Time stopped moving.

Everyone was still

Darra was choking...

He was choking on everything, his tears, the fact that he had a true friend after Grace- even air itself. He fell down on the ground, gripping the soil, he couldn't breathe. His eyes were wide open and his right hand clenched his clothe at the place where his heart was located. He cried. "Do you-...do you really...really mean it...Lilly?"

"Let lightning strike me to death right now if I'm lying." She said as she smiled, tears beginning to fall down her face once again, as she knelt down beside Darra. "B-But how can you...-"
"Do you want me to tell you a secret, Darra?"

Darra looked at Lilly, her dark blue eyes shining with mystery and anticipation, but there was something hidden in them- a certain emotion Darra couldn't quite make out.

"Before you came, I was lonely. I had no friends and people like Juan always bullied me because I was small and frail. No one wanted to talk to me because they thought Juan would start picking on them too, so it was either they were with me or against me, and they were certainly not willing to take the bullet for me. 

That's why you saw everyone give me the cold shoulder when it was your first day of school. But when you came along, I thought...I thought it could be a new beginning for me. I wanted to make the first impression between us the best, and I lied about everyone calling me Lis because I wanted to show you that I was popular and had a good reputation. 

That's why the first time you called me Lis...I was so happy because you are the only person who has ever called me that name. Darra, if I'm going, to be honest with you, you are the best thing that has ever happened in my entire life. I would never want to lose a friend like you, and that's why I want you to be honest with me."

Lilly placed her right hand on Darra's shoulder, and her left hand caressed his cheek. This just made Darra feel even sadder. How was he ever gonna tell her about Grace, and their relationship, that no matter how kind or nice Lilly was, Grace would be Darra's only best friend

Darra wiped his tears away, looked at Lilly, and smiled. "Do you believe in...

Magic?"

.

.

.

"Oh, when you're in love...you do the craziest things..." Darra's biology teacher said as he swooned around holding his hands to his chest, a slight blush on his cheeks. "And how do you know that they're in love, Lukas..." 

The man asked, looking at a boy with silver-like hair and a girl with dark blue eyes talk away, the boy making gestures with his hands and the girl paying her full attention, through a magic mirror.

"Oh please, I'm a biology teacher, I know how the body works." Mr. Anderson said as he fixed his glasses on his nose, leaving his finger on them as he spoke.
"I thought the phrase was, "You guys got chemistry" and not, "You guys got biology" Seriously?" The man rolled his eyes and scoffed, laying his head back against his chair. Lukas flinched. "Why you LITTLE-"

"Don't you DARE forget who the bloody hell you're talking to, buddy or your gonna frickin' wish you were never born."

The man said, smirking as he held Lukas' collar, papers flying around, scattering on the floor, the chair on which he was sitting creaking from turning a little. 'How...how the heck did he...do that?'

"Now, go ahead and keep watching, don't want you to miss the show, because you'll be telling me all about it. I have some important business to do." The man said, letting go of Lukas and taking one step to his right only to vanish, leaving Lukas stunned.

'When you're in love, you are not prepared to do crazy things. It just...happens. But when I'm in love, I'm prepared to do everything. The senseless things, stupid things, meaningless, hurtful, futile, because when I'm in love, anything and everything doesn't matter, the people, the surroundings, the universe, time, nothing. All that matters is the space between us, and I'm going to make it disappear. I'm coming for you, Luv...'

The man thought to himself as with each step he took, he traveled distances it would've taken human beings months to move.

"Oohhh, so that's what happened that snowy day!!" Lilly said as she snapped her finger in realization, the look on her face more curious than a monkey without a red butt.

"Exactly," Darra said all too confident as if he figured it out immediately that day.

"But apart from magic, what was your life like, back in Ireland...?" Darra froze as Lilly instantly got closer.

He couldn't.

He just couldn't.

Honestly, he didn't understand why he couldn't utter out a word about Grace. Was it that he was confused? His feelings for Grace never changed no, not one bit.

But...

He also realized the thing he had for Lilly had grown into something more!

And then he could also feel guilty. Because with every passing day, he grew more distant to Grace and it seemed that their chats had gotten less and less frequent...

He also knew, if he didn't tell her right now...later on on this deadly journey of theirs, Lilly would've found out the truth. And it wouldn't go so well.

And what to say...

About his dear parents?

"Well...to say the least...my life wasn't all rainbows and cupcakes." He started out, rubbing the back of his head with an awkward smile, his eyes closed but his eyebrows creased. And then his smile suddenly dropped.

"I lived in a tiny cottage right next to this beautiful lake, a little far away from anyone else in town. My mom and my dad were my best friends because at the time, no one wanted anything to do with me and the kids there were all warned against me like I was some kind of disease.

Some kind of curse

Some kind of demon"

And they all came rushing back into his mind like an overflowing river. All of the built-up emotions rushing along with them, his fists, clenching, a dark shadow replacing the position of his eyes.

He began to remember

To relive

People threw just more than curses at him whenever he walked down the streets, so he never left home.

Teachers would scold him more than others for every mistake made and the children wouldn't make it better by putting the blame on him, so he was homeschooled.

And his parents were also shunned by society. He wondered all his life 'Where are my cousins, my uncle's and aunts? Why am I the only child?'

He didn't know

He had no answer

And asking his parents...?

Useless!

"I always walked around alone at night. Because in my perspective, the night was much brighter than the day."

People who would walk by him used to run away, and those on the streets would gasp.

Why?

Someone would whisper to the other, " I told you he was bad news. Look at him, his head is glowing!!"

Indeed what they saw was no hallucination because his hair glowed a luminous pale light that could rival that of the moon's

"Until one day on my nighttime strolls..."

He hesitated.

It was now time for the truth.

He exhaled in order to calm himself down, subconsciously surprised that he had been holding in a breath this entire time.

"I saw a beautiful girl sitting atop a hill that night. She had wonderful red hair and gorgeous green eyes. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life!"