Page 3 of Ominous: Part 1
At night, when I’m alone under my covers, I’ve imagined his fingers inside of me, instead of my own. I devour porn and lately, I’ve imagined him devouring me.
I feel my heart racing, paranoid he could impossibly read my mind.
His lips are tilted upward into a small smile, and it’s really the first thing anyone notices about him from this distance. Not his black hair, or his tall frame, not even the biceps beneath the sleeves of his shirt, how his clothes seem to fitjust right;it’s his mouth.
“Hi,” he says. The first word he’s ever spoken to me. I wonder if he knows I sit three rows back in first period. Does he have any idea we have a class together? As many cumulative minutes as I’ve spent watching his ringed fingers curl around a pen, doodling in the margins of his notebook things I can’t quite see, I’m hoping the answer is no.
He takes a few steps toward me, standing at the outer edge of the aisle and he snaps the book closed in his hand as he moves, slipping his other into his pocket.
“I’m sorry,” he starts, not meaning it. “Were you leaving?” His voice is quiet. Even in class, in spirited discussions about the subjunctive, vowel changes, therealmeaning of texts like theVulgate—allegory or literal? Are you a Christian or a hell-bound Atheist?—his volume is always low. Initially, I thought he was shy.
He’s not.
I also thought he was born in another country, grew up there too. His words arealmostaccented. It’s hard to explain the musical lilt to his voice, but it is certainly not Southern, the common dialect spread throughout Raleigh.
I quickly gathered the pitch of his voice isn’t from any sort of timidity on his part, the way he garners adoration which he greets with charm wherever he goes. I personally think his voice is a way to draw people in so they step closer to him. It’s almost as if I can hear it in his head, even right now, when he’s trying to convince me to stay for whatever reason.
Come closer,he says.I don’t bite.
My face heats the longer I don’t answer him, a nervous habit, and sweat blooms beneath my arms. It’s a curse to feel inwardly assertive, but every external tick of the trait I don’t check off.
Still, I refuse to fiddle with my clothing. I resist the urge to pull at my cropped, black sweater or run my sweaty palms down the smooth faux leather of my high-waisted leggings. Besides, this outfit looks good on me. It shows off my ass and the smallest part of my waist. It’s why I changed into it from Trafalgar’s uniform after class.
My nerves, however, aren’t settled with my own confidence.
While his clothes aren’t more formal, I’ve quickly learned that doesn’t mean much here. It’s something I can’t explain. A general refined and well-kept air I don’t possess. As good as I want to feel in clothes like these, he could radiate an on-top-of-the-world confidence in a tarp.
I clench my hands into fists as I glance at the chipped black and silver of my nails and want to bury them into the flesh of my palms. I was in a hurry this morning from Sebastian taking up too much time in the bathroom and couldn’t repaint them. Then there’s a bandage wrapped just below the cuticle of my middle finger. Paper cut, on my sigil notebook.
Butthisboy lacks the dirty edges that come with Section 8 apartments, from my not-so-distant past. I assume he’s got a mansion, no grants or need-based financial aid.
I don’t hold it against him. We don’t choose who we’re born to, but I have always been afflicted with the desire formore.
“Soon,” I tell him in answer to his question. Sweat pricks at the base of my neck as these thoughts race in my head. My hair is braided in a crown on my head, courtesy of my new neighbor, done last night while Mom was working.
Even still, up off my neck, it’s so thick and heavy I feel dampness gather at the strands just above my spine.Why am I always so hot?
My pulse thuds too fast in my chest as this boy’s eyes roam over my face, the polite smile still pulling at his mouth. I have tachycardia when I stand up too fast, and sometimes when I’m anxious, or nervous. A result of something minorly wrong with the valves in my heart, or maybe part of my anxiety. It’s nothing currently life-threatening. I have beta blockers to slow my pulse if I need them, and interestingly, they’re banned in archery, shooting, golf, and an entire list of sports I care nothing about. Swimming is the only thing I enjoy. It calms my nerves, but now we’ve moved from Wilmington, and I don’t have access to the ocean.
I feel sweat slick beneath the dozens of black bands along my wrist, similar to the ones I earned as a kid when Mom put me in swim lessons. Only now, they’ve got nothing to do with swimming.
He doesn’t know any of that.
I take a deep breath, slowly straightening, tipping my chin up to meet this boy’s gaze.
He takes another step closer, the book held by his side, and I notice the way his shirt, starkly clean, is rumpled just above the waistband of his pants, a tiny sliver still tucked into them. Enough for me to see the outline of his abs, and something darker, too. A birthmark, maybe? A tattoo?
We wear uniforms during school hours, and I’ve never seen more than his arms and the strong column of his throat.
“How soon?” he asks me, tilting his head, his smile still affixed to his swollen lips.
Why are you talking to me?“I’m not sure.”
“Well, do you mind if I sit with you?” he asks, indicating the cluster of tables by the back wall made of white bricks. I catch the gleam of rings on his fingers, silver and matte black, and I follow the gesture he makes with his hand, the one holding the book. The chandeliers hanging from the high ceilings cast everything in that orange glow, and almost nothing is its true color. Even the white wall looks muted, nicer somehow than it does when light streams in from the floor-to-ceiling windows on the side walls in daylight hours.
The pounding of my pulse grows louder in my ears.
“No,” I tell him, because it’s polite and he can sit where he wants. I’ll be leaving soon regardless. Then, not wanting to endure the awkwardness that might come from him walking beside me the entire way to the tables, I turn my back to him—which feels dangerous somehow—and head to the table alone.
