The Exception

Chapter 5

As Crystal started to walk out the door, a figure stood in front of the doorway, which she bumped into. She screamed and jumped back. After she got a good look, she realized that it was James. James just laughed.

"It's not funny! I just didn't hear you come in!" Crystal said.

"Well, I wasn't exactly quiet," James laughed.

Crystal didn't say anything.

"Did you like the waffles I made you?" he asked.

"They were okay," Crystal lied.

"I see..." James said, looking suspicious, but slightly smiling.

"What happened with Glenda?" Crystal asked, ignoring his previous statement.

"She believed me when I said that you were in your cell, and didn't say anything about it after that," he explained.

"Oh," Crystal said.

A tense silence filled the air as no one had anything else to say on the subject. Crystal looked down at her feet, avoiding eye contact.

"Enough about me. Let's talk about you!" James said, breaking the silence. "I've been wondering something. Why didn't the police catch you sooner? If they followed the right clues, and connected the dots, they probably would have found you a lot sooner."

"Well," Crystal started. "I mean, I don't know for sure, but I think that you're right. They had all the clues. They could have connected the dots a lot sooner. They just chose not to. I'm one of, if not the most, wanted criminal in the world! They wouldn't want to go chasing after me, knowing what I could do to them."

"You just love that so much, don't you? Being feared by everyone. It's so fun for you," James said with a hint of disgust in his voice.

Crystal smirked.

James started to walk away.

"Wait!" Crystal called out after him.

James stopped and looked back, waiting to see what Crystal was going to say.

"What did you mean yesterday? When you said that the way I make people fall in love with me is obvious? How could it be obvious?"

This time, James was the one smirking.

"All I'm saying," he started. "Is that people don't just wear an old, broken down watch for no reason, Crystal."

He walked out of the room, leaving Crystal speechless. She stood there for a minute, not saying a word.

"I'm tired of this," Crystal thought. "He knows way too much. If I use my watch on him, he would fall in love with me, so I could get him to tell me how to escape without being caught. Then, I could leave with him remembering nothing."

She got her watch ready, then snuck into the living room. She found that James was watching TV. As she walked closer to him, a board on the floor loudly creaked. She paused and tensed up, hoping he didn't hear her. James didn't seem to hear anything, so Crystal started, once again, to creep up behind the couch. When she got as close as she could get, she reached for the button on her watch, and pressed it. She then stopped sneaking around, and walked around the couch into James's view.

"James, I need you to tell me something," she said. "How do I escape without getting caught by the police?"

"We discussed this yesterday. There is no way to escape without being caught and you're not going to try. Got it?" he said.

Crystal was silent. She stood there for a second, wondering if she actually heard him right.

"Maybe my finger missed the button," she thought. Then, she reached down and pressed it again. Nothing happened.

"What?!" Crystal said out loud. "How is this possible?!"

"What?" James asked.

"Nothing," Crystal quickly said, repetitively mashing her finger on the button. She could feel the anger and stress building up inside her.

"Well, it's obviously something," James said.

"I said, it's nothing!" Crystal snapped.

"Okay, okay fine," he said.

"Is it broken?" Crystal thought, worried. "Edward made this, I don't know how to fix it if it is broken." She had an idea to test if it really was broken.

"I'll be right back," Crystal said as she stepped out the door.

She walked for about 5 minutes until she found the nearest road. Walking along it, was a skinny man with blonde hair.

"Perfect"she thought.

Crystal knew she couldn't walk out onto the street, or the man would make a scene or call the police. She had another idea, though. When he walked close enough to her, she pressed the button on her watch, crossing her fingers that it would work. The man stopped walking and looked around. Once he saw Crystal in the forest he smiled.

"My love!" he called out.

Crystal was confused. She didn't understand why the watch didn't work on James, if it wasn't broken.

"Yeah, yeah," she said. "Come here, and be quiet!"

The man followed her into the woods.

"I want you to forget ever seeing me. Okay?" she said.

The man responded, "How could I ever forget you my lo-"

"Listen. If you really love me you'll forget me." Crystal interrupted, trying to stay calm.

"If that's what you want," he said.

"Stay here," Crystal said as she walked deeper into the forest, out of the man's sight. She then reached over, and pressed the button on her watch a second time. The man stood up and kept walking down the road, as if nothing ever happened.

"Why isn't this working on James?!" Crystal said out loud. "He's not anything special, he's not... He can't..." Crystal stopped, trying to lower her heart rate, which she noticed, was beating incredibly fast.. "I'm sure I'm just overreacting, and that there's a perfectly good explanation for this, I just have to think"

As Crystal walked back to James's house, she thought of all the possible reasons the watch didn't work on James. None of them made sense, but she didn't care.

"Maybe, he built some kind of force field around himself, shielding himself from... No. That would never work. What about if he was secretly a robot, created to piss me off. Nah, I doubt that's true, even though it would make since," she thought. "What if... No. What about... That couldn't work. Maybe... No! Nothing makes since!" Thoughts of "how" and "what if" reached through her mind, making her more and more stressed the more theories she came up with. "Why don't I know!" she yelled, not caring if she was drawing attention to herself.

As she said this, she heard a small laugh.

"Is anyone there?" she called out.

The small laugh suddenly stopped.

"Hello?" she called out again. She couldn't hear anything so she started to search for the source of the laugh. She pushed back all the leaves and bushes, looking for someone.

With no sign of anyone nearby, Crystal gave up, and sat down at the base of a large tree.

"I must be going insane," she thought.