A Whole New Me Read online

  Chapter 6

  The nightmare continued that Sunday night adding yet another scene to the previous dream. Azalea was scooting away from the vampire as it pounced and sunk its’ teeth in the hallow part of her neck, and then everything went dark including her. Azalea could feel Llorel’s presence in the depths of the shadows as he made his way toward her. He knelt down on the ground beside her, slicing one of his demonic claws against his wrist then held it up to her mouth.

  Azalea woke up light headed. She very gradually made her way to the bathroom. Azalea let the heat and steam of the shower caress her body until she felt rejuvenated. The smell of Jasmine filled the bathroom air around her. She put on her body lotion and slipped on some denim jeans and a flannel tank top. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail letting the curls (which never fully dried) flow naturally. Azalea put on her makeup and slipped on some boots before making her way out of the door. She only made it down the road before Dez’s car pulled up beside her.

  “Hey Z! Hop in” she called.

  “I’d rather walk Dez.” Azalea continued her way down the road, only a block or so away from the school.

  “Are you ok Z, are you mad at me?” Azalea looked over toward Dez.

  “No Dez I’m not mad at you, I’m just enjoying the fresh air, and you know clearing my mind.”

  “Oh ok” she said pulling off in the opposite direction, leaving her car dust behind. 10 minutes later Dez came running to catch up with Azalea.

  “Dez what are you doing?”

  “We always enter school together so I’mma walk with you” she said a little out of breath.

  “Where’s your car?”

  “I parked it outside of your house.”

  “Of course you did,” she whispered more to herself rather than Dez. The school began to come into view a little up ahead.

  “Hey there’s a costume party coming up this week, are you gonna go?”

  “When is it?” Azalea asked actually having no intentions on going.

  “This Friday’s Halloween so when do you think it is? Everyone’s to wear their costumes to school then go to the costume party.”

  “Who’s costume party?” again more questions that she didn’t really care to hear the answers to.

  “Stacie-Ann’s and Llorel’s, Llorel don’t care who comes so Stacie-Ann will be handing out the invitations today.”

  “Even if I did get an invitation, which I highly doubt I’d rather just stay home” Azalea said entering the school.

  “Come on Z it’ll be Halloween try to let go a bit and have fun.”

  “You know I don’t like Halloween Dez, I haven’t celebrated it since I was 12. Rose still invited creepy people into the house but I’d always stay in my room and I intend to do just that every Halloween.”

  “Yea but this isn’t Halloween at Rose’s house everyone was scared of the people she always invited Ok? You need to get over it and move on.”

  “You didn’t see or hear nor did you experience what I did Dez so you don’t have the right to tell me to get over it, I will never get over it” Azalea said in an angry whisper before entering Mr. Dean’s AP math class.

  Azalea was late so everyone was already working on their assignments. She took her seat and automatically got started not in no mood to acknowledge anyone around her.

  “Hey Zale,” Lea called out to her. Azalea looked at her but she continued to work not bothering with a response. “What’s wrong?” she asked. Azalea ignored her and finished the last of her 3 problems. “Azalea!” she called after Azalea closed her book. Azalea looked over at Lea and raised an eyebrow.

  “What?” she asked flatly.

  “Are you ok, what’s wrong with you?” she asked but Azalea could tell she had something else to say.

  “What do you want Lea?” she asked in an agitated tone. Before Lea could even answer the images of the older woman and her grandchild flashed through Azalea’s mind and Azalea immediately blocked them out causing images of the dream to take its place making her even angrier. Blood slowly hit her tongue and Azalea clinched down on her teeth though it was less painful this time the comfort she felt as the blood ran down her throat scared her. Llorel was by Azalea’s side in a flash of movement grabbing her wrist and yanking her out into the hall way. Azalea snatched her arm out of his grip causing her to stumble back.

  “You need to stop doing that” he said tightening his jaw.

  “I was about to say the same thing to you,” she bit out in anger but not letting her voice rise above a whisper.

  “You need to find a new way to hold in your anger.”

  “And you need to find a new way to approach me, one of these day’s you’re going to regret it,” she snapped.

  “My words exactly but I can promise you if you keep up your biting habit you will most certainly regret it,” he said before he turned down the hallway very gracefully which reminded Azalea: he wasn’t in class this morning, his presence was like a hot, burning sensation coursing through her body but she didn’t feel any of that until now.

  Azalea didn’t intend on going back to class so she roamed the halls for the last 10 minutes before the bell. Azalea was the first to enter Spanish class and Lea and Jaiden were the second. Azalea felt bad for snapping out on Lea so she knew that she had to apologize.

  “I’m sorry Lea for my attitude this morning,” she said as she made her way to her seat.

  “It’s cool, what was with Llorel, is he why you were upset?” Blaming it on Llorel would be the easy way out it would save me from telling her the truth and taking that risky step down memory lane but I knew that I couldn’t lie completely because Jaiden would know; he’s like a human lie detector, she thought to herself.

  “Kind of,” she said happy that she didn’t question her and that Jaiden didn’t look in to it too much. Before sitting down completely Jaiden leaned over placing his hands on her shoulder.

  “I know when you’re lying and though that might not have been a complete lie I could tell when you’re holding back. If you need someone to beat his ass I’m here for you” he whispered his lips slightly touching the side of her face. Azalea knew Jaiden would protect her to his fullest power but she couldn’t ask him to do that.

  “I’d wish you’d save yourself the trouble” she teased.

  “Trust me, me being there would be my pleasure, I ride or I die.”

  “I just might take you up on that,” she said hesitantly turning her face not sure how close his was to hers. “But I need to let you know it’s a full time job.”

  “And I told you either I ride or—”

  “Let’s just leave it at that,” she said stopping him with a finger against his lips, he softly kissed her finger making her heart stop momentarily.

  “Fine,” he said in a husky whisper lowering himself into his seat. Azalea turned around and saw Lea smiling at her.

  “You’re feeling better,” she whispered. Azalea winked at her before giving Mrs. Saba her full attention. Jaiden did have a weird way of making her feel better and right about now she needed it and she was pretty sure that he knew that.

  Azalea walked to History with Lea and Dez they took their seats preparing themselves for a test. There was only one seat left in the classroom by Stacie-Ann and Maria and Dez had to take that seat. It didn’t surprise Azalea that Stacie-Ann and Dez were becoming friends. Dez knew how to make a friend out of anybody but Azalea was not too sure that Stacie-Ann has the purest intentions in mind. But the moment Dez took her seat Stacie-Ann handed her an invitation to her costume party.

  After History Dez met Azalea at the door and they walked down to English. Though they didn’t sit together in English Azalea was just glad that someone else was there with her besides Llorel. Even though he sits right next to her in class they barely had more than 2 words to say to each other.

  Azalea took her seat and pulled out her English text book. She’s learned by now that she could always read the lesson plans and work by herself instead
of straining to hear a 4ft.9 woman above a class of 30 or some talkative students. Today they were going to learn about tragedy of the plays and their first play was Romeo and Juliet.

  Azalea flipped through the pages of her textbook trying to ignore the eyes and heat of Llorel beside her. Azalea came to a dangerous conclusion after this morning’s argument. As she paced the halls she thought it would be a good idea to write her problems down to see if there was an invisible string connecting one problem to the next. If no one would tell her what’s going on than she’d have no choice but to find a way to know, and within that notebook Llorel has his very own section. Azalea’s not sure if he’s involved in whatever is going on but better safe than sorry, it wouldn’t hurt to try and find out a little about him as well. She’ll see whose secrets float to the surface first. In the Llorel section of her notebook she already written a full page on his weird behavior and so far she has nothing that ties him to her beside the way he makes her feel physically and him appearing in her dreams so that he could slice his arm for her and… wait his claws? Azalea looked over at Llorel and he was staring at her, she quickly averted her eyes down to his hand and there were no claws, she turned her attention back to her book. In her dream he had claws… well she also had fangs so maybe it really was just a dream and nothing more.

  Azalea gave Romeo and Juliet her full attention before the bell rang for lunch.

  Azalea met Dez at the door and they put their books in their lockers before they met up with Lea and headed down to lunch.

  Azalea had the notebook she was working on in her Biology book; she skipped the lunch line and immediately made a beeline for their table. She pulled the note book out and went over the “Me” section and read over the questions that she needed answers to.

  “Where’s your lunch Green?” Jaiden asked from over her shoulder.

  “This is my lunch” she said looking over her shoulder to meet his gaze.

  “That’s not lunch Green.”

  “I do believe it is,” she said before looking back at her notebook. “If you must know I’m feeding my brain knowledge,” she said with a smile as she turned her attention back to her notebook.

  “Thank you,” she heard Jaiden say to someone from behind her. Jaiden reached his hand down and took the notebook replacing it with a tray of food instead. “Eat Green,” she heard him whisper before he walked away. Azalea looked back at him and he looked back at her from over his shoulder. She picked up the apple off her tray and took a big bite just to make him happy. He smiled and then winked at her before he left the cafeteria. Lea noticed the confused and sad mixture of expressions on her face as Azalea watched him leave.

  “He has detention.”

  “Was the question in my eyes that obvious?” Azalea looked over at Lea and gave her a smile.

  “Speaking of detention you should be happy to know that you will be joining him tomorrow.”

  “What?!” She said clearly confused.

  “Well yea after you left AP Math Mr. Dean wrote you up for detention.”

  “What about Llorel?”

  “Oh well he has detention too but I thought I’d just give you the good news,” she said shrugging her shoulders. Maybe seeing Llorel at detention will be good news, Azalea thought. I could observe him quietly and get more information for my notebook… My notebook? Jaiden took it.

  “Dang it,” she said under her breath but that didn’t stop Lea from hearing her.

  “Well back to the good news Jaiden will be in detention with you and I’m sure he’ll keep you company” she said with a smile. “And he told me you stopped by Saturday, sorry I wasn’t there” she said poking her lip out pitifully.

  “Apology will only be accepted if you let me come over tonight while you tell me all about your time with Dorian.”

  “Fine,” she said whipping the pitiful look off of her face and replacing it with a smile.

  After lunch Azalea and Dez headed to Biology. Azalea wasn’t looking forward to running into Stacie-Ann and Maria but she had Dez with her who just so happens to be friends with them, so hopefully that will work in her favor, she only hoped.

  Azalea took her seat and waited for all the other students to file in. She watched as Stacie-Ann and Maria made their way toward her desk, she braced herself for the worst with every step they took closer toward her. Stacie-Ann fished through her purse and pulled out an invitation to her costume party.

  “Here, I thought I’d give this to you seeing as though Llorel will need his food present.”

  “What?” Azalea asked confused. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked a bit defensively. Stacie-Ann just laughed at her. Azalea got supper angry, she was not use to holding her tongue this much in one day, blood hit her tongue fast and she swallowed it and ground her teeth together to mask the pain. Stacie-Ann stopped mid-laugh and looked back toward her, her eyes were black instead of her normal pale blue. Azalea’s only seen eyes like that once and they were on her in her dream.

  The moment the bell rang to signal the end of class Azalea left, not once stopping to wait for Dez. Azalea was about to get upset about Jaiden having her notebook, but there was no way she was going to forget about this.

  The moment Azalea walked into art class Llorel’s presence hit her like a brick wall making her even angrier, if she got any angrier her face would be as red as a hot tamale. Sticking her tongue into the recent hole she had just created had stopped her next bite immediately. Q’s greeting pulled her back to reality. Azalea looked up and met Llorel’s gaze with intensity. She turned to greet Q and noticed the crumpled invitation in her hands. Azalea threw the invitation away and made her way to her seat between Dorian and Llorel.

  “Uh-Oh someone’s not happy,” Dorian said. Azalea could tell the anger was apparent on her face. She gave Dorian a fake smile and then rolled her eyes. “Hey I’m here for you, as long as you don’t take your anger out on me,” he said putting his hands up in a defensive stance. Azalea laughed at him, feeling some of her anger drain away by his playfulness.

  “I’m fine Dorian but if I need a punching bag I’ll make sure you’re the first person I call.”

  “Please don’t! I’m pretty sure you can pack a punch.” Azalea laughed again.

  “Yea well I’m saving this punch; I’ll never know when I’ll need it.” Azalea gave him a wink and then began her painting.

  “Hey you going to the costume party on Friday, Lea got an invitation but said she wasn’t going?” Azalea shook her head before speaking trying to keep the anger at bay. She could tell her anger was trying to make a full return at the mere mention of Stacie-Anna costume party.

  “Nope I’d rather not be looked at as someone’s food of choice, besides I didn’t plan on going anyway, I don’t celebrate Halloween,” she said trying hard to keep the anger that she was feeling away from her words.

  “What was that supposed to mean? You know the whole “not wanting to be someone’s food of choice,” comment?”

  “Nothing I just don’t want to go,” she said hoping that that would end the conversation. He looked at her skeptically but didn’t say anything farther.

  After art Azalea saw Llorel in the hallway with Stacie-Ann and by the looks of it they looked every bit like your typical couple…but only to an untrained eye. Llorel was holding Stacie-Ann’s hand and leaning into her to whisper in her ear, as romantic as that sounds Azalea could tell that whatever it was that Llorel had to say, Stacie-Ann did not want to hear it, but his possessive hand that was holding hers applied pressure every time she tried to pull away. Azalea could tell that her nails were pierced into his skin but he was still as emotionless as always.

  Azalea tried walking past without being seen but she could feel Llorel’s eyes boring into the back of her head and then the words that Stacie-Ann had said to her echoed through her head, “He needs his food present.” Azalea continued to walk until her hand was around the door handle that led into Civics. Azalea sat in between Dorian and Dez not caring th
at she interrupted their conversation.

  “You ok Z?” Azalea looked up at Dez and gave her that “I can’t deal with this crap anymore,” look. Dez nodded her head and looked over at Dorian who was looking lost. Azalea and Dez were used to communicating through their gazes. They never lived around people who gave two shits about their troubles. If they were ever caught talking about certain things they’d be separated, so they kind of always had to hide how they felt until they were alone.

  “She doesn’t want to talk about it,” Dez explained to Dorian who nodded his head in response.

  “Do you feel like you need to take that shot now?” he asked his attempt at trying to lighten the mood working. Azalea gave him a small smile.

  “Yea I am, but I only got one shot so I think I should choose wisely.” He gave her another nod and returned her smile.

  Because of Azalea’s idiotic decision to walk this morning her and Dez had to walk after school because Dez left her car at Azalea’s house. The walk only took 15 minutes but that was enough time for Dez to try and question Azalea.

  “What’s going on Z?” Azalea took a deep breath not wanting to lash out on Dez.

  “I really don’t want to talk about it Dez.”

  “Come on Z I can tell that you’re holding too much in you need to talk about it with someone.”

  “OK but why does it have to be you?”

  “It doesn’t” she said quietly. “I just want to make sure you’re ok that’s all.” Azalea looked over at Dez apologetically.

  “I’m sorry Dez, I know that I have to talk to someone but I guess it will come out on its own.”

  “But to whom will it come out to? You gotta be careful about who you trust Z.”

  “I’m well aware of that Dez,” she said so happy that they had made it to Dez’s car. Azalea slid into the passenger seat and waited for Dez to join her.

  “Where to?” she asked with a sigh.

  “Lea’s.” Azalea buckled her seat belt and embraced the silence as they made it to Lea’s house. They said their goodbyes and Azalea watched Dez’s car pull away.

  Azalea entered the house not caring that she didn’t knock. She made her way up the stairs and leaned casually against the banister in front of Lea’s door but Lea wasn’t alone. Lea and Dorian were lying on her bed side by side trying to give off the impression that they were studying. Feet intertwined in the air almost like a game of footsies. Azalea raised a brow before clearing her throat. They simultaneously looked at her looking just about as guilty as a kid getting caught with their hands in the cookie jar right before dinner.

  “Azalea!” Lea called a little shocked. “Oh Ummm we were just studying” she tried to explain.

  “Oh of course you were,” Azalea said not believing a word of it. “Y'all go ahead and finish ‘studying’,” she said around quotation marks.

  “I’m sorry I forgot that I invited you—”

  “It’s ok Lea.”

  “No I blew you off Saturday and I’m not trying to blow you off again. We can—”

  “Really Lea its ok I didn’t come here for you anyway I came here for your brother.”

  “Oh really?” she said swinging her legs down toward the floor, sitting up and giving Azalea her full attention.

  “It’s not like that Lea I just want my notebook.”

  “Well Zale sometimes we get what we need not what we want,” she gave Azalea a wicked smile and Azalea just about had enough of her assumptions. Azalea kicked away from the banister about to make her exit.

  “You two finish ‘studying’,” she said giving Lea a wink before turning toward Jaiden’s door. Having just a bit more manners now, Azalea knocked on the door and waited for him to open it. She heard the door knob twist and turn and then jerk open. Azalea automatically walked in and sat down at the end of his bed. She said she had some manners not all of her manners.

  “Come in,” he said sarcastically before closing the door and walking over toward his bed. He sat on his bed with his knees up and a book resting on his legs. Azalea leaned over to catch a glimpse of the book. “This is personal,” he said looking down at her; Azalea slowly met his gaze and leaned back. “Speaking of personal I’m pretty sure you came for this. I didn’t mean to take it away from you but you looked stressed and choosing not to eat is never a good sign, you could have passed out.”

  “And what part of my notebook gave away the fact that I was stressed?”

  “I don’t know I didn’t read the notebook, I could tell by the way that you were hunched over the notebook and scribbling away that you were stressed.” Azalea furrowed her brows in confusion.

  “Why didn’t you read it?”

  “Because I could tell that it was personal,” he said hand still extended holding her notebook out toward her. Azalea continued to look at him not once attempting to grab the notebook. She sighed loudly, reaching up to remove the ponytail holder and letting the curls of her hair flow down her back and around her shoulders.

  “I don’t get it, I’ve never once needed to share anything with anyone, I was always independent it’s kind of what people rely on me for. Never really looked toward someone for help on anything but this, this is stressful and I know I can’t do it by myself…which is new to me. I mean who would even believe me?” she said shaking her head. “I mean truthfully at one point I didn’t even believe me; so I don’t really expect anyone else to,” she said as she sighed loudly. “I need help I know that, but I’m afraid, I guess.” Azalea looked over toward Jaiden who was still looking at her. Still holding her gaze Jaiden put her notebook down. But he didn’t put it down on the bed, or near her, no, he sat it down on his lap. He opened the notebook up to its first page while holding her gaze. Azalea guessed that he was probably looking for a reaction out of her, she guessed that she was kind of waiting for a reaction out of her too, Azalea expected to leap over and rip the notebook out of his hands but she didn’t, she sat there and when he looked down to begin reading she tried to relax her nerves. She nervously ran her finger through her hair and after about 10 minutes she looked over at Jaiden and he looked up at her and his eyes narrowed.

  “Llorel has his own section in here?” Azalea nodded.

  “I mean I don’t know what he has to do with all of this but he’s strange and knows more about me than I do, I don’t know I guess I’m just hoping that he’s connected to something,” she went on to explain. Jaiden looked back down and flipped the page.

  “What’s the dream?”

  “Well I meant to record this dream that I was having but the bell rang so I went to class instead and then I was going to write about it in the cafeteria but you kind of took the notebook away from me so I never got to write it down.”

  “Well I think we should just be focusing on the ‘me’ section in the book. The sooner we learn about you the more pieces that will fall into place.” Azalea cringed at the sound of the word we, she wasn’t sure that she ever wanted to bring him into this. He saw the look of confusion on her face.

  “What’s wrong Green?” Azalea looked over at him.

  “I don’t want you to be involved in this; I mean it’s not that I don’t need the help its just I don’t want to be responsible if anything happens to you.”

  “But I thought being there for you was my full time job, I’m never going to back out Green so you better get used to it. I told you that this is going to be a ride or die situation. Now I ride or I—”

  “Yea, yea, yea, I know I get it,” she said with the biggest smile she could muster.