Unnamed

SIXTEEN – a compliment or two that came from our heart

A hand over the duvet and other stretching toward me stopped in their places. A shadow of genuine confusion passed over his face as he watched the tears spilling out of my eyes. I had already shifted toward the edge of the bed by the time Dylan understood the depth of my words.

"No, goddess, no! We're not going to sleep together." At that moment, he looked more horrified than I did. He pressed a hand over his eyes and dragged it down slowly. When his eyes met mine in the darkness of lights, they were brightened with emotions such as pain, sadness and a dilemma of what to do with me. "Please stop thinking the worst. I know I have not given you a lot of reason to trust me but believe me when I say that I will not hurt you for some sick kick. Please come here."

Something in his voice and the sincerity of his words stopped my tears but my heart was still wary. I was having a hard timing deciding what I wanted to do. Stay here or do as he had asked.

"I am going to sleep here." I said referring to the edge of the bed as I slid myself in a lying position.

"Whatever makes you comfortable," he said despite the little hurt left in his eyes because of my distrust. He copied my actions and we both were lying face to face but on either edge. I pulled a pillow against my chest, taking protection from it from his lingering eyes. The way he was watching me didn't make me uncomfortable or wary of him. It only made me confused. I was used to people watching me with anger, pity, jealousy for having a celebrity dad, and whatnot. I was used to ignorance too. But no one watched me like they were actually interested in knowing about me. Dylan was staring me like that like he saw something that I yet had to find. There was nothing but curiosity, which almost matched mine, in his eyes. I had never known Dylan being curious. He always knew what happened around us.

What are you made up of?

I should be the one asking that.

I was not a mystery but Dylan sometimes made me feel like one. Like I was Bermuda triangle, there were a lot of theories but who knew the truth?

"You know, I never lied to you. If I was to meet you in normal circumstances, I would have said exactly those words," he spoke after a long moment of staring. I was trying to fall asleep but it wasn't coming. As if that already wasn't a bad thing, his words awakened me more.

"As if!" I scoffed. "You are not that type of guy."

"What type of?" He asked with a slight twitch on his lips.

My heart took a moment to sigh before it started it's pace again. It was weird watching him so laid back like that. Though I had no idea why he had taken off his clothes and was lying on the bed instead of on couch, I believed he was not going to do anything to me. The initial uneasiness slid off the edge as we both engaged in an easy conversation.

"The one to flirt and call random girls cute even when they are not. You are more like asshole jerks in BBB." I told.

"Firstly, I appreciate beauty when I see it. Haven't I called your butt cute once? Don't say you have forgotten that. Most girls remember such trivial thing," Though not a lot I could recall from that night except that I was kidnapped but I remembered when he had said something about my cute butt.

"If you love your cute little ass then you have no other choice," he had said.

"Secondly," he continued, "What is BBB?"

"Bad Boys Books." I said like it was the most obvious thing in the whole wide world. It actually was the most obvious thing in the whole wide world.

"Whatever, I am not an asshole jerk unless I am annoyed. You annoy me a lot."

"That's a pleasure." A smile without any notice find a place on my lips and it felt good to feel something other than sadness, fear, and numbness.

"I think we both have our prejudice about each other. I wholeheartedly want to apologize for my asshole-y ways," the apology rolled easily off his tongue and he didn't look ashamed confessing his mistake. Maybe he was not that asshole. He took a moment to smile before his face morphed into seriousness, "Listen, Fay," he said, "I didn't know you. You might not know but people talked a lot about you, not the good things necessarily. I confess that believing on rumors without actually trying to know you was stupid and low of me. But you acting like cold and a lot uptight didn't help with your first impression on me. Call it a complex but I don't do well with people who think they are better than everyone else. That day in the art hall, I didn't speak to you for the same reason.

"However, being around you for so many days, I learned a lot about you. You are annoying, a little childish, naïve, stubborn, way too curious for your own good, did I mention annoying? Your easy tears, hyena laugh, gullible expression, your record of making bad decisions and many small things like that but you are nothing like the people at school describe you. You try to be strong even when you are scared, you are loyal to my friends, and you try to be nice even when most of the people are not, you want people to like you and you like them too without faking the feelings. I had no idea how you are capable of seeing the good in bad. You have a big heart always ready to forgive everyone. That is really admirable. I have hurt your feeling a lot by judging you but I hope that that small speech would tell what I really do see in you now. Please forgive me."

Was I like that? Throughout his speech, I dared not to speak anything or ask the same question. I didn't know that about myself. God, he would have taken me for someone else. I was not that annoying that he had to mention the same point two times. I had handled everything very maturely since the day we'd been together or else one of us would've already been dead so that cut naïve, childish. I liked to know what happens around me. You could hardly call it way too curious. He didn't know but I was not strong, if I had been then I would have faced my fears already. I tried to be loyal because no one else had to me. His friends were the one who had been always nice to me. Reciprocating their feeling was not hard. Forgiving was easy than holding grudges and those who forgive knows the wonder of it. Despite that all, was I seriously like that? I had no idea whether to blush, laugh or cry.

I did the three along with tossing the pillow aside and jumping on him. I could hardly control myself. I wounded my arms tightly around his torso and repeated my gratification.

"Thank you, Dylan. You too are not a big jerk, just a small one. You," I racked my mind for a compliment that was hard since I wasn't as observant as him but I tried, "you make really mean soup. Your hair is nice and it's amazing the way your eyes change colors. Even though you don't want us to be mates, I don't want to be angry with you all the times. And I forgive you even though you hide things from me and kidnapped me." I half laughed, half cried. Approval; that was all I needed. For people to see that I tried. Even when I was not at my best, it was comforting to know someone believed that I'd do better one day anyway.

The last and only time I had heard Dylan laugh when we had come here for the first time. The second time was tonight. It was far better than his half smiles. "I have not kidnapped you." Of, course he would not miss that small detail.

"Whatever!" I slapped his chest, a very smooth and warm and naked chest.

"Thanks," he whispered when my tears dried and laughter died. Only the whistle of wind and choir of crickets were breathing life in the night. We never really bother to separate. Instead, we shifted in the middle of the bed with his one hand under my head and other glided through my hair.

"Dylan why am I here?" I couldn't help but ask. There was no anger on his face, just sympathy with a lot of answers but they never came to the tip of his tongue.

I had figured out a few things too like this wasn't a common case of kidnapping where the hostage is to be sold in the black market or where ransom was demanded. My dad was dead when I was kidnapped, so it was not for money. Besides, Dylan didn't need it. He didn't abuse me in any way. Like he always insisted that I wasn't kidnapped, I had started to believe it he was telling truth. There had to be a reason that could be beyond my comprehension. Was there a name to why I was here or was it unnamed? What was it? Was I really, that naïve or they were good at hiding things?

"We promised to not to dwell on each other's secrets."

It was not a secret that I was hugely disappointed by his answer but I didn't let it bother me for more than the first few seconds. Dylan didn't speak much after that. I am sure he had exhausted his power to speak after that speech. He only listened as a talked about my favorite songs and kept running his hands through my hair. Sometimes he would, just because we couldn't forget he was a jerk, pull my hair by the ends.

"Why'd you do that?" I would ask.

"Because you were annoying me," he would tell with an innocent smile.

For the first time, I felt some kind of hope that like everyone else, I could be friend with him, if we tried. Behind all rough and edgy exterior, he had an earnest side to him. And I knew that when he would again shut his doors to the world with a scowl as a lock, I would know that Dylan might let me in with just a knock.

It didn't take a lot of time for that hope to extinguish into ashes of forgotten dreams. When I clearly remembered falling asleep in Dylan's arms, I didn't wake in the same position. For the first time in years, I had a sleep free of all the traces of nightmares and fear. I woke up a bright smile that dulled when I realized that Dylan was nowhere. When I tried to deny the bad intuition in my guts excusing that he must have been out to run some errands, it came back and kick me in the face when I didn't see him a whole day, and the day next, and next and next.

It was the fourth day, and I yet had to know where he was. I didn't ask anyone else half out of not wanting to sound clingy and half out of anger. He could have told me about his whereabouts before disappearing like that. If he didn't care, I didn't care too. Besides, it was not too bad living alone here. When he was around, he wouldn't let me watch my favorite movies. I could do that now without him nagging me all the time that I had a bad taste in movies.

To be honest, I was so used to Dylan now that even that thought didn't provide me with any help. I was ready to watch movies of his choice if he'd come back.

I sighed and closed my eyes before tears had the chance to leak out. That's why I was afraid of people now. You never know when they are ready to leave you. It was better to be alone sometimes. It might be scary but it was less heartbreaking.

Something soft grazed my hand that was still hanging off the edge. My hopeless heart jolted, thinking it was Dylan but when I opened my eyes and looked down it was just a...

A horrified scream was stuck along with rest of my breath in the throat as I watched the creature before me.

Don't move, Fay. Do not make a sound. It is just a leopard, it looks small, not even a grown up. Just sit and don't mov-

I couldn't seem to listen to my own words as that leopard backed a few steps and launched its lithe body in my direction and there was no stopping the scream that tore out. That only worsened when in my haste to get away from it, I fell from the bed on my bad leg. I had no idea why I was crying. Was it because of the renewed but worse pain in my leg or was it because of the little leopard hovering above me? Its four paws had captured my body on the floor with no way of getting out. From here I could feel its harsh breaths on my face and low growl vibrating its whole body.

I was going to die, that was sure. God, I was going to die a very painful death. I remembered when Sophie's dog had bitten her leg once and she had cried for a whole month because of the pain. She had a knack of exaggerating things but we knew it hurt. It was going to hurt me when he would sink its fangs into my body and tear me apart. How the hell did it come here? I didn't want to die.

I hadn't realized I had closed my eyes out of fear until they sprang open when something warm and sticky touched my cheek. That leopard was licking me. Oh, god, was it playing with your prey? That only made me cry harder. The sobs racked my whole being even when I tried to be as still as I could be. It licked me again and kept doing it until I turned my head to look at it. As majestic as they looked, it was a lot scary up close.

"Please don't eat me." I whimpered as if it was going to listen to me. Who knew out of all of my wishes this one would come true? To my surprise, it tilted its head to one side as if it could understand what I meant. If feral animals had an expression, this one looked little goofy by watching me crying. What a sick animal! It licked me once again before removing his body away from mine and disappeared while I kept lying on the floor, crying my eyes out. My leg felt as if it was set on fire. I couldn't even raise my body even when I tried. I was scared of what didn't happen. And between the sobs, I would start laughing because I was alive and if we rewind back to the memory of the leopard, it was more like a small hyper puppy. I had no idea why it had come here and why it didn't hurt me and whether it was its intention not, but he had successfully scared me. I started crying again because out of all wishes this only come true. Why didn't I ask something else like superhuman powers? It would have made things a lot easier. I covered my face, telling myself to pull it together because it was done. Nothing was going to happen now. But it was hysteric from all kind of fears mixed together in one.

This time when something touched me, I didn't hold back the scream. That leopard was here to finish me this time.

"Fay!" That voice demanded above mine. Wow, now this leopard could speak human too but then I realized it was human. It was a very familiar human.

I uncovered my face and saw Dylan hunched over my body looking all sorts of out of place. It was like someone had made him run a marathon with a man double his size on his shoulders.

"What happened?" His voice was heavy with fear and panic and it only made me cry harder.

"My ankle." I told him because it seemed more important than the leopard. That could wait for a bedtime story if he bothered to stay long enough.

"What happened to it?" he asked as he carefully inspected the area by touching around it. The damage was not external and what happened was hard to tell.

"It hurt Dylan."

In no time, I was back in the small clinic Dylan had brought me a few days back. Nothing much had changed here, including the lack of patients. It was like it was only the doctor, Dylan and me here.

"The sudden force on the broken ankle had jolted bone before it could heal. There's another hair fracture. It may cause problems in the future. You can get a limp too. There are few ointments and exercise to prevent it though. So that's not a problem anymore." The old lady explained with an optimistic smile. I didn't care what she said except the part that I might get limp in future. "Try to be careful this time, okay?"

I didn't even answer; not because I was trying to be rude but because I was sure if I as much as moved I could start weeping again. Everything had been so messed up lately and I was tired with every passing second. Not sleeping didn't help too. I could feel Dylan's eyes burning on me but I didn't raise my head to meet his eyes. I hadn't spoken to him since our initial conversation. This was his fault. If he hadn't left me alone nothing of this would have happened. I had told him so many times that there were animals out in the forest but he never listened to me. I didn't want to see his face. He should just return to where he came from. The lady had put my leg back into a cast and Dylan brought me back to his truck.

I shoved him away when he tried to help me with the seatbelt. He understood quickly that I was angry and he didn't ask the reason. Maybe he knew that too.

"How did you fall from the bed?" He asked because I had told them that I fell, keeping the leopard out of our conversation.

"Where have you been?" I asked, ignoring his question.

"It is not only you who didn't want to be here." He answered.

I didn't understand much, he didn't elaborate for me. Just like Dylan had realized I had more to me than the rumors he heard, I learned that Dylan's life too was in gray and white. Grey was his adulterated identity that came neither in black nor in white. White was his reality that was so transparent that it was invisible.