A Calling

Chapter 7 - Christopher Waters

-CHRISTOPHER'S POINT OF VIEW-

Walking down the bland, crowded hallway, getting high fives and the occasional, "Hey Chris! How're you?" Along the way, I can't help but smile. The only person that seems unhappy here is Jake Rowley... I want to understand why, I want to be his friend, I want to be there to help him if he's sad, but he just pushes me away, speaking of which, there he is!

Jake is different from other students, he doesn't care about what others think of him, he's quiet and alone, by choice... He emanates a presence, it's cold and silent. He can be quite dismissive and pushes people away who want to talk to him, it's like he is the embodiment of isolation, and he does this to himself. 

Almost tripping over myself to catch up to him, Jake thrust open the wooden door of the boy's bathroom, appearing almost to be in some state of rage. It isn't easy to get a reaction out of him of any sort, let alone anger. He just sits by his miserly, dark self, allowing the world to move around him instead of with him. At last I have reached the bathroom, pushing on my undeserving victim, the door, perhaps a little too hard, it slammed aggressively against the tired brick wall. There he is, he must've been leaning over the sink as he had shifted in movement, rising up to meet my gaze, perhaps he is ill, or maybe he was looking closely into the mirror. I greeted him softly, not wanting to provoke or annoy him, "Hey! Jake, you okay?" Jake sighed deeply, he seemed almost burdened by the question, "Hey..."

"I saw you come in here, you seem pretty down. Is everything alright?" I questioned further, and after a deep consideration for his words, he responded, "I'm fine, thanks... Just tired" My heart began to ache, I felt as though he wasn't telling me something. It was the pain of guilt. The pain of sympathy. And the pain of feeling useless. I began to walk closer cautiously and he dropped eye contact, so I placed my hand gently on his shoulder, to reassure him that he could trust me, "You can tell me, Jake." I kept my tone neutral and calm, yet still he didn't relax, he was stiff and caged. His dark brown eyes finally arose to meet mine, his head didn't move, Jake was looking straight through me in a powerful and ferocious glare, his pale lips parted ever so slightly to allow his quivering breath to escape, almost as though he were exhaling through his teeth. The only other movement I felt from him was the slow, rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathed steady breaths. The moment felt longer than it was, but the attention of his eyes flickered to the door, shrugging off my hand from his shoulder, he made his way to the exit, leaving me startled. 

I finally snapped out of my shock, rushing to the exit to follow him and trying to erase the memory of his threatening glare into my soul. But when I finally made it to the door of the cafeteria, looking through the small window above the handle what I saw was not reality, it couldn't be, could it?

Jake turned to look over his shoulder ever so slightly, appearing to be cringing at some unmentionable pain, his eyes flashed a glowering and evil colour of red. Blood red. But only for a second, as he had shut his eyes, squeezing them tightly closed and covering his ears. His mouth gasped open for a moment, I believe he may have been yelling out in pain, but the second this happened, everyone else was too distracted to see it by shards of glass flying from the window frames one by one, he arose from his hunched over position and stumbled back, further into the center of the room, he seemed just as shocked as everyone else, I don't think that even he knew what had happened, but something I do know about the incident:

Jake caused it...