"In the Woods"
Despair threatens to consume my being. One tear streams down my face leaving a flaming hot path in its wake. This will be the only goddamn tear that he gets from me.
I’m leaving the dazzling lights of the Big Apple and exchanging them for the fuzzy ones on the Garbage Isle I call home. I try hard not to go home this late. Thanks to a fear given to me in childhood I know it’s not safe. Yet I miss the beauty of the Upper Bay at night. The moon shines on the sapphire colored water making it glisten with delight. The clouds hang so low that they look like they will fall with a feather’s weight. The gentle wind blowing across my body touches me like a gentle lover. A gentle lover… It’s more like a frantic storm. The wind that touches me freezes me all the way down to my soul. I shiver.
Another tear slips from my eye. It burns with a heat so strong that I feel as if it can take off the very flesh it touches.
“Why me?” I ask.
To my surprise, I hear a response.
“Because you look frozen,” says a male voice.
I whip around quickly.
“Oh… Uh… Sorry, I didn’t hear what you said.”
“Oh, I had asked if you wanted to wear my jacket. It is unusually chilly tonight.”
“If you’re asking me if I want to go back to your place, then no, I’m not interested.”
His deep bass chuckle sends chills up my spine.
“No, but I’ll take that as a compliment. You look very cold and I thought, ‘Hmm, tonight I am going to be a gentleman and give her my coat.’”
“Bullshit.”
He laughs again, but this time it brings chills to more intimate parts of me. He is pure trouble. I don’t know if I can handle this so soon after.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing, it’s none of your business anyway.”
“I was just saying it because despair reaches your eyes. It’s unbecoming for your chestnut colored eyes to be marred with such pain.”
“Fine.”
“What?”
“Give me your jacket. Anything to get rid of that ‘oh-so-holier-than-thou’ attitude.”
“Ouch.”
The gentle curve of his lips that he gives me in response set a flame inside me that threatens to consume me at that moment. His eyes… There is something strange about his eyes. They are as dark as the sea on a stormy day. It is as if something was tugging at me, beckoning me to come. I try pushing away from it, but it holds me in a steady vice.
He gently places his raven colored leather jacket on my shoulders. I feel the borrowed heat radiating from the jacket, his heat. The jacket is warming me down to my very core. It is thawing this crystallized heart that barely beats. I no longer feel the ache of the break-up; rather I now feel the pain of my heart melting. It is the most hideous sensation I have ever felt in my life, yet the most familiar.
“Thanks,” I said.
“No worries.”
I take the time out to look at him, to really look at him. Hopefully he doesn’t catch me. The moonlight seems to be playing a game of tag on the tops of his onyx loafers. His dark jeans are pressed, but has rips methodically placed in it as if a designer said, “Here, I will place this space and it will be good.” If it is made to tempt women to touch those little bear patches of skin, then it is working. I suppress the aching desire in my hand. On top of it all, I could see his toned muscles through the shirt that looks poured onto his skin. I suppress a sigh.
Then I reach his face… His features… He looks like one of those famous sculptures that people just always seem to admire. The lengthy featherlike eyelashes, which dance like butterflies when he blinks, counteract the abrupt changes in his facial structure. Man can be both beautiful and handsome at the time.
His eyes never left my own. He sees my intrigue and maybe even more. The look in his eyes makes my heart speed double time, my palms become sweaty, and my mouth begins to water. There is one thing that I know when I am looking into his disrobing stare; I want him. This is not supposed to happen. Not so soon. Can’t the universe let me mourn just a little?
Then something unexpected happens, the look in his eyes change. They turn fierce. For a moment, I am taken aback and that’s all he needs. He comes towards me abruptly. His lips are so close to mine, I can feel his hot gentle breath. His lips remain hovering there… just hovering; tempting me beyond my comprehension. All of my breath escapes in one rushing torrent. My legs feel like Jell-O. I close my eyes waiting in anticipation for the inevitable.
“You can have your revenge,” he says.
“What?” I ask stuck in a hazy world that is no longer my own.
Another unexpected surprise, he begins to chuckle. He steps back and begins his sacrosanct laughter.
“I can offer you something no one else can offer. Only if you join me.”
“Join you?”
“In our mission to destroy the others who also walk the night.”
“What?”
“All will be revealed in time. All you must do is say, yes. Then the power you always wished for will be yours. Do not look so skeptical. Fate brought us here. Now we must finish the job.”
“I don’t know about…”
“I know you, Katharina. I know you grew up with no father and an abusive mother. I know that to escape it you would run into the woods. Even then you weren’t safe. When you came of age, you left for this city. Yet it followed you and continues to haunt you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“Do you that to be true? Look at me and remember…”
Swimming in his eyes, I begin to see the shifting of colors from blue to purple and then to green. It settles at emerald green and that’s when everything becomes clear. I remember those nights in the forest. I cannot believe I forgot. All those nights filled with tales of the known and unknown; lost was the knowledge gained from those nights. It was not a few, but many… I forgot who I am, what I was.
“Do you remember?”
“Yes… Everything.”
“Will you help us as you did before?”
“I will try, but there is one stop I must make.”
“For what?”
“Revenge.”
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If you made it to this part, it means you read it. Yay!!! I hope you liked it. It's just a teaser for now. Once again suggestions or comments are welcome. Thanks!
