Jewel: The Beginning

CHAPTER 6: And She Kept This From Me?

I started with first looking at Brayden, “When we first looked at him, I was shocked. It was like there was nothing else in the world but him. What was strange is that it looked like he was giving me that same look as I felt. I saw what you meant by him being beautiful. I saw that any boy or girl would want him. But I thought with his looks that it would be really weird if he was gay. How could that beautiful of a boy be gay was BEYOND me! Ha. And then I really didn’t see him after that until everyone was playing with all those joke shop stuff. I saw him on one side of the room when he entered and was scaring your friend Elsie.

“Then I didn’t see him after that. I was paying too much attention to Robert having flowers grow through his hair when Brayden came up behind and scared me. He said that you said that I loved butterscotch chews. Did you really?”

She laughed and said, “Yes. I don’t think you noticed, but everyone was looking at you when he did that. You squeaked so loud. Not to mention, when we heard him say ‘butterscotch chew’ we all knew what was going to happen. We wanted to see how you reacted to a magical joke candy!”

I looked at her stunned, threw a pillow at her, and said, “AH! That wasn’t very nice! Ha. Well, anyway, I was already feeling butterflies in my stomach before getting that candy in my mouth. Thanks a lot! Well, obviously, you saw what happened then, you’re right, I didn’t even notice. Well, then I went under my tree. I just sat down, playing with the grass, facing the tree trunk, just wanting to be by myself. I don’t know how long I was there before he came from under. I just heard a male voice. At first, I was shocked because nobody but me ever goes under that tree. He asked if he could join me, not wanting to be around others for a while. Especially you! I guess you were trying to get him to do a favorite trick of yours that he does.”

She starts laughing, “I was wondering for the longest time where he went when I couldn’t find him to do it!”

“Why Irie, what’s the trick?”

“Oh, it’s not a biggie. I just wanted him to have it so while Robert was speaking it sounded like he sucked helium.”

We laughed for a few minutes. I have to admit that would sound quite funny. “Oh Irie,” still laughing, but trying to catch my breath, “I guess I could see why he’d run away. Imagine what Robert would do if he caught Brayden doing that!” It took a minute for me to fully catch my breath before I could continue.

“Anyway, I let him stay, which you know if totally against what normally happens. He goes and sits against the trunk of the tree and pats a spots next to him, wanting me to sit next to him. I went and sat next to him. A breeze came by and I felt something touch me, so I grabbed whatever it was and broke it. I turn around and see a hoodie fall from Brayden’s broken hand.” Irina squealed in terror at that. “JEWEL!!!”

I keep talking and say, “Well, I was surprised! Natural reaction. I begin apologizing when I feel a hand on my shoulder shutting me up. It was his formerly broken hand, now fixed. I ask how he did it and he pulled out his wand. Irie, I never saw a REAL wand before. It’s so beautiful.” She smiles as she pulls her out to show me. I grab it and stare at it. Looking at these two wands made me want one, but there was no way I could use it. I didn’t have it in me. Funny to think that since I can do a bunch of other things without thinking about.

I smile and hand her wand back as I continue, “Well, he basically shows off by saying he’s never done that spell before, which gets me thinking ‘Oh, I don’t like him’. Then he tells me that he doesn’t think much of magic, even though he’s told he’s good. He just finds it to be useful at making life simpler. That had me thinking that I’m gonna have a hard time trusting him. Then again, he never tried to show off his magic around me like the rest of you guys were flaunting it.

“That’s when he was asking for my side of the story. I thought of my parents and I broke down. He pulled me on his lap, hugging me as I cried my eyes out. He never tried to stop me; he just let me hold onto him like a crutch until I was done crying. I finally finished balling my eyes out. I finally moved enough so I could look him in the eyes to apologize.”

I pause to catch my breath. I look at her, seeing how she’s reacted so far. She has an excited look in her eyes. I smiled at her and said, “I need to get a drink, so my throat doesn’t get dry from all the talking.” She lost that excited look and growled, “Oh no you don’t! Not until I hear what happened! Then you can get that drink!”

We laughed for a second and then I was silent. She looked at me significantly again and then pretended to zip her lips shut. “Fine,” I said, “Well, since I was looking at his eyes, I didn’t see anything else. I start to open my mouth to apologize for my blubbering…and then his lips swallowed my words! HE KISSED ME!”

“OMG Jewels!” she squealed, “How was it?”

“Hold it sister,” I said, “let me get that water you said I could get after I told ya!” I darted out of the room really quick, raced as quietly as I could to the kitchen, grabbed a glass of water and chug it. I refill it again and decided to get one for Irina while I was at it, and then tip-toed as quickly as possible back up the stairs. My hands were fully, so I knocked on the door with my foot. She grabbed the door, took her glass from me and then shut the door behind me. I walked back to my bed, set my glass on the nightstand and climbed onto my bed again. We were both in the same position again, like when I first started, except that my pillow that I threw at her was still on her side.

“Irie,” I started, “I don’t think I should tell you about it! That’s private!” She gives that ‘whatever’ look on her face and waited for me to continue. I was quiet for a second. Aw…dang it. I hate it when she wins! “Irie, you know I really hate it when you do that! Well, it was good, well being that I was shocked by it. He stopped that one before I could do anything about it. But I was confused and didn’t say anything. He only moved his lips a little bit from mine, so when I didn’t say anything, he started kissing me again!”

I knew it was going to happen; she got her way and was able to squeal again like she wanted to…even though I knew she would again later. She’s still so teenager.

“Irie! You know I have more to tell you!” That’s when she shut up. She really likes to know all the details, so for me to say that I have more to tell is all she needed for her to be quiet. “Anyway,” I continued, “I wanted to continue kissing him. I was enjoying it, and obviously he was, otherwise he wouldn’t have kissed me again! But all I could think about was my vow of defeating Carey…and at the moment, doing that or anything more with Brayden was ruining it. So I stopped kissing him and moved my head out of the way.”

“Jewelie, you little fool!”

“Shush, I’m not done yet, and you know that!”

“Sorry,” she apologized, “I was caught up in the moment.” We laughed again, but much shorter than any other time. “Okay Irie, let me finish my story!” I said.

“He was confused why I said to stop. He said that he thought that ‘it somehow seemed appropriate’ and that he thought that there was something between us. Irie, I was so happy and sad when he said that. Because I felt something between us too, but, well, you know what I’ve wanted to do for the bas six and a half years! Having Brayden in my life at that moment went against the grain of my goal. And I told him that. I told him everything about that. But the whole time I was telling him that, I wasn’t looking at him because I knew it would be harder looking at him. But when I was done telling him, I looked at him. Irie, that look in his eyes, that…that pain. It killed me. But he had some sort of…determination in his eyes too.

“He wasn’t looking at me, which was disheartening. He was looking to the left, where I was sitting before. I looked down to the left too. That’s when I saw our hands holding, which I didn’t notice before. I saw my ring on my hand, and then I noticed he had a ring on his hand too. Irie, he has the same ring as me!”

She was grinning and said, “oh, I know that.” I paused in shock. I hope my face didn’t show it. That surprised me. “What?” I stammered, “you knew? Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“It never seemed relevant enough. Besides, I knew if I told you, you wouldn’t have cared. Face it; you’ve tried to avoid anything to do with magic ever since that night. You even stopped reading Harry Potter; Jewels, they were your most fave books ever! And then you basically drop-kicked it when you found out everything and that it was all true. I figured if I told you a magical boy had it, you would’ve shunned it. Especially after he told me what it was all about.” She shrugged after that.

“Wait, he told you what it meant? He didn’t even…” I started before she shushed me. “Jewels,” she said, “finish your story and I’ll tell you about it more. Okay?” Well, that hardly seems fair. But I don’t see a way around it. When it comes to Irie, you won’t win when it comes to things like this…

“Fine,” I gave, “but you are going to tell me more when I am done!” She just nodded her head, grinning with triumph. I glared for a second and continued, yet again, “Well, I then had a flashback to when my mom and dad gave me that ring.” I then explained my flashback, “and then when I came back to the present, I realized that I found my true love at the age of sixteen. I don’t know though,” running my fingers through my hair, “it’s not something I have really thought of before. It’s not a thing anybody says anymore. It’s so old-fashioned to me.”

“Jewel,” she starts, “did it ever occur to you that Briana and Will got that ring at a*****e…from my world? Because, frankly, most of my world is old-fashioned. Your parents were like…like the revolutionaries of the new generation. They were trying to start a whole new thing, breaking from the old traditions when they died.” Again, she shocked me.

“Irie, I never would have thought of that," I lightly chuckle. Continuing, I share, "as you have said, when I found out about the magic in my life, I have tried to rid it from my life as much as possible. I never thought of the ring being part of that.” Still shocked, I continued my story, “Anyway, I was then thinking if it was the whole thing about us having the rings is the reason we had feelings for each other. Like…if we didn’t have the rings, I wondered if we would have ever noticed each other. After all, I’m not the most beautiful girl out there. Irie, don’t interrupt me! I am just saying what I was thinking. But I saw that he still had that look on his face, so I asked him to tell me what was on his mind…it really was killing me.”

Then I explained what Brayden said and what I was thinking after that. “Well…” Irina started, “I agree with him. I was telling Elsie that today myself.” I knew she did, but I didn’t want to tell her that I overheard her talking behind my back because she was being ruder about it than Brayden was.

“Well, I agree,” I said. “But get this Irie, our rings…both of ours, are on our ring finger. That’s crazy. But when I was thinking about everything he said, he noticed the ring. He asked about it and what I knew about it. He said, ‘…if you were told the same thing as I was, then I can’t believe it finally has come.’ I told him what I told you. And all he could say was ‘Interesting.’”

I took a swig of my water before continuing, “Anyway. I said, ‘Interesting? What do you mean by…’ and he kissed me again!” I let her squeal again before I continued. Why she was excited by me kissing him was beyond me. She was done squealing, and then I spoke, “Well, I wanted to know what he meant by ‘interesting’ and he ended up answering it without me even finishing my question. He said something along the lines of ‘don’t you see that…that all this is happening for a reason. The fate that is bound from these rings made sure we were to be together. I bet we would’ve been together if all the bad things didn’t happen, but they did, so the rings are just a way of making sure we are together.’”

“Awwwww….” Irina sighed, “That’s so romantic. He believes that he really believes that you were meant to be together. Now I understand why he avoided us all at school. He was just waiting for the girl with the ring since he couldn’t find anyone at school.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said waving my hand, not believing, “that’s all romantic and all to you Irie, but that confused the crap outta me some, and gave me hope too, because he was also saying that basically us having the rings means that we were meant to be together and that he should help me out. Then, we just sat there; I was still on his lap, so I just laid against his chest, relaxing not being disturbed. He then told me that since I have a couple of years before I could leave here that I could use that time to decide what I want to do. And then we got up, he kissed me again, and got up from under the tree. And you know from there.” I trudged through the kissing part because I didn’t want her to squeal again, especially since I was done telling her everything.

“Now,” I said, “tell me what you know about the ring from Brayden.”

I took another swig from my glass, glad that I was done with my story time, and put my glass back. “Alright,” she said, throwing my pillow back at me, “we were sitting in our class one morning, about two years back. I still had the huge crush on him then. I actually met Robert through Brayden. But I was just staring off into space. I was sitting next to him in class, and I saw his ring and noticed it looked an awful lot like yours. I have only ever seen you have that ring before, and you never told me much about it when you showed it to me that one morning. So after class, while walking to lunch, I asked him about it. He told me the same thing you did, but he said his dad got it for him for his tenth birthday, and he was explained the whole story too. He said, ‘yeah, I didn’t like getting such a girlie thing for my birthday. But I haven’t found a girl I have been interested in, so I guess I’ll just wait for that girl who has the other.’ And then he just laughed.

“I was annoyed and aggravated that he said that because I liked him, and I think he knew that. Luckily he introduced me to Robert right after that at lunch. Anyways...that’s when I told him that you had the other one. And boy howdy, he was shocked. He knew how you were all against magic, and was shocked that you had it. I told him that you got it before you even knew there was magic in your life, for reals. That’s when he wanted to know all about you. That’s one reason he came to the party actually, to meet you.”

I was shocked. “Wait,” I said, “that’s why he knows so much about me? Oh girlie, you’re gonna have to tell me more about him, now that you know that I have it for him!” We started to laugh.

That’s when we heard tapping on the window.