Unmasked (17 page)

And most importantly…I love you dearest friend of friends, and I hope to see you some time soon, at home.

Please listen to me, because this will be the very last time that I will be able to say it: Turn back to the Author, tomorrow is too late.

Good luck and I hope that you take these words to heart.

Forevermore,

Lacey

1 Corinthians 13: 4-8
– New International Version (NIV)

“4 
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

5 
It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

6 
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

7 
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 
Love never fails”

Up to the week before prom, Noelle collaborated with a few other Supporting Characters on what Blade referred to as “romantic cliché crap”.

“I’ve seen it probably a thousand times,” he said. “The really weird girl meets with some popular chick and they do her hair and stuff or whatever, and everyone wants her to be prom queen, and then, everyone likes her.”

Noelle gawked at him skeptically, “Right – um for some odd reason I have a very difficult time believing that actually happens.”

Blade shrugged, “Maybe lectors like that sappy crap so that they can forget what the world is actually like around them.”

While a Supporting Character named Mallei, with a bob cut, chocolate skin, and eight inch heels escorted Noelle back to the room to try on a few prom dresses, Noelle began to wonder what it would be like in the lector world. Perhaps they never had to worry about characterizations. After all, they had so much time to hear stories, she wondered if they ever had time to live one out.

Mallei skidded to a halt abruptly when they reached the closet in the classroom.

“Size Six?” Mallei asked automatically shooting Noelle a once over full of contempt as she began to mold the fabric into a dress.

“F-four,” Noelle stuttered as Mallei threw a skeptical look in her direction.

Mallei hesitated for a moment before scribbling down on the paper that sent ripples down the cloth like ocean waves until the storm calmed as Mallei unfurled an unfortunately tight-looking ball gown dress.

After undressing, Noelle swooped the dress beneath her and sucked her breath in as she pulled the strapless dress up to her chest.

“Could you zip it up?” Noelle breathed, not daring to let her ribs escape under a shield of flesh that would cause the dress to rip.

Mallei forced her way up with the zipper, but when she grunted that she was done, Noelle hobbled over to the mirror to find that the dress had a snuggly fit. It revealed perhaps a bit much of her chest region, but she had hardly taken notice of this when her eyes immediately darted to the stomach area.

While she had lost a decent amount of weight, she began to fret. The dress clung to her body like a strait jacket, and she could hardly breathe.

“Would you like to move the next size up?” Mallei seemed to have read her thoughts.

“N-no,” Noelle stuttered.
I just can’t eat for the next week, that’s all.

To avoid over analyzing her reflection in the mirror, Noelle shifted her gaze toward Mallei’s arms which seemed to be plastered with bandages.

“What happened?” Noelle asked automatically.

“Roller skating accident,” Mallei answered, perhaps a bit quickly, and a tad defensive as well.

Noelle shot her a quizzical look but settled on not dwelling over the matter.

With some difficulty, she slipped out of the dress, and hopped back into her old clothes with a less magnificent feel in the air around her. Though, she found breathing to be a far less daunting task.

“The art room has some masks for you to decorate,” Mallei mumbled and exited the room without another word.

Noelle simply nodded as she collected the dress and folded it neatly onto her bed.

She plopped onto the mattress as she caught her reflection once more from the mirror across the room. She began to wonder about the mask that she always seemed to be wearing.

Was it really a bad thing? Blade seemed to like her better after she put it on.

She frowned slightly at the thought of Blade.

Why had she despised him so much at camp? Was she simply afraid of the idea of love?

Maybe love was like a hot potato, she had to pass it on to someone else before she got burned.

The Author had said that he loved her, and then afterwards her life zoomed in a downward spiral.

And Blade.

Blade said that he loved her after all.

But he had also loved Hera.

Hera was dead, though.

But something felt slightly shattered about Blade’s love. Or at least, the Author’s love felt different. Maybe she just wasn’t used to affection because she jumped out of that lake whenever she felt a toe-full of cool water.

Noelle shook her head to clear away these thoughts. She had prom to prepare for, and what would a masquerade be without a mask?

#

Noelle slipped into the art room quietly, but not many seemed to notice her presence amidst the hustle and bustle for mask preparations.

The fumes of hot glue guns choked the air, as Noelle stood in the doorframe for a near minute before her senses adjusted.

She proceeded to a pile of white masks, a clear blank canvas in the eye of any artist in that building. Immediately, she imagined intricate designs upon it, but she was half tempted to carry out the plain mask in fear that she would destroy the simplicity of the object with far-eccentric, embellished patterns.

Either way, she could not contain her excitement when she grasped the mask wondering how envious people would be of her that night with the extra accessory of disguise.

Masks often do work that way, don’t they? 

People would see beautiful masks, and instantly feel envy wishing somehow that they could render their soul and place it inside the delicate creature’s body. Or at least, switch places with them for a day.

Other masks, depending on how they were embellished, could give someone the expression of being important. The complexities of these masks would leave everyone else trembling in awe, eager to do whatever the wearer bid.

Comedians, models, strong men, whatever costume they could put on to please the crowd.

Just as long as they didn’t remove the mask, everyone would love them for who they were.

Or at least,
who the mask made them out to be.

Noelle set about hot gluing green gems to her mask, occasionally adding an artistic touch with black paints.

The door to the art room emitted a soft groan as Bri entered with a dreamy look sparkling in her eyes. She seemed to intake the aromas of craftsmanship as a ray of sunshine illuminating her face. Her eyes widened when they darted in the general direction of the masks.

“You’re going to make a one of these for prom?” Noelle asked incredulously, knowing full well that Bri would be the last person to hide behind a mask.

Bri shook her head, black hair flailing aimlessly, and said, “Don’t have a date.” Much to Noelle’s surprise, Bri had no disappointment in her voice. “I just come up her to create when I feel like making something,” she explained cheerfully as she paced over toward a box of pipe cleaners, adjacent to the bin of masks.

“Lots of people are going without dates,” Noelle said casually, with a hint of pride in her voice. She had Blade to take her,
the
Main Character.

But since when have you ever cared about Blade?

“Since he said that he loved me,” Noelle blurted out and Bri threw a glance of bewilderment and shock.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Noelle muttered.

“It’s not my thing,” Bri said suddenly.

“What thing?”

“Going to dances,” Bri answered. “But I’m very happy for you that you’ll have a chance to experience it; do you have a date?”

Noelle stared at her in pure disbelief. Everyone in the school knew that Blade was taking her.

“Blade,” Noelle answered finally.

“Oh,” Bri’s face contorted to a displeased look, “all right.”

Noelle frowned at the lack of enthusiasm that Bri usually had.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s n-nothing,” Bri lied.

“No, but seriously. What’s wrong?”

Bri stared at the ceiling for helpful advice, but it had none to offer.

“I don’t know,” she answered cautiously. “I feel like – well, he’s not exactly the nicest of guys – don’t get me wrong, but I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

Noelle began to press the glue gun at a rapid rate as she slammed down the green gems harshly.

What could Bri possibly know about Blade? No guys in the school liked her. How could they? She never put any time into doing her makeup in the morning, so how could she ever expect them to take notice of her?

“Jealous?” Noelle blurted out.

“What?” Bri peeled her eyes back in alarm. “Of course not, I just don’t think that he’s the best influence.”

“Oh, so now you’re going to going to tell me who my friends should be,” Noelle spat back angrily now no longer paying attention to the gems or hot glue gun.

Why was she unleashing her anger on Bri? Noelle didn’t even know, but something inside of her wanted to attack her friend. Something deep down wanted to release the hurt and pain in the past few months on Bri.

“You can’t control my life, Bri,” Noelle ranted. “It’s my own, and I can do what I want with it. I’m sick and tired of your playing your whole saint act on me trying to get me to turn back to – Augh!”

Noelle drew back her hand as she emitted a painful hissing noise. She had become a tad bit careless with the hot glue gun, and instead of pressing it down on the mask, she launched the trigger on her thumb.

“Are you all right, Noelle?” Bri wailed. “Do you need help?”

“I’m fine,” Noelle snapped. “You’ve done enough already.”

Bri was paralyzed and speechless, standing like a bewildered statue. Noelle didn’t care, although the image of tears cascading down Bri’s cheeks was seared into Noelle’s brain when she left the art room.

#

By dinner time, Noelle had felt a pang of guilt for leaving Bri in the art room without giving her friend the ability to explain herself.

The chicken cordon bleu tasted like a great deal of saucy sand, and Noelle didn’t have the heart to finish it.

“Forget about Bri,” she muttered to herself. “Noelle, you were just trying to defend yourself. Bri is not in charge of your life.”

After uttering these words, she managed to place Bri out of her mind temporarily. She decided to join in a game of Truth or Dare at the table with several Supporting Characters along with Blade.

During one turn she chose “dare”, and was forced to kiss Blade, but she didn’t mind nearly as much as she thought that she would.

In fact, she began to crave more of a taste.

Things like this don’t happen to girls like me,
Noelle thought frantically,
but he chose me. Blade chose me; he really likes me for who I am. He loves me.

After dinner, Blade caught her eye in the hallway and motioned for her to follow him toward his dormitory.

“Need help with something,” he had muttered before beckoning her to follow him. Noelle couldn’t really find much of a reason to disagree.

He had begun to really grow in her in an odd sort of way, like she felt defiant when she was around him like he was a forbidden fruit that she couldn’t touch, but she wanted more and more of taste of after the first bite.

Noelle thought of Hera’s dorm reminiscently when she entered his, although Hera’s had been sufficiently cleaner. Wrapper and clothes littered the floors, and consumed much of the large space in the room.

“What do you need help with?”

Blade cracked a charming smile that made Noelle, for some odd reason, want to kiss him again.

“Saint,” he began slowly, “who ever said that
I
need help with something. No, Saint, we’re in here for you.”

Noelle’s smile faltered somewhat.

“Why?”

“One month ago, I gave you an offer, do you remember it well?”

For some odd reason the offer had seemed to slip her mind. Had it been during some training session? But what were they training for? Maybe gym class?

“I said, ‘One night, you and I, and you can break that saint status forever’,” he said reminiscently.

“Oh,” Noelle answered plainly, suddenly remembering those exact words.

“Well, Saint, tonight’s the night. Tell me that you didn’t feel a connection when we kissed earlier…why not take it a step further?”

Noelle peered up at him knowing that the right answer should be “no”.

But why is that the “right” answer? Who is to say what’s right and wrong?

She hesitated several moments before throwing up a simple, “I don’t know.”

Blade plopped down onto his bed and motioned for Noelle to follow suit, but she didn’t obey.

“Come on, Saint, I love you. This is simply a way of showing this love. This is a gift to us; after all, don’t you think that we shouldn’t throw that gift away.”

Noelle paced in place shifting from one foot to the other nervously trying to formulate an excuse.

“I was hoping to – save it.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “Marriage maybe?”

Blade let out a soft chuckle that surprisingly echoed with a great force in the room.

“Marriage is spending ungodly amounts of cash on an over-exaggerated sweet sixteen party. Why waste all that money, when you can use the gift now? It is free, after all.”