The Otherkind Book One:Heart

~*~ 9 ~*~

~*~ 9 ~*~

My world stayed on this kind of emotional roller coaster. I kept seeing Bryce and Bettina off and on throughout November. I saw them together, heads bent over their lunches whispering. They kept to themselves, never talking to anyone else. They were obviously in love and it tugged at my heart.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! It seemed the more I saw him, the more I felt he hated me, which made me feel even worse. I had come to dread anytime we passed each other in the hall, or if our eyes met from across the lunchroom. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I was seeing him more frequently. We didn't have any classes together yet every time I looked up in a hall, or somewhere on school grounds, the parking lot even, I would see him. I felt foolish. What irked me most was I was doing this to myself.

Why should I be so angry, or if he had a girlfriend? Why should I even care at all about Bryce Evans? After these next two years I would go off to college and I wouldn't have to see him again. Ever! So why stress it, just ignore him and pretend he didn't exist. Simple enough to think it. Something else entirely when he haunted my dreams. I gave up on ever hearing his angelic voice saying my name in my waking world, and lived with its echo in my sleep. So be it. I was much better off without him.

My dad and Uncle Mark had found another car for me, this one made of steel, not tin like my last one. I gave back my Aunt's car and happily got used to my new one which was a huge car, a safe car. One that I quickly gave the name of 'tank'. I was sure it could take a huge hit before even getting a small dent in it. Besides, there were so many dents in it already, one more wouldn't show. Let the car-slayer come at me now. I would surely leave more than a scratch on his all-American, beefed-up truck!

On Friday, the week before Thanksgiving, it began to snow just as I got to school. I wasn't looking forward to driving back down that twisting road when school let out. Later in the morning it started snowing harder, accumulating quickly. The buzz in school was there was going to be a surprise blizzard. A blizzard did not sound like very much fun since the tank handled more like a boat than a car. The idea of swaying and sliding down the mountain on a slick layer of fresh snow didn't appeal to me.

Just past one in the afternoon school was canceled for the rest of the day. There was a mass exodus out of the school and into the parking lot. Talk was the storm was just firing up with a lot more snow was coming. Apprehension gnawed at the pit of my stomach. Proof for me came as I surveyed the parking lot which was quickly turning into a messy skating rink for vehicles and pedestrians alike. Kids were laughing, snowballs flying from all directions, and more cars sliding around corners. Everyone was either learning, or relearning how to drive in the already thick coating of slippery white stuff.

Patiently I waited in my tank of a car, allowing the very slow to warm beast time to get used to the idea that I was going to actually drive it. It seemed to balk unhappily. I could empathize entirely rubbing my hands together trying to warm my chilled fingers. I was in no hurry.

By the time the tank had warmed up most of the cars had slid or skidded out of the lot. With only a few vehicles left I cautiously nosed my tank out of the parking lot. Turning out of the parking lot, it was as bad as I had feared, the roads were treacherously slippery. Huge wet snowflakes plopped with a semi-frozen splatter on my windshield faster than my wipers could slush them off, piling up on the sides of my window in jagged ridges. The defroster kept about a six inch round hole of vision clear and that was on blasting defrost. This was as good as it was going to get. I considered waiting a bit, to see if I could follow a plow down but if I did that, as fast as the snow was now falling, they would find me after the snow melted or when a plow ran into the my back end. That would be my luck.