ETHEREAL

CHAPTER 2

I sleep another fourteen hours, waking only to shovel cinnamon swirl buttered toast into my mouth, drink OJ, and use the bathroom. I hear my mother exclaiming to my father, "Do you think she's ok?! She's slept all day!"

"Honey, if I could, I would sleep, too, instead of going to work. This is a huge time difference. Once she's awake, she can research going back to school."

I turn over and pull the damask-printed black and white comforter over my ears. Bored and listless, I'm uninterested. My iPhone vibrates. Skye, do you want to go on a date with me? I reread the text from Damien five more times to make sure that I'm not hallucinating.

    A date? Damien Brandt is hot, with his light mocha skin and slight beard. I'm such a sucker for a six-foot tall lanky, muscular guy in skinny jeans, with that whole brooding vibe and a slouchy beanie. I feel myself being sucked into a dangerous, ethereal daydream. My very own rebel without a cause. His hardened muscles; his slowest saunter of his long, sinewy limbs. His chiseled model cheekbones and pouty, bee stung lips. His wry smile and our eyes meeting; an electric energy between us that sparks me alive and literally jump starts my heart. I hate how I swoon over him, unlike with anyone else that I've ever encountered. The all-encompassing love that I would have for him would probably ruin me.

He seems funny, nice and sweet. I think of how in high school, I would try to jump on his skateboard with my six-inch high heels and he had to catch me one time as I was about to fall, and I felt his hot calloused fingertips on my cold skin... Back then, I brushed off the abrupt, jarring connection that I felt with him.

I think of the promise that I made to myself in high school. The first time that I really looked at him, at that moment in the emptied-out hallway and no one else around, but us. I felt like there was this audible "click," however trite that may sound, like our souls, once lost, wandering and languishing, had finally found each other. I felt like his piercing black eyes saw right through me, and his entire being echoed the loneliness and sadness; that never-satisfied hunger and wanting that was buried within me.

In one gaze, he told me that I didn't have to pretend to be someone else with him; that he saw me for who I am and accepted me, as I am.

I felt like I was looking at myself, or at least the first person to ever understand me; to ever want to understand me. But, I saw our entire future in that glance: I saw myself falling and being actually happy with him - the only person that I've ever truly wanted. I saw that I brightened the darkness within his self, much like he would do for me. We were the same; as one. I saw that he could break me. He could ruin me, worse than any other person ever did before, because he would be the only person that I ever really cared for, and truly loved. I'm his and he is mine, and I can only resist for so long. I wanted him more than anything or anyone that I've ever wanted in my entire life. I could see giving all of myself to him; something that I've never wanted to do, until now. It felt like fate - the last miserable 13 years that were full of fake friends and a barely adequate education in a smothering, backwards small town that I've always wanted to escape from; the longing that felt almost palatable and made me want to jump out of my own bones every single day until I clamped it down and kept myself locked away - all of it felt worth it just to be able to meet him.

My infernal curse would curse us, and I couldn't - I wouldn't do that to him.

Through my stare into his considering eyes as I watched them assess me, I locked away all of my feelings; pushing them down until I closed all of it away like a vise - I watched the bright hopefulness flicker out of his eyes, and I told myself that it was for the best. I couldn't stand to see the end like how I had just watched our destiny play out in my head, and I let him walk away from me. I silently willed him to walk away from me, using that strange energy that I have to compel anyone, even though I didn't want to do that to him, although it seemed as if it barely worked on him, as if our connection is stronger than the curse placed upon my head - the heavy albatross around my neck that I actually forgot about, around him.