The Understorey, Book One of The Leaving Series (34 page)

At lunch, we ate quickly and waited.

    “What was Marisa’s deal on
Sunday?” Jules asked, suddenly aware of her again.
    “I’m pretty sure she knows whatever Jesse and
Taylor are planning. It’s frustrating because she’s so easily
influenced. If I could just get to her and explain to her what she
needed to do instead of following that harpy around then I know I
could change her mind.”
    “Yeah, she’s not intrinsically bad. She just
cannot
think for herself. She’s ruled too easily by her
obsession with being popular,” Jules reasoned.
    “If I could just get to her.......but Taylor’s
got a short leash on her.”
    “Yeah, and a choke collar to match,” Jules
said.
I winked at her.
    “That was a little gangster of you Jules, my
witty, clever little gangster. You should have added ‘see’ to the
end of that sentence. You would’ve been golden,” I teased.
    “Shut up,” she laughed. “It’s early.”
    I spotted them, “Here comes Bonnie and
Clyde.”
I nodded toward the double doors.
    “More like Fred and Wilma,” she said.
    “What was that?”
    “Forgive me. ‘Airplane’ was on last
night.”
    “Surely, you must be joking,” I chortled.
    “I’m not joking and stop calling me Shirley,”
she laughed.
    “Uh oh,” I said.
    “I’m stopping.”

I waved my hand for Jesse and Taylor to come
to our table. They stopped, whispered something to each other and
decided to join us. Jules was as cool as a cucumber, probably
because I had my hand at the back of her chair and I was cupping
the nape of her neck. We lounged in our chairs as if we didn’t have
a care in the world. Jules yawned. I promised myself that I’d let
her know that it was a nice touch. Taylor and Jesse sat opposite us
at the round table we occupied by ourselves.

    “Jesse, don’t get
comfortable. You won’t be staying long,” I said. He didn’t respond.
“I’ve called you over here to let you know that we aren’t going to
take what you’ve done lying down. I’m being cordial
now
because you’ve
yet
to do anything else. I’ve decided to look
past your breaking into Jules’ room, although,” I leaned forward,
slit my eyes and almost whispered, “you don’t deserve it.” I
casually sat back once more, “I promise you this, next time you
even breathe in our direction and it rubs me the wrong way, I won’t
be as kind. Jules?” I asked, turning her direction.
    She apathetically shook her head that she had
nothing to add and turned her gaze back toward the windows. They
took the hint, got up and sat at their own table. By this time, I
noticed the deathly quiet that had presided over the lunch
room.
    “Time to go,” I whispered in Jules’ ear.

We both grabbed our bags and lazily tred
toward the double doors. When they closed behind us Jules looked up
at me as if to ask what I thought.
    “I don’t think they’ll be an issue anymore,” I
said.
    “I really hope you’re right love,” was all she
could reply.
    A week had passed and there was no sign of
Taylor or Jesse except their literal presence and we barely took
notice of that. They didn’t talk to us, look at us, or, like I had
warned, breathed in our direction.
    “See Jules,” I said with confidence after school
scraping the ice from my windshield, “nothing to worry about
sweetheart.”
    “I’ve almost forgotten about them. That’s a good
sign. I don’t easily forget. You know that from experience,” she
winked.
    “I have something I could say, but I won’t,” I
jested.
    “Oh yeah? Well I have something in response to
that so go right ahead,” she joked back, knowing my exact
thoughts.
    “Okay, consider it said.”
    “I have,” and bounded from the car at lightning
speed. She tackled me to the ground and we fell into the snow. I
swung her around by her waist and pinned her to the white blanket
underneath her. I kept my left hand at her waist and held her hip
bone between my thumb and index finger.

It was cold, extremely, so I removed the
glove from the other hand with my teeth and placed it on her warm
neck. The torridity boiled in our veins and we were both
comfortable again.

    “I’ll never get used to
that,” I said.
    “Neither will I and I don’t want to for that
matter.”
    “I forgot what we were doing,” I said, genuinely
confused as to why we were on the ground.
    “Me too, this is nice nevertheless. I’ll take
it.”

“I’m curious to know how long we could stay
this way. I mean, does the charge actually keep us warm? Or is it
an illusion?”

“Oh Elliott, you think like a scientist. I
understand, it comes so naturally to you, but honestly? There is no
way this,
we
, are an illusion,” she smiled, placing her
hands over my heart on the word ‘we’.

“
Good answer!
Five points. That earned
five points.”

“Five points? Come on, at least ten.”

“Okay, ten.”

She winked.
    “What topic are you choosing for your paper due
next week?” I asked, pretending I wasn’t dying inside that her
hands were touching my chest.
    “Hmm, I thought about it and since it’s an open
topic, I chose to write on the history of the word fate and its
definitions.”
    “Oh Jules, that’s worth at least fifteen points.
You’re raking them in today.”
    “Thanks Elliott.”
    “Are you planning on citing specific examples?”
I asked.
Her smile pushed into her eyes and made her nose wrinkle.
    “I think it would weaken the strength of the
paper. Don’t you think?”
    “How so?”
    “Think about it, true life examples, when not
thoroughly understood by any one, take away from the faith we all
should put in fate. Fate is not tangible. It’s real, but not
tangible and I don’t want to put any names to it. No, people need
to experience fate as an idea at first and open their minds to it
on their own. Then, it’s an inevitability.

“Like us, you and me? We’re too powerful an
idea for anyone to fully comprehend. It
has
to be found on
their own, through the help of their own fate.”

    She smiled her answer. I
just stared at her. It was easy. She was definitely easy to look at
but most importantly, she was easy to love. I watched as Jules
closed her eyes and breathed in the crisp, cool air.

She told me once that winter smelled like
Christmas to her and that was one of her favorite things to breathe
in. She did something to my heart when she said things like that. I
liken it to the inflation of an air balloon. Slow, steady and
blistering as it unfolds from its orderly frame and can barely stay
contained within my body.

It began to snow on top of us and I followed
flake after exceptional flake float onto her lustrous skin and
slowly melt into tiny droplets of light watery kisses. The
dissolved, silvery trickle would pool at her neck and slide back
onto the powdery quilt underneath us. A shivering, tempered wave of
warmth kept us more than comfortable. I couldn’t help but marvel at
our gift. I had just begun to press my lips to Jules’ when we were
sadly interrupted.

    “Ahem,” a strange voice
said.

It was the track coach, Mrs. Littlebrook. I
jumped up and helped Jules to her feet. I dug my hands into my
jean’s pocket and dragged the chain out for my watch. It was four
o’clock and all the cars had left the lot. It hadn’t even phased
us. Mrs. Littlebrook must have been in charge of locking the
gate.

    “Oops,” Jules said.
We rushed to the cab.
    “Sorry Mrs. Littlebrook!” Jules yelled out of
the window with a wave. She rolled up the manual window and it was
practically frozen shut.
    “Are you cold?” She asked.
    “No,” I said, surprised. “Are you?”
    “Nope,” she grinned. “Told you.”
    At Jules’ house, we ran inside to drop off her
bag. We were going to the rock bridge tonight. We had no homework
and wanted to ‘get away’, as Jules always said.
    “Nothing like a fresh blanket of snow,” Jules
said as we trudged our way to our little spot. I had the blankets
and she had the hot chocolate.

When we arrived it looked like a post card.
The snow formed a perfect sheath over our marble. I handed her the
blankets and jumped up before her to clear an area. I methodically
used the side of my boot to clear a section for us to lay the heavy
blanket onto. It was waterproof on one side, we learned to bring
one of those the hard way.

I took the blanket from her, spread it out
and laid the other one on top along with the thermos. I grabbed her
hands and lifted her onto the sculpted rock. We bundled ourselves
together and drank everything in the thermos while laughing. We
rolled up our sleeves underneath the blanket to get an even more
cogent punch of our electricity while holding hands, the inside of
our forearms stuck to together like a heated magnet.

Only lately was it that I’d especially found
that holding Jules’ hand was starting to feel lacking. It was still
just as potent, but we found that we needed it more for longer
periods of time to feel satisfied. Every day, I felt like a junkie,
always searching for his next hit. It was becoming a problem for
Jules too.

Once, at the library she had gone into the
fiction section and I into the non-fiction. We were apart for only
thirty minutes but I began to feel panicky and raced through the
rows until I found her. She reached her hand for mine and when I
grabbed it we both let out an audible sigh. We were shushed. Well,
we had to leave after that because we almost lost it laughter-wise.
I never got the book I wanted.

You can only imagine what it was like in the
morning time after a ten hour lapse. Needless to say, I was picking
Jules up for school earlier and earlier and my mom ultimately put
her foot down at five forty-five in the morning.

We discovered that when we made out that it
would buy us more time in between ‘hits’. I clearly took no issue
with this type of medicine and neither did Jules. I was concerned
though. The next level required to pacify our growing addiction was
off limits. Yet another reason to convince Jules she should marry
me over the summer.

    “Hey Jules,” I
hinted.
    “Yeah?” She said with the biggest smile on her
face, reading every thought I just had.
    “What do you say to suckin’ face with me?”
    “No,” she teased.
    “Why not?”
I still hated rejection, even when she was joking.
    “Well, I want to talk to you,” she hesitated at
the next part, “about graduation.”
My heart skipped a beat and my mouth began to water.
    “Is there anything in particular you’d like as a
gift?” She asked, catching me off guard.
She thought she got me there but I had a trick up my sleeve.
    “Har, har. Nothing in particular unless you’d
like to gift your hand.”
She shook her head.

“There is something I’d like to get you
though.”

    “A marriage is not a gift
Elliott,” she teased.
She was close.
    “No, no. I know you won’t agree to that.” As a
side note, “If you’re not careful, I’ll stop asking.........No, I
want to give you an actual gift. Something concrete.”
If I could just get her to agree to wear it.

“Something real you say?” She asked
suspiciously, one eyelid close.

“Something real. I promise.”

“Gimme’ a hint.”

This was good, she was warming to the
idea.
    “Well, it’s smaller than a bread box.”
She laughed. Laughing was a very good sign.
    “It’s beautiful,” I continued. “Like you.”
    “Awww, go on.”

“It is something I’ve been
dying
to
give you since the day I met you outside Mrs. Kitt’s class.”

    “These are horrible clues.
I have absolutely no idea what it could be.”
    “You give up?”
    “Would you even tell me if I guessed it?”
    “Probably not,” I said.
Absolutely not.
    “Then I give up,” she conceded.

She grabbed my right hand and placed it on
her right cheek. I fought so desperately to keep my feelings about
my gift to myself. She was trying to emotionally pry it out of
me.

“You think you’re so clever,” I said.

“What are you talking about Elliott Gray?”
She smiled as she kissed my palm and brought her face closer to
mine.

As she did this, she slid her hand along my
forearm and a stinging prickle of heat followed each slight
movement of her hand. I forgot about the gift completely, it was
easy to get swept up into Jules. I readied myself for an hour of
kissing that would light up the rock bridge like an exploding
star.
    After our night on the rock bridge, I had the
best sleep of my life it seemed. There was no ravenous hunger for
her as the previous nights. Her deft change of hand made all the
difference and bought us both some time before our next craving. It
was the perfect antidote. Well, except, there was one issue.
Despite the fact that we could endure longer strands of time
without touching, it still meant waking up in withdrawal and
usually that retraction meant a maniacal appetite.

Keeping up pretenses became
difficult
.
We became attached at the hip, literally. We held hands so often
that she became my right hand and I became her left. When we did
our homework and needed both of our hands, we’d roll up our jeans
and intertwine our legs. Ridiculous, I know.

We tried to wean ourselves off. Tried and
tried and tried but after three weeks, during Christmas break, we
threw up our hands
together
and accepted our
fate.........very happily.

    “Three days until
Christmas Jules! Are you excited babe?”
    “Of course. It’s my favorite time of year. Are
you?”
    “Of course. It’s my favorite time of year
because it’s
your
favorite.”
She smiled, but half-heartedly.
    “What is bothering you? You’ve been so, so
distant today,” I asked, concerned.
    “Well, I’ve been deliberating on whether I
should tell you something Elliott. I have to tell you but I wanted
to wait until after Christmas. The only reason I’m willing to do it
now is because your Christmas present is
gone
.”
    “Gone?” I asked trying to stay level headed. I
knew where this was going and I could feel the blood begin to cook
beneath my skin.
    “Well, for weeks, like a coward,” she giggled
uncomfortably, “I’ve been sleeping in my living room on the
couch.”
    “Why Jules? Are you still frightened? Taylor and
Jesse haven’t bothered you once since that day.”
    “That’s not
exactly
true,” she
admitted.