Walking in the Shadows (5 page)

“
’
I know that ghosts
have
wandered on earth. Be with me always — take any form — drive me mad! Only
do
not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God!
It
is unutterable! I
cannot
live without my life! I
cannot
live without my soul!
’
” Tad quoted
as the bell rang
.

My eyes were still staring
in
to Tad’
s as the girl who had winked at me
grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the classroom.
She held out her hand,
“Jasmine, but you can call me Jaz
.”

I couldn’t help the twitch in m
y eyebrow as I took her in
for the first time. She had delicate model like features and stunning hip length black lacquered hair. Her light brown, almond shaped eyes brightened as she took in my expression.

“I know my parents had a good sense of hum
or, huh? Except I’m pasty white
and can’t tan worth beans,” s
he teased as she shook my hand three times before dropping it with a wink.

Her pale skin only added to her porcelain doll appeal, but her abrupt and strong personality was anything but breakable. I finally managed to find my voice and lower my eyes.

“Nice to meet you…Jaz,” I replied as I shoved
my copy of
Wuthering Heights
into my messenger bag.

“You seriously saved all of us back there, none of us understo
od that weird book like you did,
” Jaz
commented
as she followed me to my locker
.
“I think it’s because you’re the only on
e of us who isn’t staring at Knightley’s
muscles in awe or jealousy.
Mhmm
…those muscles look so good in those button ups.”

“He’s not just a piece of meat
Jaz
,
”
I responded
,
knowing that the
reason I wasn’t staring at them
was because I had seen them so many times, and his mind was just as amazing.

“Eh, he’s a teacher, he’s smart
;
we all know that
.
B
ut damn, he’
s fine
—
seriously though, it was like
you two think exactly the same
!
”
Jaz
continued
as she star
ed into my locker, “Y
ou color coded your notebooks to match the cover of your text books?”

“It makes them easier to find.”

“Or, you could just keep them together?”
s
he suggested
,
flicking one of the covers.

“I do that too.”

“So what’s the point of color coding them?”

“It looks pretty?” I snapped
shutting my locker in defense.

“Your locker has no pictures in it! Just books!
Where are the topless guys
?”

“We have Knightley, remember?”
I teased,
letting myself relax for the first time in weeks.

“
M
hmm
…Knightley.”
Jaz’s eyes glazed over as she smiled. “That’s something your parents never teach you…”

“What?” I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know what that
look meant
.

“That the hot teacher can be so close to our age; you always assume that it’s going to be some older married man with silver hair, and worldly experience.” Jaz shrugged. “Oh, well—it makes it a lot more fun to fantasize about.”

In my case
,
it made it that much more of a nightmare.

“Does anyone know any S
hakespeare?” Tad asked
looking around the room with a slight smile. Everyone in the room
raised a hand and he continued,
“Besides
Romeo
and
Juliet
or
Macbeth
or
Hamlet
?” Every hand in th
e room besides mine we
nt down
.
“
Vera
?”

“
Taming of the Shrew
,
Midsummer’s Nights Dream
,
As You Like It
,
Twelfth Night
,
Much Ado About Nothing
—those are comedies…
Othello
,
King Lear
,
the tragedies and then the
R
oman plays
–
Antony
and Cleopatra
,
Julius Cesar
and
Coriolanus
, among others,” I answered and cringed at the nasty looks I received from several of the girls in the room.

“
Vera
seems to have read most of
Shakespeare’s
works. We’
re going to
delve into some of them as well,
”
Tad said with a smi
le as our eyes locked on each other. I could hear him whispering a Shakespeare sonnet in my head and could see he was as lost in his thoughts as I was. Someone coughed and we were both brought back to reality,
“Everyone has pretty much read or heard of the three works I named. I would like to start with
As You Like It
.”

He handed out
copies of
the
play
to everyone and made us take turns reading it
out loud
. As I read I saw him sit
ting at his desk staring
at the book with his hand over his mo
uth chewing on his thumb nail. I couldn’t tell if he was listening to me
,
or if he was
drifting
i
n his own thoughts
again. His expression didn’t change when I stopped reading and the girl behind me continued where I left off. I tried not to sigh to
o
loudly before I opened my
notebook and began taking notes, just as absent as Tad.  W
hen the bell rang and
I
looked up there was no one
left in the room. Tad
finally seemed to be shaken from his thoughts
,
and h
e straightened his papers before w
alking
towards me. I shuffled my books into my
messenger
bag
,
sending my
cell phone
skittering across the floor. He picked up the phone
,
but stopped
short of handing it to me once he saw
the picture on the screen
.

“Is that them?”
h
e asked.

I nodded my head as he handed the phone
back to me
.

“You do
n’t look
extremely young here
,
” h
e commented,
his hand resting for a moment on mine.

“I took it a couple days before they died.”

“How old were you?”

I swallowed.
“I had just turned s
ixteen
.
”

“I guess I figured it was a while ago…you act ve
ry strong about the whole thing,
”
h
e mumbled more to himself than to me.

“I’
ve never
really talked about it. It’
s always just been…I don’t know why. I gu
ess it’s easier for me that way,
”
I responded
as I looked down at my hands.

He reached up to touch my face
,
but dropped his hand to
his side
,
“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Do you want to know?”

“My apartment?”
h
e suggested
,
and my eyes answered for me.

“
I
don’t think that’s the best idea,” I said, thinking about how much I wanted to be in his arms and how the temptation might be too much. “What about somewhere that isn’t around here, you know, where no one will know us.”

“That’s probably a good idea,
”
h
e said as he looked over his shoulder suddenly conscience of where we were.

“The coffee house in Cambridge?”

“How will you get there?”
h
e wondered
,
his brow creased with anxious lines.

“Like I always do—the train?”

“I’
ll pick you up.”

“If you say so,
”
I responded
,
shuffling past him.

“I do
,
Vera
.”

I stared at the paper cup
without purpose
until Tad s
poke
.

“If you didn’t
really want to talk about it
,
we didn’t need to come here.”

“How do you talk about something like
this? About death? It seems I’
ve always taken the situation for what it i
s. I can’t do anything about it,
” I replied
,
still looking at the paper cup.

“What happened?”
Tad probed
,
trying to get to the purpose of our risky meeting.

“My par
ents didn’t come home one night and
in the morning
a policeman showed up at my front door saying
that two bodies had been found that might be my parents. I
t w
as unreal to
watch the policeman walking up the steps
,
and I somehow knew th
e reason why he looked so somber
…
It took me a while
to
come to th
e realization that everyone I
love
d was gone and I was, am
utterly alone.”

“W
ere they
—
?
”
h
e began
,
his voice carrying off at the word
that
no one ever wanted to say.

“Murdered, ye
s, it’s odd to say it out loud…
I guess
it was the
Crimson
Reign
effect
.”

“
Crimson
Reign
effect
? Like everyone’s favorite novel gone bad?”

“Apparently the Grays aren’t so friendly anymore
,
”
I said with a foolish sounding giggle.

“So this is how you deal with it? Ignore it a
nd then be rather rude about it?
”
Tad snip
p
ed
,
his brow furrowed.

“Do you know how guilty I have felt? I haven’t cried a
bout it since the day it
happen
. I do
n’t know how to deal with it…You might fight your demons, but I’ll closet mine.
”

“
Vera
, I didn’t mean it like that. You just seem so emotionless about the whole thing
,
and I
know that’s not you,
” Tad commented
,
and I looked up at him.

“I guess it makes it easier. I just don’t understand
why this happened to m
e
!
” I shook my head
as I bit my lip to keep it from trembling out of control.

“Was it hard to see them dead?
I mean was it…grizzly?”
Tad asked
,
and
his
gaze
drift
ed
from his hands to mine.

“No,
Crimson
Reign
effect
remember?
Vampires…
I was told they were given a date rape drug…
all the
blood in their body was
gone
and there were
two small holes in their necks. I don’t understand the physics of it and didn’t try to. Shortly after their funeral and all the
legal crap had been cleaned up I
just
left
it behind
.”