11th September 2013
Why am I doing this? Why am I getting ready to torture myself and bring upon some kind of heart attack from exhaustion? Exercise is the worst form of punishment I can imagine for myself, this is going to be terrible.
These thoughts were running through Blue's mind as she stood in a circle with the school's cross country team and Coach Miller, a man in his thirties with dark hair who seemed quite supportive of his students. He went through a selection of stretching and warm up techniques with the group – which those themselves made her feel tired, never mind the actual running – but only for Blue's sake seeing as the team already knew the techniques by now. The team consisted of Trinity and her friends: three girls and two boys whom Trinity introduced as Hannah, Bekah, Jodie, Lucas and Charlie. Zed had turned up with the rest of the team, all four of whom were boys who looked as athletic as he did and Blue remembered them as being popular. Three of them had bullied her pretty badly, as had Trinity's friend Jodie, but not one of them made even an attempt to apologize to Blue despite knowing she might become a member of their team. She wasn't disappointed however, she hadn't expected an apology of sorts anyway.
Once they'd warmed up and stretched their bodies they all crowded around a spot where a red flag was stuck in the ground on the field they were on. "This is where we're starting off," Trinity explained to Blue. "We run one lap around the field where the markers in the ground are, then we run up the footpath into the woods over there," she pointed the direction out, "and just follow the markers for the rest of the course before eventually coming back here. Coach times us and makes a note of what our time is so we can try and improve it or compare it to past times."
"Don't worry if you can't keep up with us though," Jodie said in a sickly sweet voice. She was a tall girl, far taller than Blue, with long chestnut brown hair and a beautiful face. "We've been this school's team for three years now, we know each other's strengths and weaknesses and we're all very good."
"Blue's a good runner too Jo," Trinity defended her. "You weren't at school yesterday so you didn't see the way she ran in baseball. She was pretty good."
Jodie scoffed. "Yeah, I find that hard to believe."
"I hate to admit it but Trinity's right," Zed's voice came up behind them as he left his friends and joined them at the other side of the group. "She's good... But not as good as us," he threw an arm over Jodie's shoulders and laughed. "I don't reckon she'll be able to keep up."
Jodie laughed and snuggled into Zed's side, batting her eyelids at him. She was clearly attracted to him and attempting to flirt. It made Blue feel like she wanted to be sick. "Enough goading the new girl," Coach Miller said. "Come on, get in your starting places."
The group rearranged themselves in a certain order that made no sense to Blue so she just hovered by the edge of them, feeling awkward and out of place. Zed was first on the other side with Trinity second and Jodie fifth. Blue wondered if maybe their order had something to do with their ability or speed? It was probably something like that, she decided.
Coach Miller blew his whistle at the same time as starting his hand-held timer and the group set off running. Zed immediately shot ahead of the others into the lead and Blue was straight away lagging behind, running at a slow jog compared to the others. Coach Miller had told her to take it easy at first so she could get into 'the zone' as she ran so she was following his instructions. Well that, plus she still didn't believe she was a good runner. She saw Jodie speed past Trinity and look back, laughing when she saw how far behind Blue was.
Feeling fuelled by Jodie and Zed's teasing and like she needed to prove them wrong, Blue focused on looking at the markers in the ground as she passed them and completely blocked out the world around her, including the runners on the team. She forgot that she hated running and that actually really helped- not thinking about it made her muscles stop aching and made her get her breath back as if it had all just been in her mind all along. She simply let her body take over and she found that it was actually rather enjoyable once she did that. All the problems and worries she had were eliminated from her mind and a smile came onto her face, the feeling of having nothing bothering her welcome and being new to her.
She wasn't even paying attention to her surroundings although after a short while she felt the soft ground of the field disappear and it was replaced by the uneven ground of the woods. The small triangle-shaped red flags that were marking the course were in the woods too and her eyes stuck to them so she didn't get lost.
"Blue! Hey, Blue. Hang on a sec." The voice made her slow down and she turned around to see Zed coming up behind her. The only reason she stopped was because she was unsure how she'd overtaken him when he had been in the lead. Had he fallen behind and was now in last place? Surely she couldn't have overtaken the whole team... "You're in first place," he told her as if knowing what she was thinking. Was he one of those savants who could read minds? She wondered. "Yeah I am," he answered her unspoken question with a cocky grin, stopping a step in front of her.
"What do you want Zed?" She asked impatiently, not in the mood for putting up with his cockiness and arrogance.
"There's no need to be rude," he frowned.
"Rude? You're the one that humiliated me back there by taking Jodie's side! You know what, you're just like the rest of them. All the people that bullied me last year and made me feel like complete shit. I thought you'd be different, that you'd be nice like your brother, but you're not," she snapped, forcing down a lump in her throat. "Why can't you just let me be? Let me try and be happy."
"Don't you dare compare me to bullies!" Zed argued. "I'm not like them."
"You're on your way to being like them though. And you never stopped them from bullying me in the past. Look, do you really think now is the right time to be talking about this?"
"It's not like anybody's going to catch up, they're far behind us," he shrugged. "And I think we need to talk about this. I'll start off first, okay? I'm sorry for what I said back there with Jodie, it wasn't fair of me to say that. I just... I've tried with you, Blue. I tried being nice to you and it didn't work, you still snapped at me."
"I snap at everybody!"
"Well how am I supposed to know that?" He ran his fingers through his hair, exasperated. "Blue, you're complaining that you don't like the things I say to you, but how do you think I feel? I don't like having you be sarcastic and nasty to me either. It goes both ways, it's not all about you."
"Why can't you just leave me alone then?" She exclaimed.
"I don't know! Maybe because Victor wants us to be friends or because we're both savants or because we live next door to each other... God, I don't know. I just feel like it's important we're civil towards each other, I feel like we have some sort of connection."
"Well I don't feel that," she replied not unkindly.
"I know, I can tell," Zed said. "I don't like being horrible to you but if you're not going to make the effort to be nice to me then why should I even try with you? I've said that I'm sorry, there's nothing else that I can do. Can we at least try and be friends, especially seeing as you're going to be on the team now?"
"What if I don't want to be on the team?"
"Trust me, after this Coach will force you to be on the team. We've been looking for a twelfth member and you're apparently better than all of us," he smiled at her a little.
Blue paused for a moment. In the end she decided that things would probably be a lot easier if her and Zed called a truce, part of her saying to just give him a chance because she felt like she owed it to Victor after the support he'd given her whilst she was at Rosewood. "I guess we can try and be friends."
"Sounds good," he smiled properly this time. "A new start. That sounds like the best thi-" His voice cut off when they heard a scream come from shortly behind them. "Wonder what that was," he mumbled and headed back through the trees to find out.
With a sigh, Blue followed. It wasn't just curiosity that spurred her to do so but a personality trait of wanting to help people if they needed it. Zed and Blue followed the sound of the voice shouting for help and ended up finding Jodie on the floor, clutching at her ankle. What was strange to Blue was the fact that Jodie wasn't crying- surely somebody that was hurting that much would be crying? She's so full of shit, she thought to herself bitterly as Zed knelt down beside Jodie.
"What happened?" He asked the girl.
"I tripped over and twisted my ankle," Jodie replied, flexing her right ankle and moaning in pain. "Oh it really hurts, I don't think I can move Zed. Could- could you carry me please? Just to where Coach is waiting so he can get me to a nurse?"
"Yeah sure," Zed nodded. When Blue scoffed he looked up at her and asked, "what is it?"
"You know she's faking, right?" She raised her eyebrows. "Are you really so naïve to believe her?"
"I'm not faking!" Jodie gasped, the gasp being far too dramatic for the situation. She clung onto Zed's biceps as he picked her up bridal-style. "Zed she's lying, what an idiot."
"Whatever," Blue said, shaking her head, completely done with dealing with Jodie. "Zed, it has nothing to do with me. You fall for her lies, that's fine by me. From what I remember about the type of girls you date, she's just your type so maybe now that you're her 'hero' you'll have an epic love story with her."
"What is your problem?" Jodie spat the words at her. "You don't even know me or Zed. You're just a loser, you always will be. Come on Zed, let's just leave her here."
"It's fine, I'm leaving anyway. I know my way home through the woods from here," Blue said. "Make sure to tell Coach that I've decided not to join the team please. Neither of you will have to put up with me being in the way, don't worry."
Jodie smiled smugly but Zed looked unhappy. "Blue, I-"
"It doesn't matter." She didn't understand why it was bothering her so much that Jodie seemed interested in Zed but she didn't want to think about that. She didn't even care about Zed, if he wanted to believe Jodie's lies and get pulled into her trap that was fine with Blue. It wouldn't be much of a change anyway- she remembered Zed being the kind of boy to be a bit of a 'player' and he only dated the popular girls with the perfect bodies. The cheerleader types, basically.
She turned around and ran away from them, no longer following the direction the markers laid out. When she was younger her father would take her hiking in the woods so she knew her way around like the map was imprinted in her mind.
"What's wrong with you?" She felt Zed create a link between their minds less than a second before she heard his voice. "She's hurt, I'm just being a nice guy and helping her out. We're a team, that's what we do. I can tell her to back off and leave you alone if you want. I doubt she means to be this horrible to you, she probably just thinks it's some sort of joke. Calm down, Blue."
Calm down? Strangely enough, Blue was calm. Maybe that was an effect of the running, she thought to herself. She honestly couldn't care less about what was going on between Zed and Jodie and she knew that Zed was just trying to be nice and help out like he'd said so himself. What was annoying her was how he was actually defending Queen Bitch Jodie and thought that she was innocent. "Interesting choice of friends you keep around you," she replied through the link. "Look I've changed my mind. I don't think we should be friends, let's just try and stay away from each other. I think that's probably the best thing for both of us."
"Blue. You're-" Expecting some sort of lecture from him about how ridiculous she was being, she quickly cut off the link and put shields up around her mind, picturing impenetrable walls so he couldn't create a link again.
Glad that that was over, she again let her body take over and ran all the way home without struggling for breath once.
Turns out that running was actually something that Blue enjoyed. Who could have guessed?
As soon as Zed got home, he stomped up the stairs and ignored Karla shouting out to ask him what was wrong. Normally he showered nearly straight away after cross country training but today he simply went into his bedroom and collapsed onto the bed, his legs dangling off the side. Staring up at the ceiling, he sighed loudly and put up shields around his mind before he started thinking things through so that his mother wouldn't overhear anything.
He thought back to that moment when Blue spoke to him through the telepathic link. He'd nearly dropped Jodie to the floor but had managed to get a tighter grip on her just in time. His heart had expanded as soon as he heard Blue's voice and his mind lit up, so bright that it gave him a flash of a painful headache. The pain disappeared within a second however and was replaced by a loving warmth. The link between their minds was stronger than anything Zed had ever experienced and as if it were alive it whispered one word into his mind: "soulfinder." Tears had sprung to his eyes but he quickly blinked them away. His entire being felt happier than it ever had in his life, happier than he'd ever imagined being. He'd known it then, known it deep in his heart and felt it heavily in his soul.
Bluebell Williamson was his soulfinder and from that moment on he would do anything for her, even take a bullet for her.
He'd tried to tell her, to let her know the amazing and shocking news, but she'd cut off the link before he had the chance to. He'd attempted to form a mental link with her again but she had up the strongest shields he'd ever felt before. Not even Victor, whom had always had stronger shields than the rest of the family and was always the best at getting through over people's shields, wouldn't have been able to get Blue's mind she was that strong.
Zed had contemplated going to Blue's house before his own so that he could tell her they were soulfinders but he was terrified of how she would react. They'd got off to a bad start and had both been pretty bitter towards each other, winding each other up and sometimes taking it too far. She probably hated him. He wouldn't blame her after the way he had treated her recently and the fact he never stopped people from bullying her in the past. He had a lot to apologize to her for and he knew she was so stubborn he might even spend his whole life trying to apologize and get on her good side again.
Would telling her about the connection between them be the right thing? Of course he knew that she had a right to know that her soulfinder was living just next door to her but he also knew that if he told her now, she would reject him. Right now she thought he was an arrogant bastard who could be a bully at times and who had something going on with Jodie (which he didn't, it was purely just a friendship between them). She wouldn't want him as a soulfinder, she'd reject him and never give him the time of day again.
But if tried to win her over before he told her they were soulfinders... He might have a chance to prove himself and her finding out about the soulfinder thing would be just as happy a moment as every savant pictured it to be, not a moment of disgust and disappointment on her behalf.
That's it, he thought to himself. I have to show Blue the real me and prove to her that I'm good enough for her. I have to make her fall in love with me on her own instead of her making her feel like she had no choice but to because of the soulfinder bond. I have to make little Bluebell – a girl who is stubborn and depressed, bitter and sarcastic, yet beautiful and talented and kind-hearted – fall in love with me. This is going to be hard. But oh so worth it.
Author's note: I've started a new story about Victor and Hazel's daughter- A Life Of Love and Loss. The first chapter is up now, go give it a read and leave reviews if you want :)
A hint about the next chapter: Zed and Blue both attend Isaac's party.