FALL (DIMENSION Series #1)

CHAPTER 26

It was wonderful. Dancing around my room with Estella, to the rhythm of a song I loved, with images of Derek flashing through my mind. And outside it was twilight now. The song ended. I looked out the window and got lost in the soft blur of the trees outside. Branches of yellow leaves melting into branches of orange ones.

      I was euphoric but some part of me was aware of other things too. I was keenly aware that I didn't feel any pain in my limbs. Even my shoulder seemed miraculously healed. I attributed this sudden and complete healing to my afternoon with Derek. To his strangeness and what I'd come to think of as his otherworldliness.

     I was aware that a more even-keeled person would have slowed down in the face of these facts. Would have questioned the reality of things and also her own sanity. And definitely the company of the boy who was having such startling effects on her. But it was becoming clear to me that I wasn't an even-keeled person. I was more of an all-or-nothing kind of person. And when it came to Derek Nash, I was all in.

      The elation I felt stayed with me for the rest of the night. I tried my best to act normal during dinner. Complimenting my mother on the spaghetti and listening closely to Jason's stories of the day. But once in a while I caught myself smiling, whenever I thought of his text. Write whenever you're moved to do so. It was still hard to believe that he had written those words. I'd waited so long to hear from him and he had finally given me a greenlight to be in touch with him. I would write whenever I felt moved to do so and I could hardly wait for the texting to start.

      "Eleanor," my mother's voice sounded far away, but she was sitting at the table with the rest of us. It was just that I'd been lost in thought. I'd been worlds away, in a private universe where I could walk beside Derek without the fear of being seen by anyone.

      Now that I was back in the reality of my family dinner, I tried not to look too happy. That would be a giveaway of some sort. And I couldn't be found out. There were two things my parents could never know. The first was how strange Derek Nash really was. How he was so much more unpredictable (and probably dangerous too!) than the bad boy persona my mother expected him to be. And the second was how I felt about him. If my parents got the slightest hint about my true feelings for Derek, they'd be seriously disturbed. But even worse than that, they'd try to stop me from seeing him.

      "Are you feeling all right?" My dad asked, and I noted his lifted brows.

      "I think I need some night air," I said. And I suddenly realized that it was true.

     My happiness couldn't be contained. It was spilling from my body. And from our dining room as well. Not even our two-story house could contain it.

     I had the sudden urge to run around the block four times. It seemed I needed to be in motion to release the energy inside me. I also needed wide open spaces. I wanted to step into them. Or run into them. I wanted to run past the houses and the trees. I wanted to be beyond this neighborhood and our little town. I wanted an empty landscape with a massive sky and endless sweeps of stars. A stretch of land that could handle all this emotion pouring from me. But of course I knew I couldn't run. Even though my body felt back to normal, I couldn't let anyone else know that all my pain had disappeared.

     "That's fine," my mother said. "You're excused."

     I leapt up and collected everyone's plates and carried them back to the kitchen. I decided to resume my old chore of packing the dishwasher. I liked being in motion. Any kind of inactivity didn't seem to do justice to my current state of mind. I noticed I was moving faster than usual. The dishwasher was packed in no time.

     I stepped out into the soothing evening breeze and inhaled deeply. I circled our yard a few times. Glancing at our house I realized that my parents might be watching me, so I sat down underneath a tree and leaned back against it. I looked up at the sky. Leaves were etched against it. And stars were beside the leaves, like they, too, were dripping from the branches.

    I was startled to hear movement behind me. I thought my mom had come to check up on me. I looked over my shoulder. But it wasn't my mother. Instead, it was Derek. My heart skipped a beat, or maybe it skipped several beats. I couldn't be sure.

     "Hey," he said. It came out as a normal greeting, as if his appearance in our garden in the dark was a normal occurrence.

      "Hey," I managed. "What are you doing here?"

      "What do you think?" He said. He smiled and walked up to the tree and sat down next to me. "I came to see you." I felt my insides getting soft, melting and becoming all gooey.

     "I see," I said, but it came out sounding more like a hiss. I spun around, looking at the house to see if my parents might be peering out a window.

      "You're worried about your parents," he said.

      I nodded, suddenly aware of how nervous and jumpy I must seem to him.

      "I don't think they'll be bothering us right now," he said. His face was serious. And I believed him. It was another one of those unknowable things he just seemed to know.

      We didn't say anything for a while. I just stared at him. Earlier I'd been mesmerized by the stars, but now that he was here, I was unable to look away from him. The golden specks in his eyes seemed even more pronounced in the dark.

      "Are you cold?" he asked, and I realized that I was shivering slightly. I was still in my same jeans and sweater of earlier.

      "Maybe a little," I said. And again he took off his jean jacket, and held it open for me as I slid into it.

I briefly closed my eyes. I had to remember this moment. Had to fully commit it to memory. It was magical and wondrous and I needed it to stay with me for a long time. For the rest of my life.

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NEXT NEW CHAPTER—SATURDAY, MARCH 28 

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