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He still had the courage to smile after all this? I smile back. Drew took one of his hands off me and lifted it up to my face. His hands were cold but I didn’t mind. He held the side of my face in his hand and brushed back some of my hair with a finger. I sighed and leaned into his touch. He was so soft and delicate. I shut my eyes peacefully and turned all my senses towards this. I didn’t think, didn’t see, just felt. How it felt so good to just have him stroke my face. His hand trailed down onto my neck where Michael had grabbed me. It felt sore now but I didn’t tell Drew that. I didn’t want him to stop.
“Is your neck ok?” He asks. His voice is creaky for crying.
My eyes flutter open to regard him. “It’s alright”
His hand is still on my neck and the other had loosened from my back onto my waist. I’m still holding him, my arms wrapped around him. I’m looking into his eyes. Falling into his eyes. They are sky blue and grass green and soft grey and utterly wonderful. Then a strand of shiny black hair obstructs my view.
” Your hair…” I mutter and reach up to brush the piece of black silk from his face and smile; it is just as soft as it looks. Then suddenly our faces are so close I can’t remember what I was thinking. I tilt my head slightly and lean in. I don’t know what I’m doing but it feels right.
Our lips meet perfectly. I’d thought his hand touching my face felt good, this felt even better. My hand is in his hair now instead of on it and my other has moved from his back. My face feels hot with passion and his lips are so lovely. I can taste the blood on them but it doesn’t bother me one bit. His hands are roaming my face and hair like they have a mind of their own. I break the kiss to let something out “I’ll protect you Drew, I promise”
I say it with passion; he needs to know its true. Some sort of understanding reaches his eyes and I shift forward jerkily to try and get closer to him, our legs are sprawled between us and it’s an awkward position. But as I hurriedly try to move closer he makes a hurt noise and breaks away from the kiss. At first I’m upset and worried because I think he doesn’t want this but then he laughs huskily and his face goes completely pink. He says “Sorry, the brick was digging into my back”
I look behind him and notice a brick sticking out of the wall. I laugh breathily too. I smile at him broadly and I know my face is pink too.
“Ha ha, I’m sorry,” I say.
He laughs again too. Then he tilts his head slightly, narrows his eyes and asks, “What is your name?” and then “I can’t believe I don’t know it yet”
I look down ashamed and angry with myself. A name was a big part of being human and I didn’t even have one. “I don’t have one” then I add as an afterthought “Yet…”
“You ah… very odd…” But he says it in an affectionate way even though he’s obviously confused. I don’t know what I should say next. I couldn’t just leave him thinking I didn’t have a name and then let him learn about all the other reasons why I was hardly human. I didn’t want to scare him though, by telling him the truth. What do I do? I avoid the problem for now. I turn around and look at Michael unconscious and bleeding on the floor.
“You must think I’m a monster,” I say. Drew looks at Michael and scowls.
“No, I don’t. Of course I don’t. You saved me and I-I just can’t thank you enough.”
“Did he hurt you anywhere else?” I ask. Drew winces and says quietly “My side… He kicked me, before you came”
“Oh Drew,” I say, “You didn’t tell me! I could have hurt you…” He just shrugs and blushes a bit, with his eyes down.
“How bad is it? Can I?” I don’t want to ask him to lift his shirt up for me, but I need to know how badly he is hurt. I can’t explain it but I just need to see he is ok, see he’s safe…
Drew says after a gulp of breath “Look I- it’s not that bad, and I- I just didn’t want you to stop touching me” he glances up quickly “And- and I…. thought if you knew I was hurt on more then my face you wouldn’t want to touch me- nobody’s ever, I mean I’ve never…” He trails off. It doesn’t seem like what he wanted to say but its what he says anyway.
His face goes red, mixing in with the bruised colors on his face. I’m utterly amazed at what he’s said… It’s hard to believe somebody felt that way about me.
Anyway.
Drew doesn’t seem to think showing me his body will make me want to run away in disgust (the truth is quiet the opposite) so he lifts his skin tight turtle neck shirt up to his chin. The first things I notice are the bruises, of course. Spreading over one side of his ribcage and waist is a patch of purple-yellow bruising about the size of my hand. Those very hands of mine start to tingle; I can’t believe I was so close to grasping him tightly, when he was so hurt. It shocked me completely and I could feel the guilt and self-anguish creeping in. This poor boy, which I had been groping at, was beaten and bruised and I hadn’t even stopped to think of him before pleasing myself? Was that the kind of person I was? I didn’t even have the right to him, to touch him.
I moved back. “I’m so sorry Drew, I should have seen if you where hurt before…” I put my head down and frown, like a child who has been caught doing something bad. I was only a day and a half old and already felt like I had hurt the person who I-
I mean I only wanted happiness in this new life, and I find somebody who makes me happy and then I put myself before him and kiss him? Because that’s what I wanted? What if that’s not what he wanted? He was just beaten up!
Drew suddenly speaks up “It’s ok-” Suddenly we are interrupted by a groan and a shuffle. The noise sends a cold shiver down my body. My hairs stand on end, like an animal with his hackles up.
It’s Michael. He is sitting up, his eyes are still shut and he’s frowning. I don’t think he knows what’s happened. My heart speeds up in a frantic rhythm. Now was our only chance. Drew is wide eyed and obviously has the same thought. He looks paralyzed by fear. We both scramble up and I turn to quickly look at Michael, a big mistake. His eyes open -he’s got dark brown eyes- and as he recognizes us, his face transforms once again into hatred. I seize Drew’s hand and we run. We run back towards the road, through the park. We run and run, tripping and looking back in panic. He’s following. My courage seems to have disappeared into a hole to hide. I can’t deal with this anger and hatred; it’s not what I want to feel anymore, brings back too many memories. Protecting Drew in the moment was different than this. I’ve never seen a scarier sight than that boy running after us, his face tells of savagery, his eyes are madness. I’ve never seen somebody so full of bloodlust. I have a sudden flash of thought: He’s going to kill us. We’re nearly at the road. We reach the road. We run.
Horror swallows me, my body turns to ice, a red car squeals in a deafening scream of terror. He didn’t stop. My whole being protests, Drew is hit. The speeding car bulls into his fragile body, then the sharp piercing scream. Mine? The cars? Drew’s? I can’t tell. My eyes move without my permission, I never thought you could use the word crumpled on a human, but there it is. He is crumpled and broken in front of the car. Everything is slamming around inside my head; I can’t make sense of anything. I think I’m going to vomit. I think I’m going to scream. I think I’m going to collapse. Then one awareness pushes through all of the thoughts like red molten lava through butter, it ignites everything in its path. And once it’s reached the front of my mind everything left behind is just a desolate wasteland, all there is left is lava. Hate. Anger. Rage.
This was Michaels fault, his fault Drew is broken on the merciless ground. He needs to pay. I turn around and he’s standing there staring. His expression is wide eyed and almost innocent, he looks like he’s in shock. I hate it. His face repulses me, I don’t even care if he’s sorry or not. He did this to Drew he hurt him! I throw myself toward him with something tearing itself from my throat. A sound is ripping though me and its pure unadulterated hatred. I smash into him and once I’m on top of him I don’t hesitate. I wrap my hands around his beefy neck and hold tight. These hands that loved, they were so much better at hate. I wouldn’t let go, he kicked and jerked and punched me anywhere he could. He feels like an animal in panic, his body is convulsing beneath my hands. I keep squeezing until there is nothing left, just me holding the neck of a dead boy. Everything had gone from me too, that light and warmth that had grown inside me since waking up on earth, it had died. This is who I am. I thought. I wasn’t a human. I was a murderer. I couldn’t change my ways.
With that realization everything goes. All is black. I can’t see the blackness, I can’t see anything, but I feel the darkness weighing down on me. I touch my eyes to make sure they are actually open, which they are. Everything is gone. Michael isn’t under me, my hands are empty. The red car is gone, the scream, Drew. I sit in stunned silence. I’m too afraid to think about what’s just happened. But I have an idea of what’s happening now. And it sweeps away the last of my anger and replaces it with dread. I’d failed my second chance. Two days on earth and I had failed.
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