Love lines (8 page)

“Wow! I had no idea about all of these. Looks like a
whole soap opera. So what happened to her husband and the woman for whom he dumped
her?” I asked.

“No one knows. Since no one of Feta or Ventura could see
anything, everybody decided that she just left them alone.”

“It sounds like a miracle,” I pointed.

“At least, this is still unknown,” said Evan, shrugging
indifferently. “I think there was enough experience for the first lecture?” he
asked, smiling.

“Even too much,” I answered, smiling back.

“Well, then, see you tomorrow, at this time in front of the
academic building, okay?” shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, he said, as if
asking the permission to invite me for a date. Of course, I didn’t say that
aloud.

“Okay,” I nodded shyly. “Thank you for the first lesson.
I think I'll stay here a little longer. I like flowers very much.”

“Of course, the rest of the day is at your disposal.”

Giving me his charming smile for the hundredth time,
Evan left.

I had no doubt he was a dream of all the girls in Dever.
Being a high-brunette with bright sky-blue eyes, he could afford to be in the
highlight of everybody’s attention. He wasn’t however, the center of mine. My
own thoughts went back to Christian. The memory of him sank me into the vortex
of his emotions. It was a mixture of annoyance, anger, and despair. I was sure
a hundred percent that the feelings were clearly not caused by my behavior or
me in general.

“What is he doing then?” I thought wonderingly.

Chapter 9. The
grief  (
Christian)

Vanessa...

I could smell her sweet perfume even before I noticed
her hand on my shoulder. Funny enough, but I haven’t felt such a wild
annoyance
because of her touch before. I didn’t get much pleasure as well. I rather was
simply indifferent. Now I had to do my best not to break down and take her hand
off my shoulder.

“Christian, I've been looking for you everywhere! I have
great news. Patricia Rowley is throwing a party tonight, and we're on the guest
list!”

“No! Not that again!” I groaned mentally.

“Sorry, Vanessa, but, first of all, you didn’t have to
look for me
everywhere
. I'm always in class at this time, and secondly,
today I can’t go with you. I need to practice as the Festival is too soon, and
I’m still not ready with my show.”

Perhaps my speech was a little abrupt, but at that very
moment I didn’t care. To smooth over the consequences of my rudeness, I added
more gently:

“Invite Evan. He will keep you company.”

At that time, my friend was standing in front of the
audience, chatting with a group of some girls.

“Okay then, Evan won’t refuse,” Vanessa said, quickly
turned around on her heels, and headed for the door.

“Great!” I thought. I’ve got one problem solved. I was
worried much more about the Festival of Arts, which was to be held in two
weeks. That event was important for the whole University. On this day all the
graduates had their final tests, which actually ended up being a part of the Festival’s
program. In addition, each department represented their best students of the
current academic year, each of whom prepared a performance. As possessing fire
was my special ability, so it was the main idea of my show.

Even before my arrival to Dever, when I was twelve years
old, I accidentally started a fire in my father's office. Of course, I was
punished. My parents, as it turned out, didn’t immediately realize that in the
absence of any incendiary materials it was quite difficult to start a fire.
Later it became clear to me that no devices were needed. The fire was in my
hands. And now, after so many successful attempts to build a castle out of it,
my performance was about to fail. Well, not really. Of course, the flame still
appeared, but its effect couldn’t be compared to the previous times. Because of
this the castle figure seemed blurred and vague. And it made me feel
anger.

Despair
overwhelmed me at
the thought that I could end up failing everything. So I decided to leave my
futile attempts for later and went to visit Eileen.

Passing by Evan, I noticed that his aura was glowing
with the red and purple-blue tints. A
girl
.

“As always,” I thought, smiling to myself. Although, he
seldom revealed such a deep interest to any of them. And obviously
the one
wasn’t among those around him at the moment.

I can read auras pretty well. They are a kind of
reflection of the people themselves. All the feelings, as well as any character
have their own colors. For example, the presence of bright green, my favorite
color, reflects the sensitivity and kindness of its owner. Yellow means
friendship, openness and attractiveness. But the presence of dark red means
instability and short temper.

Funny, but I paid no attention to Eileen’s aura. Perhaps
it was due to the fact that I already could feel everything she felt.

Just coming to her room, I remembered that I hadn’t
asked about the beginning of her studies. But I didn’t feel her presence at
that moment. She probably wasn’t in the room. Although I could feel my sister’s
aura very clearly.

“Christian! Come on in quickly, I must tell about
everything going on!” clapping her hands, she cried. A few guys passing down
the hallway anxiously smashed up to the wall.

“I can hear you, Amanda. There’s no need to scare away
the entire dormitory,” I said, walking into the room.

“Oh, come on!
I am
sure, they had the same
experiences of their first day,” she said, closing the door behind me. “Can you
imagine that the History teaches Loren Spine in his own person!”

“Yep, trust me I
can
imagine that,” I said,
nodding meaningfully. Loren was one of many local celebrities. A few years ago
at the Festival, he made a huge picture of water - a miniature copy of Dever.
Since then no one else has yet managed to excel him in the ability to control
the power of water.

“And the Basic laws of magic are taught by our father,”
Amanda added less enthusiastically.

“I know that tone, little sister. Believe me, I have
already been you, and nothing happened. As you can see, I’ve passed his exam on
the first try.”

“I'm not sure I’ll be that lucky. He made it quite clear
that he would not let me have an easy time of it.”

“You know what? I can make you happy a little. When I
was in your shoes, he expected me to do a lot more than any other student.”

“Well, thank you, Christian, for being such an
understanding brother! Now I know whom I can come to complain to.”

“Don’t be mad,” hugging her shoulders, I said. “I’ve
said that just to prevent you from taking offense at him later. By the way, do
you know where Eileen is?”

“No. I’d like to talk to her as well, but I have no idea
where she is. In the morning I didn’t have time to ask what she would be doing
today. Didn’t you come to see her earlier?”

“I... yeah, I did, but still needed to
ask. Okay,
tell her that I was looking for her and wanted to show her something.”

“I will, for sure.”

Pausing to think for a moment, I didn’t notice Eileen,
who was just coming to the dormitory. She seemed to be too busy with her own
thoughts, because she faced me at the very entrance.

“Excuse me. Oh, hey Christian! I didn’t notice you,” she
said embarrassed.

“And didn’t feel
,
” I admitted. “Apparently, being
wrapped up in our own thoughts, we don’t feel each other, because I hadn’t
noticed you as well. So how was your first day?”

“Good. I learned a lot. Evan Murray will be teaching
me
before the start of my regular classes.”

“Evan?” I asked in surprise.

“Yes. Being a high level student he was appointed as my
temporary tutor.”

“Right,” perhaps too quickly I said. Eileen looked at me
suspiciously.

“What's wrong?” she asked.

“Everything‘s wrong!” I wanted to shout. Not only was I
going to be a complete failure at the Festival, now even my best friend,
judging by the colors of his aura seems to have a thing for the girl who... Who
what,
Christian? Damn it!

“No. Everything is fine,” I said. “It’s just not the
best of days today. Sorry, I have to go. We'll talk later, okay?”

“Okay,” looking confused, said Eileen.

 But could I understand it myself? Why did I freak out?
Because of the fact that Eileen will now spend more time with Evan than me? And
who am I to her? Just her best friend’s brother, whom she saw just a few times
in her life.

It looks like I'm starting to get worked up even more.
But the truth is that I'm
no one
to
her, so I have no right to be
jealous.

Damn! If only it was that simple…

Man, what an idiot I still am! I haven’t told her about
the reason of my call!

 I had to do something about this mess; otherwise I
could remain the very same idiot in her eyes forever. Anna! That's whom I
needed! I didn’t know whether her classes had already ended, but turned back
and went to the dormitory.

Anna Delgado was a second year student of Embry.
Everybody knew about her brilliant talent to
speak the language of flowers
.
In addition, Anna was a person who always knew the way out of any complicated
situation.

“Christian!” she greeted smiling.

“Hi, Anna. I need your help,” almost pleading, I said.

“Oh, I’m already used to being popular these days!
Everybody needs my help.  So what’s the matter?”

“It would be great, if you help me with some flowers.”

“That’s obvious, Christian. Flowers are my life,”
dramatically raising her arms, she sang.

Anna reminded me of Evan a little, only in a female
shape. She was funny, and she was always in a good mood.

“I need to say with the flowers that I’m a complete fool
and I’ll try to fix everything that I’ve done wrong. Well, something like
that,” I tried to explain.

“This is easy, nothing special here,” she said. “I will
give you a list of the flowers you will need.”

Reading the names of all the necessary flowers, I went
to find them. The gardens of Dever saved a lot of time rather than a trip to
the florist. Embry students worked really hard so that the gardens always had
all sorts of flowers. For this purpose we had special greenhouses, where at
any time of day or night you could find everything your heart wished. At least
in terms of flowers. So I went there too.

Purple hyacinth, camellia and peach blossom...

Deciding that it would be better to make a surprise for
Eileen, I didn’t want to give the bouquet to her in person. Calling Amanda I
asked her to help me. In the note I attached, I wrote the following:

“Let the flowers say what I haven’t managed. P.S.
Will you meet today at eight p.m. at the west gate? C.”

Eileen could ignore the invitation, but
I didn’t
give up hope to see her soon.

Chapter 10.  The
message (
Eileen)

Upon entering the room after the very strange
conversation with Christian, I found Amanda in the company of an unknown girl
who stood leaning over something on my desk, defiantly laughing.

“Hi,” I said. The laughter and the conversation stopped
immediately. The girls exchanged a mysterious look.

“Hello, I am Anna Delgado,” replied the stranger
smiling.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, smiling back. “What are you
trying so hard
to hide from me there?”

 I wanted to see what they both were hiding so carefully
behind their backs.

“You’ve got a message here,” Amanda said, and moved
aside.

There was an incredible bouquet of beautiful flowers on
my desk. The flowers’ names I didn’t know.

“It’s so beautiful! Who are the flowers from?” I asked,
inhaling the fabulous fragrance of the bouquet.

“Actually, I wanted to ask you the same question,”
Amanda said, raising her eyebrows questioningly.

“How would I know, I've just got them myself!”

“Gardenia is a flower of secret love,” Anna pointed.

“Anna is Embry,” explained Amanda. “There’s no note, and
the meaning of the message is quite clear, so we’ve decided that you must know
who it is from. Or you've got so many admirers just in one day that you can’t
even guess?” she asked cheerfully.