Double Life: Sunrise

On her way out she picked her scattered clothes, she lay on her bed for a moment, she started to feel sleepy, she woke up reluctantly to put on her pajamas and dry her hair with the towel. She opened her drawer and took an oatmeal cookie package and she started to nibble it, still with the lights off. After she ate it, she lay down and decided to skip classes the next day; it was going to be Family Day. She knew she was not going to be the only one without her parents there, many of those kids had parents whose priorities were business or anything else but their children but still, maybe the twins parents were coming, she really didn´t want to meet them or any other parent.

She sighed, she couldn´t really skip that day, the day before she´d been volunteered –forced- by the homeroom teacher to be the one to welcome the parents with a few words. My parents won´t come, she had argued but when a teacher had decided something there was no way to talk them out of it. Skipping would mean to end up in the principal´s office and then her  ‘privileges’ may be taken away, after all she´d made the principal mad when Josh had first arrived, a little more than six months ago, and she knew the man wouldn´t forget.

With all that in mind she fell asleep and her nightmares came to disturb her dreams.

Nichole got out of bed and left her room with a small backpack on her back, she was angry at herself for having so many nightmares, she left from her usual place, the window, she headed towards the pool, water had a calming effect on her, her steps were careful and silent, she walked avoiding the circles of light that the lamps casted on the ground. In the path that she took there was a fountain; it was lit by a couple of lights that were on the ground. The lights made a shadow.

As she got closer she realized the shadow was a person, there was a boy laying on the edge of the white marble fountain, one of his hands was in the water, the other was placed over his forehead he seemed to be asleep but the foot that was on the ground steadying him was moving up and down quickly as if he was impatiently waiting for something.

The boy was wearing a jacket that Nichole had bought and wrapped as a present a few months ago. She knew she could avoid talking to Josh, he hadn’t even listened to her, he hadn´t realized she was looking at him at some distance from the shadows. The shadows, she mumbled to herself.

“Aren´t you afraid of darkness” she walked closer to the fountain where the boy was. She was able to distinguish his mouth twitching and finally forming a grin.

“The sun´s about to rise” he kept his position but his leg stopped moving.

“Doesn´t mean monsters aren´t still lurking around”

“I thought you only went to the stone wall when you had nightmares “he commented still not taking his hand off his face. She was a little taken aback.

“And why´s that?” she was still standing in the same place, near his foot.

“Because I had never encountered you here” 

“What do you mean?”

“Since I´ve gotten here my insomniac nights are more frequent, so I often come here to see the sunrise and sometimes I went… “the boy trailed off

“To keep me company” she supplied and the boy took his hand off his face and stared at her.

“Yeah”  he finally said.

“Well, later, Josh –she started to walk away- by the way –she stopped with her back to him- you´ll be giving the welcoming tomorrow instead of me” She started to walk again when as she suddenly felt a hand grabbing hers. She stopped completely and her mind told her to pull her hand away but her hand was already squeezing back the boy´s hand, she turned to see the boy to make some kind of smartass remark or a simple ‘let me go’ but when she was about to open her mouth the boy looked down at their clasped hands and she noticed her bare white hand between the boy´s bigger one. Her eyes widened, she started to feel her heart race and her chest ache but she knew that it was not really her heart or her chest or her arm that hurt, it was what the boy was feeling, she immediately let go, the boy collapsed to the ground on his side clutching his chest and his eyes shut tight.

“Josh! Josh!” she cried as she squatted down, she couldn´t touch him, it would only make it worst. She cried for help but no one seemed to be near. The sun was rising. She tried to look in her backpack for a new pair of gloves while raking her mind trying to remember how she could have forgotten to wear them in the first place but her backpack was nowhere to be seen.  Suddenly the boy relaxed and his eyes were not shut tight anymore, he looked as if he was sleeping. “Josh! Josh!” her voice was weak.  The boy was gone.

 She threw herself to him as she noticed she was wearing a pair of black gloves and a white dress with a black line at the hem.  She looked around; they were no longer in the school grounds but at some big room with white floor, people around them dancing, talking and eating completely oblivious at the dead boy and his murderer. “No, no, no, no” she started to scream as she rocked herself along with the body she was embracing. “I´m sorry, Josh, I´m sorry”

“I´m sorry” Nichole heard herself say out loud and she woke up startled, her face was wet with tears. She immediately looked around, she was in her bedroom. Her breath was shallow. She disentangled herself from her covers and noticed the sun was about to rise, she quickly but carefully put on her bandage and then a pair of black gloves, then she finished changing with a pair of jeans , a t-shirt, a hoodie sweater and her sneakers. She jumped out of her window and ran first to the fountain near the pool and then to one of the boy´s dorm buildings, when she was about to go round to the back of it she saw a boy coming out of the front doors

“Nichole” the boy said surprised walking to her. She stepped back, he stepped ahead and she stepped back again “Are you ok?” he furrowed his brow. She blinked repeatedly. “Nic?” the boy called her name again not knowing what to do, she was staring at him with wide eyes, she looked frightened but he was sure she wasn´t scared of him. “Nic, are you ok?” he asked again as he took a couple steps closer to her, this time she didn´t stepped back, instead she lifted her left hand as if she was going to touch his face but she didn´t, slowly she moved her hand in front of his face and then started to retreat it, Josh motioned his hand to meet hers but she didn´t let him touch her.

She seemed hypnotized and her hand seemed to have some kind of magnetic field that didn´t let Josh´s hand to touch her only to get close. They moved their hands until their palms were almost touching, less than an inch of space between them, he tried to close the gap but she moved her hand back maintaining the same amount of space, so he stopped. He looked at her and saw her eyes fixed in him but it was not her normal gaze, there was a tinge of hopelessness in it. She didn´t seem scared anymore but she still seemed to be hypnotized, he moved his index finger and touched the tip of hers, then slowly he moved the next one and the next one, she met his two other fingers half way so their hands were touching only by the tip of their fingers, locking gazes with her, Josh slowly motioned his hand to completely touch hers and when he did she gasped and blinked as if she was coming out of her trance.

“This is funny” the boy chuckled. She felt like she breathed for the first time after being submerged in water.  “In my dream, child version of you reached out for me to touch her hand like this through the glass but I was too far to do it” the boy grinned and she tilted her head a little.

“Were you having that dream again?” the girl finally spoke. They still had their hands touching.

“No, I just woke up, insomnia –he said as a way of explaining-  You?”

“I want to see the sunrise” She said and started to retreat her hand. He smiled

“Where´s the best place to see it?” he asked. She started walking and he followed. They walked in silence.

“You´re giving the welcoming to the parents today” Nichole said. Josh nodded as he smiled.

“Skipping classes?” he asked as he brushed his hand against hers, eventually their fingers got loosely intertwined. They walked like that, not really holding hands but certainly in contact. She never answered but he didn´t need an answer. She didn´t spoke the whole time, not even when he left for classes after they watched the sunrise at the top of the art building. 

***

What´s going on with this?? this is the fussion of two posts, it was not supposed to be like this, Nic and Josh have just left me at a loss ¬¬