~34~ Louder Than Thunder

(Zac’s POV)

“So they have the sweetest girl selling the sweetest treat,” a guy tried flirting with Angel for the fifth time as he waited in line for cotton candy. Of course this was when Devin had taken a break.

“If I give you ten tickets, can I get you instead of the candy?” he asked. That’s it. I told Brian to take over with the popcorn, for my break, and I started to walk over to the guy. Only, Joey made it over there first. He wrapped his arm around Angel’s waist and stood over her like a tower.

“We can switch stations if you want,” I heard Joey tell her. She shook her head. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” she said. Joey gave one long and threatening look to the obnoxious guy and then kissed Angel before leaving.

“Nice boyfriend,” the guy commented, ticked that she was taken.

“Thanks,” Angel muttered.

“Too bad I still don’t care—”

“Look. I’m here to give you cotton candy and that’s it. Not me, not my attention, and not anything else, alright?” Angel interrupted. I smiled. “So take your lame cotton candy and go.”

He did as he was told and he walked off, passing me in his tracks. Angel watched him, shaking her head and then she looked at me for nearly a second before turning away and going on a break with Devin.

***

“What’s your favorite?” I asked, Angel, probably scaring her from behind as she sat outside in the cool air. “Butter, caramel, kettle?”

“What are you even talking about?” she asked, confused. I pulled a bag of popcorn from behind me back.

“Popcorn,” I stated, eating a handful. I offered some to her and she questioned what flavor it was. “I mixed all of them.”

She understood with a nod.

“Zac,” someone said, touching my shoulder as I stood over Angel. I turned to see a group of three girls. “We’re gonna go skate now. You wanna come?”

I looked at Angel from the corner of my eye.

“Uh, I’m kinda busy. Maybe next time?” I replied. They shrugged, disappointed, and then continued their commute inside the huge rink. I took a seat next to Angel, whose nose was nearly as red as Rudolf’s. It had quickly dropped temperature than this morning, but it’s not like I felt it all that much.

I slid next to Angel and propped myself up with a hand behind where she sat. She actually scooted closer to me and leaned her head on my shoulder.

“What are you doing?” asking as if it was foreign affection.

“You’re warm,” she cooed and I noticed her eyes were closed.

“Wanna go somewhere with me?” I randomly asked her. She straightened up and looked at me.

“Sure,” she surprised me. I stood up and we started walking down the ice cold side walk.

“I bet this looks awkward,” she said when there was an awkward silence, two minutes into our walk.

“How?” I asked.

“I’m in a hoodie and jeans while you’re just wearing a t-shirt and shorts,” she answered. Oh.

“Well if anyone says anything, just tell them that heat runs through my blood,” I humored. Puffs of steam came from her mouth as she laughed in the cold air.

“That explains why you’re not cold,” she chattered.

“Well yeah,” I said.

“Sorry. I just forget sometimes,” she said, making my heart stop. She forgets about me being some weird mutant? She looked over to me in my silence. “I mean, you don’t use your powers all the time like the others.”

Because I don’t have a need to.

“But I can,” I said in a quiet voice. I grabbed her hand and laced our fingers. She stopped walking.

“I thought you gave up on me,” she said, avoiding my gaze.

“Me too,” I admitted. I sighed, my breath condensing in the air. “I don’t really think I can honestly give up on someone like you…”

It was the truth and I really thought it was time to confess.

“I hope that you didn’t give up on me,” I added. She scoffed and dropped my hand.

“What was there to give up, exactly?” she asked, confused. I gave her a doubtful look.

“You can’t stand there and tell me that there was never something between us,” I said seriously.

“Yeah, but it’s not like it would’ve amounted to anything,” she reasoned.

“Right. Because you’re too obsessed with Joey and his love for you, that you won’t offer yourself to anyone else,” I scolded.

“You act like it’s a crime to fall in love!” she shrieked.

“It is when you keep leading him on when you’re not in love with him,” I reasoned in a loud voice.

“I’m not leading him on, Zac,” she said in a low voice.

“You’re not just leading him on, you’re leading me on too,” I reasoned, getting angry. “I want you, Angel. I deserve you. Only, you won’t give me a d4mn chance.”

“A chance to what!? Yell at me like you are now?” she responded. I sighed and realized that she was right.

“A chance to warm you…” I whispered. I grabbed her hand. “And be with you…”

I grabbed her face and rubbed a thumb over her cheek, making her blush intensely. With my other hand that clutched hers, I moved it to the small of her back and pulled her into me with my arm wrapped around her waist. I placed my forehead on hers.

“And…love you,” I found myself whispering with my eyes closed. “Now tell me…did I run out of chances?”

“Maybe,” she whispered, her breath grazing by my face. I cupped her chin and positioned it higher. I pressed my lips to hers and felt a new kind of warmth. I pulled away and surprising enough, she reached up further and continued to kiss me back. I connected my tongue with hers and felt completely in heaven with her. I pulled away, thinking this was enough. At the same time, she pulled away, taking a step back with a hand over her mouth, looking away from me.

“Angel, I’m—” sh!t. sh!t. sh!t.

She turned her back to me and started to walk off, but then she stopped walking.

“For the record, I didn’t lead anyone on,” she said, even though it was contradicting at this point. She kissed me and knew she’d never do anything more about it. And not only did she kiss me, but she kissed me while being with Joey.

I watched her walk back from where we came and minutes later, I did the same.

(Brian’s POV)

“We have the rink to ourselves, you know,” I told Zac. Ever since he got back from his break, he’s been all depressed. I just wanted him to cheer up.

“I know,” he sighed as he continued to clean up the popcorn machine. I put a hand on his shoulder.

“Man…” I addressed. “What the h3ll is wrong with you?”

“What do you think?” he hissed.

“Angel,” I said, honestly.

“What happened now?” I asked in a stressful sigh.

“I…I think I told her I loved her…and then I kissed her…but then she left,” he explained. Anyone else messing with Angel would be dead to me right now, but I realized that they’re good for each other. They were opposites, but both were stubborn.

“Now what?” I asked. He shrugged.

“Well I got what I wanted and she rejected me. Now it’s up to her,” he replied. Got what he wanted?

“How exactly did you tell her?” I asked, trying to help.

“I told her that she was so wrapped around Joey’s finger because he loved her, that she didn’t give me a chance to do anything, like love her,” he paraphrased.

“Then you didn’t tell her you loved her. You just said she’s not trying to let you,” I said, smacking him over the head.

“Same thing,” he scoffed.

“No,” I stated. “It’s not the same thing. You just blamed everything on her.”

“I did not—”

I gave him a look and his composure changed to a guilty look. He shook his head and it faded.

“Whatever,” he decided. “She’ll choose what she wants. I’m tired of being the only one trying.”

Understandable.

“So…”

“So she has, what, six months to make up her mind and by then I’ll either be head over heels for her, or I’ll be over her completely,” he assumed.

“You’re already head over heels,” I noted. “In six months, you could be obsessed.”

“Not if I don’t think anything of it,” he reasoned. “I’ll be out of school, open to new women and new experiences.”

“Did you decide where you’re going?” I asked.

“Maybe,” he shrugged. “Not here. Not anywhere around where Angel will be.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning while she’s here, I’ll be somewhere else. When she’s off at RIU, I’ll be…somewhere else,” he said, looking off and sounding sad.

“RIU?”

“Rhode Island University,” he clarified. “I noticed the pamphlet in her bag on the trip and she’s always talking about it with her friends—not that I’ve been eavesdropping.”

“Right…” I said, doubtful. He shrugged and then dropped the cleaning rag into the trash.

I hitched an idea and then started to see a vine grow from behind Zac.

“I think I’m just gonna go home. Tell Vanessa, a’ight?” he said.

“You sure?” I asked, seeing what my vine had done as it coiled around the popcorn machine’s wheel. He sighed and nodded before turning around leaving. I straightened up and decomposed the vine after grabbing his phone. I placed it on the machine and then called Angel.

“What do you need, Brian?” she asked. I started snickering as I noticed a piece of green cotton candy in her hair. I pulled it out and she started blushing, embarrassed. I kept my hand by her face though. “Wait. What are you—”

I pressed my lips to hers, not feeling the same touch as when we were dating, and then she pushed me away after a second. She frowned and then took one look around me; Zac.

“Nice,” Zac commented before grabbing his phone and stomping off.

“Zac!” Angel called, sending me one nasty look before chasing him out.

I found myself being pushed back.

“What the fu**?” Joey nearly yelled at me. Sh!t. “What? Still not over her, you douche!?”

“Oh, I’m over her, but I don’t think you are,” I humored. He growled and then somehow sent an arm of water toward me. It only took one blink before a big-leafed-plant blocked it. “Oh, but you care?”

“What do you think?” he spat.

“I’m taking that as a yes,” I replied. He stared at me in loathe; like he’d melt the ice rink in order to throw me in and then refreeze it so I’d die of hypothermia. “Just so you know, me kissing her wasn’t for me.”

“I don’t believe that for a second,” he hissed.

“Alright, that’s your choice,” I allowed with a shrug. I started to break his grasp, and when I did, I walked around him.

“Why’d you do it?” he growled.

“What?”

“Kiss her,” he muttered. I turned back around to him.

“Because Zac saw,” I sighed, telling the truth. “And as much as you and I would like to deny it, Angel feels guilty for it. But hey, she’s kissed three guys in one day, so I can understand why she’d feel that way—”

“What do you mean three…?”

He immediately turned around and stormed out of the rink. Hurricane Joseph. Has a ring to it don’t you think?

(Zac’s POV)

The door slammed shut and I didn’t care who it was.

“Where’d she go?” Joey asked, frantically. He was mad.

“I don’t know,” I lied. He grabbed my shirt’s collar.

“Tell me, now,” he ordered. I produced fire on him and he dropped me, so I put it out.

“She’s probably busy trying to find Lulu and tell her how they have something else in common,” I hissed.

“And what exactly is that? Cuz it isn’t cheating on you,” he retorted. Brian told him we kissed… “You were never together and you never will be. Instead of her being the one to run off, it should’ve been you. Weren’t you the one upset in the first place?”

“That’s exactly why I told her to leave,” I raised my voice and closed my eyes in stress.

“Zac!” Angel called for me after I stormed out when I saw her and Brian kissing. I heard the rink’s doors slam from hundreds of feet away; just like her hard steps as she ran for me. “Zac—”

“Save it,” I said, turning to her. She said nothing as her face was red like earlier, only I knew for a fact it wasn’t from the cold. “You’re just like Lulu.”

I started to turn, but then she grabbed my arm. I jerked it from her grasp and looked at her, angry.

“This isn’t about Lulu!” she yelled. “This is about you and me.”

I laughed.

“So after I catch you kissing your ex-boyfriend, you consider a ‘you and me’?” I laughed, incredulously. “That’s bullsh!t, Angel. After all that and I—ugh. Whatever. You’re pathetic.”

Not only is it pathetic for her, but also Brian. He was supposed to be my friend after all this time. He’s just as low as his brother.

“I’m pathetic?” she asked with a scoff. “I’m not the one giving mixed signals and then blaming the retaliation on the other person.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at her.

“You heard what I said,” she continued. “What you feel right now is exactly how I felt when I caught you and Lulu at the hotel. Now—”

“So what?” I asked. “You think we’re even now, or something? Well we’re not.”

Loyalty. She needed to learn loyalty just like Brian needed to. She wasn’t loyal to Joey just as he wasn’t loyal to, both, me or his brother.

“I never said that,” she said with a quieter voice.

“You didn’t need to!” I yelled at her. This time, I produced more anger for her than anything else. I felt it through my veins. That’s why I had to make her go. I had to make her leave and never come back so I wouldn’t be able to hurt her by my uncontrolled anger. “Leave me alone.”

“Zac. You don’t mean that—”

“Yes I do,” I insisted. “Leave me alone and forget everything. No. Don’t forget everything. Remember how I treated Lulu and only remember that. Because that me you won’t want; that me can’t hurt you.”

She stayed quiet as I ranted.

“So then go,” I ordered. “Forget me trying to fight for you, and forget me fighting with you. Just go.”

“Coming from the boy who said he never got a chance,” she mumbled, shaking her head at me. And yet, even though I was the one saying all these hurtful things, I felt like I just wanted to cry and light some building on fire.

“Well that boy’s not coming back,” I responded, feeling a tang of guilt. Maybe cuz I was lying just to try to save myself from another heartbreak, and I didn’t care if it caused someone else one. “I realize now that I never wanted you. It was Devin’s experiment on me that liked you, okay? Just like Joey’s that bonded you together…only, I’m fighting that urge because I know we’ll never do anything about it. I don’t want to and neither do you.”

She sniffed and held her composure and tears just like I was.

“Good. Cuz I never wanted you either,” she notified. I didn’t need her to tell me. “Why do you think I wrote that note? What I said was true then and it’s true now.”

“Good,” I stated. “That’s why it’s ashes now.”

She scoffed at me.

“You’re a real a$$hole,” she commented. I shrugged with the truth. “I wish that I let you drown this summer. Then I wouldn’t have had to deal with anything but Lulu, but hey, that’d be easy considering you meant so little to her that she moved on while still being with you.”

I gritted my teeth at the low blow.

“Well I wish I never would’ve saved you from that godd4mned fire,” I hissed in a lie. A complete and utter lie. “Cuz then I’d never have to have a weakness to my powers, or a real conscious to anything. And by now I’d be hanging out with Luke, or banging some chick because I wouldn’t give a d4mn about disrespecting you.”

That’s when a tear fell. A tear fell from her eye and the water droplet didn’t even have to touch anywhere on me in order to cause me pain. She ran off and for once, I didn’t follow her or give a sh!t about where she was going.