Empyreal: Awaken - Book One (9 page)

She watched him walk away, sighing at
the element of his absence. Her hand ached, like his hand had been
a part of her, and then ripped from her clutches. She could feel
the void where his hand had been in hers. His familiar touch and
composition was comforting, yet she wondered from where the
familiarity came. She stood there, watching him walk down the
sidewalk and longed for his return.

“You ready, kiddo?” Cal asked, making
Coralie jump at the sound of his voice.

“Yeah, Dad...” she said, continuing to
watch Court as he walked down the sidewalk, yearning to follow
him.

Coralie sighed. She had been staring at the
same blank piece of paper for over two hours. She couldn't
concentrate on her rough draft, not now ... with so much running
through her mind...

Her recent and reoccurring dreams, her
parents weird reactions to nearly everything these days, and of
course, Court ... He seemed to hold most of her
thoughts...

She thought of his tall stature, his
muscular shoulders, his most perfect face, his light blue eyes, and
light hair – she recalled both glistening earlier in the sunlight
... She sighed deeply, once again.

Abruptly, she was startled by a sound
at her window. She turned to see what could have made it. A dark
figure moved outside of her library loft window.

Her parents had arranged this space,
which sat just above her room, into her very own
library-slash-office space. They said that it would help her excel
in her studies, if she could manage to keep her education and
readings aside from her leisure.

She moved from her desk chair, as she
saw the dark figure shift along the rooftop once again.

Impossible
, she thought,
I'm
on the third floor of the house...

She started to call out to her parents
when, suddenly, she caught a glimpse of something familiar in the
shadowed figure. She walked over to the old-fashioned, plantation
shutter-style, paned window and pushed it open. “What are you doing
here?”

“Would you believe that I've taken up
the sport of roof-jumping...” Court asked, moving closer, across
the roof line in front of her window.

“Nice try...” she said, taking a seat
on the window seat.

“I wanted to see you ... or rather, I
needed to see you...”

“Such a fine line between the
two...”

“Such truth in your words … but, I
also wanted ask you something...”

“Ask me something? You know, you
could've just called ... risking your life on a rooftop is highly
over-rated...” she said, with a chuckle.

She noticed something in the way he
looked at her...

Rooftop ...
the word trailed
silently through her mind. It resonated and hovered in her psyche.
The word seemed to trigger a memory of some sort, but she shook it
from her consciousness. “So, what? What exactly did you need to ask
me?”

Court stood, staring at Coralie with
no words to speak of.

“Court?”

“Oh, I'm sorry ... I've lost all
musing ability ... I tend to lose myself around you … but you do
that to me, Coralie ... all of the time...” Court confessed. “My
thoughts are completely consumed with you...”

Coralie's cheeks blushed a deep shade
of red, but she could not contain the smile from brushing across
her lips.

“I know that you said that you can't
go out anywhere tonight, but do you think that you may could take a
short break and come out here ... with me, on the roof?”

“Out there ... on my roof? Did I
mention my thoughts on rooftop dangers?” she asked, stopping to,
again, shake away the thought of what the word r
ooftop
actually meant
...
the thought of what significance it might
hold.

“Yeah, I think you mentioned something
like that … Come on, it's a beautiful night...” he said, extending
his hand.

“Okay, Rooftop Casanova ... but I
still have a paper to write ... so just a short break...” she said,
giving in, taking his hand.

“This will be the shortest break in
the history of all breaks ... I promise...” he said, with a
smile.

Coralie stood upright outside of her
window and looked around. The vast darkness surrounding them was
lit up by millions of twinkling stars above. The moon that hung
overhead shone bright across their faces.

Coralie looked over at Court, he was
staring at her with intense eyes, wistfully.

“Court, can I ask you a question?”
Coralie asked, breaching the quietness of the night.

“Go ahead … Shoot...” he said,
encouraging her to continue.

“What's like in Greece?”

“Greece, huh? You've never
been?”

“Well, if you look at my passport, it
seems that I've been almost everywhere … in fact, it says that I’ve
been to Greece seven times. So, yes, I've been … I’ve been with my
parents. I used to travel with them a lot.”

“Sounds pretty great...”

“Yeah, it does … it sounds great,
right...”

“Well, yeah ... but it’s not, is
it?”

“It would be, if I had any
recollection of anything during my stay ... if I had memories to go
along with these visits. I don’t know … I guess it’s not the worst
thing that could happen. I just wish that I knew –”

Looking at her with intense eyes,
Court spoke up, “What do you mean? Like you know that you've been
places, but you don't have memories of any of them ... like no
recall of anything...”

“Yeah, that pretty much sums it
up...”

“So, there’s just nothing?”

“Well, not exactly
nothing
...
I mean, I don't have the ability to remember a lot of things ...
which is sometimes really scary...”

“That must be terrible… I mean, you
can’t remember anything…”

“No, it's only certain things, you
know, not everything. I have memories. They are all just very cut
and dry, black and white...” she paused, assembling her words. “I
guess what I'm trying to say is that ... umm, that there are
holes...”

“Holes...”

“Yeah, holes ... like where something
should be...”

“Like something’s
missing...”

“Exactly… I never used to notice
before... but recently, I
have...”

“Cor,” Court slid over closer to her
side, sliding his arm around her, “I am so sorry...”

“It's not like you've caused it or
that you would even know anything about it ... and I don't tell
these things to a lot of people, so...” she let her voice trail
off.

“Your secrets are safe with
me...”

“Thanks...”

The two of them sat in silence for a
few moments, Court holding Coralie in the safety of his
arms.

“It’s not fair...” Court spoke up,
breaking the silence, his voice sounding almost as if it was
filling with anger.

“What?”

“It's not fair that your life is like
a movie reel, you know, with scenes that don't make the cut ... So
what? Do they just get to hit the cutting room floor, never to be
relived again? It’s not fair that you are unable to remember the
colors
in your life ... because that's what memories are,
they are colorful moments that we can relive over and over and over
again ... some are good, and some aren't, but it's from those that
we learn from...”

Coralie shrugged. “I guess … I just
wished that I knew why or even what was causing this...”

“Coralie, I promise you that I will
always be here to help you ... anytime that you ever need me, I'm
here ... and I will try my hardest to help you get those memories
back, okay?”

Coralie nodded.

Court, with his arm still around her,
he rubbed his hand along Coralie's arm, and then pulled her closer
to him. She put her head against his shoulder. Feeling secure where
she ordinarily felt lost.

After a few long, what Coralie would
consider, moments - because time didn't seem to matter when she was
with Court - of sitting on the rooftop, Court finally spoke,
quietly. “I probably should go ... my parents will wonder where
I've been ... I left hours ago...”

“And I still have a paper to write …
But Court, I don't want you to go...”

“Me, either...”

“Oh, how I wish we could just stay up
here, just like this...”

“Me, too...”

“I guess ... I guess that I'm just
afraid...”

“Afraid?”

“Afraid that I'll lose this memory
too...”

“Cor … I don't want to go, either, but
it's not for the same reason as you ... listen to me, you can't do
this to yourself ... you can't be afraid of living, because you're
afraid that you may, or may not, forget ... you
will
remember this night, just like all of the rest of the days and
nights that we will spend together...” he looked down at her, “and
I plan on there being a lot of those...” he finished, giving her a
smile. After seeing a smile sweep across her face, he continued
with, “I'll see you tomorrow, okay?” He kissed her cheek, and then
rose to his feet.

“Court,” she started, “you can come in
and go down the stairs...” as she watched him walk to the side of
the three-story roof line.

He turned and flashed his most
handsomely, cunning grin. “Now, what fun would that be?”

And then he jumped...

Coralie rose quickly to her feet and
dashed to the side from where he'd leapt. She watched as he
gracefully landed onto the ground beneath her.

When Court turned, he smiled and
winked, sending flutters straight to her stomach.

Suddenly, Coralie felt that she had
witnessed a familiar scene before, as she watched him disappear
into the darkness of the night.

What was this feeling? This feeling
that had overcome her? Not the overwhelming butterflies pent up
within her stomach that she felt every time the very thought of
Courtland Cumberlin crossed her mind. It was something else. The
feeling of seeing the same scene before. Why did she have the
feeling that she had already witnessed this sight before? Had she
just watched Court jump from several stories, only to land
gracefully on the ground below her? Had she seen him perform the
same act before?

That would be ... preposterous,
absurd, ridiculous even. Wouldn't it?

Coralie continued to look out into the
darkness that was the night. She exhaled a heavy sigh. Even though
she couldn't see him anymore, she could still feel him with her.
Not like his very presence. More like it felt that their souls were
connected. Like she could feel where he was at that very moment.
And this feeling only increased the closer she was to
him.

Yeah, that didn't seem
crazy.

Coralie didn't know what to think
anymore.

Since she'd turned seventeen last
month, things in her life had seemed to have changed. She couldn't
explain it.

The life that she had once known – her
one-dimensional, naïve, simplistic life – had changed into
something more.

Something much more. Something much
bigger. Bigger than herself.

Bigger than anything she had known to
exist.

What was this? This change? Was it
something that happened to everyone her age? Did every one of her
peers experience senseless and irrational changes within their
lives?

Something was definitely different.
Different about her. Different about her surroundings. Different
about her life.

The more Coralie thought about the
different things going on around her, the more her thoughts ran
hastily through her mind.

Maybe it wasn't that she was changing.
Maybe it was something else. Maybe it was her true-self coming
through.

Not
changing
, just
revealing
her true
-
self through the opaqueness that
was her life.

Coralie sighed as she sat in the back of the
classroom, staring out of the two story window of the East Wing
classroom building. Her teacher's voice had started to taper off
into the background until it was a mere mumble.

She sighed again.

Private school had its perks, she
guessed. And she had been given the choice – she chose
this...

Granted, the choice was between
Chelsea, a prestigious preparatory school and being home-schooled.
Where, surely, home school had its benefits as well, the sound of
attending Chelsea just seemed a better fit, all things
considered.

Coralie, along with the other three
hundred members of the student body, were required to wear uniforms
– guys in khaki pants and a white, button-down, collared shirt,
accompanied by a navy blue blazer and a matching tie; girls in a
navy plaid or plain khaki skirt, and a white button-down, collared
shirt, also accompanied by a navy blue blazer. Everyone looked the
same, every day. Coralie was glad that she could blend
in.