The Understorey (The Leaving #1)

Jules’ voice woke me from my catatonic state. I threw myself down onto the floor next to both women and helped them with the spill, purposefully reaching for the same paper Jules was in order to graze her hand. Little did I know the literal and figurative cataclysmic results of such a touch.

A potent, electric shock raced through us and we yanked our hands away. Our touch sent a warm blaze of sparkling flash from our connected fingertips, spreading a tangled mesh of lit pressure that briefly painted the walls around us. It lasted only a second yet permanently altered me. Something huge and very unexplainable had definitely just happened.

When all the worksheets were gathered, Jules and I straightened our backs but settled softly into our own bodies once our eyes met again, the anxiety eroding from our chests with each second that passed. We stayed knelt on the floor just staring at one another like idiots. We were dumbstruck by the physical reaction of our very physical touch and bewildered beyond belief at the lack of reaction from our classmates. What were we supposed to do though? Ask everyone why their lack of response was about as dull as watching bread bake?

The entire class was already seated and Mrs. Kitt had to clear her throat to ask us if we would mind sitting in our own desks. That was the rest of the class’ cue to laugh hysterically. I playfully slapped the back of my buddy Matthew Tanen’s head as I walked by. We chose desks next to one another, but kept our gazes toward Mrs. Kitt to avoid anymore suspicion. If Jules’ thoughts had been anything like mine, she had to have been scared out of her mind.

When class was over, I gathered all of my things and waited for Jules to gather hers, assuming she and I were going to talk, but to my surprise she bolted for the door instead.

I chased after her in the hallway.

“Jules!”

“My name isn’t Jules. It’s Julia,” she said over her shoulder, picking up her pace.

“Julia, stop running will ya’?”

“Why?”

“Because it’s hard to run and talk.”

“Well, you see, I don’t want to talk. I guess that means I can run all I want.”

“Wait a minute!”

I pulled her body short by grabbing her arm. The lightning bolt cracked and whipped its way around us, darkening the hall, only jagged shards of electricity illuminating our faces. I pulled my hand away in a slight daze and watched as she fled toward the lunchroom. Crap.

I walked into the cafeteria, nodding to those who said hello, never allowing my stare to stray far from Jules. I sat next to Jesse and the other varsity seniors on the football team. To my dread, five of the cheerleaders, including Taylor Williams, shared the line of tables we all sat at but I did my best to ignore them.

Conversations erupted around me but I was in my own world. Jules sat on her own. She looked relaxed but I knew it had to be an act. Her legs rested on the chair next to her and she was reading a book. A tiny, rapid bounce in her right knee exposed her true feelings.

Anxiety. That’s what it is. Jules shakes her head. Are you sure about that? No, not anxiety, she hates you dude. Can you blame her? You never bothered talking to her before. Why now?........Wait, wait, wait. Whatever that was in the hallway and classroom definitely meant something. Stupid, she’s just scared, frightened is all. It’s an amazing thing, our shared zap.

Be honest with yourself, you’re not really that alarmed by it. It feels natural. Maybe she’s concerned about what it means. Yeah, shaken up. It’s got nothing to do with you personally.

Did you see how quickly she ran away from you though? She genuinely can’t stand you man. Every chance she got she pushed you away. She hates you. I sighed out loud. I need her not to hate me. What can I do to get her not to hate me? How can I get her to stop detesting me and start listening to me? How should I approach her?

Jules looked up and caught me staring. I smiled crookedly and raised a weary hand but she rolled her eyes at me and returned to her book. She shifted her chair so her back would face me. Wait a minute. Wait just a gosh darn minute! What is wrong with you dummy? Why do you need her not to hate you? Why should you care?........Yeah. I don’t care! She doesn’t want to talk to me? I don’t want to talk to her!

I folded my arms in resolution. She leaned her elbow on the table beside her and started looping a strand of hair through her finger. She sighed and sat up straight. Her hair slid across the top of the chair and fell across her lovely back............I really, really need to talk to her.

I confirmed it was all an act when I took note that she hadn’t turned a page in ten minutes. I would have given anything to know what she was thinking. I readied myself for the rebuff I’d get when I walked over to her in three, two, one......

“Dude? Where are you?” Jesse asked, wrapping his knuckles on my head.

I tossed my head back from his reach and looked his way. He was really starting to annoy me lately. Maybe I was spending too much time with him. The difference between medicine and poison is in the dose right?

“I’m here,” I said.

“No, you’re not. What is up with you?”

“Nothing,” I said, turning my stare back to where Jules sat.

She wasn’t there and I got up in a panic.

“Uh, see you later. I gotta’ go.”

“What? What’s up with you!” He shouted as I escaped the cafeteria.

I pounced through the double doors, peering down the center hall, the left, and then the right. She was gone. My shoulders slumped at the loss. Until tomorrow Julia Jacobs.

The following day I found out that I shared neither my first nor second class with Jules. I wanted to see her so badly that I was seriously considering ditching third period of the second day of school just to search for her. I decided against it though. Mainly, I chickened out. No sense in getting detention unless Jules was going to be there right? I compromised with reason and decided that right after lunch I would convince Millie in the office to let me look at Jules’ schedule, bribe her if I had to.

I walked into the cafeteria resigned to my plan but those plans promptly fizzled once I saw Jules sitting at her table all by herself again. She had a sack of carrots on her lap and her feet, once again, rested on the chair beside her. I got a small kick out of the fact that it was how she liked to sit, sort of unashamed. That’s what it was. She was brazen. She had her nose buried in yet another book. When I got closer I noticed it was George Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’. I loved that book. Boy, was she exasperating to me. That’s it. No more, I thought. I walked to her table and sat in the chair across from her.

“I love that book,” I said.

Look at me, I wordlessly demanded, swallowing hard. I’m sweating. Oh no. I’m nervous. Very, very nervous. I wiped sweat from my forehead and felt my longish hair stick to it. She didn’t even look at me, let alone respond. So, it was going to be like that.

“Carrots, huh?” I asked, obviously reaching.

She rolled her eyes.

“Those are good for the eyes, I’ve heard. I see they’ve done wonders for your teeth too. Texas A&M did that study a few years ago. Did you hear about it?”

She didn’t respond.

“No? Well a few years ago they developed a carrot that helps people absorb forty one percent more calcium than when they consume a regular carrot. Interesting right? Genetically altered vegetables?”

No reply.

“I certainly found that interesting,” I said, laughing nervously. “You may not, or maybe you did, I’m not sure. It’s certainly something a braniac should find interesting. You’re a braniac, right? I mean, you’re always reading, so I assume. Not that I claim to be a braniac or anything. I’m of pretty average intelligence, I think.”

I was drowning.

“Yeah, so,” I continued, digging my embarrassment hole deeper. Hell, it was so deep I could bury myself in it. Good thing, too. I wanted to be buried. “I heard they collaborated with Baylor’s College of Medicine in Houston.” Nothing. I was beginning to think the book was attached to her nose. “Houston’s a pretty crazy town or so I’ve heard. Supposedly the humidity is heck on girls’ hair. Your hair doesn’t seem to take on that much humidity. I’ve never seen it frizz anyway.”

I drummed my fingertips on the table.

“As I was saying,” I said digging my grave further than needed, might as well go for gold here, “it’s obviously done wonders for your teeth.”

She stopped her reading and scanned my eyes. Stop talking! I commanded myself.

“Yeah, your teeth are big and a pretty white.” See, that wasn’t so bad. “You could mistake them for a horse’s.” Nice, very nice.

I nervously laughed. She didn’t. When I was nervous, I resorted to inadvertent insults.

She looked at me but turned her focus back on her book. Sweat was dripping down my neck. I carried my fingers through my hair and down the nape to remove any evidence of my impending social death. No sense in letting her see the physical evidence as well as the emotional proof that I was drowning.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to compare your teeth to a horse’s. I was only trying to point out how large they were. That is, I mean to say, that they are larger than most people’s. But! Perfectly proportionate to your face. Your face isn’t huge or anything! Your face seems pretty average in its proportions. Yes, very well proportioned.” I sighed deeply. “What I meant to say is that you have very beautiful teeth.”

And, scene. Very good job Mr. Gray. Your audience has accepted you for the idiot that you are. Look forward to being typecast as the bumbling fool from this point on.

My throat was dryer than a bone. I yanked my bottled water from my bag and downed half of it. She refused to even look at me.

“Jules,” I said, catching my breath.

“Julia,” she corrected me.

“Julia, obviously I’m an idiot. All I want to do is talk to you. It’s extremely hard for me to talk to you.”

“Then you should stop.”

“But I can’t.”

“But you should.”

She sat up and sighed loudly, collected her belongings and left the cafeteria.

I sat back in my chair. I had no idea what had just happened. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Nothing came out how I’d planned them. I couldn’t stop vomiting the worst conversation I had ever had. I didn’t understand. I never had trouble talking to girls, ever. Granted, I never shared a literal lightning bolt with one of them or was ever really interested in one but, just the same, I never had trouble speaking with them. I knew Jules was going to be trouble. She was going to give me the fight of my life but I decided right then and there that I was not going to give up. The next time I saw her, I knew exactly how I was going to talk to her.

Third period I had band and it gave me a chance to calm down a little bit, for which I was grateful and allowed me to go to my last class of the day, chemistry, a little bit more relaxed until I walked through the door to the classroom. I was immediately crushed with borderline hysteria. I gulped a breath and slid past Julia who sat at a lab table in the center of class. I chose a table in the very back and sat with Sawyer Tuttle, whom everyone just called Tut. He nodded a hello and I nodded back. I set all my stuff down and just watched her.