~38~ Right Thru Me
(Zac’s POV)
“Where are we going?” Angel asked in the car after school. Ever since second period, we’ve been perfect. There were no more fighting and she was keeping her reluctance to herself.
“You’ll see,” I laughed.
“Can I go home first?” she asked.
“For what?”
“I sort of have to tell my parents that I’m gonna be out,” she giggled.
“I already did,” I smirked.
“Wait; what?” she asked.
“This morning while you were getting ready, I told them,” I clarified. It was sort of awkward.
“Zachariah, why are you here?” Mrs. Hallow asked.
“I’m picking up your daughter for school,” I answered.
“Why?” she asked, cautiously. I sighed and put my hands together as I looked up at her.
“Well, actually—”
“Zachariah Tyler,” a new voice commented. I saw Mr. Hallow start to walk out from around the corner.
“Morning,” I said. I looked back to Angel’s mom. “What I was saying was—”
“Did Lulu sleep over or something?” I heard Mr. Hallow whisper to Mrs. Hallow. I sort of smirked.
“I’m here for Angel, not Lulu,” I notified.
“Oh?” Mr. Hallow said, raising an eyebrow. I stood up from the couch.
“I know that you haven’t exactly heard the best stories about me, but…I really like your daughter,” I expressed. “I’m not gonna play games with and I’ll treat her better than, both, Brian and Joey if you just give me permission to—”
“Alright,” he stated. What?
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“Alright. You have full permission,” he allowed. I saw Mrs. Hallow nodding as well.
“Think of it as a sense of gratitude for saving her life in that fire last year,” she said. I sighed.
“I don’t want her because of that…I want her for her and I want your permission based off what you think of me and Angel being together,” I stated, seriously. Well of course I was serious. This was about Angel and me. They started to nod slower.
“Over the years, all I’ve heard about you is that you’re a jerk or a player or some other words that my wife and I have chose not to use in front of you due to your self esteem—but anyways, with all of that negativity…” he trailed, making me wish I should’ve taken their acceptance earlier. “I think you’d be perfect for our daughter.”
I had closed my eyes for a second, washed over with relief.
“So is that why you’re all dressed up?” Mrs. Hallow asked. I smirked.
“No,” I answered, containing my laugh.
“Then why—”
“Oh, God,” Angel expressed from the top of the stairs. I looked up to see her wearing her RIU shirt and my track pants that were obviously too long for her. Her hair flowed down her shoulders without the frizz from bed hair and she didn’t look as groggy. Either way, in either presentation, she was gorgeous. “Mom! Dad! Why are you talking to him?! I’m so sorry.”
I smiled at her apology because she thought they were bugging me or maybe grilling me. I just played along.
“Ready to go?” I asked her. She sighed once and then nodded. I took her back pack in one hand and then grabbed her waist with the other only to pull her closer to me and kiss her cheek before departing.
“Can I ask you something?” Angel inquired. I raised our combined hands and kissed her fingers.
“Anything,” I allowed.
“Why exactly do I feel like I’m about to go running while you look like some model?” she asked nervously.
“Because you’re wearing track pants,” I answered, bluntly. She gave me a look.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously,” I mocked. She lightly hit my shoulder and I laughed.
“Because I wanted you to wear my clothes and your favorite shirt,” I shrugged. And because I wanted to prove to you and tell you that you looked gorgeous, no matter what you wore, but of course I won’t tell you that.
“While you’re all dressed up?”
I shrugged once more.
“Why should you have to dress up with me? You’re not the one graduating—I’m hardly the one graduating. I just have all my credits,” I started. “And plus, Vanessa made me promise I would.”
“Mh-hmm…” she hummed. I scoffed playfully.
“Are you doubting me?” I asked as if offended.
“Maybe,” she answered, but with the corner of my eye, I could tell that she was hiding her grin the best she could…which wasn’t good enough because I could detect it. “Just a little bit.”
“And why’s that?”
“Cuz you’re Zac Tyler,” she said as if I was some action movie character that deserved a flashy title. “You look all hot and sophisticated for your last day of high school…”
“And?” I asked.
“And then there’s me…the confused sidekick slacking off as if you leaving means absolutely nothing,” she finished.
“Well it shouldn’t,” I said, slightly frowning. She sighed and then slouched back into the seat. “What?”
“Nothing,” she lied. Fine. “So where are we going?”
“Out,” I answered. “But not for long…”
“Why’s that?” she asked as if she want a longer time with me.
“My flight leaves at eleven,” I informed, pushing the hair out of my face.
“Oh…”
Of all this time, I avoided talking about leaving. I knew that she liked me, but I also knew that she’d forget about me once I was gone. She didn’t even mention it. By her ‘oh’, she muttered “You were serious…” under her breath as if she didn’t believe me in the first place. It wasn’t a conversation I wanted with her right now, so I wouldn’t make it one.
“We’re going to the beach,” I said.
“The beach?” she asked.
“The beach,” I assured with a grin.
(Angel’s POV)
“Don’t,” I told him.
“Stop being a wimp,” Zac scoffed towards me as our hands were the only thing pulling him back from stepping foot into the sea. He had drove me an hour out of town to swim at the coast.
“I’m not being a wimp,” I denied. I was being a protective girlfriend and I had no right to do that. “You’re gonna get hurt.”
“I’m really not,” he said. Sure, you’re not. I bit my lip and looked down to our hands. He had all the right to just pull away.
“Then go,” I dared. “If you wanna go swimming, then go.”
His eyes softened with his facial features. He stepped away from the damp sand and then dropped my hand only to walk past me. Great…I turned to face him and saw that he was sitting on the beach towel, sighing. I walked over and sat with my knees in the sand next to him.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized.
“Don’t be,” he said, looking away from me as he hugged his knees into his chest. He was disappointed or maybe saddened by me. I hated to see him like that. Especially because of me. “Back in December, you told me that sometimes you forgot about me being…me.”
“So what?” it was true…back then.
“Now you act like you’re scared of me any of the few times I raise my voice at you and act like its life threatening for me to be in water,” he described. I opened my mouth to deny being afraid of him, but then stopped myself before I could the lie. “I liked it better back then before you knew about me or Joey or Brian.”
“Why?”
“Because you wouldn’t be acting like you are and there’d be nothing to worry about—”
“Maybe there’d be nothing to worry about if we hadn’t shunned each other for the whole year,” I hissed, but as soon as I did, I clamped a hand over my mouth because I didn’t mean to say it. I looked to him for a reaction that I clearly deserved. All he did was nod slowly.
“And you know why I did?”
Now that I had said it and he hadn’t expressed an angry response, I felt justified.
“Because you were being an a$$,” I expressed, thinking back to the hateful things he had said to me. One of them being how he regretted saving me from that fire. If he hadn’t have gotten his powers, I wouldn’t be here right now. So he was right, he’d have nothing to worry about.
“You’re wrong,” he said in a mutter. He looked over to me with the sunset reflecting off of his face.
“I said all of that sh!t to you because I wanted you to stay away from me,” he informed. What? “That way…I couldn’t hurt you.”
“Hurt me?” I asked, repulsed. “What did you think—”
“It gave me time to control my powers,” he interrupted. “And now I can’t hurt you. But of course if I never had the powers in the beginning, I wouldn’t have had to say that to you.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” I agreed. “Because if you didn’t have them, I wouldn’t even be alive because you wouldn’t have saved me from that fire.”
There was a silence.
I read his eyes and they had regret written all over them.
“So what now? You wanna take back what you said you didn’t want your powers?” I asked, angered now.
“No,” he answered. Excuse me? That was like a slap in the face. “I didn’t need my powers to save you from that fire. If I didn’t have them, I would’ve still done it. All these stupid powers did was make sure I could live and walk again.”
Now it was me who felt guilty at every honest word he spoke.
“It doesn’t matter what the Drug did, but it didn’t alter my integrity,” he preached. “I’m still as human as ever. Meaning, I get hurt like any other human and…and if I wanna go swimming, then godd4mit, that’s what I’m gonna do.”
“Fine,” I breathed to myself.
“But I won’t,” he contradicted. I looked up at him, completely confused. “Because you don’t want me to.”
I sighed, not saying anything. He’d do what he wanted to. I had no say in that…no matter how stupid or contradicting it was.
He started to play at my fingers and then finally, when I grabbed his hand, he pulled away. He stood up and reached over to his perfectly planned picnic basket. He took out picnic foods like sandwiches and Pringles and then pulled out a bottle of wine.
“You can’t drink that,” I told him. “You have a flight at eleven and you have to drive me back.”
“Then drink it for me,” he winked and then started pouring two glasses. I held the filled glass in my hand and remembered the last time I drank. He downed his serving and I set mine down on the lid of the picnic basket. He gave me a questionable look.
“I can’t drink,” I said. “Remember last time?”
“Yeah, but apparently you don’t,” he replied humorously as he took the glass off of the lid and drank it himself. “Nothing’s gonna happen. It’s just one bottle.”
“Still,” I stated. I didn’t wanna drink again. “It’ll mess up everything.”
“Oh?”
“You could end up saying something you don’t mean…or do something you don’t mean…” I trailed as he moved closer and closer to me. “And that can screw everything up sometimes.”
“Let me tell you something that you told me once,” he whispered, inches away from my face. “Drunk men tell no tales.”
I said that? Ugh.
“So since I won’t drink, I’ll just be honest and do you the sh!t that I’d tell you if I was drunk,” he added. He put his hands on the outside of my waist on the sand and started to lean in. “I think you’re a hot head…I think you’re extremely gorgeous…I think—”
“I think those two glasses were enough for you,” I reasoned awkwardly, attempting to escape from him, but then his hands went on my waist and he held me there. He searched my face with his sexy changing eyes as I looked at his lips that kept whispering compliments to me. Wait. Did I just say sexy eyes? UGH. Snap out of it! No; don’t. Yes! H3ll no…
“I think you’re cute when you’re drunk and vulnerable,” he started again. Hmm…should I be offended? “I think that you’re falling for me every time I say something…I think you wanna kiss me…”
You got that right…
“I think you’re feeling uncomfortable,” he said once he was close enough to make me close my eyes in bliss as he was centimeters away from kissing me. I opened my eyes. Who said anything about that!? He leaned away and I realized that I wanted to pull him back and kiss him. I reached around him for the wine bottle and then took a long drink from it.
“Now it’s my turn,” I said, already feeling the burning alcohol go down my throat. Now was the time to tell him everything. “I think you’re right about everything you thought about me…I think that you don’t give yourself enough credit for who you are…”
Between each, I was taking more and longer drinks of the wine and felt the bottle get lighter and lighter in weight.
“I think you’re an a$$ for treating me better than Lulu, but maybe that’s why I think I’m falling for you faster than anyone else,” I expressed. Now I was just on the brink of getting drunk. “I don’t know why though, I mean you’re dangerous and I don’t deserve someone who saved my life twice, but I still can’t help liking you—I mean why else would I be in remorse and fear this whole year while you avoided me—”
“Angel, I think you’ve had enough—”
“Oh, if I had, can you video tape me when I’m drunk so I don’t have to depend on your for an explanation of what happened?” I asked in a slurred speech. I was asking to get drunk right now, only so I wouldn’t have to suffer through his reaction. “Cuz I really don’t wanna have to write another letter confessing every ounce of emotion that I’ve ever had for someone get completely burned to ashes.”
“Stop,” Zac commanded, taking to bottle from me. “I didn’t want you to get drunk tonight, Angel. I really didn’t.”
I already knew that I wasn’t drunk. Sure, there was some alcohol, but less than half a bottle’s worth. If I acted like I was, he wouldn’t be completely repulsed by me…hopefully. But either way, I had enough wine to make me decide to speak the whole truth to him and say what was on my mind.
“Why? So I can’t sugar coat everything and say how you’re perfect for me?” I teased. His face remained composed as if he was dealing for an annoying child that was too much to handle. I wrapped my arms around his neck and he looked away from me, as if more disappointed than earlier. “Or maybe in hope that I’d spill the fact that I nearly told you I was falling hard for you in that stupid letter?”
“No. I didn’t want that,” he spoke.
“Good,” I said seriously now. I cupped his chin and made him look at me. “I’m not drunk.”
“Yes you are—”
“I’m not,” I said completely sober. Apparently I wasn’t an easy drunk as I thought. “So believe me when I think you’re a gentleman...and brave…and fearless…sort of cheesy…but perfect for me.”
His blue eyes connected to mine. It was the color of a brilliant blue ocean, which wasn’t the only weakness that was shown. Love. I saw love in his eyes. Love that drew me into him. I was immediately hooked. But then he blinked and they changed from a cool, collected ocean into a tsunami, tossing green palm trees across his irises.
“Let’s go,” he said firmly before packing up our picnic and grabbing my hand to tow me off. All this time I thought that’s what he wanted—my acceptance to loving him or at least my confession…but I guess I was wrong.
A/N: Dear readers, if you're not on Quizilla then I don't expect you to know this, but there WILL be a sequel for this story that will be posted and such after the 46 chapter of this story (last chapter). It wil be called "Torching of the waves, Tsunamis of flames" yeah...bye :D