• Chapter 1
    A Dried Rose and Indigo Eyes

    I stood in line as I do every single dull day of my life. Okay, scratch that, not every day, and not always as boring I guess as I make it out to be. You have to understand though life was dull. Yes I said was, but I’m getting to that. Alright, so as I was saying, I was standing in line waiting my turn for my cold turkey sandwich and sides. The same thing every stinking day (just about), as in grab a navy blue plastic tray, snatch some utensils and away we go down the silver looking metal ‘runway’ as I call it. You know what I mean, right? Right.
    So in retrospect, today was no different as any other. I ate my lunch with my two best friends, Tyler (female by the way) and Chase. They greeted me with smiles and kept shoveling food that most likely wasn’t cooked all the way through. Why do you think I got the cold turkey slices on a bun with mayonnaise? Nothing Kutztown’s kitchen staff can mess up about cold turkey.
    “Hey Ariana!” Chase.
    “Ari! Jappy! Hey, physics was killer How’d you do, you think?” Tyler.
    Oh, didn’t I tell you? My parents came over from Japan. Pretty sweet, no? Well, I guess while I’m on the subject of my facial features, I have short, layered (and currently spiked) raven black hair, slanted green eyes, high cheek bones and full lips (of which I say hell yeah to, baby!). Not Angelina full, no way, but just my size I think. I’ll get to my parents later, so no worries, okay?
    “Oh, man I haven’t a clue. Probably a B. I couldn’t understand that one que…” My friends were staring at me, especially Tyler. “What?” I sent my plastic tray down on the round grey lunch table as they were still looking at me with utter disbelief, then looked at each other with one of those ‘Holy crap!’ looks.
    Chase broke the silence first, saying, “You are whining about a fricken B?” He groaned and glared at me mockingly. “I’ve failed. I know it! Ari’s a fricken genius!” With that all out, my friend plopped his head onto his right hand and let out a huff as he resumed eating his chicken sandwich, but at a much more stately pace. Then I looked to Tyler and laughed with her, throwing my head back a bit to give it a bit of extra emphasis.
    That’s when I saw it, in what was in some ways, the beginning of the end of my normal life as a Kutztown Area High School senior. You’re just begging me to tell you what it is, aren’t you? Well, I had stopped laughing, but still grinning at Chase as I shoved in some wheat bun and turkey, and I just simply glanced around the lunch hall. What caught my eye was the color, or more accurately put, the lack of. It was a dried rose. You’re thinking, ‘Okay, odd for school, but what gives?’ The fact that it was black as pitch and seemed to eat the light around it, suck it in, and devour it. It was an odd feeling let me tell you. I stared at it for I don’t even know how long before the voice of Tyler’s musical soprano cut through my temporary fixture.
    “Psst! Earth to Aria! Helloooo?”
    “Huh?” I answered her dumbly, as I became aware of the noise around us in the lunch hall and smiling like an idiot. “That’s our genius alright,” filtered into the background noise as I smiled and rolled my eyes. I looked around myself in amusement for having let my mind been lead astray over such a silly thing, and glanced over again just to prove to myself not a total dork. As soon as my gaze found the right table, I got caught again as if in a trance but this time not of the dried rose’s power, but of the power of a pair of indigo eyes. My own emeralds were glued, so much so it almost felt physical.
    It seemed to take hours, of which was most likely only a few minutes, to tear my gaze away. I didn’t dare look again for my brain told me I did not want to get stuck like that again, and because of that I didn’t see the face encompassing those startling eyes. I could use my imagination though, and everything from archangel to vampire beauty filled my mental eye. If only I knew how right I was.
    After a moments hesitation I spoke to my two chatting friends, “Hey. Guys. Who is that? An exchange student?” They both looked on to where I was pointing and Tyler gave out a little sigh of appreciation, so naturally it was she who answered my question.
    “You don’t know yet? That’s the new kid, and boy does he look good.” She eyed me for a moment before I had to say, “What?!”
    “You checking him out? I bet I could hook you up. If you want.”
    I suppressed a shudder and gave her the evil eye, which only made her giggle, to my annoyance. I braced myself to sneak another quick look over my shoulder to get a look at his face, but when I looked over to the table he had occupied, he was gone.
    “Huh.”
    “What?” Chase answered me while stuffing the last of his limp fries into his mouth. Ew.
    “Oh, never mind.” I hesitated for just a moment when the bell rang annoyingly loud that told us, ‘Next class! Next class!’ I hurried to the dumping area and threw out the food while handing my tray to a washing woman in a fish-net hat.
    The halls crowded as they always did in Kutztown’s too small corridors, and me and my friends where practically stuck to the wall as we made our way to class. For the only time in the day we each went our separate ways; I went to my Drawing and Painting class, Chase went to PE and Tyler went to a study hall.
    Oh, didn’t I tell you? I want to major in Communication Design at Kutztown’s University. Awesome place, awesome program and its cheap. And guess what? I just got the acceptance letter yesterday (which was December thirteenth if you didn’t know, so score to the early Christmas present!).
    Well, back to the point, I got to the art room without getting trampled by the teeming masses. I burst through the door, none to gracefully I might add, and almost tripped on my way to my seat. Head down, face flaming, I didn’t realize that someone else already occupied it. To my utter and complete embarrassment, I saw the new kid sitting in my normal seat. My mouth opened slightly to tell him off, before I got trapped like a deer in headlights at the locking of his gaze on mine. I ducked a little excuse and took my time getting to the other side of the room and to an open seat.
    Ms. Black then decided to step into the room and distract me from my hot face to tell the class, “Alright guys. Don’t forget to get me those impressionist pieces you did for a grade. If you remember on Friday we are now working on the psychedelic art. The paints are where they always are and even if those are recommended I will accept something in colored pencil. Just make sure to color it in good. Let’s get artsy.” That was her phrase, ‘Let’s get artsy.’ It may sound silly to you just reading this but she made it sound good.
    At that, I shuffled to the backroom where we each had our own little cubbies for us to keep our art in. I grabbed my sketched out psychedelic canvas and some primary colored paint, as was required, and made my way back to my seat as I spread out my things all around me. On went the oversized headphones, out came the brush and paints onto the paper pallet, and down went the backpack for maximum space. A Perfect Circle made their musical way into my ear holes as I begun to add red to my background, and that’s when I noticed his presence. It’s hard to describe but something you can’t miss if you’ve ever been around the guy, but I’m getting ahead of myself again.
    I looked up, and up and up, to see the new what must have been six-foot guy standing before me with his eyes closed and a faint smile on his face. I pulled at my huge phones but let the music drift between from around my neck, and as if I wasn’t embarrassed enough, the only thing I could get out was a little, “Um…” If you have seen his face, you know what I’m talking about, but you most likely would have forgotten the details (he prefers it that way).
    Before me stood a god made flesh. My earlier conjurations of his face were a mere shadow compared to what he really looked like. Maybe he is a vampire, I thought at first, but rejected the thought right away. His perfectly smooth and symmetrical face, with all of the right angles to make him almost too painful to look at, stood before me waiting. His crazily spiked, jet black hair that was even darker than my own, eyes so light a blue they could almost be grey, and a muscled chest that strained at his navy blue shirt, all didn’t miss my silent inspection as his eyes remained closed. When he finally did speak it was if that same arch-angle I pictured, was speaking.
    “Excuse me, but I noticed I have taken your place in this room,” he said with a slight accent.
    I couldn’t tell from where, but it didn’t trouble me long as my features filled with surprise, confusion and slight annoyance (as I was told later). I looked around and found the source almost immediately. There, sitting behind her desk and leaning back with a complete look of mischief and two winks, sat Ms. Black. Her dark eyes shone and encouraged me to continue with straightforwardness that only she could posses, with her darkened skin and wavy, dark brown hair.
    So I went back to the patient god before me and blurted out to him what my nervous mind spat out before it could catch up to what I really had intended to say, “Thanks but I’m fine! I don’t mind at all! Really.” I gave him my best version of an idiotic smile I had. I wanted to melt into the floor cracks and disappear from the continent, if not the planet. Even better was that I saw the slight smile on Ms. Black’s face and the shaking of her head.
    “Are you absolutely sure?”
    “No! I-I mean yes, I’m sure. Thanks for asking though.”
    My hand shot up to my short raven locks in an old habit as I began twirl the strands in my fingers. Eyes still shut like a shutter; he made his way gracefully, back to my original seat. I let out the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding and my fingers released my hair long enough to jam my over sized headphone back over my flaming ears. I bet at that moment in time, my face wasn’t doing do well either, but instead my normally pale completion was most likely a beat-ish kind of red.
    The rest of that period, my mind was scattered. My right hand kept creeping up to my hair as my left kept on adding primary colors to my psychedelic picture. Even my eyes roamed their way back towards the table with the new guy at it. That’s when I realized that I hadn’t even learned the kid’s name yet.
    “Idiot,” I murmured to myself, or so I had thought.
    “Excuse me,” the arch angle’s voice cut through at the end of “Hit That,” by The Offspring, and I made an even bigger fool of myself by jumping half off my seat. Now you have to know I’m not normally skittish, but the guy had me on edge to say the least.
    “I was wondering, since we both happen to be by ourselves, would you mind some company?”
    Hell, yes! I almost blurted out for the second time that period. Jeez, snap out of it you idiot! I told myself earnestly. I shrugged my shoulders to show that I didn’t mind and so as not to give away my blubbering mind.
    A System of a Down song mixed its way into the list of my shuffling, and I used the up and down melody of “P. L. U. C. K.,” to concentrate and finish my piece almost to the half-way point when the blaring buzzer cut in even through the music. I stood up and grabbed the phones, placing them about my shoulders again, when I started in surprise. The ever-patient god was standing in front of me, and if it had been someone else, I would have said he was giving me a once over. Hell, he even might have. I still haven’t asked him about it.
    “’Scuse me,” I muttered, brushing past him with a tingle as my elbow bumped into the crook of his (yes, we’re both tall, me being a level 5’8’’). Hurriedly, I put all of my supplies away, gathered my thing quickly from the floor and tabletop, and am-screed my way to Government, just a left and a right down the tile-floored halls.
    The rest of that period, even the last periods of my day of AP Studio Art class and my one study hall of the day, went by even smoother and quicker than usual. When the last bell cut into the silence of study hall, I beat it out of their with as few words said to my friends as I have ever done (or at least just about). I caught a glimpse of the archangel as I said a subdued good-bye to my friends and made my way to my beat up navy blue, 1955 model, Volkswagen Beetle. I grabbed my keychain from the bottom of my backpack and dug the lock open, having to tug on the old geezer a bit to get the back right door open. I quickly ducked inside and waited in the line behind the buses to get out, get home, and take a nice long hot shower to clear my confused mind.