The Ylem (3 page)

The school blended flawlessly with its
surroundings, as if it was part of the scenery. And though I
understood the reason behind the use of earthy colors, I didn’t
like the overall image it gave to the school’s structure. The three
buildings looked like three long boxes with windows, which reminded
me of what was waiting for me back home.

“See you, Dad,” I said as I climbed out of
the car.

“Bye, honey,” he called, and then added,
“Remember the trip to the
supermarché
!”

“Make it a date!” I waved good bye and
turned around.

“A date, huh?” Valerie’s voice suddenly
asked behind me.

I turned around, startled. “Oh, I—I'm just
going to the supermarket with my dad.”

“Wow…that’s exciting,” she said, the tone in
her voice telling the exact opposite. “Come with Owen and me after
school if you want to. It’s Friday… movie night—
and
my turn
to choose, which translates into chick flick overdose for Owen.”
She said with a sly, muted giggle.

I met Valerie on my first day at school. She
was assigned to give me a tour of the grounds, but, surprisingly,
it ended up with me giving her a tour of my life in New York.
Normally, I wouldn’t have opened up so fast to a stranger. It took
a lot to seep through my walls. But her enthusiasm was kind of
contagious, and she treated me like a longtime friend, making it
really easy to talk to her. So the rest came naturally.

Owen, her boyfriend, was incredibly fun and
nice, too. They were one of those couples who looked perfect
together, meant for each other, like those dreamy people on a
Hallmark card.

“I really have to go—maybe some other time,”
I told her with a smile.

“Okay,” she agreed, flipping her brown hair
to the side, her highlights a golden glow under the sun. “Talking
about excitement. Remember the guy I told you the other day?”

“The gorgeous guy?”

“Yep, that one,” she said with a cheery nod.
“I can tell you're excited. Your eyes got greener.”

I held back a roll of eyes. “It’s just the
sunlight, Valerie. I don’t even know the guy.”
And
wasn’t
interested in meeting him. Guys weren’t on my priority list at the
moment. They hadn’t been for a long time now, not since Stephen had
cut my heart to shreds.

“Oh, but you will meet him. He came back
yesterday evening.”

Her knowing wasn’t a surprise. Living in a
small town encouraged everyone to gossip. It was normal to make a
fuss for anything. They’d even made a fuss for my arrival, and that
was just plain ridiculous.

“Really? Wow,” I didn’t share her
enthusiasm, of course.

Guy-talking always had me feeling down,
because it left me struggling with one buried memory that popped up
its head whenever a conversation of this kind presented itself.
Really, why couldn't I—

“Hey, City Girl!” a deep voice called,
cutting off my thoughts. “Spacing out again?”

“I…yeah, kind of.” I blushed.

“You do that pretty often,” Owen said, his
hazel eyes smiling at me. He looked like the boy next door, the
perfect guy to bring home to parents. His face displayed innocence
and tenderness, and it made me want to fuzzle his hair, like a
sister to his baby brother. But once he twisted his lips into a
smile, all those sweet layers turned into something wicked, as if
he’d just robbed some girl’s lollipop. And the cute dimples on each
side of his mouth only sharpened it.

“I guess Ruidoso has that effect on me.” I
smiled.

“Can’t blame you. This isn’t as exciting as
New York, I bet. Good thing I have Val with me to keep me
entertained.” He pulled her close to him and planted a huge kiss on
her lips.

Red flag. Red flag. I could feel the memory
digging its way out. The scenario wasn’t helpful and I was standing
in front of the cutest couple ever
.
Without notice, I
dropped my inner fight and let the memory drag me down deep into
the past.

It was one of our late night movie sessions.
Stephen brought chocolate fudge brownie ice cream and we ordered
pizza from Bambino’s. We were sitting next to each other with our
backs pressed to the couch, our hands dipped into the popcorn
bucket he’d insisted on making. Stephen couldn’t watch a movie
without those white puffs in his mouth. He said it didn’t feel
right, like not eating roasted turkey with cranberry sauce on
Thanksgiving, or burgers without French fries.

Since our movie sessions were at my place,
he’d bought me a very cool theater-like popcorn popper for my
birthday. I wasn’t much of a popcorn fan, but having the bucket
between us gave me the perfect excuse to touch his hand from time
to time. He’d never seen it as more than a casual, distracted
motion—the result of a person way too absorbed with the story
unrolling across the screen to notice what she was doing. But it’d
been so much more than that. He didn’t know I lived for those
moments, those glimpses of time where I could feel the whisper of
his skin against mine, usually followed with a sharp tilt of my
stomach. And it shouldn’t have been like that. He was my best
friend, almost like a brother. Those sizzling feelings shouldn’t
have been there, wrapping me with longing.

But they were, and I couldn’t do anything
about it. The emotions had grown too strong. And that night, they
were unbearable. With him sitting so close to me, all I could think
of was how badly I wanted his arms around me, how badly I wanted
his lips on mine, and how badly I wanted to tell him I loved
him.

Which I did.

“
What?
” Steve said, incredulous.

“I…I said I love you.” I lowered my eyes and
looked at my fingers. Maybe I hadn’t said it right. Maybe I should
have kissed him before spilling out the words. I knew he feared
love like me, so maybe talking about it wasn’t the right way to
bring it up. A kiss was quicker and easier—okay, maybe not easier
but definitely less awkward.

Hope and fear clenched my stomach, more
tightly each second that passed by in silence. When the sound of
his voice still didn’t reach my ears after a few more excruciating
heartbeats, I lifted my head and turned to look up at him. “Steve?”
I said, in a voice so small it could hardly be heard.

He was staring at me, stiff like a statue,
shadows of light playing across his face. “I—I don’t know,” he
swallowed hard. “I mean, what do you want me to say?” He looked at
me with pained eyes.

I shouldn’t be telling you what to
say
, I thought. He either felt it or not. My heart plummeted
and I actually stopped breathing for a moment. It hurt too much. It
was as if horns were pricking the back of my throat.

“Kalista,” he moved his hand to mine but
stopped midway. After a few seconds, he pulled it back. He ran his
hand across his face and said, “I have to go.”

I didn’t look up when he stood and stopped
in front of me. I didn’t look up when he crouched and bent forward
to hug me. I didn’t look up when he straightened and walked away.
But I did look up when he was at the door and walked out with his
head low. My heart shattered into sharp-edged little pieces.

He never came back after that.

I sighed. Valerie and Owen were still
kissing. I turned away blushing, my head hanging. Love wasn’t meant
for me. Since that awful day, I’d promised myself I would never
fall in love again and risk my heart that way. Ever.

Anyway, I was better this way, hassle-free.
Who needed guys, right?

My ears caught a sudden laugh in the
distance, like a cosmic joke was refuting my last thought. I felt a
strange pull toward the sound, as if it was calling me with
magnetic waves. I lifted my head and…and standing in the parking
lot was the most stunning guy I’d ever seen in my entire life. He
was more than six feet tall, with dark hair stopping shortly below
his ears and that, under the kiss of the sun, had a warm chestnut
glow. His strong jawline drew a face worthy of a jaguar, or a Greek
god, and…most certainly, he had the body of the latter. The way his
shirt clung to his chest along the wind’s rhythm was bone-melting
evidence, and the long sleeves couldn’t stop me from imagining what
was underneath them—strong and comforting arms made for deep hugs
and cuddles. Just perfect.

He started moving in my direction, followed
by a friend of his. I lowered my face and pretended to search for
something in my tote, but even without looking at him, I could
sense the distance shrinking progressively between us. He was close
now. I was highly aware of him.

“Hi,” he said when he passed by me.

Say something or you’ll look
stupid
.

I glanced up and smiled, but it was too
late. He was already entering the school with his black leather
jacket over his shoulder. All the girls around stared at him in
awe.

“May I present to you, Tristan Winfield,”
Valerie whispered next to my ear. “The god of hotness on
earth.”

“You don’t need to whisper, Val. I know what
you’re telling her,” Owen said, annoyed.

She rolled her eyes and turned to him.
“Owen, you know I love you—but
stop eavesdropping
!”

“Yeah, whatever. He’s the good-looking guy,
right? I mean, he’s cool and everything but—”

“Don’t start again please,” she prompted,
pulling her fingers to her temples. “We need to go. English is
about to start.” The words ‘thank God’ hanging in the air.

I followed Valerie and swallowed back a
smile. Owen looked like a pouting kid about to cross his arms in
anger, but he had good reason to feel that way. Valerie didn’t
exaggerate when she’d told me about Tristan’s “gorgeousness.” In
fact, she fell short.

Stop thinking about him
.
Stop.

I wasn’t allowed to think about a guy. Not
now, not ever. After all, having good looks always made people
cocky and obnoxious, and I was certain he was one of those. He had
to be, and I so not needed to waste my time on a guy like that—or
on any guy for that matter.

The classroom was packed with students. A
boisterous cloud of voices floated around. Not having a choice, I
sat down in the front row with Valerie and Owen behind me. I pulled
my tote from my shoulder and settled it on my lap. I took out my
striped notebook, the fancy Mont Blanc pen my dad had given me last
year, and the Shakespeare play we were studying,
As You Like
It.

English was my favorite subject, so at least
I knew my mind wasn’t going to be fooling around with senseless
thoughts for an hour.

The noise in the classroom ceased. “Good
morning, class,” Mrs. Bedford said, setting on the desk an attaché
case that’d seen more springs than my eyes. “Take out your books.
Today we’re going to read act three, scene four.”

Everyone started to fish out their books. I
was the only one who was ready. “Miss Hamilton,” she said, aiming
her wide brown eyes on me.

Shoot.

“Could you please step in front of the class
and read?”

Ugh. That wasn’t a question, it was an
order. This is why I didn’t like to be in the front row—and I
didn’t understand why we had to step in front of the whole class.
We could read fine from our seats!

Without a choice, I stood up halfheartedly
with the book in my shaky hands. Being in front of everyone
petrified me. It made me feel as if I was standing under the
spotlight on a huge stage of a theater full of critics.

Before I aimed my eyes on the page, I wished
I hadn’t looked at the crowd in front of me, because this was way
worse than having top critics. Tristan was in the back of the
classroom, looking as stunning as he’d been outside. To my relief,
he wasn’t watching me. He was submerged in the book, engrossed in
the pages unfolding before his eyes—which I have to be honest,
melted my insides.

I focused on the words, trying to forget my
racing heart, and forced myself not to look back at him. I took a
deep breath and started to read, and before I knew it, it was over.
I closed the book with a muted sigh and raised my head. My eyes met
his. He was staring at me, surprise and bemusement swirling in his
gaze. Had I done something to stir that? But, oh…I wondered how his
eyes had escaped my gaze last time. Even if he’d been far away,
such eyes couldn’t be unnoticed. The most stunning gray colored his
iris, with a thin mist of emerald in its depth. It was like seeing
angel eyes, heavenly hypnotizing me with their sweet gaze. I
couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. My hands were sweating, but I
wanted to stay there, even if I was in front of the whole
class.

I stood in awe, hoping his stunning eyes
wouldn’t let me go and that time would stop.

But his eyes let go and time continued.

2.
MAGNETISM

“Thank you Miss Hamilton,” Mrs. Bedford
said, startling me and breaking our unexpected gaze. “You can go
back now.” She nodded toward my seat and continued, “Mr. Reyes,
what do you think about Rosalind in this scene?”

I turned my head to see if he was still
looking at me, but the way his head hung forward told me he wasn’t.
I walked back to my seat and let down my blushed face in my hands.
Thoughts flitted in my confused mind. What had just happened? Was
it my imagination or he had, indeed, looked at me? No, scratch
that. He’d
stared
at me, and the most confusing part had
been that…that connection, tugging at the core of me. It was
something out of this world, something I couldn’t explain—maybe
because of my inexperience with guys, but still, I knew this was
different. That gaze had been too intense…

Was he thinking about me? I shook my head.
God, repressing my hormones had finally taken its toll on me. Why
on earth would he be thinking about me? There was nothing to think
about. Nothing had happened. Period.