Verity

  An orb of light danced ahead of me, leading my way. It soon paused and changed direction, finally guiding me along a path to an ancient oak tree that towered above.

  I looked around, awestruck, until I noticed a figure under the tree. The dream blurred; the atmosphere turned cold. I could tell their back was to me, so I reached out. There was something bad nearby. I could sense it. I had to warn them. As my fingers touched the skin on the back of their neck, a thrilling jolt of electricity ran up my arm. I laughed out loud; this was all the way it was supposed to be. The figure whirled around, momentarily scaring me with a flash of something sharp and white, but then my gaze locked onto the most beautiful pair of eyes I had ever seen. Eyes so familiar to me. My fears melted away, and everything else dimmed.

  Chapter Two

  I was torn from my dream by the jarring sound of my alarm clock. Turning it off, I indulged in an extra few minutes in bed, trying my hardest to remember every second of my dream. As usual it made no sense to me, but something about it calmed me, made me happy. All too soon my good mood was lost to the memory of the night before. I had to face Dad and Gran, but worse, I had to pick an outfit that wouldn’t annoy either of them. I decided to wear my dressing gown to breakfast and then figure out what to do next based on how they acted. Relieved to have some sort of a plan, I wandered downstairs. They were both up already and had even made breakfast for me.

  I sat down warily with the strangest sensation that this was the calm before the storm. Both of them were exceptionally polite to each other and me. It was a little too pod people for my liking.

  “So?” I said, eventually. “Are we going to talk about it?” I hated when they dragged things out.

  Dad folded his newspaper with slow, careful movements. Gran took a long sip of her morning coffee. Obviously neither of them wanted to start. I began to feel as though I was the parent, and they were the kids. Finally, after a few pointed looks from me, Dad cleared his throat.

  “We had a long talk last night. Everything you said was pretty reasonable, so I’m prepared to make some changes. But if you let me down….”

  “We don’t want you to feel like you have to leave us to be happy,” Gran said. “We all need to get out of the past. We were thinking that maybe we could make a fresh start, you know? We could redecorate together. You could do your room the way you want.”

  “And you can pick your own clothes. Within reason,” Dad said. “Maybe stay out a bit later at weekends. We’ll see.”

  They looked innocent enough, but I couldn’t help feeling suspicious. Gran was anal about keeping our house the way it had been when my mother lived there, and my Dad was anal about letting me do anything normal. I didn’t really trust either of them to stick to their word. It would be interesting to see what happened next.

  “Okay,” I said. “We’ll see all right.”

  I finished my breakfast and ran back upstairs to get ready. I pulled my hair back into a tight plait and turned my attention to clothes. That was the thing. I hated my Dad telling me what I couldn’t wear, but the truth was that I had never had the confidence to wear the kinds of clothes he hated anyway. I quite liked feeling hidden under the heavy jumpers he preferred.

  I ended up throwing on a pair of jeans and a thick black cardigan. I buttoned it all the way, hiding the brightly coloured shirt underneath. Feeling a little daring, I even put on some clear lip gloss and the tiniest smudge of eyeliner. Satisfied, I got my things together, put on my jacket, and raced down stairs to meet Tammie on time.

  “You sure you don’t want a lift?” Dad asked, his tone hopeful.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Maybe you’d like to wear your hair down today. It’s so pretty down,” Gran said, looking wistful.

  “No, Gran,” I said as firmly as I could. Surprisingly enough, they both left me alone after that. Cheering up, I waved goodbye and left on time. Thinking, so far, so good. I stood at the end of my road and waited patiently for Tammie. She texted me to see if I was really there before turning up a few minutes later.

  “Hi,” she said with an excited squeal. “You’re free!”

  I couldn’t help laughing. “Maybe. Baby steps right now.”

  We walked toward the bus stop slower than I liked because Tammie couldn’t walk in her heels. She wore a short denim skirt and ankle boots with stiletto heels. I wasn’t even the slightest bit surprised when I noticed her shudder violently. Early spring in Ireland meant it would be pretty cold for a while, so I was glad of the heavy cardigan and the extra padding from the denim jacket. The sun hadn’t fully risen yet. The darkness of the winter months seemed to linger on for as long as possible. A sharp nip in the wind and that distinct cold smell in the air made it feel like winter, but it was good to be outside. I was happier than I should have been on such a dull morning.

  Tammie began to sing loudly, inducing an eye roll from me. I might have stayed under the radar, but she liked to be noticed. The more popular girls hated her and did their best to make her feel bad about herself, but she never listened.

  When the bus finally arrived, we sat in the middle seats by the heater so Tammie could defrost her legs. I heard a couple of insulting comments about Tammie’s appearance from the back seat, but she wasn’t in the least bit bothered by it.

  When she had warmed herself, she perked up long enough to share a titbit of gossip with me. “I heard a rumour a family moved into one of those big old houses near the woods. Maybe there’ll be someone new at school.”

  I shrugged, not particularly interested. There were a lot of empty houses around. We lived too far on the outskirts of the city to attract many new families, chiefly because visiting anywhere useful meant travelling by bus or car.

  This particular group of houses had gotten run down because they remained empty for so long with no upkeep. The small wooded area was dense enough for lots of alcohol drinking teenagers to hide in at the weekends. Tammie and I were never invited. Not that I would have been allowed out that late anyway.

  The local gossip out of the way, it was time to talk about my cousin, Joey. Aside from Tammie, Joey was my only other friend at school. Tammie had a major long-term crush on him, which was probably the reason we started hanging around with him in the first place. We made an odd trio. He was the brainy nerd, she was the kooky outsider, and I was, well, I was a bit of a non-entity. I was invisible. Joey had no idea that Tammie liked him. That was handy for me; there was no telling how weird things could become if my only friends began a relationship together.

  We met up with Joey outside school, but he was too busy obsessing over his history homework to have an actual conversation with us. Tammie and I gossiped until the bell rang for our first class. The three of us walked there together, but while Joey sat right up front, Tammie and I sat further down the back. Even a major crush couldn’t persuade Tammie to sit up front.

  I often wondered what Tammie saw in Joey. He wasn’t all that good looking, and they had nothing in common. He looked a lot like my Dad, he was a good four inches shorter than Tammie and a little bit scrawny to boot. He already had his books out and was busy looking very studious.

  A member of a primarily adult drama club, Tammie spent a good portion of her school time trying to persuade teachers that we needed a drama club at school, too. Joey didn’t believe in doing things like that when he could be studying.

  The teacher came into the room and immediately began to read from the history book. Almost instantly, everyone stopped paying attention. Apart from Joey. Our history teacher had the most boring voice in the world and no teaching skills to speak of. Every single class, he read aloud in a monotonous tone. Yeah, fascinating. Double history on a Monday morning was a punishment from God.

  Stifling a yawn, I noticed some of the girls gesture mockingly toward Tammie. Today’s joke being her hair. Short and blonde, she had fashioned it into a wild looking spiky style that was tipped with hot pink.

  One girl in particular, Dawn Talbot, took on the evil chee
rleader persona of American high school films with relish. She regularly gave Tammie a particularly hard time. Even as I glanced around the room, I spotted her sneering at Tammie and whispering things that sent her group of friends into fits of giggles. She was very popular and very mean, and I had yet to figure out how the two were linked. She caught my disapproving eye and threw me a scornful look. I quickly bent my head before she could start an argument. I was always ready to stick up for Tammie, but confrontation on my own behalf didn’t come quite as easily.

  I sighed to myself before resuming my regular time-wasting activity of scribbling on my books. I was okay at art, and I tended to sketch a lot in my spare time. It helped me relax. Even when I found myself drawing a pair of familiar looking eyes on the inside cover of my history book. Half of my schoolwork was decorated by those dream eyes. I had spent way too much time daydreaming about them. Frustratingly, I could see them clearly in my head, but I still hadn’t managed to reproduce them on paper accurately. It gave me a little ache inside that I would never tell Tammie about. Not that I had ever told her about my dreams either. Some things even your best friend wouldn’t understand.

  Glancing up at the clock above the whiteboard, I groaned as I realised just how much time was left before the next class. Tammie gave me a sympathetic smile before sneaking her phone out of her bag to read her text messages.

  Most of the rest of the class were slouched back in their chairs, passing notes or sending silent texts. Aaron Hannigan entertained himself by throwing pieces of wet paper at the less popular kid in front of him, much to the amusement of the easily pleased girl sitting next to him. Dawn Talbot’s shoulder-length blonde hair was being brushed by one of her clones, and Abbi Mitchell decided to irritate everyone around her by filing her nails noisily.

  Bored of people watching, I bent my head and continued drawing on my book. I was vaguely aware that the classroom door had opened and that most of the girls in the room had started whispering loudly, but I was too busy carefully filling in an iris to look up.

  “Students, this is Nathan Evans, the newest pupil to join your class. I trust you’ll all welcome him. Now sit down the back there, lad,” the most boring teacher in the world said.

  The new kid passed through the room amidst excited whispers. In the middle of double history, almost anything becomes something to discuss. But Tammie kept kicking me under the table as hard as she could, hinting at me to look up.

  I frowned at her. Rolled my eyes as she nudged me urgently. Glanced up just as Nathan Evans was about to pass by my table. We looked right at each other, and my mouth gaped open in shock. He paused, looking as startled as I felt. I knew him. Or at least, I knew his eyes. I had just drawn them in my book. The hairs rose on the back of my neck as a shiver of excitement ran down my spine. How was this possible? How could I have seen his eyes in my dreams? The hint of surprise on his face quickly turned into a deep frown that brought me back to earth. My cheeks flushed with heat, and I quickly looked down at my book.

  He moved on and sat in an empty seat at the back of the room, but I could have sworn I still felt his eyes burning into me. I groaned inwardly. Why did I have to freak out the new kid by staring in his face like that? Most of the class were still nudging each other and whispering, but my hands trembled so much I didn’t trust myself to pick up my pen. Never mind look into their faces to see if they were talking about me or him.

  “Perdy, are you okay? What on earth was that about?” Tammie hissed in my ear.

  I shrugged, trying to come across as nonchalant. I had the strongest urge to turn around in my seat and stare at him again to see how alike those eyes really were. That compulsion scared me enough to make me want to run out of the classroom and never return. There were some things you couldn’t live down. I learned that the hard way as I heard Dawn loudly remark, “Isn’t it sweet that the freak has a crush on the new boy?” Most people giggled, especially because my face had probably turned tomato red. Tammie stuck her middle finger up at Dawn in response. I cringed and kept my head down for the rest of the class.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about him. It was as though that word had finally launched itself off the tip of my tongue. Big-time relief, as though something I had been waiting a long time for had finally arrived. I knew it made no sense, but a sneaky thought kept popping into my head. His look had echoed my own. He recognised me, too.

  As soon as the bell rang, I picked up my things and ran out of the room, making sure I was the first one to leave. I hurried to the science lab alone to avoid Tammie’s questions. Most of the people who passed me by pushed against me roughly as if I didn’t exist. I kept my head down, avoided eye contact, and made it to the class first as usual.

  Except, I wasn’t actually first. I only realised this when I walked straight into the new kid who was already casually standing outside the locked door. I gazed at him in confusion, wondering how he had gotten there so quickly, before getting my act together and moving to the other side of the door.

  I stole a quick glimpse, but he caught me, so I looked away before I could get drawn in and embarrass myself again. I closed my eyes in a sort of despair as it occurred to me that he probably thought I was stalking him or something.

  Luckily, it wasn’t long before the rest of our classmates joined us and surrounded him, bombarding him with questions and giving me plenty of opportunities to sneak glances at him. He was quite good looking once I got past his eyes. In class, a lot of girls argued over who got to sit next to him.

  Even though plenty of girls obviously liked him already, he didn’t seem cocky or arrogant. He chatted back to anyone who spoke to him, so he was pretty friendly. I had never really had a type, but he made the butterflies in my stomach flutter extra fast.

  His skin was nice and clear—the colour of milky coffee. Dimples chased his smile, which was sort of adorable. His hair was jet black, straight, and cut in a way that wasn’t particularly fashionable, but it suited him. He was better looking than any of the other boys in my year, but again, it was his eyes that called to me. It was remarkable how similar they were to the ones in my dream. Big, very dark brown ones that lit up when he smiled. There was something sincere and nice about his entire face. In short, he was hot. Way too hot for me to keep looking at.

  But look I did. I couldn’t help myself. I found myself peeking at him all day. I caught his eye more than once. Every time he looked at me, I felt as though he knew what I was thinking. There was something really intense about him, and I couldn’t understand how everyone else was so easy in his company. I could feel myself crumbling if he merely glanced at me.

  I saw him everywhere I went as he was in so many of my classes. Even when he was surrounded by people, I still knew exactly where he was, but I didn’t have the guts to start a conversation with him. Knowing me, my mouth would dry up, I’d stutter something nonsensical, and probably trip and fall into a bin for good measure.

  Lunchtime was a quick relief because I couldn’t spot him in the canteen, and I had some company in the shape of Tammie and Joey. I waited until Joey took a really big bite out of his roll before I talked to him about Dad and Gran.

  “I walked out of my house last night, Joe.”

  He choked on a piece of bread, spluttering for a few minutes before swallowing noisily.

  “What do you mean, walked out?”

  “They were fighting again, so I left and went to Tammie’s house.” I tried not to laugh at the gormless look on his face.

  “What did they say?” He knew quite well what things were like for me. Although, he agreed with some of it, such as wearing heavy navy jumpers and avoiding boys. Tammie was a bit of a feminist, and it disturbed her greatly that she was attracted to an old-fashioned chauvinist who thought my Dad’s rules were for my own good because I was ‘just’ a girl.

  “Gran offered to let me paint my room however I like, and Dad said I could wear what I wanted, pretty much. And that I could maybe stay out later and do some stuff. As long as I
don’t mess up.”

  “But why did they take you seriously? You always moan about their rows. It’s never stopped them before,” he said.

  I hadn’t thought of that. “I don’t know. I got really angry with them and told them I’d leave if they didn’t cop on.”

  “Wow.” He took another bite of his roll before speaking with his mouth full.

  “You must have really scared them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know. Hinting you’d go to your Mam’s,” he said. “That would kill them both.”

  “Oh,” I said slowly as comprehension dawned on me. I hadn’t meant I’d leave for her house. I hadn’t even really meant that I would actually leave, but of course, that was their worst nightmare. I had accidentally touched a nerve. I didn’t get why they would ever believe I might want to spend time with my mother, but they rarely made sense to me.

  “She’s a bit slow sometimes, isn’t she?” Tammie said. “Anyway, it’s up to us to make sure that she doesn’t get into any trouble, or she’ll be right back where she started. Having no life at all.”

  I stuck my tongue out at Tammie, but she was right, I would have even less privileges if it all went wrong.

  Joey looked thoughtful. “I suppose I better keep an eye out. Just in case any of the tossers around here start sniffing around.” He glared around the room as if trying to figure out who needed to be watched the most.

  Tammie and I exchanged eye rolls. For some reason, Joey seemed to think that the entire male population of the town left Tammie and me alone because of his presence only.

  “Okay, who’s up for a walk to the shop? I’m in desperate need of a Snickers.” Tammie stood and picked up her bag.

  I made a face. “Eh, it’s raining. No chance.”