The Heartthrob Won't Leave

Chapter Eight (New Chapters)

"No, Blake Kanem also is" she claimed, lifting her head to look at him.

"I didn't know that" Dylan looked sort of foolish, glancing at his phone, wondering if he had indeed got the wrong person. But, he was sure he had, he had heard clearly that it was the girl.

"I'm sorry if that came off as rude" she claimed, turning to face him near the classroom door.

"It didn't" he responded simply. She smiled softly, leaving out the door. But, a nagging question made her stop, and call to him as he walked down the hall. She watched as he stopped, turning to face her.

"Who told you that Blake from poetry club was a good writer?" she asked. He smiled.

"The president of course" Blake's body felt stiff, watching the guy move further down the hall and out of sight. The president of the poetry club? She dreaded imagining his face in her mind, Dammit Lucian! She wondered if she had upset Lucian somehow, she hadn't spoken to him since their time in gym class. But now, he was the one placing her into situations she suspected he knew would be uncomfortable for her. First with him being the one that made everyone vote for her in drama class, making her director of the school play, and now this random boy asking her to join the newspaper club? She wondered what she did to make him so angry to act in order to make her more self-conscious. 

She wondered if she should talk to him, heading into the bathroom. She dropped her backpack on the floor against the wall by the sink counter, turned on the tap, and ran her hands beneath it. It was ice cold, but it didn't stop her from leaning forward and splashing her face with it, running it across her hot, red skin. The anxiety was eating her alive, and she couldn't do anything about it but pray that it would go away. She ripped off a piece of paper towel from the roll, wiping her face of the excess water, staring at her pale, worn face in the mirror in front of her, continuing to wipe her skin. She was lucky she never found any benefit in wearing makeup because then she wouldn't have been able to let the cool water dig and cool the warm pores of her cheeks. 

The bell rang again for the start of the next class, startling her. She gasped, realizing she was late, throwing the wet paper in the garbage and taking one last look at her face, her eyes, how worn they looked. She grabbed her backpack, hurrying out the bathroom door and out into the hall. Blake was always punctual to class so she could blend, the last thing she wanted was to have all the attention you seemed to attract when you opened the door a few minutes after the bell to have every seated student look right at you. And that's exactly what she thought of, which made her freeze, her hand just an inch from touching the metal doorknob. 

She paused, thinking of all those people, thinking so horribly of her, wanting her to die so they could consume her flesh like a treat. She knew her status in this place, she was the prey, easily for the predator to attack and abuse. And, she pulled away, letting her hand fall to her side. She couldn't do it, she wouldn't do it, sending herself to be slaughtered was ludicrous. And so, she moved down the hall, right towards a place she knew she'd be happy at peace in comfort, with her own thoughts and not a single eye to watch her in disgust. 

She pushed open the door to the library, glancing around at the few students mulling around in their own work. She walked back towards the bookshelves to her favorite little spot against the wall at the end of the non-fiction section where no one went. There was a heater grate against her back that she just loved to have warm up her cold being, especially in the winter months when it seems you couldn't run anywhere to escape the cold. She found herself falling asleep there often as well, it was just a little haven in the world of hell. She sat down against the rough black carpet, opening her backpack to pull out her laptop and her headphones, placing them over her ears, and letting the soft jazz take over her senses. And, she typed.

Fear is not only a feeling, it is an expression, an action, a state of mind. Fear gives you nothing, no hope, and no happy dreams. Fear is a burden that the world has placed upon like weights, making our shoulders slag and sweat appear across our foreheads. fear gives us the thought of loss, the wonder of how life would be different if you lost someone or something dear to you. As you grow, fear no longer seems as bad or frequent as it used to when you were young. Is the thought of fear as no longer bad only an illusion created in our minds because we have to face it every day?

A small tap on her shoulder pulled her focus, smiling at the sight of Mikayla sitting down beside her. She pulled her headphones down, letting Mikayla take the computer from her lap, watching as her eyes scanned across the words on the screen before she turned, looking back at Blake. "Why don't you ever believe anyone when they tell you that you are a good writer?" she asked. Blake sighed, running her hands through her hair.

"Because there are such things as liars and cheaters that want nothing more than to swindle you and make you believe something that isn't true, even if its to spare your feelings"

"But, what if they are telling the truth?" Mikayla asked, meeting her eyes "What if they aren't lying?"

"I suppose then they are telling the wrong person if that's the case, they would need to tell the person that is actually meant to hear it" she responded. Mikayla sighed heavily, Blake was so stubborn, she was like a Taurus, one of the few flaws she had was that she wouldn't dare listen to someone else's opinion if it was anyway different than her own. Blake was a true believer that there was no such thing as the truth, the real truth, in her eyes truth was nothing more than an empty word. It merely spread from person to person like a disease to justify and prove a story or someone's opinion on how something in the world should be. There were many sides to a story, the side that each person sees, no matter how correct, will never be the truth.