Zorell

Meeting Someone New

Have you ever made eye contact with someone and felt the world slip from under your feet? Were you able to walk up to that person and tell them? I wasn’t.

But I didn’t have to; I met him twenty minutes later.

Chapter One

After Freshman Orientation they let us roam the campus and find our rooms by ourselves; you would think they’d have the courtesy to help us out with something like this, but hey, we’re adults now, we can handle it.

Well, that’s what I thought, but after thirteen minutes of wandering, I wasn’t so sure, luckily, I ran into a friendly upperclassmen, but I couldn’t pay attention the whole time because, well, I got distracted. As the person, whose name I never did catch, was half way through the directions, I glanced over their shoulder 'cause I felt like I was being watched. I scanned behind my helper, trying to find someone whose eyes were looking back at me; I was about to write the whole feeling off to my imagination when I noticed him. There was a guy on the other side of the quad talking to this girl, or rather, listening to this girl, but he was focused on me for the longest time, it was hypnotizing.

“Did you hear that last part? I said residential dorms 1310 to 1409 are around that corner over there and across the loop.

"Are you even listening anymore? You know what, good luck.” He said walking away.

“Wait, thank you. I’m sorry.” But he had walked away before I broke contact with the other guy. Having lost my helper, I looked up to try to find the other guy again, but he wasn’t there anymore. So I tried to remember the one dude’s direction as best I could. I got lost again, but this time, all I had to do was turn around and there was a sign “Dorms 1320-1329.”

Bingo!

I was lugging my stuff up the stairs when one of my bags slipped back down, to the landing, on the ground floor. I thought about going back for it, but decided I didn’t care if someone stole it, and so I went on with my struggle. After five flights, I finally reached dorm 1329. FINALLY!

I struggled with the key for a little while, but I won. I finally open the door, and there are already two people in a two bed dorm.
“Maybe I have the wrong room?” I said trying to back out of the room.

“Oh, no you’re probably not. Get off her bed dipstick.” The girl said to the person on the opposite bed from the door.” “I’m Clarabella, blame my parents. The dipstick over there is Dale. Dale, say hello to-;”

“Oh, my name is-” but I completely forgot because Dale turned around and we made eye contact…again.

“Hello-”Dale said to me as he moved from my bed to Clarabella’s.

“KJ, KJ Thompson.”

“Well then, nice to meet ya J,” Dale said as he wrapped his arm around my shoulders. Just as his hand brushed my neck, I remembered my bag, and immediately ran to get it from downstairs, where I hoped it still was laying at the bottom of the stairs.

As I ran down five flights of stairs, I could swear that I heard someone else’s footsteps echoing my own, but I was afraid that I would stumble the rest of the way if I looked back, so I didn’t.

When I finally reached the ground floor landing I was very pleased to find that my bag was still at the bottom of the landing, unfortunately, I found that out by tumbling over it and onto the floor. Tumbling over my bag confirmed that I was being followed down the stairs; my pursuer had fallen on top of me.

“Oomph, I am so sorry.” It was Dale, who was trying desperately to get himself off of me, but very unsuccessfully.

“Okay, first off, it helps if you don’t try to straighten your arms under you when you’re on top of somebody. Also, my chest is not the floor, it won’t give you any leverage, it’ll just crush my lungs.”

“Sorry,” he said as he finally figured out the right movements to get off of me.

“It’s alright,” I responded, grasping Dale’s outstretched hand.”

“I’m really sorry about falling on you, but you kind of scared us when you went charging down the stairs. I kind of thought it was something I did. Was it?”

I retrieved my luggage, “No, it wasn’t you, it’s just that I had forgotten about my bag until that exact moment. Sorry if I offended you.”

Dale took my bag out of my hand, “Let me carry that. And it’s no biggie. Let’s head back up before Bell heads down here.”

“Well, okay. Let’s go.” I said taking a step towards the stairs; it was at that point that I finally looked at the rest of Dale, not just his eyes, oh what beautiful eyes they were. Dale has this shaggy hair that kind of cascades down the side of his face and a little that falls into his eyes, and his hair is this odd shade of black that isn’t quite black because he has these chestnut highlights that bring out the greenish-hazel color of his eyes, oh his eyes. And he’s about my height, well, he’s actually taller than me, not by much, just enough to warrant me to look up when I want to look him in the eyes, which is very often…

“Why are you looking at me like that? Is there something on my forehead?” He said brushing his hair away from his face. “Well, do I? Stop staring at me like that!”

“I made you nervous.” I said to him, just a wee bit amused with myself.

We walked the rest of the way up the stairs not saying much, but that didn’t stop me from glancing over at him every few steps.

I caught him looking back a couple times.


Chapter Two

Dale is apparently my second roommate because he is always there, but I won’t complain.

There was this one time when we ordered pizza, but nobody wanted the same thing.

“Why don’t we get Pepperoni Passion, it’s some awesome!” Bell said scanning down the campus pizza menu.

Dale snatched it out of her hand, “No way, if you want awesome pizza, then we have got to order Meatza Pizza, there is absolutely nothing better than a pound of meat on top of crispy crust and soo much cheese that you wouldn’t ever be able to just cut a slice, you have to chew the pie. That, my friends, is an awesome pizza.” Dale smirked at us each in turn.

“No, no, no, an awesome pizza would be this ‘Bachen Supreme.’ What could be better than pizza topped with cheddar, mozzarella, bacon, chicken, and parmesan, all on top of a flakily crispy crust? Nothing, absolutely nothing.”

We argued the points of our choice of pizza, none of us listening to the others.

“Wait, I have an idea, since we all want the same crust, why don’t we just have them divide the pie into three parts so we can have what we want?” I chimed in after thirty minutes of us all arguing over how we want our pizza. “It’ll probably cost a little more, but we’re gonna split the cost anyway.”
They both nodded in agreement, then Dale handed me the phone, “Your idea, your voice.”

-Hello, this is Pizzaza Pizzatorium, what kind of pizzazarific pie would you like to order?
-I would like to order a pizza divided into three parts, one part Pepperoni Passion, one part Meatza Pizza, and the last part being Bachen Supreme.
-That’s one Pepperoni Passion Pizza, one Meatza Pizza, and one Bachen Supreme Pizza. Correct?
-No, incorrect. Record carefully, one extra-large pizza divided into three parts, the parts are as follows: Pepperoni Passion, Meatza, and Bachen Supreme.
-One pizza divided into the following parts, Pepperoni Passion, Meatza, and Bachen Supreme. Correct?
-Correct. Give me the price.
-Your order will cost seventeen dollars and fifty-one cents. Please disclose the destination of this order.
-Residential dorm number 1329. Provide estimated delivery time.
-Forty-five minutes. Have a pizzazarific meal.

“Oh boy do I hate talking to those recordings, they don’t understand anything.”

“Next time, we should just go to the restaurant, at least we’ll be able to talk to a real person.” Dale said as he came across the floor to take his cell back out of my hand. “And besides, we probably need the exercise. Okay, we definitely need the exercise.”

Bell was rolling on the floor, “You bet we do! What is it like a third of the way through first semester, and we’ve all already gained the ‘freshman ten!”

“And then some,” I said, pinching Dale’s side.

“Very funny,” Dale said returning the pinch with a bit more malice.

Later, when the pizza came, we were all watching a movie and eating, Bell announces that she’s leaving when she’s done.

“I have a study date with Lance.”

“Ooh, Lance.” I said winking at Dale.

Dale laughed, “Lance and Bell, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g…”

“First comes love, and then comes marriage…”

“Then comes Bell with a baby carriage.”

Bell threw her crust at Dale and her half eaten slice of pizza at me, “Leave me alone! You two are made for each other.” She grabbed her coat and walked towards the door, “You two behave while I’m gone.”

Have you ever heard of the literary term “foreshadowing?” Well, I wish I hadn’t. It’s when someone does or says something that alludes to something that might (or will) happen later in the text- but back to the story…

Zorell

Chapter Three

Right after Bell left, Dale looked over at me and said, “You gonna eat that?” referring to the pizza slice on my lap.
“No,” I picked it up and pointed it towards Dale, “You want it, take it.”
I don’t even think I felt it leave my hand before it disappeared down Dale’s throat. “Did you even taste the pepperoni?” I asked as he burped up, “I just got a good taste, if you can call it that!”
“If you want a good taste of pepperoni then here,” Dale said as he reached past me, I thought he was getting ready to grab another slice, “I don’t want anymore piz-”
There were lips, where my lips should be… no, my lips were still there…oh…I’m being kissed… oh god, I’m being kissed!

Dale had one hand cupping the back of my head, and the other around my waist, and … and I was being kissed!
Just as the ground slipped from under me, his hands released me, but mine captured him; I couldn’t let go of this feeling, and so now my hands were wrapped around his waist , almost like a brace, but I couldn’t let him go…

This being my first kiss, I didn’t know how to kiss and breathe, so I had to eventually let him go, his eyes were big with surprise, and my face was red with partial suffocation and full out embarrassment.

We just sat there for a bit, still in each others arms, and without the ability to speak. I don’t know about Dale, but my lips were tingling from shock and anticipation.
“I… um…. I’m sorry about the whole vice grip thing I-” I stammered out. Not able to look at the person with their arms around me.
“No, no… it’s not your fault… I mean it didn’t… um, I kinda like it. Wait,” Dale said as he took a deep breath, “What I’m trying to say, is that I don’t know what to say.”
“Well, I think I do-” I couldn’t help myself; I had to kiss him again! And I did.

After my first, second and third kiss, Dale and I returned to the movies, we watched for the majority of the night, or rather, they watched us because we spent the night talking about everything we could think of.
“So, where do you come from?” I asked at one point. I was now sitting on my bed, and Dale was on the floor leaning against it.
“I’m from Maine.”
“Well, where in Maine?”
“Oh, I’m from Sanford, it’s really close to the border, me and my friends used to go to New York on the weekends.”

I find it really… I don’t know… to listen to him tell me about his past. It was better than talking about mine.
He turned around on the floor so that he was looking at me over the foot of my bed, “So, let’s talk about you for a little while. Let’s start with those initials, what does ‘KJ’ stand for?”

I laid down on my bed so that I was facing him with my feet touching the wall (also known as my headboard),
“Katarina Jeannette, I use my initials because the two names have nothing to do with each other. May I ask where Dale comes from?”

“Well,” Dale started as he brushed one of my bangs out of my face, a motion that turned into fiddling with my ear,
“My family started calling me Dale when I was little because I was always running out of the house as soon my diaper was off, they called me Chippendale, but as I got older, people started dropping the ‘chipen’ part because if you couldn’t hold my attention immediately, you lost my presence, so I was known as Dale.”
That explained a lot to me. “So when did you meet Bell?”

Dale looked at me kind of funny.

“What, why are you staring at me like that?” I asked after being scrutinized for a bit.

“Nothing, it’s just that you ask me a lot of questions.” He said as he continued fiddling with my ear, “And yet you don’t allow me to ask you any.”

“Well,” I said as I placed my arms around his shoulders, forcing him to look at me eye-to-eye, “What do you want to know?”

He stopped fiddling with my thumb and instead placed his hands on top of mine (which must have been awkward for him because my hands were still resting on his shoulders), “I just wanted to know why you were staring at me that day, when you were talking to that guy? I’m not trying to pry or anything, but it looked like you had a lot to say to me, and I was really confused.”

“Oh,” that, “It wasn’t what you think, I wasn’t mad or anything, I was just wondering-” I stopped myself short as both Dale and I whipped our heads to face the door, “Did you hear that?”

He nodded, and then he put one finger over his mouth and pointed to the door. He actually intended to open the door!

I mouthed no, but he nodded and went on towards the door.

I followed him. As we stood against the door, I heard muffled talking, it sounded an awful like “I’ll bick your but!” but I’m not fully sure that’s what I heard. What I was sure of is the laughing I heard as Dale yanked the door open.

“Looky loo at you two.” Lance and Bell were standing outside of the door, Lance apparently tickling Bell silly because her face was turning really red, but she had such a goofy grin on her face that she must have been in bliss.

Bell finally noticed her audience after we had been standing there a good minute or so; she swatted at Lance’s hands as she gasped out “Stop it you dolt,” and kept on laughing.

I placed my hand in front of my mouth and whispered to Dale, “Bell must have lungs of steel!” And then he started laughing, really loudly; I started to hear our across the hallway neighbor starting to shuffle out of bed, so I grabbed all them by the closest body part and yanked them in the door.

Once we were in the door, Bell threw herself across her bed and tried to catch her breath as Lance and Dale threw themselves at the leftover pizza. I lay across my bed and looked at the clock, “It’s four in the morning.” Both Lance and Dale kind of turned around and looked at us, but Bell was looking at me. “What kind of mischief is your mind up to?”
Her eyes kind of gleamed like she was thinking way, way outside of the box. She looked at me, hard, then glanced harder at the two of them, and returned her gaze to me. “Ohhhh. No.”

Bell launched herself off of her bed and onto mine, she grabbed me by the shoulders and brought us together so that we were sitting on my bed with our foreheads touching, “KJ, if you don’t do as I want I will kill you after they leave!” She whispered at me quite fiercely.
“Why?” I whispered back at her.
“You know that you want the same thing from Dale that I do from Lance!”
“No, actually I don’t.”
“No, you daft girl, not sex! I mean you want to see Dale’s eyes in the morning, wake up and feel his warmth, I know it, and so do you. Now change you stance on my question!” That last part, she kind of yelled at me, and well it kind of scared me.
Okay, it really scared me; I was so startled that I shoved myself away from her, hurtling myself off the bed and into Dale’s lap.

He looked down into my eyes and said, “You okay.” His eyes caught me, and that last little part of my conscience gave in, the release my mouth had been waiting for, “Okay.”


Chapter Four

So, Bell got her way, the guys staid the night; but, before you judge me, yes Bell and Lance shared her bed (no they didn’t do anything, that I heard), but Dale slept on the floor.

Dale and I staid up together long enough to see the sunrise, and I thought it was beautiful, but it was nothing compared to looking at him gazing at me, and yeah I meant what I just said.

I was so focused on the sunrise at one point, and without think, I said, “Beautiful.”

“Yeah, beautiful,” he said back, stroking my hair. I looked him in the eyes, but he barely realized that I had turned my head, he was just so hypnotized (I guess), because I got a very rare glance at his true feelings. I think I saw love for the first time that night.

I kissed him on his cheek and whispered in his ear, “Good night.” He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me, and whispered back, “Night love.”

And there ends this scene folks.

(Yeah, I know, totally ruined the mood, but you’ll get over it. This is my story after all.)


Later that morning, I woke up to Dale’s eyes, just like Bell knew I wanted.

“Morning lovely.” Dale said in lieu of a “good morning.”

“Back at you.” I said crawling out of bed, “Where are Bell and Lance?”

“Oh, they left like an hour ago, something about privacy. They wouldn’t explain if it was ours or theirs they were referring to. But they left anyway. Want to clean up and go out for something to eat?” He said as he stood up.

“Sure, why not. Let’s meet here at say, nine, that’ll give us like a half an hour to clean up.

“Okay.” He said wrapping an arm around me before kissing my forehead. He walked towards the door and said “Good-bye,” before disappearing on the other side of the door.

Dale and I walked (or rather, strolled) towards the quad; at first we were silent, kind of like there was some kind of awkwardness between us.

We were halfway to our destination when someone knocked right into me, forcing me into Dale. Luckily, he misinterpreted my hand brushing his and he closed his hand around mine. We walked the rest of the way hand and hand, but still silent. Quiet and content, that was us.

When we arrived at the café, Dale turned to me and asked, “Do you want it to be my treat, or do you want to go dutch?” He kept walking a couple of paces before he realized I had stopped. “What? Why did you stop walking, aren’t you hungry?” He said looking at me quizzically.

“Oh, duh I’m hungry! I’ve just never been offered the choice of a free meal or going dutch, it’s always been pretty much ‘We’re going dutch.’ It’s just a really nice sentiment that caught me off guard. Come ‘ere.” I whispered to him as I lifted myself onto my tip-toes.

“What? What did you-” he said leaning closer to me, “Oh. That’s- what you said.” He continued after I kissed him.
“I think you just earned yourself a free meal.” He said sliding his hand into my pocket, which I smacked. “Ow!” he said giggling.

“You’ve got one girly laugh buddy-boy.” I said, letting loose a little giggle of my own. “Let’s get that food you’ll be paying for.” He walked his way, and I walked mine.

We met at the register, “You do know that we’re eating breakfast, right?”

“You do know you could pay for your food yourself, right?”

“Touché.”

“Do you realize that you’ve been staring at me the whole time we’ve been sitting down, right?” Dale said before stuffing the other half of a bagel into.

Yeah, he caught me; I don’t know why I keep staring at his eyes, “What’s that?” I said as I spotted Dale looking down at something by his side.

“Oh nothing, just a counter…” He said all nonchalantly.

“What are you counting?” I asked as I tried to get a better look at the number on the counter, “Two hundred forty?”

“That would be the number of times I’ve caught you staring at my eyes. This, by the way, is different from staring into them, because I at least get a warning when you stare into them. You’re doing it again! That’s two hundred forty-one.”

I threw a grape at him, “You act as if you don’t like the attention.”

He smirked at me, then winked, and topped off the facial parade by raising one of his eyebrows.

“Whatever that was, you can stop it now.” I said to him as I finished off the last of my breakfast salad.

He did it again, and I couldn’t keep myself from laughing his time.

And that’s how we spent our morning, seeing who could make the other laugh the hardest.

“You wanna go somewhere cool, to just hang for a while? I know this great place just off campus.”

“Like walking distance ‘just off campus,’ or like five minute drive ‘just off campus?’”

“Walking distance. You’ll like it. I promise. Let’s go.” He grabbed me by the hand and dragged me out the cafeteria door. “Use your legs, don’t make me drag you!”

“Too late!” I said trying to catch up to him, and failing at it. “You slow down to five miles an hour, and maybe I’ll catch up!” At this point I had begun to run.

He continued to drag me, just fast enough to keep me from walking, but just slow enough to let me see what we were passing.

First we passed by the eastern most building on campus, then we passed this small area of trees, and finally, we were looking at a wall of rock.

I was so stunned that I didn’t realize he had stopped dragging me.

“Where are we?” I said a bit stunned at the beauty that was in front of me. “Is that a mural?” I let go of his hand and slowly approached the cliff wall. I ran my fingers along the image. “It’s so beautiful!”

“I thought you’d like it.” He said standing back and observing it from afar. I decided to do the same, and saw more than I had before.

The mural was actually smaller images that had been juxtaposed to appear as one larger image that reminded me vaguely of a couple embracing each other. Or at least it did the first time, but when I blinked, I saw a different image. Now I could kind of see
Somebody smiling as they held someone else.

“This is so cool!” I said as Dale wrapped his arm around me.

He just smiled at me, and said nothing. I smiled back; it just seemed the right thing to do.

We walked around outside, with no real aim or direction. I opened my cell-phone to check the time and was caught by surprise when Dale yanked the phone out of my hand, “I s this the right time?” He practically yelled at me.

“Yeah, but its can be ten or fifteen minutes early. You got somewhere to go?”

“Hell yeah I do! I’ve got to be on the other side of the campus in like ten minutes!”

I was trying to stop and talk, maybe get him to calm down, but he just seem to put more space between us, “Where are you rushing off to?”

“I’ve got hockey practice. And although I really want to talk to you, I cannot be late today, Coach is selecting starters! I’ve gotta run!” He said as he started at a mad dash. Seeing as I really didn’t remember how I got where we were, I charged after him as fast as I could. I lost him anyway, but at least I was on familiar ground again.

Zorell

Chapter Five

I strolled around campus, exploring, because I had nothing else to do.

As I wandered aimlessly, I happened to walk past the hockey field. I stood and watched for a while, not really understanding the game; I was just using it for entertainment. The girl’s team was outside running laps, and practicing one of their dribbling motions (well, it kind of reminded me soccer dribbling). They were really in to what they were doing, so I started to kind of daydream; but I was brought out of it by what I thought to be one of the girls waving her stick at me. I waved back out of kindness, but I had no clue who she was, even though she did kind of remind me of Dale.

I mean, really reminded me of Dale, she even had those eyes that always seem to memorize me. She was looking at me as hard as I was looking at her, and smiling at me.

I don’t know what came over me, but I had to ask, “Hey, 24! What’s your name?!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.

She started to yell something that sounded faintly like “My name is Dahl!”
But, what ever the last part was, got overtaken by her coach’s foghorn emitting a string of not-so nice words. But I did catch a few like “Dalinda!” and something else about “lotsa laps!”

What ever it was that her coach said sent the girl running fast, she was gone before I had even blinked, or began to comprehend her coach’s threats.

I got oddly bored when Dalinda ran away (I think I might have been watching her the whole time and didn’t realize it), so I headed back to the dorms hoping to either catch up with Bell about Lance, or catch some R&R.

I guess I didn’t need the rest, or the relaxation, because Bell was pacing around the room practically twisting her hair out of her head.

“Clara. Bella. What is wrong with you?!” I said as I charged in and removed her hands from her hair and pinned them to her sides.

At first, she wouldn’t make eye-contact, and then she started to pout. She finally looked me in the face after I had been staring at her for like five minutes, never releasing her arms. She was looking at me as if she was a different person.

“Bell, what happened between now and the last time I saw you?”

“You and Dale happened.” She started to look down again, so I wrapped her hands behind her back so that I could pinion them with one hand, and lift her chin up with the other.

“Nothing happened between me and Dale last night.” I said as calmly as I could with someone starting to giggle right in my face. “What the heck are you laughing about?!”

She suppressed her giggling enough to say, “Oh bull! You really must think I’m daft. Nothing happened between two people who basically fell asleep entwined with each other last night? I wouldn’t believe that if you forced me to!” She began to laugh in my face as she struggled against my grip.

I tightened my grip a little more and asked, “What are you talking about? I went to sleep in my own bed, and I woke up in my own bed.”

Bell strained as much as she could, and broke my grip on her, as she laughed in my face some more, saying, “Yeah, after Dale agreed to share the bed to make you stay in it. You two would have woken up together if Lance and I hadn’t woken Dale up on our way to get breakfast.”

“Bull crap!” I said, “Who do you think you are. What are you trying to say?”

She raised an eyebrow at me, “I think that I’m- No. Wait. I know that I’m Clarabella Sinclaire, Oh, and I’m not trying to say anything, stop trying to read between the lines, there’s nothing there. You and Dale shared a bed last night, and to the best of my knowledge, you two just slept. Like “catching some z’s” sleep.” She was laughing again, but without the malice from before.

It was still the final straw; I really wanted to tackle her or something on general principle. Luckily for her, I grabbed my pillow instead of balling my fist; and that’s what I hit her with. Unfortunately, not only did she have very good reflexes, but I had knocked her right onto her bed. She returned the hit before I realized where she was. “Oh, it’s a fight you want? Okay, it’s a fight you get!”

We launched full out war on each other until we were both too tired to lift a finger at each other; at which point we both passed out on our beds.

We just laid where we were, giggling whenever we could sum up our strength.

Bell leaned on her elbows, propping herself, “Where’s Dale?”

“Oh, he’s at practice.” I said as I hugged my pillow to staunch another bit of laughter. “Why do you ask?”

Bell was quiet for a second, and then she said, “Hockey practice is over by four thirty. It’s like two after five.”

I sat up, “Whatever, I’m not his mother, nor am I his boss. He’s not beholden to me.”

“You are Dale’s girlfriend, right?”

“We haven’t established that yet.”

She just started laughing at me. And kept on at until there was a bang on the door.

I got off my bed, “I’ll get it. Don’t you worry Ms. Guffaw.”

When I opened the door there was a very tired looking Dale on the other side. “Hey J, I am so tired.” He said as he threw himself on to my bed, “Coach made me run sprints after practice. Made me run for twenty four minutes. I’m lucky my number isn’t fifty-five or I’d still be running.” He said as he burrowed his face into my pillow. “Can I just take a nap here for awhile; my roommate is really into heavy medal. And right now, I have heavy lids.” And he was out.


Chapter Six

Dale snoozed on my bed until seven. By that time, Bell and I had gone to the café and come back with food, eaten most of it, and taken mini naps of our own (I had to wrestle one of my own pillows from under him so that I could sleep on the floor).

I woke up, and Dale was still sleep. You know how people say that one of those really lovey-dovey things that couples do when they’re in love is to watch the other sleep? Well, I tried that; and doing so led me to one of two conclusions, either I wasn’t in love, or I just found the whole thing a bit creepy, because I got no pleasure out of watching Dale sleep.

I don’t think Dale liked being watched anymore than I liked watching him; Dale woke up after I had tried watching him for a bit.

“Um, J, what are you doing?” He asked as he propped himself up on his elbows.
“You, know, this goes on the counter, right?”

“But, I thought you only counted the number of times you caught me looking into your eyes? I wasn’t even looking into your eyes! How does that count?”

He giggled a bit. “Why the heck are you giggling? Stop it!”

“Why are you so defensive about it anyway? It’s not like it’s bad or anything, its quite innocuous actually. Calm down. Wait! Do not hit me with that!” He said just as my pillow made contacted his face.

“Let’s see how many times I can whack you in the face before you can stop me?” And I went to beating the crap out of him with the pillow.

I only stopped once he had been knocked to the floor.

He sat up a bit and said to me, “Fifty-one.”

“And counting.” I whacked him with the pillow one last time.

__________________
Life is lighter when you shed your leaves,
better when you nurture your branches,
and more fulfilled when you strengthen your roots.

Zorell

Chapter Seven

A few weeks later, Dale came over after my last class so we could go to dinner together; we went to the Burger King® on campus and shared a value meal. Well, actually, he had a Quadstacker, and I had the value sized fries that came with the meal, but we did actually share the humongous drink that came with it.

“Are you gonna finish that?” Dale asked snatching up three of my fries.

“Well, I can’t eat those three. But, I will be eating the others.” I said just before stuffing two fries in my mouth.
“Mmph.” I gulped, “I don’t need your help!” I choked out, recovering from having a handful of fries shoved into my mouth.

“I thought it might help you to eat a little faster.”


I continued to eat at my own pace, with Dale taking a fry every once and awhile “to speed the process along.”

“I’m done now. Why have you been rushing me through dinner?” We were walking towards the door.

“Somewhere.” He grabbed my hand as we crossed the threshold, “I thought it’d be fun to explore campus. You know; me and my girlfriend.”

“Oh,” I said, resting my head on his shoulder, “I’m your girlfriend now?”

“Well, the option is yours to choose.” He was leading me along a path that appeared vaguely familiar.

I couldn’t believe it; I was actually walking around campus with my boyfriend. Just walking around campus, hand and hand. “Okay, it’s a yes. But where are we going anyway?”

He didn’t respond, just kept leading me along a path that he seemed to know very well. The path seemed a little more familiar than it did when we first started out. I still didn’t quite recognize it.

We followed the path for a good ten minutes before I realized where we were, “This is that place you brought me to a few weeks back, isn’t it?” I exclaimed in amazement.

He just gave me one of his knowing smirks, “Why yes, I do believe it is.” He said leading me towards a tree. And boy what a big tree it was. This thing had to be as old as the campus itself.

“You see that tree; okay I know you see that tree. Stop looking at the tree!” He said, holding my chin and turning it to face him, “I’ll start over.” He whispered to himself. He pointed towards the Elder, as I want to call it. “Do you see that tree? You’ll never guess what it is in its branches.”

I said nothing when he stopped speaking because we all know that when someone says anything about guessing, unless they say it more than once, they don’t really want to hear your guess. I just blinked at him. “What?”

“Well, let’s climb the tree and find out.” He said bounding at the tree trunk. He was half way up before I thought to do the same

“No fair! You cheated!” I said as I got a foothold on the tree.

He looked down from one of the middle branches, “What are you gonna do, tattle on me?” He giggled.

“No, but I’ll knock the giggle out of you.” I huffed as I reached him.

He continued to giggle. But I stopped focusing on him when I realized what else was on this particular branch, and the one next to it.

There was a net connecting the two branches, kind of like the kind that are on boats that hang over the water. On the net were really puffy pillows, two wine glasses (in a box) and a bottle of sparkling cider, and a blanket.

Dale noticed that my eyes were lingering on the blanket.
“Think nothing of that, I was just being prepared for a change in weather. Nothing else.” He said as he tumbled onto the net. I followed suit and tumbled right into him.

Once the energy from our tumbling around stopped jiggling the net, Dale opened the sparkling cider and poured us each a little bit of it.

We sipped at the cider and a looked at the stars above us. After we had finished about half of the bottle, and Dale had wrapped his arms around me, we started to unload our feelings about everything since we started school. We both had come to the conclusion that high school was nowhere near as challenging compared to college.

Oh, and just so you know, there had been weeks when I didn’t get to look into Dale’s eyes, I just like to remember the times when I did.

So, anyway, Dale was filling me in about what was going on in his life. Then I filled him in on my life too, and a little bit about Bell and Lance, who, by the way, have not gone fifteen hours apart since that first night they spent together.

We talked for quite sometime, in fact, we only knew that time had passed because it became chilly. So we finished off the bottle of sparkling cider cuddled under the blanket together.

Dale decided that tonight was the perfect time to ask me the question I had been dieing to ask him.

“Why did you look at me that first day? It really caught me off guard. And you did the same thing that day that you do every time you see me, you stared at my eyes. I know, I know, the romantic thing to do would be to say that you were gazing into my eyes, but you weren’t. You were staring at them.”

I was in fact staring at them as he spoke. “I can honestly say that I have no idea what draws me into them. I just find them extremely hypnotizing. Well, I can answer about the first day we met. While I was asking that one guy where my dorm was, I thought that I could feel someone’s eyes focusing on me. So now I have a question for you, why were you looking at me?” I asked poking Dale on the nose for no good reason.

He hugged me tightly to him, “I don’t know; I just felt something tug me towards it. And when I looked towards it, I saw you looking at me.” He finished his sentence by kissing me lightly on the forehead.

I found myself tilting my head so that his kiss landed on my forehead, but slid down my nose, and finished on my lips. Another kiss found itself on my lips, and an arm around my waist, a hand in my hair, two arms around Dale’s neck. Kiss. Caress. Enjoy. Repeat.

We spent a little bit of time exploring how far we were willing to go, and discovered that we were quite happy with the level just above the one we were on earlier.

Later, I found myself once again looking into his eyes as the sun rose around us. Okay, not around us in particular, but, at this point, I’d forgotten that we were even in at tree. It felt like were just floating on sunshine.

“Morning Giggles.” I said to Dale as we watched the sun.

“Morning Love.” He responded back.

We were blanketed in dew, which probably meant we had dozed off at some point, but whatever.

“I can’t believe I fell asleep suspended in a tree.” I said sitting up, “How did you come up with the idea to do all this, when did you do all this?” I finally asked even though it was already a little too late to ask such a question.

Dale sat up so that he could lean on the tree’s trunk. He looked at the sky for a little while. “I can’t really say what made me do it. But I had fun doing it, and seeing what it meant for you. I thought you might think I was getting ahead of myself, or even stepping too far over the line,” he giggled, “actually, those two are the same thing. But you know what I meant. I think you get me more than anyone else, but I don’t know if you see me for what I am.” He started to stare really hard at the sky, almost as if he didn’t want to make eye-contact with me.

I scooted closer to him and grasped one of his hands, I didn’t quite like the way this seemed to be going. “Dale, I know you as best I can know you, I know and understand that we haven’t told each other everything about ourselves, but that doesn’t change how I feel about you. I can honestly say that there is nothing that would make me never want talk to you again. I know that I like you as a person, and respect you as one too.”

Dale looked at me in surprise, “Well, that’s all well and dandy, but you don’t understand what I’m trying to get at here, do you?” He started to fold the blanket, “I need sometime to think. Do you mind if I start packing up? I really want to mull over what I have to say.”

With no choice but to comply, I tried to help him, but he kept sending out these vibes that screamed “climb out of the tree, or fall!” So I climbed out of our net, and down our tree, wondering if anything else would ever be ours.

It was a very lonely walk home, spattered with tears of frustration and sadness. I couldn’t believe that Dale could turn so suddenly, and not even explain what I had done wrong. He was acting like I didn’t pay him any attention. Does he know the kind of stuff I write about him! There is no freaking way I don’t pay attention to him!

I walked home alone and fuming.

When I got to the dorm, I heard some noises I wasn’t so sure about, so I almost didn’t go in, but I didn’t care.

I should have cared.

The first thing I notice after my first big argument with Dale is Lance and Bell locked together on her bed.

“Oh, my effing gee!” I yelled slamming the door behind me.

I rushed towards the stairs, knowing that somebody’s footsteps were echoing my own, and again not caring. The footsteps followed me down the stairs and the hand attached to them clasped around my shoulder. “Damn you KJ, what is wrong with you?” Bell said as she spun me around so fast that my eyes thought there were three of her. “You have never acted this way.” She said scrutinizing me, “Are you crying. No, but have you been crying. What is wrong with you? You are so not okay. Why won’t you say anything?” She went on and on, and on!

“Shut up! You cannot ask questions, demand answers, and keep on talking! Just shut your effing mouth!” I stormed out of the building.

I stormed all the way off of campus, and kept going following a path that I did not choose for myself. I was barely thinking about anything, but I can always feel the presence of his eyes, and I was really focused on them as I walked. In fact, I was so focused on the thought of his eyes that I was beginning to believe that I was enveloped ion them.

“Why are you here?” He said from above me.

I looked up and realized that I had brought myself right back where I didn’t want to be. “Well, why are you still in that tree?” I snapped up at him.

He rolled his eyes at me.

“Why the heck did you roll your eyes? That’s such a girl thing to do!” I yelled as I climbed up the tree.

Dale watched me climb, scooting away from the trunk. “We definitely need to talk at this point.” He sighed as I settled myself onto the branch.


This is where I stopped believing my life wasn’t a dream.

Zorell

Chapter Eight

“What is that supposed to mean?” I was sick of having a cryptic boyfriend.

“Have you ever noticed my habits? I don’t think you even know what you’re dating.”

“I’m dating a human, that’s all that matters.”

“Is it really? Because I don’t think you could handle the truth about who you’re dating.”

“And what makes you think that?”

“Well, it started that day you watched my practice. You didn’t even realize it was me. You asked me my name for crying out loud!”

“Wait, I’ve never been to one of your practices, I’ve only ever seen the girls’ hockey team practice, and that was one time, like a month ago. What does that have to do with anything?”

“Do you even know my name? No, you don’t. You’ve never asked.”

“Bull, I asked that night that you and Lance staid over, remember? You said it was short for ‘Chippendale,’ your childhood nickname.”

“No, well not fully… ‘Dale’ is short for ‘Dalinda.’”

“‘Dalinda!?’ What kind of cruel thing to do, naming your son Dalinda.”

“Damn you Jean! How many boys do you know that giggle? How many boys do you know with boobs?”

“I just thought the giggle was a nervous thing. Wait! Did you just say that you have boobs!?”

“Yeah, I did. I do.”

“Where are they?”

“Dipstick. Where do you think they are?”

“Well, I’ve never seen them.”

“Well, I’ve never seen yours either.”

“Don’t call me a dipstick ever again.”

“Okay. I think we both need to calm down a little. Let’s walk.”

He waited while I climbed down the tree, and then he launched himself from it. It’s amazing that he didn’t kill himself.

He led me back towards the dorms.

“We can’t go to my dorm, Lance and Bell might be indisposed.” I warned as we approached my dorm building.

“We’re not going to your dorm room. I live two floors down from you, we’re going to mine.” He responded as we walked through the door. We walked the three flights of stairs in silence.

When we reached his door, he let me walk in first. The first thing I realized was that Dale must have one really girly guy as his roommate. Half of the room was fluffy pink and purple with stuffed animals and throw pillows galore. The other half was Spartan with the exception of a few band posters and pictures of Dale and his family as well as sports memorabilia from some of Dale’s former teams.

“Sit on the bed.” Dale said as he dragged over the desk chair that was sitting at his desk. “We’re gonna have a long discussion. We need to.”

Chapter Nine

Dale began by saying very simply, “I have questioned myself since I knew what sexuality was. At first, I was sure I was straight, just a little different. But meeting you, it gave me the answer I had been craving for years.”

“Are you trying to tell me that you’re gay?” I kind of gasped.

“Well…yeah. I guess I am.” Dale said, slowly distancing himself from me.

“Wow! What a wonder-freaking way to break-up with me.”

“I don’t want to break up with you. I’m afraid you’ll break up with me!”

I looked at Dale. No, I glowered at Dale. “You just told me you were gay, of course I want to break up with you. I’m a straight girl, you’re a gay guy. We don’t seem to be each other’s type!”

Dale clasped his hand to his forehead, “Oh, my, my, my. You don’t get it do you? I’m a gay girl! My name is Dalinda for crying out loud! I’m a girl. I. Am. A. Girl!”

Oh! I’ve been dating a girl, what’s my dad gonna say about this?

“When the heck were you gonna tell me the truth?” I said pushing Dale by the shoulders.


Dale grabbed my wrists and pulled them as far as she could from her chest.

“I thought that you knew that when you met me. I thought that you knew it all along. But I started to doubt what you knew when you came to my practice and didn’t recognize me. But I really knew that you were clueless when you didn’t even know that you had come to my practice at all and the fact that you always make a big deal about my giggling.” Dale got up and walked towards the window, “I just don’t understand how you weren’t able to see, and it really scares me that you didn’t.”
Dale was now leaning against the window.

I got up from the bed and slowly approached, part of me wanted to hold my boyfriend, but the other part was afraid because it knew that this person wasn’t my boyfriend. Was it my girlfriend? “Dale, why are you scared, I still care about you.”

Dale turned around, “That’s the problem. Am I the boyfriend you think you’ve been dating for a few months now, or are you thinking of me? I still definitely feel the same way I always have about you. But you have every right to call me every name you can think of, and walk out. I won’t follow you, and I won’t question your decision. And if you say so, I’ll stay out of your life. But you can’t tell me not to see Bell; she has nothing to do with this.”

Dale had turned back towards the window at this point; it felt like she was wringing my heart of all the love she knew was in it. Wait, she never heard me say that.

“Dale,” I whispered, more to myself, “I love you.”

Dale turned away from the window, “Again, I ask you, do you love me, or do you love your boyfriend Dale. I’m not your boyfriend.”

Covering the distance left between us, I reached out and lay my hand on Dale’s shoulder, “I love you, that’s really all I know how to say for now.”

Dale removed my hand from her shoulder and looked at me with those hypnotizing eyes, I can’t say that I could fight what she was about to say. “Until there is more to say, we should take a break.” She turned back to the window, this time leaving me nothing to see but her back.

Chapter Ten

“Take a break.”

Those eyes have always won me over, and so I listened. I didn’t try to talk to Dale after that, I just went back to my dorm.

I was surprised to find Bell not entwined with Lance; but I think she was more surprised. I probably looked more bedraggled than I had before.

“What happened to you?” Bell said as she walked over to me, “Something happen between you and Dale?”

I looked at her, saying nothing. “Oh, I get it. You finally see the truth.”

I sat down on my bed, hugging my pillow to my chest, noticing that it still smelled faintly of Dale’s last nap here.
“Dale wants to break up; she doesn’t believe I love her for who she is. She doesn’t know a darn thing about how I feel.”

Bell sat next to me, “You have to understand where Dale’s coming from with this. She’s had a hard time since she knew to question what she wanted. She’s been lying to herself for years, trying to convince herself that she wasn’t gay. She’s dated guys who could have cared a halfpenny about her, while always looking for her own truth. She’s scared; she sees the truth in you.”

I looked over at Bell, “No, she doesn’t. If she did, she’d understand the immediate change in me from whom I thought I was to who I became by falling in love with her. Maybe I should go back and speak to her.”

I got up to head for the door, but Bell pulled my arm so hard that I fell back onto the bed, “You two both need to think about whom you are to yourselves, then you can worry about what you can be for each other.”

Bell got up and walked out the door after saying that; leaving me to do just as she said.

Who am I?

I know that I am Katrina Jeanette Thompson.

Do I know who I really am?

A girl that doesn’t know anything she wants that she can’t hold, and that won’t happen in the next seventy-two hours.

What am I?

A person who just started to discover that she never understood the lines.

What am I doing?

Well, I’m writing this, it’s my way of understanding my life.

I’ve been contemplating everything I could think to analyze for the last hour.

But one thought has always popped into my head, no matter what the subject: “I want Dale back in my life.”

I really want to go downstairs and talk to her, but part of me says it might not work. But a bigger part of me screams that it will not work.

And so I sit on my bed, feeling my heart slowly deteriorate; helpless to stop it.

There’s a knock at the door, “Bell, you didn’t lock the door when you left. Open it yourself!” I scream, turning my back to the door, not wanting to hear or talk to her.

I hear the door slowly creak open behind me, “J?”

Zorell

Chapter Eleven
It’s Dale! I slow my breathing, and feint sleeping.

I heard her footsteps as she shuffled over to the bed, and I felt my bed adjust to her weight. I had to focus hard as she leaned close to me and laid her hand on my shoulder.

She leaned against the wall and took a deep breathe, “I don’t know if you’re awake, but I want to tell you this story despite how lucid you are.

“There was a little girl that grew up believing that the only way to be happy was to be athletic and the apple of your guy’s eye. The little girl always felt herself a failure when she would have a boyfriend, but only be able to think of that girl that sat in front of her in all of her classes.

“The little girl one day decided that she wasn’t happy with what made her happy, so she changed.

“She wouldn’t wear the skirts and dresses anymore, and she might stop dating the guys too. But most importantly, she wanted to be comfortable in her skin.

“But even after all of these changes, she still wasn’t happy. So she threw herself into her sports and gave attention to nothing else.

“This is how she made it through high school. But she would later find that she couldn’t make it through college this way.

“On her first day of college, she met a pair of eyes that hypnotized her and seized her heart. She later met the person behind those eyes. And fell in love with her.

“The girl wanted to know why this person was so different. And she realized, this girl thought she was dating someone else. The girl didn’t know if she was okay with this, but she didn’t want to hurt the girl’s feelings, so she held her feelings back.

“But only for a little while.

“But she couldn’t take it anymore. So she told the girl the truth. But she went too far, and pushed her away. She saw how much it hurt the girl, but she thought it was too late to take back her words.

“But her heart would take no excuses, and bled for her to fix the wrongs she had done.”

Dale was now holding me, not knowing that I was awake and listening. I knew that we were both crying silently to ourselves.

“That’s the story that sums up my life as it is. And if you want to, you could help me determine the rest of it. But only if you want to, and you can pick who you want to be.”

Dale is holding me very quietly at this point, and I can feel her lift one of her arms to wipe at her tears.

My own heart goes bonkers, and I find myself turning towards her, wrapping my arms around her. “Dale, it’s okay.”

We sat this way for a while, another one of those silent moments that seem to sustain our semblance of a relationship.


Dale left later, we hadn’t really talked about anything, but we understood ourselves a little better.

We decided that we did need a break so that Dale could come to terms with herself and I could truly decide what I wanted.

I want to say that this is the end.

Maybe it is…

__________________
Life is lighter when you shed your leaves,
better when you nurture your branches,
and more fulfilled when you strengthen your roots.

Zorell

I know the size of this submission seems daunting, so all I ask is that you at least skim the story, pay close attention to the last three or four chapters, and give me an honest review of what you read.

__________________
Life is lighter when you shed your leaves,
better when you nurture your branches,
and more fulfilled when you strengthen your roots.

rumpole40k

Hi Zorell,

Well I just finished reading the story. I loved the dialogue it was natural and flowing. The characters also seemed to remind me of a few people I know. Great job.

BTW, there is a tense shift in the very beginning (you go from past to present and then back to past again), it's minor technical point but you need to change it.

Once again, I really liked it.

Rumpole

__________________
A humble wolf with dreams of being on a stamp, releasing an autobiography, having a film made showing his daily struggles, having a world wide fan club... - Code Red

"Doing? You're doing what ANY sane man in your appalling circumstances would do. You're going mad." - The Killing Joke.

Zorell

Okay, I see what you mean (when it's in context); question is whether I should change when this thought occurs, or if I should try to alter it in its current "time?"

__________________
Life is lighter when you shed your leaves,
better when you nurture your branches,
and more fulfilled when you strengthen your roots.