~35~ Believe

(Zac’s POV)

I woke up with my eyes in pain. And that was before I even opened my eyes. When I did, I didn’t know where I was.

“You’re up already?” a girl asked, stretching in the bed beside me. I flinched away from her naked body. Wtf was going on?

“Bro!” I heard a voice call. Not even seconds later, Luke barged into the trashed room.

“Hi,” the girl next to me said to Luke, who had no shirt on.

“What the h3ll are you doing here?” I growled at him. He was supposed to be locked up.

“Um. I live here?” he replied. Why the h3ll would I live with a delinquent like him after what he did to all of those people? I don’t believe this. “Jane. Get going. You know it’s a Saturday and Lulu’s coming over. I don’t know why the h3ll you two even hooked up last night…”

“Lulu?” I asked.

“She’s still your girlfriend this week, right?” Luke asked, confused.

“I hope not,” Jane said in a very seductive voice and then she kissed my shoulder. I flinched away from her once more and then landed on the hard, wooden floor. I crawled across it until I reached the window.

Not only was I “living” with Luke, but now it had sunk in that I had cheated on Lulu…but I also realized that by Luke’s words, we were still on-again/off-again. Why would I do that? I would never cheat on anyone. Especially Lulu. Even for revenge, that was low!

“DUDE!” Luke yelled at me once more before throwing a phone at me. I saw Lulu’s name calling and I answered.

“Hello?”

“Hey, there, fire man,” Lulu’s kind voice greeted.

“Fire man?” I asked. Why would she call me that? I wasn’t even a fireman and even if I did “intern”, it was because of my powers and no one knew about them. Right?

“Oh sh!t,” Luke said across the room. He climbed over my huge bed and then grabbed the phone from me. “He’ll call you back later, bye.”

“Dude?” I asked for once. He placed a hand to my forehead.

“Yup. You’re not even hot,” he said. He backed away and started messing with the random, electrical fireplace in my room. “I think it was your little incident the other day. You think maybe it caused some post-amnesia?”

“What incident?” I asked. He blinked at me.

“When we were at the junk yard, blowing up some sh!t and a car part exploded into you…” he told. What? Why would I blow up sh!t in front of him—better yet, with him?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about…” I said, honestly. He grabbed a metal iron thing for fireplaces, held it in the fire so long that its steel tip started to redden. And then he pressed it to my skin. “Dude!”

“It’s not working,” he noted. I scoffed. Well duh!

And then, with one assumption, I was being hauled to the hospital. My commute there, was interesting. Other than the giant mansion that Luke and I somehow had, everything else had singed walls and ghetto-looking buildings. I asked no questions.

Well, that was until we passed by Angel’s house. No cars were there and there was a sign in front of the house for sale.

“Did the Hallows sell their house?” I asked. He laughed.

“No?” he answered. “The ‘rents were never home and considering that Angel wasn’t there anymore, they just sold the house—er, are trying to sell the house.”

“Trying?”

“Well most people still think crazy ole Devin’s still trying to make stuff in there,” he explained with a laugh. “They’re too scared to buy it and have the house explode.”

“Well why would the Hallows sell their house if Angel and Devin still lived there?” I asked. He stayed quiet. “Luke…”

“Angel doesn’t live there and once she was gone, they started to blame Devin for that,” he said.

“Where’d she go?” I asked, concerned. He stopped at a red light and looked over to me with a frown.

“Why are you asking like you don’t know?” he asked.

“Because I don’t know,” I reasoned, seriously. “Uh, amnesia, er something maybe?”

“Right…” he remembered. “Well right at the beginning of school starting, she died.”

“She died?”

SHE DIED!?

He nodded.

“Got stuck in the school fire,” he informed. He snickered. “I think it’s funny. Considering she was Hot Head and all.”

He continued to laugh and try to remind me of all the h3ll we caused her over the years because she was Brian’s brother—who I didn’t dare to ask about—and all I did was get even more furious. Then he started to tell me about how things changed when I realized that I had fire powers. Apparently we could boss around whoever we wanted with it. So much that we ordered around Devin. He made the Drug for Luke, but there was no effect. That was the last batch of chemicals concerning “the Drug”.

“Zac!” I was addressed. I just focused on the road, hating Luke more and more. My fists were balled up and turning red with heat. “Zac!?!”

“WHAT!?” I yelled, feeling water poured on me. I sat up and opened my eyes.

It was a dream.

I looked around to see it to be Vanessa with a bucket, emptied out on me.

“You nearly set this bed on fire!” she scolded.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” I apologized, still phased by my dream.

“What the h3ll made you so pissed off?” Vanessa asked me as we trashed my sheets and made my bed with new ones in the middle of the night with silence up until now.

“I…I don’t know,” I lied. I knew why I was mad.

I realized that no matter what the situation was, I should’ve hated Luke—and myself for that matter—for anything we had done and would’ve amounted to. That’s a good a$$ reason why I was pissed.

Another reason I was mad, was because I was angry with myself. I had told Angel that I wished I never saved her from that fire. My dream would’ve been my future. That future was everything that I was against now…because of Angel.

***

Remember when I told Brian that in six months, everything would be clear to me about Angel?

Well I was wrong.

I wanted to go up to her every day and tell her I loved her, but at the same time, I hated her just as much as before all this happened. Yet, when she actually tried to act civil towards me in public, I either shunned her or acted completely immature and hostile towards her.

My six months were up and nearly everything else, but her was settled. And better yet, graduation was in two days. I wasn’t going to the ceremony because I wasn’t considered to be in that class and I didn’t wanna graduate with hundreds of students I didn’t know or grow up with. Mainly, because my flight was tomorrow.

So it was now or never.

“Did you tell her?” Brian asked me. I had forgiven him because the only reason he kissed her was so she’d feel guilty and confess her feelings. He nearly killed himself for causing as much fighting and sh!t when it went the wrong way.

“No,” I stated.

“So I guess she’ll never know,” he sighed. Oh right. And over these months, he’s learned to butt out of my decisions. I guess he finally realized that I was stubborn and didn’t make decisions well enough to be held responsible by him. I kind of missed that fact about him though. Either way, when I looked into his eyes, they always told me what the right thing was whenever they’d change into green.

“Today’s the day,” I finally decided.

“That you’re gonna tell her?” he asked, hopeful with a smirk. I didn’t answer him as I stood and marched right over to her table filled with her friends. Everyone except Angel looked up at me. So I’d wait until she did.

“What do you want, Tyler?” Lulu asked.

“Yeah. We’re in the middle of something,” Lacy asked. Yeah. Now they were friends too.

Everyone said at least something to me or looked up, except Angel. I kneeled down beside her chair and smirked as I saw her rolling her head. I knew her well enough before that she was silently cursing her life for having a nuisance like me come around. She finally turned around.

“What do you want, Zachariah?” she asked with a venomous tone. All I did was smile at her and she raised an eyebrow. “What…?”

“You; I want you,” I answered before grabbing her waist and kissing her. I knew she would try pulling away, so that’s why my arms were locked around her waist. Only…she responded by locking her arms around my neck. I stood up, pulling her up with me.

She kissed me back, making six months of hatred and hostility fade away from my memory and hopefully hers too.

Someone cleared their throat and I pulled away to see the assistant principal holding up two detention slips.

“You can’t give detention this late in the year,” I reminded.

“Then it’s for next year,” he responded.

“Ducker, there is no next year for me,” I smiled slyly. He narrowed his eyes and just left.

He’s the prime officer for catching PDA—especially during lunch—but I didn’t care. Nothing could mess up this moment with Angel. Well that’s what I assumed until she started to pull away with a worried look. She grabbed her bag and then walked outside.

With “congrats” and “you’re whipped” comments from both genders, I followed her.

“One day,” I started. She stopped walking and turned to me.

“Excuse me?”

“Be my girlfriend for one day,” I ordered. She crossed her arms.

“With all of our sh!t—”

“I deserve one day,” I interrupted. “Please. Think of it as a graduation present.”

“Um…no,” she stated. What the h3ll?

“There’s no way in heaven or h3ll that you can kiss me like that and go from that to hating me in less than a minute!” I said.

“No one said anything about hating you,” she muttered.

“Well it’s uncalled for,” I reasoned.

“What’s ‘uncalled for’ is you kissing me in front of all those people,” she whispered.

“Wasn’t it you, months ago, that was getting pissed because I acted different around you in private? Well now it’s not private, Angel. It’s fu**ing public and for one more day, it’s gonna continue to be public,” I demanded.

“And what makes you think you even get that long?” she asked.

“Because tomorrow’s the last day I’ll see you and I really don’t believe you’re that much of a b!tch to leave me in the memory of you despising and shunning me,” I choked out, honestly. After a silence, she started walking back towards the cafeteria and grazed her shoulder with mine.

“Then be ready to pick me up for school at 8,” she whispered before walking away. I contained my smile and turned to watch her leave.

“Angel!” I yelled. She turned back to me with a smirk playing at her lips. “I’ll be there at 7:45 and I’ll pick what you wear.”

She gulped and I started to hold back a laugh.

“Fine…” she said, unsure as she turned back to the doors.

“Wait again,” I called, surely making her more and more impatient now.

“What, Tyler?” she growled.

“You also have to go on a date with me,” I said.

“On one condition,” she said.

“Hit me,” I allowed.

“There’s no fires involved,” she whispered, knowing that I’d hear when no one else could.

“Of course not,” I replied. She smiled and then reached a hand up to her lips to hide it before spinning around and continuing her lunch.

I waited for passing period before I saw Brian.

“I told you, man,” I addressed, patting his shoulder. “Today’s the day.”

Tomorrow I had a date with Angel Hallow. Finally.