Zodiac High-The Series

18

Taurus

Hands. Strong, large, steady hands. Smooth, unusually smooth hands. Hands on my waist. Hands pulling me close. Hands cradling my cheeks. Hands I could only feel. Whose hands were they? Why did I dream of them every night? 

And why did I wake up every morning, craving those warm, warm hands? Where did they go when I was awake and why did they only come when I was asleep? 

"Taurus? Taurus?" I looked up with a start, surprised to find Virgo waving a book in my face. "C'mon, start reading-you don't want to fail, do you?" I nodded, picking up the book to read it. Even though I was taking notes on the verse used in the novel, my mind subconsciously went back to those hands. Again and again. Were they a boy's or a girl's? 

Were they nothing more than a fragment of my imagination?

I knew that was impossible-studies have shown that you cannot experience new things in a dream or see new people. My guess is that applies to hands as well. Maybe those hands were just somewhere, waiting...

"Hey, what's gotten into you? Get up, the class has left." Virgo nudged me. "Oh, sorry, just thinking..." She chuckled. "You do an awful lot of that, you know?" I laughed. "Oh... I never realised..." She grinned. Really it was scary how much this girl reminded me of Libra as a middle schooler. Same attitude, same smile, same laugh. Heck, even the same clothes. I wondered if Virgo was trying to copy Libra. I knew how obsessed my classmate was with perfection, and Libra was the embodiment of perfection.

She had it all: the looks, the smarts, the popularity. She had guys swooning left, right and center. Maybe the one with the hands was lost somewhere in that crowd of adoring fans, his hands forever belonging to Libra. Well, it made perfect sense for Virgo to want to be like Libra.

I wondered if anyone would ever want to be like me. Sure, I was decent looking. My grades were good enough. And whenever I went to a party, at least one guy hit on me. Loads of guys had even asked me out. Sweet, cute, respectful boys. But my answer was always no. I only wanted the one with the hands. The one I had met, but just couldn't place....

"Wow. This is like your thing, huh?" Virgo asked. I frowned, confused. "The trailing off, I mean." I laughed. "I suppose." Virgo shot me a sideways smile. Just like Libra. "Hey, there's a game on right now. You wanna come watch it?" I nodded. "Sure, why not?" 

.....

"And the ball is in Leo's hands..." I looked down from the bleachers, watching as the quarterback easily pushed the others aside, almost walking to the line. He was so calm, so assured. Unlike the other dirt-covered players, Leo didn't have a single speck of dust on him, his hands untarnished. Leo. His hands were so beautiful. God, they reminded me of those hands. 

Wait....

"And Leo has scored yet another try!" Cheers erupted from the audience. The cheerleaders raised their pom-poms, the one at the front cartwheeling the length of the oval without stopping. Her brown-black hair played with the wind, the sparkle in those eyes visible from far away. Libra. All of a sudden, all the attention was on her. The stadium cameras turned toward her face, as if she was the school star. Well, she was. The football players crowded around her, grinning and showing off their tricks, looks, bodies-all in the hopes to impress the impossible-to-impress Libra. 

Libra just smiled, laughed airily, played with the ends of her hair. She made it look so effortless, being stone-cold. I had a feeling nobody saw her that way but me. But I knew I was right. Libra had no heart. She toyed with people's emotions, using them for her own pleasure until they bored her. Then she dropped them just as fast as she took them. She was really and truly evil. And I was the only one who knew. 

But was she really evil? What if the hands in my dreams were hers? Would I think she was evil then? I never thought of her as evil in middle school or in freshman year. Truth be told, she didn't seem mean in even the slightest. But I knew she was. She was just as sneaky, manipulative and rude as her boyfriend, Scorpio. Honestly, they deserved each other. 

But maybe... just maybe... Maybe I was wrong about her. I knew that the one with those hands was kind and caring. I just knew. And if it was her... well, it would make a big impact on what I thought of her.

"And it's a win to the home team!" 

Cheers. Claps. And more cartwheels from Libra. She smiled, positively sparkling, when the football team lifted her up onto their shoulders, as if she was the trophy or the prize for winning. And she stayed calm, perched on top of their shoulders. It's almost as if she is a trophy. The school trophy.

And just as I'm looking at Libra, I see those hands. The ones in my dreams. I could spot them from a mile away. They're not Libra's smooth, well-structured hands, with the long, nimble fingers that she's broken so many times thanks to Taekwondo, but the fingers that still keep their dainty, soft form. 

No, they're a football player's. One who hasn't gotten his hands dirty. One without a speck of dirt on him. 

Leo.