Love Lengths

Chapter Seven

Maggie

I hadn't meant to startle him; sometimes I forget that my senses are a lot more intuitive than other peoples' are - it's easy to slip into my own little world of staying so far away from people that I forget I'm different than everybody else.

Refraining from moving closer, I calmly asked him why he'd followed me, only to have him stare, wide-eyed, at me, as if he was almost mesmerised by the sound of my voice actually escaping from my cold, chapped lips; it wasn't often I felt the cold; the cold night air had finally gotten too much for me to handle.

"Kyle," I repeated, a little softer than before, "why did you follow me?"; I watched as his eyes followed down my arm, to my slowly uplifting hand as I reached towards him; knowing I shouldn't do it, but needing to know why. "Kyle," my voice, so quiet this time it barely came out at all; gently brushing the tips of my fingers against his warm hand, leaving them there as I let his mind rush into mine.

A million and one thoughts flooded my head, my eyes slamming shut with a power, the power, that felt like a gust of wind; 'Should I tell her?', 'What is it that draws me to her?', 'Look at her eyes, those gorgeous eyes.', I felt all of his current thoughts pass into my head, lifting my words, my thoughts, my memories, everything, from my head - gone in an instant.

"Maggie," he panted, as if he knew my name! 'It feels so good to say her name, to feel it passing over my lips, why?' A wry smile played on my lips, loving the sound of his thoughts as he questioned his own meaning, his own wanting, why? 'What is this? Why do I feel like I need to protect her from anything? Why do I feel like I can't lose her?' pulling away, I breathed heavily as he staggered backwards, further into the tree that he'd used to take refuge from me. "I should go," he said aloud, shifting his eyes everywhere, except on to me; could he feel it? Tensing, the air seemed to stiffen as he steadied himself, his long, muscular stance returning as he fit tightly again into his plain white tee, stretching the sleeves with his built biceps - no doubt the result of him spending every lunch time in the gym at school - how did I know that?

"You shouldn't be out so erm," internally fighting against the urge to actually talk to someone, I knew he had to be at home; he probably thought I was crazy anyway, "late, you should be at home.." Slowly, I reached into my bag, pulling out two things; a long handle appeared in my hand, followed by the wide knife blade, pointing towards myself so as not to hurt, or spook, him with it. Sighing loudly, he reached out towards me, taking the handle from me and held it between his thumb and forefinger, whispering his 'I'm so sorry' again and dropping his head.

"Hey," I whispered, refraining from touching him again; scared of what I might hear "it's fine, really, I'm fine, see." I was only trying to reassure him; I really had no idea how I felt; all of my emotions were spinning, all I could think about was the warm skin that had been under my fingers, how his thoughts rang through my head like music on the wind; how I wanted him to speak to me, to feel his touch against my own skin. What did it mean?

The second thing escaping my bag felt old to the touch, a rough card backing to hold a wedge of pages together; it felt like tough old leather to my fingers, a crinkled, dog-eared corner on the bottom right proved to me that my copy of Wuthering Heights really was the reject one of the class - like me - and lifted it up to him "We have a test tomorrow anyway," I muttered, deciding to take the first step and leave before any more could happen; "I have to be in, goodnight Kyle." and with that, I strode passed him, eyes staring intently to the ground, and waited to hear the sound of his footsteps leave - nothing.

Large and dark, the porch in front of my house had three steps leading up to the door; I forced myself up them, one at a time, without looking back, pulling a long silver key out of my right jeans pocket, sliding it tenderly into the keyhole before turning around to see where he was, only to be greeted by a pair of bright eyes staring back at me from the end of the deck; his hands held up, palms facing me, in an attempt to show he wasn’t a danger.