Chapter Four
1140 Words
Chapter Four
Elara’s POV
I saw those silver eyes in my dreams.
We were back in the woods behind my grandfather’s house. I still couldn’t make out his features, but I saw his eyes. They were grey, but turned silver when the hues of the lights bounced off them. His lips didn’t move when he looked at me, yet I heard him.
Clearly.
“Elara.”
My eyes jerked open suddenly, my heart racing with that familiar awareness. I could smell it again. The earth before the rain pours. It was more insistent this time, stronger, permeating every corner of my room.
“Elara.”
That wasn’t a dream.
My eyes fell on him. He was standing right by my bed, covered in black slacks and a matching tee. He looked like he’d just rolled out of bed, the curls of his hair all over the place. My mother would be so appalled at my reaction if she found out.
The typical response of a teenage girl waking up to a strange man in her room would be to scream for help. But I just stayed there, my lips pressed tight and my tongue glued to the roof of my mouth.
“I scared you,” he whispered. He sounded the same as the voice in my head. A husky baritone travels around the walls and returns to me. “You were dreaming and…”
“It was you in my dream. Your eyes….”
“I shouldn’t be here,” he murmured, pulling away from the bed. I sat up, not caring that I was only putting on a pair of panties and a camisole.
“Because of your mom?”
I was asking all the wrong questions, yet I didn’t know what the right ones were.
“Maybe.” The ghost of a smile lingered on his lips before it disappeared. “You should close your windows before you go to bed.”
“It is summer,” I murmur. “I need the air.”
He shook his head. “You don’t. You have the AC.”
Last night, I fell asleep watching his room, hoping he would return to move the blinds away. I hadn’t planned on going to bed. I was only going to rest my back for a few minutes.
But I couldn’t admit that to him.
He moved towards the window, and I got out of bed, my bare feet touching the ground. “You can’t just leave.”
“Elara….”
“How do you do that?”
A shadow crossed his eyes, but it was gone so fast that I might as well have imagined it. “Do what?”
“Last night,” I murmured. “And the day you moved in. You spoke to me…”
“I didn’t.”
“No, no.” I shook my head, edging closer to him. My hands reached for his tee unconsciously. “You heard me that night. And yesterday, you told me goodnight, after your mom…”
“I don’t know what you are talking about, Elara.”
I swallowed, trying to wrap my head around it. Maya was right. There was no way that could have happened. It was literally impossible. It wasn’t as if we lived in a fairy tale land where werewolves and vampires existed.
So what happened that day? Did I need to see a therapist?
But there were still a lot of unanswered questions, like what he was doing in my room.
“I’m sorry,” I breathed, allowing my hands to fall to my side. His eyes followed the movement before returning to my face. “I just thought…”
“The pie,” he cut in slowly. “They looked pretty. But don’t do that again. My mom… us… You should stay away.”
“You saw me.” My lips barely moved. “I knocked.”
“I heard.”
I opened my mouth, but realized I had nothing to say. He lifted a hand suddenly, his fingers grazing my chin. It felt hot where he touched. Yet, I didn’t want him to stop.
I pushed closer to him. It got hard to breathe when he moved, cupping the back of my neck. His eyes flicked to my lips for the slightest of seconds before they travelled down my neck, where my pulse throbbed.
He’d admitted he shouldn’t be in here, yet he made no attempt at leaving. I heard footsteps in the hallway, but at the time, they sounded so far away. It felt like nothing could ruin that moment.
But in another beat, my door pushed open, and loud yelling filled the space suddenly. I gasped sharply as I turned around. My cheeks heated up when I saw Maya and Ethan run inside.
“I told you she would still be in bed,” Maya laughed, oblivious to what was happening before she walked in. She turned to Ethan, holding her hand out. “Pay up. You don’t know her as well as I do.”
When I turned around, the boy across the street was no longer standing behind me. There was no trace that he was in the room.
None at all.
“Erm…” Ethan scratched the side of his head. “I should probably give you time to put on something.”
Maya laughed. I would have to if I weren’t still stuck in the last ten minutes of my life. “What? Ethan, the three of us have skinny dipped together. You always see her like this. I doubt Elara has any proper nightie.”
Ethan’s eyes found mine. He seemed nervous. “I’ll just wait in the hallway,” he murmured. “Just tell me when you are done.”
“What the hell was that about?” Maya muttered as the door closed, ushering Ethan out.
“Yeah,” I breathe, still standing on the same spot. “Ethan was weird.”
“I was talking about you, too,” Maya shot back. “I might not have acted like it, but I totally knew you were distracted when we came in. And you were downright flushed.”
“I wasn’t flushed.”
“Hmm,” she rolled her eyes. “Ignore it all you want.”
“Maya…”
“It’s him, right? Your new hot neighbour.”
Panic rushed through me. Did she know that…
“You were by that window again, waiting for him to get up, right?” Maya continued. I heaved a sigh of relief.
“There’s just something about him,” I sighed, moving to the bed. “I don’t even know his name.”
“I’m Jordan.”
I looked sharply at Maya. “Did you hear that?”
She looked genuinely confused. “Hear what?”
- Writer
