The Silence of Dark and Light

The Petal encounters the Hunter

The flabby bear-pig was almost upon her. She wasn't even paying attention to where she was going as she sped around a corner. So surprise nipped at her when she found herself among the maze of curbs, curves, and ramps. 

And there stood the Ater Table, pronounced “eighter.”

High school legend goes that when it first opened, a member carved “Skater Table” into a section of the low-bearing wall. Located at the back of the school in the senior parking lot, which completely empties within the first ten minutes after the last bell rings. No one knew why; there wasn’t evidence of there ever being a table in the area. As the years went by, the wall continued to fall into disarray, and pieces began to fall off. One of the fallen pieces still had the S on it, and it was never rewritten anywhere else. Nor did the principal bother to use the public tax funding to call any contractors in for the wall to get repaired.

The whole wall didn’t remain, but what they called it stayed the same.

As far as the principal went, he is a cold man who went by Cole Kingsley. Oh, he's attempted to dissuade them from grinding and riding their boards on the edge of the school grounds. So much so he hired contractors to install guards to the edges of stair railings, and bench seats, as well as domes every couple feet. But the skaters weren’t ever the type to obey rules, let alone let some little things such as architectural faults stop them from doing what they enjoy.

The weekend after the contractors finished, some of the skaters snuck out of their houses,  fathers’ file tools in hand. They had a plan to shave down the guards. But you might be wondering how they managed to get the domes off. Well, the illegal use of construction equipment with a bulldozer and crawler crane soon fixed that problem. Do you happen to know what’s connected to a crawler crane? What hangs from them? These inventive skaters lifted the crane as high as it would go, detached the wrecking ball, and let it fall on the plastic truncated domes, one at a time.

It was a wonder a small mob hadn’t gathered and began to protest against the after-curfew noise, or the cops hadn’t shown up and arrested them. But they moved too fast, and by the time someone noticed the noise, someone made the call, and the cops made it there, they were of course too late. The guards had been smoothly filed down, and the skaters used the bulldozer to push the pieces of broken up domes into a neat little pile. Which they placed in the middle of the staff parking lot as their final act of defiance. In regards to the machinery, that was later discovered by a rookie cop, set in neutral. It was sluggishly rolling down the street, setting off car alarms, and breaking off side mirrors as it went. Which was puzzling; This town constantly pretended to portray perfection. So coupled with the cookie-cutter curb appeal of houses in the suburban area, how are there cars allowed to park outside? You'd think they'd be inside their seemingly impeccable garages.

How can one a***e a power that they don't even have? Astoundingly, Kingsley always manages to find a way. He demanded to be present in the camera viewings that should have been recording the entire thing. To the cops' discovery - and Kingsleys’ dismay - all the cameras that angled at the closest entrance and the ‘Table, had been spray-painted in black. On Monday, the skaters were welcomed back to cheers, and even Vylet had to admit it was amusing. Just let them skate, they weren’t hurting private property, and there wasn’t anything to do in this rotten town, anyway.

She immediately obeyed the instinct that screamed at her to make a decisive decision no matter how risky it may seem. So she dove directly into the crowd of different shades of overgrown bangs, poking out from Dark Dove beanies, and Hater boards. They zipped by and weaved so close to her it was amazing how she didn’t get clotheslined by an arm trying to balance its owner, in the attempt of landing tricks.

Half-expecting to hear a gruff shout directed at her, she didn’t pause to look back until she was on the opposite side. Miraculously, she was able to make it through unscathed. The cruelest high school security guard was still scanning the throbbing crowd for her with obvious urgency. Vylet knew that if she stayed here standing still, his beady eyes would eventually be able to pick her out. Making her way across the quad, she had succeeded in keeping calm. Now, panic threatened to well up within her like a tsunami. But she refused to let it break.

Shoving it back down, she turned to take off running, when she unavoidably collided with someone. One of her feet, fortunately, landed on a moving board. And surprisingly strong hands - connected to the most elegant fingers she’d ever seen - instantly gripped her shoulders. Her other foot found its way next to the other one, straddling an even bigger size pair of Ledge shoes.

The guy was holding her close to his radiantly warm body, so she wouldn’t fall off as they rode away from the school's mediocre tyrannical abuser. She wanted to know who it was so much that the flames of curiosity began to lick at her. Physics wouldn’t let her at the moment, for if she even tilted her head too far up her body would follow, causing them both to crash. So she forced herself to be content with clinging onto his forearms in return. Vylet thoroughly enjoyed feeling the lean muscle through the thick My Friend jacket he was wearing.

Leaning into the corners with him, their bodies pressed closer together than she could not even have dreamed about. A mixture of sadness and regret pricked at her when he began to slow them down once they wound up behind the gym.

The ride was over way too soon.

It was only when they came to a complete stop, that he relaxed his firm but gentle hold on her, and she stumbled off the board.

“Whoa, careful!” He warned her, and those strong hands shot out at her, steadying her.

“Sorry,” she mumbled after an awkward chuckle. “Not at all used to skater legs.”

“Huh. Could’ve fooled me; you know how to lean with those turns, girl,” her beautiful stranger complimented.

“Basic physics,” she thought, and opened her mouth to say so, but made the mistake of looking into the face of her rescuer before actually speaking aloud.

And she stopped breathing for a minute.

It was Hunter Drión, the coolest guy at the school.

Why did he do that for her?

“Well, anyone running from Carco the man-pig deserves at least one out.”

Had she asked that question out loud? Mentally giving herself a face-palm - her brain wasn’t thinking before more i***t words began pouring out of her i***t mouth. “I call him the flabby bear-pig.” Horror and embarrassment instantly flooded her, as if she were directly in front of a recently broken dam. But she was pleasantly shocked to see Hunter had burst out laughing.

“ ‘Carco, the flabby bear-pig,’ that’s awesome.”

His laugh was charmingly infectious - not to mention heart-meltingly handsome - and she found a smile spreading across her face. “Alright, you gave me an out, but what if I was guilty?”

“Nah,” he immediately disagreed with a shake of his head. “I don’t believe that for a second,” then he peered at her through his long curtain of truffle colored, near-shoulder length hair. The question of whether she was or not shone in his eyes, and she protested her innocence with another chuckle. “I wasn’t! It was one of those ‘wrong time, wrong place,’ type of situations. . . .” And she meekly let her voice fade.

“Hey, I believe you,” he assured her with repetition. “So? Everyone deserves at least one.”

“Well, thanks,” she shyly dared to glance up at those eyes. Those eyes that remarkably resembled the color of a rich chocolate fountain, before jerking her gaze away from their hypnosis. He was too cute, she was barely able to contain herself!

“Hey, what’s your name?” He curiously asked her.

“Vylet.” And she mentally starred in the black parade of her mind, in celebration. Yes, she managed to answer him without stammering like the Queen of all Things Awkward and its Losers.

With an approving nod of cool, he snapped his board up. “Nice to meet you, Vylet.”

How was it that the wind managed to catch his hair so perfectly? He turned away, striding sexily away from her. If that wasn’t a thing then, it sure was now. Vylet couldn’t help herself but watch him cross the shadow of the gym, until the sun hit him, highlighting the faint red tints in his hair. Then he disappeared around the corner, presumably to go back to the Ater Table.

Guess it was a good thing she wasn’t paying attention to where she was going when she was trying to get away from the bear-pig. She’d just gotten saved by thee Hunter Drión, the skater himself. Vylet couldn’t wait to tell Jay about this!

-

“But were you guilty?” He gave her a knowing look. A look that read come on, you can tell me.

“Jay,” she tiredly gave him a look right back. “By the time the flour had cleared, the real culprits had taken off, and I was standing in a puddle of egg.”

“Sick potential band name,” he pointed out.

"For an alt band, perhaps," Vylet murmured back, and he nodded his begrudging agreement. 

They had become friends at the beginning of this school year.

It was the first day of school and she was in English class, with Mrs. Gates. And of course, she was forcing them to get into group projects, at the start of the school year.

"Because what better way to kick your high school career - ."

"High school's not a career; you don't get paid for it unless you're part of the staff or faculty." Vylet thought right away. Already, she could tell this teacher lived it up too much in the days of Smoke and Sunshine. 

" - then with a group project as a way to introduce yourselves, and make some new friends in the process!"

Oh geez.

Teachers such as this admittedly concerned her. Vylet found it  comical the way adults still treated them like misbehaving three-year-olds. Yet in a few short months, they’d be releasing a whole other group of adults unto the world. It was almost as if teachers expected them to flip some type of magical switch, and it'd change them into how they were apparently supposed to be acting. Irony and hypocrisy also rang loud and true here. Especially considering what went on during those conferences in the secretive teachers lounge.

Mrs. Gates lumped the groups together. In Vylet’s, two members from the dance team immediately began to gibber about their routine. While the other two - presumably from the chess club - attempted to get them to discuss what they were presenting. Vylet managed to tune them out for a couple of minutes, but she soon couldn't stand it much longer. Standing abruptly from her desk, she scraped her seat back as she did so. She weaved between the desks that were sloppily clumped together in groups. At Gates’ desk, she gave her some spiel about having a prior engagement of taking pictures for Yearbook. Gates permitted, and Vylet shook her head at the delusional idiocy; if she did have Yearbook, she’d have been in that class already. Skillfully sweeping up her messenger bag on her way out the door, she headed toward the closest bathroom. Not only would it be the safest place for her to ditch the rest of this period, but she did also have to pee.

As she reached out a hand for the handle, she heard a slight clash, followed by an exclamation of pain. To her, it sounded like something had been roughly shoved against the lockers.

Rather, someone.

Knowing it was beyond foolish of her to intervene, yet she couldn’t seem to ignore it and her feet insisted on carrying her toward the noises. As she came around the corner, she instantly recognized one of the nerds from her junior high graduating class. Maybe his name started with a ‘Q’? And a couple of much taller, older-looking guys. These, she assumed as much to be upperclassmen, whether or not they were seniors were irrelevant. This was physical bullying by definition, and an example of it was being played right before her eyes. And she had no idea how to stop it, only that it needed to.

“Hey!” She found herself saying in a deep, demanding voice.

It got the attention of the two older guys as they turned to glare at her, managing a look of dumbfoundedness and menace. One of them had a hand pressed to the side of Q’s face, which seemed to be magnetized to the lockers, so he wasn’t able to move at all. The other began to approach her, in attempts to intimidate, but she refused to look down or step back. Even when he threatened, “this isn’t any of your business. So eat it!”

“Yeah, eat it!” His twin whimsically added.

Such smarts. She could only hope it was a reflection on his lack of absorbing anything taught at this school, rather than the reflection of the teaching abilities here.

Eat It didn’t stop walking, instead choosing to get right up in her face, but Vylet was big on personal space. Especially when it came to unwanted social interaction. So he was a couple of feet from her when she exercised some of her fencing skills by sweeping his leg out from under him. Unfortunately, his back took the brunt of the fall and not the bulk of his skull. Although it was apparently enough to send a miniature tremor through the ground; she felt the shockwave vibrate through to her feet.

Now, she knew that violence merely breeds more violence. But it was the fastest, most direct way for them to stop, and Q needed his face to detach from the painful slates of the locker doors now.

“Ohhh!” The Dumb Twin exclaimed in that annoying jock way of violence equals amusement, even among friends.

Another guy she hadn’t noticed had joined in the show of torment, but thankfully he only seemed to be observed instead of joining in. He’d let out a loud guffaw, adding “nice one,” to Vylet, then turned his attention to Dumb Twin. “You should let go of that guys’ face.”

“Oh yeah?” He asked, letting go of Q’s face as he stepped toward him and tried to use the same kind of intimidation as Eat It did to her.

Monkey see monkey do.

“Make me,” he threatened.

The guy made a loose g*n hand and tapped in Q’s direction. “Looks like I just did.”

Dumb Twin matched his facial expression with his nickname, as he glanced behind him to see Q rubbing his cheek. Vylet could still see a couple of lines of the locker slats had embedded in his skin, but she didn’t notice any blood. At the very least, he’d have a bruise.

He’d be fine.

“Oh,” Dumb Twin mumbled, his gusto dissipating.

By this time, Eat It was struggling to stand, while Vylet cooly observed him. “Nah, man. Not him. Come on,” he murmured to his dumb twin. He rubbed the back of his head as he went, as she faintly heard, “Hey, you okay, dude?” She was sure he’d potentially lost a couple of years of his life right there, and if he wound up not improving himself for the better, she didn’t feel the least bit guilty over the way she’d come to Q’s defense.

Speaking of Q, he turned to her and muttered a quiet, “thanks.”

“Uh, yeah. No problem,” she awkwardly shrugged it off. Recognition passed unspoken that they seemed to both know each other but didn’t quite know how to vocalize it.

Kids are weird.

“You know, if you just mention my name to those gores they’ll leave you alone,” he offered.

Q brightened right up at that. “Really? I mean, could I? Oh man, that’d be great!”

“Yeah, of course,” he assured him with a laugh.

“Thank you!” Q exclaimed, and seemingly forgetting his shy awkwardness, walked right up to him to take a hand and shake it vigorously. “Thank you so much!”

With another laugh, he brushed it away with a, “don’t mention it.”

Q nodded to Vylet, with a smile beaming so brightly from his face, and walked down the hallway away from them, a happy little spring in his step.

The last remaining guy then looked at her with slightly renewed interest. “Yearbook, huh?”

Startled, she jolted to a stop and almost seemingly involuntary, turned toward who’d made the sound. She saw a guy with close-cut hair, and a round face without it seeming too babyish, who stood at least a good five inches taller than her. Assuming he was the one that had spoken - and to her - she carried on with her lie, coupled with a sprinkling of sarcasm. “Oh yeah, can’t miss taking photographs of the first day of school where nothing happens except syllabus’s, and circle gatherings of learning each others’ names as if we were back in kindergarten.”

That got a chuckle out of him, and he added, “yeah, it’s kind of ironic that this is our prime time to be molded into adults entering the ‘real life,’ and yet they’re still determined to treat us as if we’re still children.” He gestured to her empty hands. “So that’s a nice camera you have, or did you leave it in the Yearbook classroom?”

Instinct made her look down needlessly at her hands, holding nothing. “Uh, yeah, it’s the latest model,” as she held one up in pretense. “Invisible, and completely lightweight.”

Actually studying his face, she realized with sudden shock that it was Jay Raine. Jay “Dimples” Raine, who she secretly had a mad crush on in jr. high. Back in jr. high, when he was a deity of an eighth grader, and she was a lowly seventh grader.

“Hey, what’s your name?”

Jerking out of her realization, she mentally high-fived herself when she smoothly answered, “Vylet. What’s yours?”

“Jay.”

Then he gave her a second look over. “Wait, aren’t you Vee? We both went to junior high together. Right?”

“Um, yeah, Vylet,” she corrected, pointing to herself like a total loser.

“Oh, sorry, ‘Vylet,’ “ he repeated.

“I mean, you. Could call me ‘Vee,” if you want to. I mean, if you think I look like a . . . ‘Vee.’ “ She finished lamely.

Taking a breath, she rolled her eyes at herself. Noticing Jay was holding a small smile, coupled with a look of amusement as he held her gaze that merely made her feel more embarrassed.

And a friendship was born, out of shared heroism. She had no idea if ever he wanted something more. She had no idea if ever she wanted something more. But she couldn’t help but admire the way his muscles moved beneath his smooth, tan skin, the easy way he could make her laugh, and how they generally were together. There was no denying the connection, but it seems as if neither one was quite yet ready to admit it. To themselves, nor each other.