The Understorey, Book One of The Leaving Series (4 page)

    “Huh?” I intelligently
ask.
    “I said, you should do shampoo commercials,
Jules,” he teases, holding out his hand.
    “Yeah. Right,” I say, refusing his hand. That
was rude. Dang it, I hate being impolite. I’m better than that,
even if it is Elliott Gray. “Thanks for the compliment, though.”
There, remedied that little issue.
    Suddenly, I remember that Mrs. Kitt was cleaning
up a mess that I helped make, by herself.   
    “I’m
so
sorry Mrs. Kitt! I wasn’t paying
attention and........”

I knelt down and began gathering the loose
worksheets. Elliott Gray helps me but I don’t think he’s paying
attention to his task because he’s just pooling them into a
disheveled pile at his knees. I avoid eye contact, hoping not to
catch his unbelievably blue eyes because I’ll betray myself if I do
that. I just know I’d end up smiling like the dope I am if those
eyes met mine.

You don’t like him Julia Jacobs. You haven’t
suddenly developed a crush on your childhood friend. This is
Elliott Gray. He used to shove tadpoles down your shirt when you
were little. He denied your existence in junior high, breaking your
heart. He’s well-liked and you’re, well, hated by almost everyone
here. Ha!

I try not to remember how badly he broke my
heart all those years ago. Later, stupidly much later, I realized
that the blinding pain that resided in my chest at the time was
caused by his absence. I even went so far as to ask mom to make a
doctor’s appointment for me, that’s how painful it was. She didn't.
I shudder to think.
That
would have been embarrassing. I
never fully recovered by the way. It’s a pathetic thing to admit
but I can’t lie to myself no matter how badly I want to.

I reach for a worksheet but Elliott’s hands
sweep toward mine so quickly I don’t have time to pull away. When
our fingers brush, a sparkling flash of warmth instantly relaxes
me. My eyes begin to droop in sleep. The blazing electricity dances
around our bodies and climbs the walls around us. I yank my hand
from his and the anxiety I was feeling fills my chest again but
with it brought a new sensation, fear.

We sit and stare at one another.
Explain.
Tell me it’s nothing,
I silently plea. I begin to open my mouth
to ask him what happened but instead Mrs. Kitt asks us to return to
our seats. I peer over my shoulder and notice the entire class is
trying to read our silent expressions. When we stand, the class
shouts in laughs and taunts. I’m scared out of my mind. I know he’s
going to want to talk to me after class but I cannot let this
happen. I cannot let him near me.    

When the bell rings, I gather my books and
haul towards the door. He chases me.

“Jules!” He yells.

“My name isn’t Jules. It’s Julia,” I yell
back.

“Julia, stop running will ya’?”

“Why?” I ask, curious to hear his response.
Curiosity killed the cat Julia.

“Because it’s hard to run and talk?”

Not the answer I’m looking for. I want him to
say something like, ‘because I’m scared and not sure what do to’ or
‘I need you to forgive me our past and move forward with me into
what seems like an obvious future together’. What? Too much?

“Well, you see, I don’t want to talk,” I say,
“I guess that means I can run all I want.” I know this is rude, but
I push down the guilt. I’m denying my instincts with everything I
have because if I didn’t, I’d have grabbed Elliott’s hands the
second I saw him standing with Jesse Thomas and wrapped my own
inside them, refusing to let go ever, and that to me, is a
dangerous, dangerous idea.

“Wait a minute!” He says.

He pulls my body short by grabbing my arm.
The lightning from earlier is definitely not a coincidence. He
yanks back his hand and I flee for the lunchroom. I hope and pray
that he will not approach me while at lunch. I need some time to
decide what to do, to decipher what our heated physical reaction
is. I go to the table in the corner that I camped out alone at all
of the year prior, sit down and use my feet to pull a nearby chair
closer to my body before reclining them on top of the seat. I whip
out my old friend George Orwell and desperately try to escape into
Big Brother’s world.

From the corner of my eye, I see Elliott
enter the cafeteria. I hold my breath in anticipation, my body
wound tight, every muscle contracted. He sits with the rest of the
football crowd that shares a table with the asinine
cheerleaders.

I release my breath but my heart continues to
pound. I peek at their table and Taylor Williams, head cheerleader,
a.k.a. the ringleader of the dumb squad, glares me down. She’s
heard about my little encounter with Elliott no doubt and now I’ve
begun the year doubly hated by her, I’m sure. When we were younger,
I was actually friends with many of the cheerleaders including
Taylor but then I got ‘weird’, quote-unquote, according to them and
they were no longer interested in tainting their reputation with
association. They’re all a really classy bunch, let me tell
ya’.

I feel eyes on the back of my head and turn
towards Elliott’s table. He’s staring. He smiles crookedly, an
undeniably adorable thing and waves.
No doubt Taylor will make
me pay for that later
, I think. I want to jump up and lead
Elliott away from the cafeteria but ignore this impulsive need and
instead roll my eyes at him. There’s a double advantage to my
reaction, like, maybe Taylor won’t take Elliott’s behavior out on
me kind of advantage. I shift so the back of my chair faces him to
send a clear message and sink my nose further into my book, a
serious attempt to hide my genuine facial expressions. I cannot let
him see how badly I want him to talk to me. It would only lead to
heartache. I’m not strong enough to survive another heartbreak.

I lay my elbow on the table and absently loop
a strand of hair through my fingers. I feel a sudden suspicious
heat creep from the middle of my chest and out towards my arms,
through my stomach and then my legs.
He’s mad at me,
I
think. I don’t know how I know this but I can say with absolute
certainty that I’ve offended him. I sit up straight at the
comprehension of it and sigh in disappointment; disappointment,
strangely, in myself for letting him down. I’m scared of these
automatic responses toward him.

    Acid bubbles in my
stomach. I feel an overwhelming compulsion to flee. I must get away
from him. I have to stop these involuntary answers or I’m certain I
will lose my heart. My heart is the one thing I am determined to
safeguard. To protect it means I will never hurt again. Ever.

I stand and gather my belongings. I glance
his direction and notice that he’s distracted by Jesse Thomas.
Perfect
, I think. I run. I run and run and burst through the
double doors. I find a tile pillar and take refuge behind it,
panting from the exertion. I hear him toss open the double doors
and still, holding a breath in my already burning lungs. I can
almost feel the disappointment roll off his shoulders before he
retreats back to the cafeteria. I peer down at the floor and see
his pain roll past me, ethereal jumbles of invisible smoke that
toss and tumble against the linoleum. I breathe one in. Elliott’s
disappointment smells and tastes alkaline, like putting my tongue
to the end of a battery. It makes me exceedingly uncomfortable.

That night, I sit at my dining room table
with my parents for dinner. The crushing formality of the entire
process is exhausting. It’s my mother’s doing. She’s a lovely woman
but incredibly particular when it comes to traditions and
daughterly expectations. I love her but she is stifling. My father,
on the other hand, makes life more than tolerable. He is sweet and
loving and oh so very funny.

“How was your day today darling?” My mother
asks, before quietly correcting my behavior, “Elbows.”

I remove my elbows from the table.

“Sorry. It was fine mom, uneventful.”

“You’re lying,” my dad cleverly catches on.
No one knows me like my pop.

I smile.
    “Okay, so something did happen today. I mean,
besides the obvious taunting and teasing and hair pulling,” I
tease.
    “Of course, of course,” my dad chuckles.
“Alright kid. Spill,” he says, leaning into the back of his
chair.
    I hesitate, “I’m too frightened to speak of it
honestly.”
His eyes brighten and he sits back up, alert.
    “Did something happen? Did someone hurt you?” He
insists.
    “No,” I laugh, “nothing like that. Sorry, that
was a bit dramatic. What I meant, is that I’m not exactly sure
what
happened today.”
My dad settles down and my mom lets out the breath she was holding.
Overprotective? Yes. I can't complain though. They love me.
    “Okay,” my mom says, “just try the best you can
to explain my love.”
I breathe deeply. I can't decide if revealing the whole shebang is
exactly within the parameters of what they would consider sane, so
I tone down everything that actually happened.
    “Elliott Gray,” I begin, but before I can
continue my mother sucks in a quick breath.
    “No darling. No. You cannot befriend him. I will
not sit by idly while he makes a fool of you again.”
    “But mom, he doesn’t know the reason I’ve been
isolated by my classmates.” I pause, hating to admit it out loud. I
barely whisper the rest, “He doesn’t know it’s because of
him.”
    “No one could be that dense,” my mother
says.
    “I don’t know,” my dad laughs, “boys are
clueless when it comes to those things.”
    “Exactly,” I agree, “I’m one hundred percent
positive that he is completely unaware. Besides, I never said I
would befriend him again. In fact, I can almost guarantee you I
will not.”
My mother breathes easily.
    “Well, in that case, continue.”
I sneak a grin at my dad.
    “Okay, the easiest way I can explain it is that
whenever I am in the presence of Elliott I become acutely aware of
myself as well as him, that I am especially
attuned
to him.
I feel things around him that I know are abnormal and I know he
feels them as well.”
I'm deliberately vague. They wouldn't believe the details anyway.
My dad laughs.
    “Oh Julia, that’s just hormones. You’re
attracted to one another! Have you never been attracted to someone
before?”
I don’t blush at this as normal girls would probably do. My family
is strangely open about such subjects.
    “Never like this dad.
Never
like
this.”

At school, I arrive at the last possible
minute to avoid him. I somehow know he’ll be looking for me and
want to avoid him even at the risk of being late. I stride down the
main hall and catch him lingering near the main lobby. I took a
back entrance hoping he would do just that. I run to my locker for
the pencil case I left on accident the day before only to come upon
the strangest thing.

The entire front of my locker is a giant
painting of intricate flowers but flowers you’ve never seen before,
flowers that don’t exist in nature. Striped flowers, black flowers,
oddly shaped flowers. Only flowers you would find, in say, a Tim
Burton film. I’m a bit taken back by it and cannot understand for
the life of me who would have done this. It was as if they knew
everything I would have liked and filled it all in, every nook and
cranny was covered.
No way. No
way
.
I wish I could
stay there and admire the workmanship but I don’t have time and am
forced to slip into my French class with only three minutes to
spare. I arrive unnoticed, except by Sawyer Tuttle.

“Hey Julia,” he says.

I grab the seat next to him and throw my
satchel on the ground at my feet.

“Hey Sawyer.”

He frowns, but not in sadness, in
contemplation.
    “How come you never call me Tut? Like everybody
else?”
    “That's a strange question to ask all of a
sudden. I don’t know, maybe because you never looked like much of a
‘Tut’. To me, you’ve always been Sawyer. Plus, when do I do
anything
that everybody else around here does?”
    “Hmm,” he says, but I don’t know how to
interpret this. I don’t take the trouble to ask either. My mind is
occupied elsewhere. I’m anxious for the bell to ring, to make sure
he
isn’t in this class.
    “Waiting on someone?” Sawyer asks.
    “Huh? Me? No. Why?”
    “Just asking. You keep staring at the
door.”
    “I do? I mean, I am. I wasn’t waiting on
someone. No, more like hoping someone doesn’t walk through the
door. Get my drift?”
    “Yeah,” he laughs. “So, did you have a fun
summer?”
    “Uh yeah. I guess we didn't talk all that much
did we?” I answer, slightly distracted by the fact that Elliott
hasn’t entered the door yet.
Why am I expecting him to enter the
door?
“I did. I mean, I didn’t really do all that much.
Honestly? The boat trip our families made together at the beginning
of the summer was the most exhilarating part of the entire
thing.”
    “Really? It must have been a lame summer
then.”
We both laugh. I don’t mention the
other
thing that happened
over the summer. It’s understood that we don’t talk about
that
thing
.
    “Kind of. You could have come over you know?
Maybe we should have gone wakeboarding on the lake again. I might
have improved with time.”
    “I don’t know,” he teasingly sings. “Actually,
you weren’t half bad. At least you got up on your board.”
    “Yeah, only took me what? Like fifty
times?”
We both laugh again but it’s drowned out by the tardy bell.
Huh
. I ignore the sinking feeling in the bottom of my
stomach.
You don’t want him Julia. You can’t want him.
   
Elliott isn’t in second period U.S.
History either and I try to swallow down the insaneness that is my
wanting to know where he is all the time. I’ve discovered this
insatiable appetite for the knowledge of his whereabouts. I bury
these feelings. I delude myself into thinking it’s only a temporary
effect of the electricity, the fluke.
Only temporary.
   
At lunch, I lazily stroll through the
cafeteria doors darting my eyes at the football table. He wasn’t
there. I scold myself for not feeling relief. I sit at my table
alone, again, not that I’m not used to that or anything. My best
friend is my cousin Caroline but she’s traveling across the country
with her dance troupe and I haven’t talked to her in over a week
which is sort of rare. She must be busy. She visits often but only
in between gigs. I miss her so much. It’s hard not having her near.
I find myself alone at home a lot, reading. The only other person
who will even talk to me in this town, besides the adults, is
Sawyer Tuttle and even that’s on rare
occasions.   
    Elliott doesn’t know this, but the reason I’m as
alone in this town as I am is indirectly because of him. My mom
blames him and everything but there are a few details that I’ve
purposely left out. If I told her the whole story, she would just
flip out on this town and that wouldn’t be good for anyone,
especially me. No sense in making the black sheep any blacker.