it to protect her creations from Jay and his tactics to sneak inside the house, which he did on more than three occasions even when we were friends already.
However, remember that constant in my life, and express it, makes me feel a little relieved, liberated, like if it really wasn't my fault that mom forced me to do it and I didn't deserve to do it because of my bad behavior, being the victim of another of the many abuses that she had against me.
It's one of the few occasions when I say what happens to me, when I can take advantage that we now live in Auradon to be someone totally different from my shy and rational being. Something about everything that happened makes me to open my eyes to everything that happened to me, to the truth of what happened to me on the Isle and that somehow I wanted to delete. I guess I don't have to keep lifting defenses any longer, or at least lift them only when the situation demands it.
One arm gets placed on my shoulders, one thin and that, somehow, expels a slight smell of vanilla.
Evie pulls me closer to her and makes me to put my head on her shoulder, she strokes my arm up and down in a very soothing gesture, so much that it makes me smile, all of it to know that I actually had someone around me and I couldn't see it before my taking of such drastic decisions.
Another pair of arms gets pressed against me, without the sweet smell coming from the movement, and the head on my shoulder tells me that Mal will also be there even if she doesn't say it aloud. I've always thought in the same way about Evie, someone with whom I can count with and whom I can tell almost anything, but Mal from that perspective, the accompaniment one, is difficult to digest.
To conclude with the moment of compassion-by-the-former-dead-guy Freddie disappears from the front of me, she gets on the bed and gives me pats on the back, but not the usual pats that between lines they say 'yeah, yeah, now move aside', but instead, like them, to tell me she'll be there.
I think this new attachment from her part comes from the closeness that we developed for my nonsense, and now I don't want to distance myself from her, not as I had contemplated it at some point in one of those slip-ups in which I wanted only to get something from her and run away from any kind of impact.
"You'll get out of this" Mal says to cut the silence that was interrupted a little by the sound of crickets, you'll get out of this, little bro. We're here and we'll help you whenever we can".
"I know, and I thank you".
I honestly didn't want to produce this moment of sentimentality, I just wanted to say something that was in my head and done, that because I hate when people see me like if they were watching a wounded animal, a small and weak animal, something that happened sporadically on the Isle and here it happens more often than I would like for the story that I drag with me.
We go back to plunge into a deep silence, I let out a sigh for receiving this amount and quality of affection, keeping the smile and thinking the things a bit. I have to get used to it, customs here are something that I should accustom from now on, and also I'm pretty sure that I should improve my way of emotional expression, though for Jay it never seemed a problem.
I move into my place for my stomach growl, a sound that makes them laugh, but for me it has a different meaning. It's not something produced by hunger, I know very well when it comes from that, it rather is something that goes along with the feeling of something going through my body, like a slight tingle.
It's something I have felt after the voices in my head, the voices that once were real, and I thought it was because of the sudden growth, but given that it hasn't given up yet I guess that something must have been inconclusive, or perhaps something hadn't finished developing in the same way and somehow it will keep doing it in a slower pace.
Maybe in the morning I'll wake up with a beard stubble on my chin, or with some few hairs on my chest. Or maybe I'll be taller. Anything could happen after returning from the underworld and from a 'parallel dimension'.
The clock of the belfry from the tallest tower of the citadel marks the time change, it's finally midnight. It's assumed that the four of us would be in trouble because of having the lights still on after curfew, but if those illusions created by Freddie for the guards to believe that they were in here when they did the night review really worked then I guess we must still be hidden in the same magic and that nothing will happen.
I only guess it.
"All right, enough for now" I say, shrugging my shoulders for them to move away from me, and I do it just because I want them to sleep, not because I don't like being hugged. "I mean it, you all go to sleep".
"Not a good idea" Mal says, looking at me with arms crossed.
"I'm not tired in the least, I promise, and if something happens I'll wake any of the three of you up" I dedicate a look and a smile to each one of them, "this time I swear I'll talk to you".
"Well if you don't want to then I will go to sleep, I'm too tired and have plenty stuff to do before the semester is over" Freddie stretches and lets out a long sigh at the end, then she snaps her fingers and her usual attire gets replaced by a lilac nightgown. "Dibs on Mal's bed".
"And where the hell am I supposed to sleep?" she asks, rolling her eyes and raising her voice a little. Yeah, some things never change, and the little squabbles about little things will not either.
"Evie has a bed that looks big enough for the two of you to sleep on it" she says and with no more said she slips between her blankets, like if actually this was her dorm.
"Even with everything that happened today I swear I'm about to kick your…".
"Mal, manners" Evie scolds her in a weary tone. The firm tone that she usually employs reminds me the one of her mother when she raises her voice on those occasions when she doesn't apply makeup nice or when her sewing doesn't have the results that none of the two expected. "You're a good girl now, remember it".
"Ugh, whatever" Mal rolls her eyes and walks to her drawers.
I enter to the bathroom again to give them time to change clothes, and also to not only stay to watch another small fight. I put the cap on the tube from the sink and open both taps, touching with one hand and leveling the water pressure with the other until it is warm.
I take a deep breath and put my head into the water with my eyelids open, suddenly I feel overheated although the wind blows hard on the outside, making some small branches to break in addition to the oldest leaves of the trees to fall and come together in uneven piles.
The feeling of the water on my skin again reminds me that everything will go on over some kind of way, that I'm alive once again, that things I had considered to short term can again be something I can accomplish.
What are these motivations now?
I guess finishing my school years is something I have to do, anyway it's a task that Ben imposed on us by bringing us here; the part of being good I'll learn it with the passage of time, I hope.
I should also look out for some jobs, though I don't think there's much work offer for a fifteen year old boy who was formerly a villain. I could start with small things but that they were significant, like shelving books in the library, selling cakes at any festival of Auradon, walking dogs, or perhaps seeking patents for my few but amazing inventions. Anything that generates me some kind of experience and economic earnings.
I would venture once more into the strange world of relationships with people, love relationships, although I repeat that part of never having found anyone else attractive besides Jay, and those feelings for him are still in a state of ambivalence. I want to forget him, to turn the page and see if I can find someone else who can make me feel special, but I also want to go back to him, to him and to all that relationship of damage, treason, but with the component of the deep bond that forms through many years of interaction involved.
In the first instance the first thing I have to do is to announce that I have came back, that all that celebration of the funeral was something in vain since magic is too powerful for any understanding. I can't imagine the kind of answers that people will give, I can even imagine some people fainting when they saw me walking around again.
I interrupt my thoughts by someone knocking on the door, I take out my head from the water in the act since I don't want any of them thinking I wanted to make something stupid again.
"Carlos, you can… come… out…" it's Evie, talking halfway through a yawn.
I dry my face with a small towel hanging beside the sink, I look once again the circles around my eyes in the mirror and frown a little. I thought that they might decrease a little for that little nap, but it seems they're there to stay. Or maybe I just need more sleep.
I step out to their room to see that the only light comes from the lamp on her bedside table, Mal's the other side of the bed and lying on her right side, for her even breathing I know she's already in a very deep sleep, and it were just a couple of minutes the ones that I left. I glanced quickly at the other bed, noticing that Freddie's also under the same conditions.
Perhaps they were peevish for exhaustion, I understand that because it's something that usually happens to those who left the Isle often, such thing because long sleep isn't a privilege that can be enjoyed.
"They both went to sleep just like that and I realized that you don't have a place to spend the night" she says, slurring and fighting for her eyes look at me. I can see in them how fatigued she is.
"I'll sleep on the floor if I feel tired" I assure and she grimaces in total disgust, she purses her lips and eyebrows before crossing her arms. "I mean it, besides I wouldn't ask you to give me your bed".
"I can settle down next to Freddie even if she doesn't wants to" I raise my right eyebrow and she laughs.
"That's an option but only if you want to have nightmares all night long, or if you want to wake up her bare hands strangling you" we both laugh but still I can see a hint of determination on her face that she really will do it for me, and that's something that I can't allow to her nor to anyone. I have to be able to do things on my own, only with the help of someone when I feel that what I have to face is way beyond me. I take her cheeks and look into her eyes, lifting her head to do so. "I'll be fine on the floor, but if I'm honest with you I don't think I can sleep in all the night".
"Because of what you just went through?" her hands take mine and she gives me a sad but genuine smile.
"That combined with some other things I hadn't realized until a couple of minutes ago".
"You want company?" she whispers, like if at any moment we were about to wake up some of the snarling girls. I stroke her cheekbones with my thumbs and that makes her sigh.
"The only thing I want is you to go to sleep, we'll talk about that and more in the morning. I promise".
A small flash crosses her eyes, like a shooting star sailing in the deep darkness of the night, in the next instant her hands move away from mine for her to surround the bed, she turns off the light of the lamp and then she gets into the bed, she places on her side to plunge into a sleep she deserves after being Freddie's minion for today.
I sigh heavily and walk towards the window, taking the notes Evie left to my disposal to try to catch it up with the classes. I open the window wide and place a small cushion in the frame to sit on it, letting the left side of my body to be hanging outside the building while I look at the sky, decorated with some clouds that move slowly because of the wind, those lots of stars shining in the outer space, and the full moon that gives its light in every corner you can see. I sigh again, relaxing my shoulders.
I missed this. I missed feeling, experience, breathe, think, have things at my disposal. I missed being alive.
But with an act like that there comes great consequences.
Tomorrow will be another day, tomorrow is the day when people will see once again something from me, when they'll notice that what I did was something like a joke, or when everyone feels they're about to lose the reason to see someone who died walking again without being a zombie.
Zombies are pretty cool, and I really appreciate not having returned with the appearance of one, but I do feel like one. It's all the blame because of that that's still tickling inside me and to which I can't give it a name, but it's true that it's their fault.
I can't go back to my dorm, not yet, not without having in mind that Jay will be there, that I'll be something in his daily life again and that now he will not spend a big part of the night lamenting what he did, what he could never say to me, and for the things he wanted to do while we were together and never could.
I don't feel prepared to see him, not without thinking I was a bit selfish of me moving away from him in that way and leave him to get all the blame, but I also feel ready to see him and try to deflect his nose with a punch, for him to receive a little of what I would have liked to say or do instead of fleeing from our dorm and from everything.
This time I will not let things to bring me down, this time I will face everything at all costs. I will speak louder, I will make my presence more noticeable, I'll play tourney like a pro, I'll sing and dance like if my life depended on it. I'll be someone different.
But of course, everything sounds easier in the comfort of my head, before all that have to face the strong and ruthless reality.
I close my eyelids and place my head on the window's frame, swinging my leg to allow the air to seep through my toes. My hands go up to the shirt and I lift above my navel, just to look at the waning moon that from now on will also be part of me.
Something new, someone new, a new life. A new me.
I let out a laugh that had the need to get out, I take Evie's notes and ease them to read a little of what I've lost in all this time. It's a fortunate that she also takes some advanced classes and that she had requested copies from mine, so I have all night long to at least have a notion about what I've missed at the times when I stayed outside the building and watched the birds while they were flying in their organized flocks, or when I just wanted to go back to those habits of skipping school.
I read the topic title that states 'Thermodynamics' in that stylized letter and blue ink all over the paper, I begin to read the backgrounds with only one thing in mind: tomorrow.
I walk with my usual pace through the hallways, dodging some people and avoiding at all costs lifting my head for anyone to recognize me. The hallways are substantially empty, a sign that students are being released from some school work while others must continue with it.
The winter season is approaching. I heard around that a long holiday period will accompany it so all students and faculty members can relax for the next school year.
I get inside my respective classroom for the first class of the day, Integral Calculus, and I find an available spot in the back, I shrug over the chair while my 'classmates' start to arrive, saying that the teacher has become very tough and that many don't believe to pass the subject.
This is one of the easiest classes that I have, it's just a matter of finding the logic about the procedures.
I lift my head just to look at the clock over the blackboard, the teacher is about to arrive and shut the door, to why those who come after him will not get into the classroom for any reason. He has always been very strict with the schedule of his subject, assuring that those who are late it's because they really didn't wanted to be there, and he's somewhat right.
The wishes for taking off the thick sweatshirt that I have over me remains latent, at least only the hood that hides my face, but since I don't want anyone to make a fuss or spread the word until I so want it then I just have to resist a little more.
"Good morning, class" says Mr. Welsch when he enters the classroom, leaving his briefcase on the desk before walking to the door and closing it slowly, giving opportunity to those who were outside the classroom talking to come in. "Today we'll have a review of everything we've learned in the semester because, as you know, your last midterm will be tomorrow, and I honestly wouldn't like to see any of you in summer school, so let's begin".
Before starting he sits on the desk and pulls out his attendance list from the briefcase, another of the creditors to be earners for an evaluation. He basically established it has to be covered ninety-eight percent of attendance, in other words he said it's not possible to miss his class.
He begins to say the names in alphabetical order, repeating some of them since the holders are asleep because a class at seven o'clock sharp or talking to someone else, also he raises his eyebrows and rolls his eyes when he notices a truant. I take my hood finally, easy because nobody sits on the end of the classroom even when there all are present.
It's now when I want the fuss.
"de Vil" he says, then he swallows hard, making the laryngeal prominence that he has to move. Something tells me that he has committed that mistake of saying my name on more than one occasion, it tells me his act and the whole room staying silent. "I should already have marked his name as complete absence…".
"I'm here, Mr. Welsch".
He raises his head suddenly, everyone else turns their gaze to my direction, horrified to see me back here after so much time. I wave hi to and give them a smile, noticing that some people are moving their chairs to get somewhat a little far away.
"M-mister de Vil, b-but you… I-I saw you… w-we all saw…" he stammers, he loosens his tie a bit since the situation seems far beyond his control. I can't help my smile to widen a little more.
"Yeah, I know, but it was something like a much needed vacation, but I'm back and ready to acquire more knowledge".
He says nothing else, he just continues with the attendance list, at the end he stands up and starts writing some exercises about Riemann integrals, not without devoting glances at my spot, like if at any other moment I would disappear and that all of them had been perceived me as a bad dream.
My classmates are also looking at me, a couple of them takes pictures of me, something I didn't count with, and I'm sure that those people who were thrown out of the classroom will also spread the word since some of them saw me and had to take a double look for corroborating whatever they were seeing.
I roll my eyes and let out a small laugh, loud enough for a couple of girls to turn their heads and look at me instead of the solution to what is on the board. One of them especially looks at me in a different way than the others, she's holding eye contact with me and doesn't seem to want to break it, a girl of white skin, green eyes and brown hair; perhaps she feels captivated by something.
I'm not quite sure what comes over me but I wink my right eye and widen such a smile that shows all my teeth, she stretches her back and I notice the pink color on her cheeks growing slowly, then she returns her gaze down to her notebook and lets out a small laugh before the rest of her group of friends starts talking with her.
Did I just flirt with her? Yeah, I did, and it gives me some certain degree of happiness to see what I can accomplish that. Certainly before any of the changes that would have been something completely impossible for someone like her to notice me, but anyway I don't feel attracted for her in the least, I just want to play a bit with the situation.
I stop writing and place my arms behind my head, stretching my legs and whole body. Today seems to be a great day, I'll take full advantage you can.
At four o'clock in the afternoon I'm completely free from all my school duties, and I must say it before I keep feeling that I'm going to explode at any moment: I am extremely popular and I hate it at the same time I like it.
Literally, there's no place where I go without thousands of people looking at me, the pictures remain being present, and since I'm not a fan of social networking then I will not see them, some people only come closer to touch me before running off, like if I brought over some kind of curse, and now have given that possibility to be trued doesn't sound so far-fetched because of having been brought back with voodoo magic.
Each and every one of my teachers were on the verge of a stroke when they saw me take my usual spots in each of their long, exciting and some boring classes, my classmates remained away at a considerable distance from me, again I was trying these tiny but efficient tactics of flirting with whom stared at me just to scare them away.
I haven't found Jay anywhere, I guess he still can't walk freely around the Prep without being attacked verbally. I don't know whether if being back here will make them change all of their ideas and comments to him, or maybe everything will be worse because it's not natural that I've got back.
If the rumors have spread to such a large scale then I wonder how long it will take him to hear them.
Whatever it is, it's the kind of things that a person can boast about for a long time, but since mine isn't boast of the few things that I achieve to get, or at least not to do it out loud, I focus only on walking with my head high, perceiving the whispers and hands pointing at me but without giving them the importance they expect to receive.
I still find it as amazing that I had spent the whole night reading what Evie gave me, every part of it, and even I took some of her notes about other subjects because near to four o'clock in the morning I was done and had nothing better to do. I haven't slept since the nap, all night I spent it sleepless with the notes and walking around the dorm, even the temptation to take a look at Mal's spellbook came to me, but since it has some certain kind of defense mechanism to avoid people outside her lineage to see it without receiving the effect of some spell against it then I better refrained myself to do so.
Nightfall in Auradon is something indescribable, the large number of colors that gets obscured in the sky attacks every sense, but see how the colors of a new day explode and erase all traces of the stars along with the moon is something that would leave breathless even to the most callous one.
I'll tell Jay someday to watch the dawn with me.
I get into the main building and head towards the dorm, realizing that I'm the worst owner in history since probably Dude is locked there, alone and waiting for someone to take him out for a walk, something we used to do when I finished the day and ran towards him to walk a bit and walk the gardens.
I turn at the end of the hallway before reaching my old dorm, with hasty step to free my beloved pet from his confinement, like it has happened to many of the princesses around here, but I collide with someone coming from the opposite direction, the strength and velocity from the impact makes us both fall helplessly to the ground.
I get up almost immediately, with a little bit of pain in my back, I shake the dust off from my borrowed clothes and reach out for the guy I just hit, a complete stranger. He finishes to pick up the papers he had in his arms and he looks at my hand, then he looks at my face and starts to back off like if I had a knife in my hands and were about to stab him.
"You were… you were…" he moves and I follow his steps until he can't move back anymore because of a wall, however he uses it to stand up.
"Dead?" I ask, arching my right eyebrow and cocking a smile.
He seems to reach his limit since he swallows hard, looks in both directions and begins to run down the left hallway, there he finds an open window that he uses to take a leap. On the other window I see him landing with a somersault on the ground and keep running, colliding with a couple of people in his path.
"And to think I thought I was exaggerated with all my reactions" I say to myself/aloud, "some people are so touchy".
I turn around, shrugging my shoulders, and walk on the contrary hallway until I finally reach the front of the door of my respective dorm. I take the lock and to my surprise it's not closed, I guess he still thinks that no one is brave enough to attempt to loot something from here.
I mustn't forget that in Auradon such things don't happen.
I open the door and everything looks new, completely different, like in the first time we came here, but now I have no one to argue about the bed, and even that he said about sharing it could make me shudder if I hadn't gone through what I had to go through.
I drop the backpack Evie borrowed me next to the door's frame, giving an appreciative look to everything. His side of the dorm is still a mess, the unmade bed, clothes everywhere, some open books and what appears to be the remains of yesterday's dinner on his bedside table.
I raise my head to look at my side of the dorm.
When I was a cluster of energy I didn't get to spend much time of the night in here, I just came in to see his moments of contempt for himself, so that I didn't pay attention to my side of the dorm since in the instant he turned off the light I went out through the window to walk in the woods next to the building, through the quiet hallways, and even sometimes around the citadel.
Seeing that everything on my side of the dorm continues in the same order in which it was when I left here and didn't return makes me think that maybe he had some kind of respect for me, to not invade the space of someone considered closer to him. Maybe he did heart me.
I approach to his bed when I notice something dark that stands out among the white sheets, something black with some red details here and there. When I take it I almost feel a laugh coming out from me, and the laugh comes out.
I don't remember seeing any of my jackets in his hands the last time I came to see him, it seems that he likes to sleep with them since it was between the pillow and blanket. I don't know why something inside me seems to be coming into heat, something which adds to the ambivalence of hate/affection I still keep for him.
I leave it back where it was and I stand when the sound of something hitting the floor catches my attention, the sound of the long fingernails of Dude when they hit the floor and he's walking without a specific route. He should be complaining about it, every time his nails grow like that he tends to complains from dawn to dusk because he says they're painful, but it seems that he has been receiving cares, although no the proper ones.
"Jay, classes don't end so soon, I thought you'd be in…".
We both lift our heads at the same time, the two of us dumbfounded by this situation, totally surprised to see each other after a long month.
Even with his winces of pain he starts running towards me, breathless since the first rush, only running for whatever that happens in his little brain that brings him to come to me and jump at the right time when I kneel, I pull him against my body completely and stroke his fur, from his head down to his tail, scratching on his back and belly.
I bury my nose on his head, I hear him wimping while he's seeking to be closer to me, his legs are still moving even when I have his little body in my arms, like if he were still running, like if they were arms and he tried to wrap me in the same type of action.
"I've missed you, I've missed you, I've missed you…".
"I've missed you too…".
And I start crying, not a desperate kind of crying, but rather they're sobs and gasping for breath, this time because I add to the fact of having an unconditional company like his back with me the idea that this will be one of the few occasions in which I'll have the ability to release my emotions as best as I see them fit for me as more convenient.
I get up from the floor just to sit on my bed, which I didn't remember was so comfortable, I keep stroking him while my constant tears roll down my cheeks and fall on him.
I cry because I couldn't do it when I got out of the coffin, when I had that kind of rebirth and I could see the starry sky with the moon again; that crying could be a relieved one for knowing that I have another chance.
I cry for knowing that again I'm the weirdo among many people who call themselves as normal, they know themselves and know where they want to go, it's something that's still in me but I only avoid thinking it; that's crying of frustration.
I cry because I can have my pet in my arms again, I can have my friends closer again, I can still be a smart guy but a social outcast, I can be myself again; that's crying of happiness.
I cry, once again, for feeling betrayed by Jay, stabbed in the back and left there to my luck, incompetent about things I can do in couple relationships, sad to know that I'm someone people who can do without, one more piece in the game of life; that's crying of total sadness.
"Everything will be fine, Carlos" he says when I stop hyperventilating, he lifts his head and licks my left cheek, "everything will…".
"Dude! Dude!" the dorm's door opens with high speed, crashing against the opposite wall and leaving a mark. "You're not gonna believe what…!".
The motivational speech of the day gets interrupted because of Jay entering to the dorm, there's sweat on his forehead and running down the sides of his face, his hair is tied in the irregular bun, he's wearing the team uniform and his breathing fast while he looks at me, he observes my hand going back and forth over Dude's fur so then he looks up towards me, to my face, and I'm not sure if the agitated in his breath is by the distance he ran or for seeing me in the bedroom.
I hadn't heard that level of excitement in his voice since we were little kids, in one time when I was five and he was seven, this time he had made his first successful robbery, taking a few antiques from some specific households, and he said Jafar spent hours talking about the future thief who he was raising and how well he would continue to do his work. I faithfully remember all the things he said he would do for his father to continue being so proud of him, the forms of competition that he would do against Mal to determine which of the two of them would be the next big villain of the Island of the Lost.
Evie and I just watched it, and I spent my time seeing him smiling in a wide way, with some gaps in his teeth for those which had fallen because of the stable growth which he could actually enjoy.
I get up once again while he closes the door behind him, suddenly I feel trapped, locked inside a place that seems familiar to me, and the feeling manifested by that is one I known well since I experienced something similar for being alone in a crowd.
Jay widens a white smile while our eye contact remains there for a moment, I break it because I look down at the floor beneath him, to the grass on his tennis, but that small period of time gives him the opportunity to approach to me and wrap me in his arms, a little more worked than the last time I was in them.
I don't return him the action because I have Dude in mine, but still I wouldn't do it. I remain rigid, motionless and willing for him to leave me alone, in the meantime he lets out a sigh, his hand travels to my nape to stroke my hair, and Dude complains for being caught between us.
"You… you're really back…" he says, like if he were in the middle of a dream.
"Yeah, well, let's don't get so physical, okay?" I take his shoulder and push him away a little abruptly, noticing that his eyes redden a little more and become glassy while he keeps his eyes on mine.
"I don't wanna be away from you, not anymore, I've missed you too much to not take advantage that I've got you back here once again".
Those words, 'I've got you back', could be translated as a synonym of ownership, and a person is not an ownership for something like definition, a person is a person and period, it gives itself to whom it pleases the most, but still it retains its individuality.
I exaggerate with the way I perceive him, or maybe I'm not exaggerating, but the point is that he makes me roll my eyes and set Dude on the floor, I scratch his head and give him a smile, he nuzzles against my hand and gives a return on himself, wagging his tail besides to crouch so then he runs straight to the bottom of the couch, there he begins to play with one of the many squeaky toys that some students have given him as gifts.
He understood that I needed a minute to talk to Jay, but still I think it's a bad idea.
"I've always hated those toys" he says, like trying to break the ice and the tense atmosphere between us.
"They're his favorites, so they stay".
I arch my right eyebrow, expecting some kind of answer, but all I get is that he lifts his shoulders and lets out a sigh, still smiling.
"We need to talk" he assures, sitting on his bed and patting his side, inviting me to sit beside him, inviting me to return to him if I let him to act like he usually does with someone of his interest.
"No, we don't have to. There's nothing to talk about" I snap, surrounding my bed to smooth the sheets on the other end and the pillows, avoiding at all costs to give up to his demands.
"Carlos… we need to talk, please" he says, standing up and trying to move closer a couple of steps. I move across the dorm, watching each of his movements. "I know we can fix this, us".
"I've told you we have nothing to talk about" I say with a certain tone, sure of the posture I'm taking. "Besides you just can't fix what happened because it's not broken".
"Yeah it is, and we can do it… just listen to me…" he insists. He says nothing more, he merely lets his head down and observes all that he may that's not near or behind me, or to me. "I'm sorry, Carlos, I'm sorry for what happened that night and what I did to you" I struggle for that small part of me that wants to forget the act I'm trying to put in place and that wants to throw myself into his arms to be killed slowly since these are necessary steps, there are things I want him to learn in a certain way, "I know I've said it many times when it happened, and I know that if I do it a million times it will not be enough, but I'm really sorry, it was the biggest mistake I've made in the little that I have of life and I'm really sorry. I'm a clumsy, no… I'm an idiot…".
"Yeah you are" I laugh by using his words against him, something I know it hurts him because his nonexistent filter for words only sheds a certain amount to be taken by someone else, "a huge idiot if you ask me".
"And also…" he continues since I interrupted his speech. He's eager to walk closer a little but raise a hand, a warning, and I accompany that action slowly shaking my head no, keeping myself expressionless, "you know that we're the complement the other needs, something like pieces that must fit between, we both know it: you need roughly to face the adversity, I need the sensitive side you provide "now he looks me into my eyes, and to my dismay I see that he's not lying, he' being completely honest with me. "I love you".
I remain standing on my feet at the end of my bed, stiff for hearing again those three words along with the trembling tone in his voice, all of that makes my ideas to become blank and that I can't think of any other blunt response to all what he just said.
I'm not sure if he's just trying to take me back or if you just wants to be honest with himself to don't feel that his conscience will kill him in the next second by the pile of bad acts he had committed, but I just know that the nonexistent filter for words in his head just reached its limit of work, so that he only gets up and walks toward me with outstretched arms and with that smile that strains his eyes, that damn smile.
The more he steps closer I back off until I hit a wall, I use my nails to hold on to it while he gets closer, and closer, and closer, making the little personal space that extends between us to be destroyed.
"Don't you dare…" I say, raising my hand as a new warning, which he ignores since he seems to take longer steps. "Don't come near me…! Get away from me for a damn good time!" he stops only to look at me, then he tilts his head slightly and the smile begins to fade.
"Carlos… I want to save this, to us, the way of our relationship can't be like this because neither of us would like it to proceed in that way. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you, I really wanted to do something for you and…" I let out a deep laugh, like those derisive laughter that Freddie tends to express when something doesn't seem to be enough to her liking and she wants to make it known.
"Relationship? What damn relationship?!" I shout while I feel itchy eyes, a sign that I hadn't finished letting out the tears and that everything that's brewing inside me now is beating me to such a degree that crying seems to be the only solution. "There's no longer such thing, neither friendship nor love or any of that nonsense. I gave you everything as a friend I could give, we went to a new stage by being a couple and I also gave you what I thought would be enough for you, but the way in which you answered me was by spitting metaphorically in my face because it wasn't enough, it's never enough for you…" he looks at me with complete surprise in his face, which makes the tingling that I've felt in my body from last night to again be present, this time I feel from my toes to the roots of my hair, everything, like if it were something that needs a human way to come out or it will find a not nice way to do it. "I trusted you on the Isle by confessing what I had for you in me, I lost something from me for trying to give you everything, I stopped being me to be someone completely different, I became someone who answered to the way you behaved and period, so that I don't know what I feel for you… and I'm not sure if I can again feel something from what was between us".
He hurries the three steps that were separating us, I duck my head and all I can think about is that I need protection, I want to stay away from him, I want there to be something splitting us away once again, but not that it involves the death of one of both of us.
I just want something between us.
I bite my lower lip while I let out an agitated breath, something that manages to mitigate the feeling of crying and that allows me to practice the slow breathing exercises to achieve to calm down.
I frown when I don't get to receive his touch, when the toy with which Dude was playing gets silent makes me to arch my right eyebrow. The only thing I hear is the chirping of the birds outside, and I might even hear a pin drop coming from the Isle.
I turn my head a little and open my right eyelid slowly, only to see that there's something like a yellowish wall between us, the same color as the barrier, and on the other side Jay has his hands leaned over it, the dumbfounded expression in his face is indelible, and even he gasps for having no words.
"H-how did you do it?".
I begin to hyperventilate by thinking about something Mal said about magic produced nonverbally, an amazing thing for her but which I find as frightening. She said that to achieve such an event was equal to hitting a maximum degree of magical ability, one in which the ability to control and the power on it were so superior that it didn't need a spell or some device to channel it or guide it, only the fact of a thought with an end was enough for it. I dread to think I can accomplish something like it, especially me.
I say that because Mal touts about herself like a powerful girl, and she is for her own merits in addition to Maleficent's blood running through her veins, but still she has to continue to use the spellbook to achieve her goals besides some movements with her hands, Fairy Godmother needs her wand and magic words to do it, Freddie needs to snap her fingers in addition to pronounce a couple of spells when the situation requires it, but most of them come only when she snaps her fingers, Jane also requires spells for being a rookie, like me, but I don't have the slightest hint of magic in my whole family, none of the few relatives I have ever had such capacities.
The tingling in my body… it was that ability that hadn't developed…
But how? Where there could be a source of magical power to an ordinary guy like me?
The memory of the fateful night comes to me like a series of snapshots, and immediately the name of the potion 'Hidden Talents' comes back to me and sticks out in my memory with the same intensity of the sun shine.
I stare straight at the wall that separates us Jay and me, I watch while I think I no longer need it, I feel safe to have had some way to keep him away from me even for a moment.
The yellowish barrier disappears in the next second, and I didn't even have the need to blink.
I can do magic…
"I need to find Freddie" I say breathlessly, I step forward and he extends his arm to stop me, I walk below him but in a quick movement he manages to take my arm harder than necessary.
"Since when you and Freddie became friends?" I push aside his hand in the act but he does it again, I glare at him while he enlarges his eyes in a gesture that used to make me shudder because of how so captivating it was to see such an innocent expression in such a mature and manly face. There's no longer anything of that. "I remember you hated her before".
"Yeah, but I think it was hatred towards someone else focused on her" he backs off a little, just two steps to give us distance, "also you shouldn't care about it, everyone gets related with to the kind of person they want, but at least you should keep those links no matter what".
He's about to speak but he falls to the floor because I imagined him on the floor as an act of aggression against him, to know a little physical aggression that he has committed throughout the years to people who didn't deserve it, and those who did deserve but he didn't give them a chance to ask for mercy.
He gets up with a jump and gets in the middle of my way before I could reach the door, I see Dude peeking from the bottom of the couch, somewhat startled by the outburst, and I also look at the windows to make sure that this isn't about a plan launched by the girls.
"Now step aside before I force to do so, and since I don't know the extent of what I can do I think it's a pretty fair warning".
He opens his eyes, surprised by the threat I just launched against him. He's stunned, of course he would, but this time he doesn't try to fight against me using his eyes or words, he just seems to accept what I'm feeling because he moves away from the door and ducks his head.
I stand next to him and touch his arm to get his attention, he lifts his head slowly, like hopeful that we can speak for real about this, but all I do is to punch with my left fist straight into his nose, making him to falter and to hold to the couch while he mumbles obscenities and holds his nasal bridge, raising his head to hold the impending bleeding.
I step out the dorm with pain in my knuckles, and I'm not sure if the crack I heard was because of his nose or my hand, but I already did it and I really don't regret having done so.
I vowed for myself to face things, but instead I run away from them again. Something in me knows that I don't flee because I want it like that, I flee to find a better answer to whatever I have in mind, not to act rashly and cause a new kind of nonsense with these new skills I possess.
While I rush through the hallways to get to the girls' dorm another idea comes into my head: I want to learn more about me and the scope that I have. It's time to let people know that I've really came back.