Intrinsical - Lani Woodland [30]
“So, tell me all that happened,” Cherie pleaded. I only got as far as where I touched her face before she interrupted me. “Why do you think my skin felt so flimsy to you?”
I bit the inside of my cheek thinking. “Maybe because we were on different spiritual planes or something. I mean, I’m still alive and yet I was without my body.”
“So you think you still had substance because you weren’t dead?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Maybe. If I were dead I wouldn’t be able to touch you, I guess.”
“This is so amazing.” She seemed to be digesting this new information. “How far did you get?” Her voice, seeping with curiosity, still hurt my ears.
“Boys dorm.”
“Did you see the guys?” Cherie giggled in an operatic octave. She saw me wince and cut her laugh short. “So what did you see?”
In the safety of my room, hidden under a pile of blankets I felt stupid for having been so afraid. “I saw Brent, before I was pulled back to my body.”
My feeling of stupidity didn’t last long as I remembered the look in his eyes when he saw me. I had seen Brent angry before, I had seen him mad, but I had never seen him like I had tonight. When he glared at me, his eyes seemed evil and dangerous. Just the memory of them gave me a chill that made my toes grow numb. After managing to crawl into bed, my eyes grew heavy and were soon unable to remain open despite Cherie’s continued talking. My thoughts were troubled as I drifted off to sleep. A pair of dangerous brown eyes haunted my dreams.
****
“Hey, Yara,” Cherie said when she got back from her study date with Steve the following afternoon. I had woken up feeling lazy and had decided to stay in my room and study while Cherie had gone out. My homework was done, including my paper on “The Lady of Shallot,” and as a reward I was indulging in some frivolous reading.
“Want to play hide and seek?”
“Are we five?” I asked, not looking up from the magazine I had stolen from her care package.
“Come on, it’s going to be fun.”
“Our room doesn’t have too many hiding places.”
“The cross-country team decided to play hide and seek in the avocado groves.” I could tell from her tone that her patience was running thin.
I looked out the window at the dark, threatening clouds, and could see the tiny raindrops already falling. “Did you notice it’s raining?”
“Exactly. It will be a blast!”
I deliberated for a moment. “Did you say the whole cross-country team?”
“Yes, Brent will be there.” My heart thudded uneasily, as I remembered how angry he’d seemed the night before. I bit my lip, deliberating before finally bending to slip on my shoes.
By the time we made it to the groves, there was a large group assembled. From the size of the crowd it looked like the other team members had brought friends along as well. Brent was easy to spot among our numbers and I forced myself to meet his gaze. Instead of furious, his brown eyes were warm and friendly as was his smile.
“I’m glad you made it,” he said as he strolled toward me. “I wanted to apologize if I scared you last night.” He cracked his knuckles. People were milling around us and Brent lowered his voice, “I was really worried. You don’t understand what you’re playing with.”
The game started before I could reply. It was raining heavily now and the dirt had become a thick mud. Bright flashes of lightning lit the sky, followed by loud rolls of angry thunder. Jody Lynn, captain of the girl’s cross-country team, was the first person to be “it,” and home base was the one avocado tree that looked like it had suffered some sort of fire damage. We all scattered. Scouting the area for a place to hide, I had the unsettling feeling I was being watched. I stopped in my tracks, looking around me, my shoes sinking in the wet earth, but didn’t see anyone but my classmates scurrying for places to hide. I hoisted my feet out of the muck and shook them, splattering mud all over my pants.
It didn’t take long to find a perfect hiding place in the leafy branches of a tree, allowing me to peek out without being seen, and I climbed up.