Later that day, after Cee dropped me home, I cooked myself a little meal, engaged myself in some homework and when I was exhausted I took a half hour nap. Half the day, I was successful in distracting myself from the disturbing thoughts concerning those eerie messages. How and why do I receive them? But the most important question was, who was sending those messages? I wasn't even sure that they were real or something that I totally imagined. What if I was having hallucinations?
When I woke up, the sun had already set, it was dark outside. I called Grace. She informed me about how she had a pile of work waiting for her and asked me about my day at school. I felt at ease after talking to her. If nothing else, I was able to keep those tangled thoughts away for sometime.
The rest of the evening was stodgy. By eight o'clock, I had finished all the homework assigned for the day and had done some non-school related reading. I hated to accept the fact that I was engaging myself in work to push away the thoughts that kept pestering me.
After dinner, I returned to my room. Once in my room, I locked the door and dug in through my desk until I found my old earphones. I put in my earphones and plugged them into my phone and hit play and turned up the volume until it hurt my ears. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the music, trying to unravel the complicated patterns until I was singing along with all the songs, until, finally, I fell asleep.
That night, for the very first time, I saw Lucas in my dream. In my dream, I stood in complete darkness and then a beam of light rose from an unknown source. The light was blindingly bright and I had to shield my eyes with my hand. Sooner I realized, that I was in twilight zone, standing in the middle of unending stairs. Above me, the light shined brightly and below me was this gloomy darkness, which swallowed all the light that reached its realms.
"Katherine... " I heard my name being called out and turned in the direction of the eerie voice. It came from the darkness.
"Katherine" The voice called again and a spine chilling feeling swept my skin. The temperature dropped instantaneously and I shuddered. My body started shivering on its own and I kept my eyes wide open, staring into the swallowing darkness, which stared back at me. All of a sudden, something or someone came into my view. It seemed like a silhouette of a man.
"Katherine ... come here." He said and extended his hand out to me. His hand was covered in blood.
Feeling terrified, I climbed a stair back and then turned to run away. The silhouette kept calling out to me as I ran away from it, taking two steps at a time. I ran and ran, but the stairs never ended and my name kept echoing in my ears.
I heard a sudden whooshing and fluttering, and then the voice calling me stopped. When I looked ahead, I saw Lucas standing on the top of the stairs and the light seemed to be radiating from him, from his skin. His porcelain skin looked even brighter than it ever had. A sudden emotion of safety and warmth washed over me and I started closing the distance between us. But no matter, how many stairs I climbed, he still seemed so far and out of my reach. I called out to him, in the hopes that he would notice me but he didn't.
Frustrated, I woke up in the middle of the night. The rest of the night, I kept on tossing and turning, but sleep never visited me, again.
The next day passed in a daze, I went from class to class, listening and scribbling notes in my notebook. My eyes were strained and itchy and I couldn't focus on anything. I felt like skipping school so I could go home and sleep all day but then also I wasn't planning on skipping classes.
Clueless and frustrated, I strolled inside Biology. I took my seat and opened my textbook, reading through the lines and momentarily rubbing my eyes. If anything could help me this moment, would be a hot cup of coffee to keep me from dozing off.
"Sorry to keep you waiting." Lucas said as he settled beside me.
"Not that I was waiting." I answered without looking at him.
"Were you not? ..." He said in his deep bewitching voice and no matter how much I tried to avoid him, I had to look up, at him. His black hair were tousled and a few strands fell on his flawless face.
I rolled my eyes and looked away. Everything about Lucas, called out to me. His roguish personality, his perfect face, his deep voice and those gleaming eyes, which looked like stormy grey sky, are just irresistible. Tearing my eyes off his face was the toughest thing I did, whenever he tried to provoke me.
"How was your night? ..... You look tired." I heard him say and when I didn't reply he tapped lightly on my hand, causing me to shiver at the touch of our skins, his cold and mine warm.
"Weird dreams?" He lifted his eyes, holding them with mine.
The answer was a straight yes. Yes I was having scary weird dreams, but no way I'm going to tell him about my dreams. I didn't quite appreciate the idea of sharing any information with Lucas. He always made me feel uneasy.
"Look... it would be really nice if you could just be my biology partner and stop interfering in my personal life." I replied curtly.
His eyes gave a mysterious glint. "I don't think I could always be....just your biology partner." He emphasized every word. There was an underlying connotation to his words, a hidden message.
I waited for him to say something that made sense, but he didn't. His ashen eyes gazed me with admiration like I was something beautiful and pleasant to look at. I could have looked away and ignored him, but instead I chose to look back at him, wondering what he might be thinking.
He was an enchanting distraction and I had to tear my eyes away from him, to focus on the class.
I tried my best to listen to Coach as he explained the Natural Selection theory, but my eyes flickered again and again from Coach to Lucas.
After class, Coach McKnight asked me to wait in class so I stayed behind.
"Katherine, the reason you're here right now is because I wanted to talk to you about yesterday's quiz." Coach McKnight settled in his chair and put a hand on his chin.
"What happened?" I asked. I wasn't worried about the quiz.
"Look, the quiz was taken to evaluate the performance of the class. Most of the students have done an excellent job but..." He paused.
"But?" I raised my eyes.
"It is about your biology partner Lucas. His scores are very less and I think he's having hard time adjusting here, so I think you should tutor him." He suggested.
"I think he could use someone else as a tutor, Coach."
"He doesn't know anyone in the class except you, Katherine. And not to forget the fact that you're a studious kid, you can be a positive influence on Lucas."
"But..." I was cut off by Coach.
"Now if you'll excuse me, I have another class to teach." He rose up from his seat , "And i was being serious about the tutoring thing, I'm counting on you." Coach left the room, leaving me dumbfounded in my seat.
Five days in a week with him and now I have to tutor him too. It seemed like everything around me was pushing me towards him, despite my will to stay away from him.