My Soul to Keep

Chapter 2

Leilani stopped being known as the freak who talked to herself at school, but she still didn't have any friends aside from Hexander. There were acquaintances she had around school, people she sat with at lunch or partnered with in class in order to avoid looking like a loner but otherwise didn't associate with. Hexander was her only source of comfort at school and she was always grateful for their plan to secretly talk while she was there. But even as he made her smile at the slightest comments, he could see the longing in her to make a new friend and be apart of the socializing happening all around her. And that was why he made sure everyone stayed away from her. He was convinced she wanted friends so badly that she would do anything they wanted and be taken advantage of, her pure soul unwillingly corrupted, tainted; things he couldn't allow. So he took it upon himself to do what was necessary to protect her by tricking the minds of anyone around her into feeling a sense of otherness around her. The sense that they should stay far, far away from her. Unfortunately there was only so much he could do in the way of keeping her away from others when her school assignments forced her to work with them.

            For reasons Hexander could never understand, Leilani decided to take an acting elective her sophomore year of High School. She never got a lead role in the mini- productions they put on every month and sometimes never got a role at all; it was something that always kept Hexander content because it meant she stayed away from others but it always seemed to upset Leilani. The day before the auditions of the class' next production, Leilani had begged Hexander to help her run lines for the lead role. “Come on, please hex,” she pleaded to him from the middle of her room as he lay stretched across her bed lazily. “I never ask you for anything-”

            “Really?” Hexander laughed. “You never ask me for anything?”

            “Nothing that you actually give into that's important to me,” Leilani corrected and he laughed again. She walked over to her bed and dropped down next to him, wrapping her arms tightly around his torso. “Please, please, please Hex!”

            “Are you fifteen or five?” Hexander teased and she looked up to glare at him. “Fine, fine, I'll help. What do you need from me?”

            Leilani squealed happily as she squeezed him once before letting go, getting up and handing him the script she had been laying on. “Start here,” she said, pointing to the line at the top of the page. “And only read his lines.”

            “Roy?” Hex said, both clarifying and mocking the character's name.

            “Yes,” Leilani rolled her eyes. “You don't have to like his name, you know. I just need you to read the lines.”

            “Right,” he said, sitting up and scanning through the script until he reached a line that caught his attention. “'I haven't been able to take my eyes off of you since you first walked in here. You're all I see when my eyes are closed and I need you. I need you like I need air-' What in the bloody hell is this? This has to be the most ridiculous and creepy thing your class has done so far.”

            “It's a skit someone in the writing class wrote on the dark side of sexual harassment and stalking-”

            “Is there a light side?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.

            “You know what I mean,” Leilani sighed. “Roy takes his interest in Violet too far and it becomes stalking.”

            “And you want the role of Violet?” Hexander asked incredulously as she nodded. “Absolutely not.”