Airel: The Awakening (Airel Saga Book One)

Chapter VII

OKAY. I WAS IMPRESSED. Or maybe I was weirded out that Michael spent over four hours shopping with me on the fleeting chance that we might go see a movie together at the end of the day. That was date stuff, not casual friend stuff. There was a big difference.

Kim and James were off somewhere on their own together and I was sure James was going to kill Michael later for leaving him alone with her. And if Michael was just putting on a face to make me think he was having a good time, he was doing a great job of it.

I got a text from Kim saying that they were ready to go, and if I was up to it, James wanted to see a movie. Shocker. He’s having fun. One thing I knew about Kim: if people spent enough time around her, they ended up liking her. Poor James was getting an overdose, though, so after today he’d be a hopeless case. 

We met up with the others and walked out of the mall into the bronze light of the late-afternoon sun. It was shaping up to be a nice day, with a few lumbering puffy clouds just hanging around like ancient gods. 

“I think your friend has a thing for James,” Michael said confidentially.

“Ya think? She’s liked him ever since she first saw him. But he’s the star quarterback and she’s not a cheerleader, so how could it ever work out?” I smirked at him. “I think if it wasn’t for you dragging him along today, he wouldn’t have looked at her twice.” I saw a hint of something in Michael’s eyes. Was it anger? No. Frustration? I couldn’t tell. “It’s funny how things happen.”

“Airel, he’s a good guy. He’s not like you might think. He’s not your usual jock.”

His blue eyes turned askance and I wondered what he was really thinking about. As much as I hated being stereotyped, I did it to others pretty easily.

“But yeah,” he said, “Kim is cool. A little gabby.” He gave me a playful glance. “But overall—cool.”

I smiled and shook my head. “That’s why I love her. She’s her own person. Not like the lifeless drones wearing the latest fashions, talking about nothing but the latest gossip. Nothing says, ‘I’m my own person’ quite as loudly as dressing the same as everybody else, and thinking that just because you’re weird, you’re an individual.” 

“Whoa. Easy,” Michael laughed, holding up both hands in surrender. 

Oops, too deep for a casual day at the mall. “Sorry, I just get worked up about stuff. I have my own ideas about nearly everything. In my experience, that’s kind of a turn-off for guys,” I said, trying not to sound too woeful. “I have a bad habit of over-thinking just about everything. My dad says I’m an ‘old soul,’ whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

“No, it’s cool, Airel,” Michael said, making me melt a little. “It’s obvious you’re one of a kind.” He smiled.

I tried to keep breathing normally. Michael was different too. That was clear to me—my sometimes cantankerous old soul and all. I had learned in the past few years that allowing that side of me to have a voice wasn’t exactly the best way to get a guy, because most of them liked to think they were the bigger person in the relationship. I would never hold back just because some underdeveloped boy couldn’t hang. That meant my life was a solo sport, because I wasn’t about to compromise on the stuff that mattered.

But—it suddenly occurred to me—that was one major reason why Michael was so very different from every other guy I’d met. I was allowed to be different around him. And that just meant that I could be me. It felt like I had awakened to find I had wings, and now I was learning the ecstasy of flight.

We arrived at the car, Kim and James a little behind us and in their own world, a world where Kim talked and James just listened and nodded. Michael was silent as I unlocked the car door. It was weird; nothing seemed to shock him. I wondered if I could shock him.

But then he broke the silence, picking up where I had clumsily left off. “You’re right, though … you know, about the kind of people who fall all over themselves trying to fit in. I call them robots—they think life’s about having the right friends or looking a certain way, but they’re just acting exactly how their master wants them to. Like a collective consciousness.”

“Yeah. That’s kinda Orwellian, dude.”

He chuckled and looked into my eyes. In that moment, I forgot what we had been talking about. I even forgot where I was. “So,” he said, “what do you want to see?”

“Uh—what?”

“The movie.”

“Oh. The movie?”

“Yeah. What do you want to see?” He moved closer to me, into the gap between my open door and the car.

“Oh, my gosh, Airel,” Kim bellowed as she walked up, “you aren’t going to believe the deal I got.” She was like an exploding bomb sometimes. She held up her shopping bags as her trophy, oblivious that I was having a moment with quite possibly the most gorgeous boy in the world. “They had a BOGO—the second one was half off. I mean, I only needed one, but you have to get the second one if it’s only half price. I mean, come on.”

I sighed. That sigh betrayed a little of my relief, actually. Things were moving pretty quickly between Michael and me, and I needed time to feel, to talk it over with Kim. I hoped that meant she and I would be chatting things up later tonight.

“So, James.” Michael shot a smile toward him. “You’re still alive.” He nodded. Kim then gave us a full report on the deals and the food and everything else that she had seen and experienced, even though no one had asked her. James, surprisingly, seemed like he was enjoying himself. He wasn’t much of a talker, which was just fine with Kim.

“Okay, what are we seeing?” I asked. “Are we in the mood for scary? Funny? Or do we want to see a boy movie?” I looked at Kim. 

“Boy movie? What’s a boy movie?” Michael asked, tossing his keys to James. He’s going to ride with me. My heart sped up.

“A boy movie,” I said, “is an action shoot-‘em-up with pointless gore and violence. Guys like it because it makes them feel like the dominant male they all wish they could be.” I smiled at him a little too broadly and shoved my hands in my back pockets. 

Michael didn’t miss a beat. “Or we could always see a girl movie. In case you were wondering what that is, it’s a movie with a sappy love story where two people hate each other and then fall in love against all odds, one betrays the other—usually the guy is the jerk—then there are fifteen minutes of crisis where they’re so sad and they reflect on how everything sucks now, but then they always get back together. The end is usually some ridiculous wedding. Girls like it because it makes them feel like there’s a dream man out there for them. Like there’s some specimen of perfection who doesn’t exist.”

There was a lengthy silence as we all looked at each other. 

“Comedy,” James and Kim said in unison. 

I laughed, and for the tenth time that day I actually felt great.

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