It all started in Ceiba (on hold)

Chapter 2

I used to live in the town of Ceiba. A small coastal town in the east side of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is already a small island that doesn't even appear in some maps. But Ceiba is an even smaller town since the US government took a big chunk out of it. There's the downtown area where the few businesses remaining are and the schools. My house was located in this area. Then you can go to the rural side that connects to Naguabo, a complete rural town.

You could go and spend some time in its beautiful beaches or go and explore because there was so many to discover. My favorite place was the Charco Frio area where some important events would happen in this story. I saw the red lights once from there.

Ceiba is a town where everyone knows each other even if you don't know them. I could go into the town pharmacy during my lunch break and my father would be calling me to ask me why I was there. It was a town where you graduated with the same people you started in Kindergarten. A few new people would show up through the years but they will leave sooner or later. Ceiba was a town that you run away from not go running to.

Even the government didn't give more attention to the town. The world didn't care or knew that their fate would rest on the events that were going to take place in that small town that no one knew about.

When I went to college and people, from the island, would ask me where I was from, I would tell them to get this reaction; "Where?" with a confusion in their eyes. "Is next to Fajardo." and that's when you saw their recognition. Ceiba didn't matter.

It did matter to them. It mattered to me.

It mattered to Markus.

"You know the new guy?" Alie asked me as everyone was surrounding him and Mrs. Rivera had lost control of the classroom. No math class that day.

"Not really," I said knowing that it was the truth. "I met him a long time ago during a trip I took with my dad. I don't even remember his name."

"He's hot!" Amilda screamed. She didn't care if he heard her. In any case she wanted to be heard. She thrived for the attention. "You're still into Christopher, right?" she asked.

"Amilda!" Alie screamed as she hit her on the arm. "Be more sensitive towards Ana, please."

"Oh, come on!" she answered. "I want that guy all for myself. Ana can get back with Christopher."

"By the way you saw how he got up when the new guy came in?" Alicia pointed out.

"He's probably jealous that the guy knows Ana," Alie said. "Now he knows that he can truly loose her."

They were having a full-blown conversation but I couldn't listen to them. It was too much to handle. I had saw the exact moment when the guy from my dreams had walked straight up to me and Christopher looked at him like if he had seen the devil. It wasn't jealousy it was fear. He had run. I had felt the energy shift too. As soon as I looked straight into his eyes I was done. Christopher a memory from long time ago. My hands when again to my lips feeling the kiss from the night before in my dreams. Had it really been a dream? It still felt too real to be one.

I also knew that Amilda wouldn't care if we had already kissed. She was going to try her hardest to get his attention. And no one could win against her. A few of our classmates had tried and no one had won against her yet. Now that I think about it is not even her fault. The guys could have shut her down and let them know they had girlfriends but they didn't. And Amilda didn't care.

She never went after Christopher. To her he was a loser and a nerd. Nothing important. But him! He was different. So confident and mysterious. Like he had a secret.

The bell rang and Amilda got up running. She took his arm. "Now we have Spanish class. Let me show you the way." They passed by me while Amilda wink at us. He looked back at me and whisper "Help me". I wasn't going to play Amilda's game. He had to stand up to her.

Mrs. Cruz didn't stand for all the attention he was getting and quickly shut it down. She was talking about the theme of destiny in Gabriel Garcia Marquez Cronica de una Muerte Anunciada. "If you ever truly love me listen to me now." he whispered in my ear.

"This is why you can't be near him, Ana." I said to myself. When he talked to me it was last year again. How nervous I would get every time he would touch my hand. How every time he kissed me my heart wanted to burst out of me and run by itself. And for some reason all of this love had to be in secret. A love I couldn't explain.

"What do you want, Christopher?" I said not letting him know of all the feelings I was wrestling with. I didn't need to turn around to see him pushed his hair back out of his eyes. He had long hair in the front but shorter in the back. Rich brown hair. His skin soft like your favorite blanket to use at night.

"Please, don't listen to a word he says," he starts, "He is going to say a lot of them and they're going to sound nice. He won't mean any of them. At the end you're going to end up hurt."

This time I turned around and look at him. In reality I want to yell at him for hurting me when we broke up. "I'm a big girl. I can handle it."

"You don't understand Ana." he says. For a moment I want to believe him since I hear a desperation in him, I haven't heard before. "You have to trust me and not him. A lot of people will die if you trust him."

"I'm sorry," I say. "I will make my own decisions."

"If you trust him you will die again, Ana!" he screams this time standing up in front of me and the whole class. "I cannot see you die again!"

For the second time that day he ran out of the classroom and each person is looking at me.

"I think he forgot his medication this morning." Amilda says and the whole classroom laughs except me. I have never seen him this way. What did he meant when he said me dying again? I wanted answers but I had to wait for them.

"I don't know why people think Ceiba I boring." Alie said to me knowing I needed a distraction. "People now are coming back from the dead." and we both laugh. But as Mrs. Cruz started class again and talked about how some events are foreseen in the end no one tries to stop them; I knew there was more to what Christopher was saying.