I don't believe in if anymore...

Chapter 11

This was all so new to me. I had never been interested into getting to know someone; I was used to avoiding everyone.

And yet, next to me walked someone I really wanted to know everything about. I took him to the relaxation room, not ready to take him somewhere intimate like my room. It had a big flat screen television, games consoles, fighting games (Paul and his friends were into that kind of thing) and a range of movies. We slumped down on one of the three comfortable couches.

I started blushing as soon as I saw him looking at me.

“Tell me about yourself?” He asked me tenderly.

“Uhm… You seem to know me better than I know myself.”

“I know about your abilities, but nothing else about you.”

“What do you want to know?” I asked looking at my hands in my lap.

He tilted my head with one finger and the sparks started to warm me all over. I felt my face warm into a scarlet red. He looked into my eyes without any fear and that was a relief.

“What is your favourite colour?”

“Blue. May I ask you questions?”

“Any time. How about I ask you one and then you ask me?”

“Sounds good. So, what is your favourite colour?”

“It happens to be blue too.”

We played twenty questions for a while until my mother called us for lunch. I had yet to tell him about more personal stuff like my hobbies, but he knew a few basic things about me.

Lunch felt kind of weird with my whole family present. There was still some uncomfortable tension radiating from my mother and I could not get used to my brothers looking at me every so often.

I was so not looking forward to training after lunch. My stomach was full of butterflies just thinking about it. I truly was not good at any sport.

*

“We are going to start of easy. A few miles of running….”

“Easy for you maybe,” I muttered under my breath.

“So that you can get used to your new balance.”

I raised my eyebrows at that. I do not have balance, never had.

“You’re going to be surprised then,” Josh whispered in my ear. The closeness made a shiver ran down my spine.

We started off with a slow jog and I could not believe the way my feet knew where to plant itself. Slowly, I began to increase my speed and found that my breathing was still steady.

“You can do this. Go all out.”

I glanced at Josh who was smiling at me. He was keeping up to me with every step.

“Go, Zee. Let’s see what you can do.” Paul sounded encouraging and I had a hard time coming to terms with that. No snide remarks came from him. Weird!

I started letting go and felt myself going at a speed I never dreamed of doing. It was great! Trees flashed past me and my feet felt like they hardly touched the ground.

“Slow down, Zee!” I heard Ryan shout behind me, but he was far away.

“Zee, come back. You’re going out of the territory.” Josh also sounded far behind, but closer.

I made a wide turn until I was going back on the same trail. Where were the others? Did I really go this far from them? Breaking through the trees, I saw them standing in a small clearing. They were panting, except for Josh who stood with his arms crossed and he had a broad smile on his face. Then I realised that I was not even tired.

“Where are we? Since when is our territory this small? I thought we had a lot of land?”

“We are at the boarded of the territory and we do have a big territory. You just wouldn’t stop.” Ryan said between breaths.

“We are about 4 hours from home if you were to run at normal wolf speed in human form,” Paul forced out of his panting.

“How long have we been running,” I asked puzzled.

“For about an hour,” Josh replied impressed. “I told you that you would be surprised at what you could do.”

“Come on, guys. Let’s head back.”

“Only if she promises to take it slower. She does not even look tired.” Paul stated with an annoyed expression.

“I promise,” I said starting in a jog. “Or not!” I shouted over my shoulder as I increased my speed.

I did not run as fast as before and before long I heard Josh next to me.

“Have you always been this mean or is it part of the new you?”

“I’m not nearly as mean as they have been to me.”

“You know why they did it, though?”

“I do, but it is hard to make the hurting they caused to just stop.”

“I know. But I also know that they want to get to know the real you now and that they feel like dirt about the way they treated you.”

I came to a stop.

“How do you know this? Since when are you in the bro camp?”

“Yu would know it too if you tapped into their thoughts and emotions. And I am not in the bro camp. I just happen to know where they are coming from….”

He looked away from me and I sensed that there was more to this. “How do you….”

“Can we drop it?” He asked sharply. 

I kept looking at him, crossing my arms over my chest. I could not pick anything up from his thoughts except a brick wall.

“Don’t try, Zee. I asked you to drop it.” I heard anger in his voice and looked away before he could see the hurt that would be written over my face.

“Sure...” My voice sounded small. I heard the others catching up to us and turned. As soon as I started jogging, I felt better.

Josh was not moving. “ Zee… Come on Zee, don’t do this.”

I did not turn and tried to imagine the same wall in my head and around my heart. I felt him trying to break through the wall. And then I felt his arms around me, stopping me. I was concentrating hard on the wall and did not even hear him coming closer.

“I’m sorry. I just don’t want to talk about it yet.” I relax into his chest. Wow! It felt so good.

“Better?” he asked and all I could manage was a nod.

“Good. By the way, you were going in the wrong direction.”

“No, I wasn’t. I… I…” And then I realised I was heading south instead of east. “You’re right! I’m going south. Sorry.”

“We had our first argument. It’s understandable.” I could hear the teasing in his voice and started blushing. So not good. Normally I would get angry if someone was teasing me and here I was embarrassed. It must have been the close proximity of his body to mine…