Wings & Lore

Four

"Woah Killer. I can't let you do this."

Of course. Typically. I grunt as Gabriel's arm that's wrapped around my waist pulls me away from she-bitch. I try to claw at her from my distance because she's still laughing, and her stupid friends are laughing with her. At me. Assholes, all of them.

"Let me go!" I shout. My hands find Gabriel's arm, I try to pry it off me, but this guy has the strength of seven. It isn't a tight enough grip to stop my breathing, but it's tight enough to be glue against paper.

"Calm down, I need to show you something." He states.

I don't let up, I continue to pull his arm, "you aren't showing me jack shit. PINKY!"

"She's not coming. You scared her."

"Scared her?" What is that supposed to mean? I scared Pinky? That's not possible. But I do stop fighting him. "Where are you taking me?"

"The library."

"Really? Are you going to read to me until I knock out. I suppose there's no evidence compared to drugs."

"I'm not drugging you. What the fuck?" He sounds insulted. I almost feel bad for making that suggestion, but then I'm reminded that his arm is still around me and he's pulling me away from any other breathing person.

I must be stupid, though, because I relax. "I can walk." When he doesn't remove his arm right away, I sigh. "I promise I'll walk to the library."

He slowly lowers me to my feet, but hesitantly let's go of my waist. "Are you going to let go?" I swallow, something about the emitting warmth from his tight grasp makes me nervous.

"Give me a second," then he leans down to my ear. I know because the warmth around my waist is a cold breeze, but it doesn't matter because his hot breath on my ear is keeping my entire body warm. "I let go. You promised me you'd walk."

My heart skips a beat but it becomes my wake up call. "Umm—yah, sorry." But it takes me a while before I actually start walking. What is wrong we me? A day ago if a guy ever whispered with an edge of sexual desire, I would've punched him in the face and kneed him where the sun don't sun. Now? With Gabriel, I am acting just like Pinky when she has a crush. Weak knees? Check. Sweaty brow? Almost check. Twitchy eyes? Getting there, check. No way. No more, I refuse to have a crush on some random guy. Love at first sight is bull crap, how could you possibly feel anything towards a person when you don't have a clue to their personality. It seems entirely problematic; what if they like to wear socks to bed? That's a deal breaker for me. Only odd-balls wear coffins on their feet while sleeping.

We make it (very slowly) to the library. I've been here numerous times, and this is the closest to a field trip any Elk Wood student will get. It's the most beautiful part of the entire school, remind me of Beauty and the Beast's library in the movie. The walls are stacked with selves on top of selves. The books are all positioned with their spins facing out, and they are organized based on genre, then author. If I didn't have my spot over looking the lights of a small town, I'd spend my supposed to be lunch and dinner times here.

I used to come here with my nanny; she would take me here whenever I had to actually learn. We would go through the books and find weird ones to practice my reading — by weird ones, I mean books about things that no one intentionally looks for — like sewing. For my writing, we'd sit at one of the long, laminated wooden tables and start practicing my cursive. They stopped teaching cursive writing at public schools, deeming it useless in modern society. Though, it's a requirement to graduate at Elk Wood, considering all rich kids will one day have to to sign their name on officially documents.