The Five Dimensions Part 1: Shadow World

Chapter 16

The following Monday Hailey stopped at the edge of the forest for a moment. Before their fight, Nolan would pick her up here, but now she was forced to walk to school. She had just started crossing the road when she heard her dad's car driving behind her on the dirt path. He stopped next to her and stuck his head out the window.

"Get in," was all he said. Her dad understood the situation even if Hailey hadn't directly told him about what was going on with Nolan and her. Usually, she did tell him. She wasn't sure why, but this time felt different. So, she hadn't.

They drove in silence. Her dad occasionally gave her a look but didn't ask her to talk. When they reached the parking lot, Hailey immediately regretted coming to school at all. She was alone without Nolan; surely Taliyah wouldn't be too happy to see her either. Not after what Hailey had let slip. On top of that, Hailey had barely slept. She'd had strange dreams, terrifying ones that made her scared to close her eyes. She couldn't remember what they were about or what they meant, but she remembered waking up in cold sweat.

"You know I love you, don't you, Hailey?" her dad suddenly said. His voice soft and trembled slightly when he said his daughter's name.

Hailey turned to him and looked at his eyes. He was trying to tell her something, as if he knew something would happen but he couldn't tell her. It frightened her but then her father's eyes shifted and what she had seen before was gone. She must've imagined it or misread it. "Of course, I do, dad. I love you too."

He nodded and gave her a kiss on her cheek. Then he looked at the school entrance, as if someone was watching them. Hailey noticed Ash standing exactly in her dad's line of sight. Except Ash wasn't paying any attention to them. Hailey looked back at her father once, but his face had turned back to normal again. She stepped out of the car, and it drove off.

There was a feeling in her gut that she was familiar with, it was the feeling her recent dreams had given her. Only now that she felt it again did she realize what the dreams had been: a warning.

§

The next week went by in a blur. A very slow blur that was punctured by moments that were much less clouded. And Hailey was only too aware of the source. Whenever she was with Ash, she paid careful attention. To his words, to his expressions, anything about him. They were together a surprising amount.

That first day, her first day at school after the horrible things she'd said to Nolan, Ash showed up to her locker. It was so much like the first time she'd met Ash that she automatically scowled at him. But Ash wasn't wearing the same expression at all. He wasn't smirking or eyeing her playfully. He didn't say anything at all. There was a new kind of understanding between them. Soon, Hailey started scowling only occasionally instead of every time she looked at him.

Every day that week, Ash met her at her locker at the start of the day, he walked with her to her classes, they sat together at lunch, and finally they ended up at her locker again after the last bell. On the days of hockey practice, they walked to those together as well.

The first day, all through lunch, he tried to convince Hailey to let him drive her home. But she so fervently refused him that he'd stopped trying to convince her.

"But I'm still picking you up Friday, you can't get out of that," he'd said after finally admitting defeat, just before Hailey walked into the room of her next class so that there was no time to argue.

Besides arguing about Hailey's lack of motorized transportation, they talked about anything that came to mind. It was surprisingly easy to talk to Ash. At least, so long as she wasn't distracted by his eyes full of deep waves, which only seemed to grow more intense with every second she spent looking into them.

She managed to balance her moments of distraction nicely by coming up with new nicknames for Ash every day. They were especially rude, and sometimes Hailey caught a few scandalized stares of other students, which only encouraged her more. Ash was never shocked by any of the names she came up with, and occasionally he gave her suggestions when he thought she was getting uninspired.

Although Hailey was becoming quite fascinated with Ash, he wouldn't answer any personal questions straight. The answers that he gave always seemed to miss bits and pieces, like he was hiding something. She even tried different methods to get him to spill something. She tried to ask many questions very quickly, to sneak up on him by springing an unexpected question, to look at him intently. She even tried to surrender some personal information of her own in the hope he would return the favor. So far, she was mostly unsuccessful. But all the inconsequential stuff that they did talk about, still brought a smile to her face that she wasn't able to conjure without Ash nearby.

Hailey could feel her walls slipping down whenever she was around him. She spent her time walking home to rebuild those walls as much as she could. She was already taking an enormous risk spending time with Ash, when Julia had set her eyes on him, not to mention the damage that something like Ash could cause himself. Julia, however, hadn't acted on her anger all week. Mostly, because she didn't get the chance, with Ash always being by Hailey's side. She dreaded the day that Julia decided to act on her rage that Hailey could easily see building up whenever their gazes crossed.

Besides rebuilding her walls, the blur always came back over her when she walked home. She remembered her fight with Nolan, she remembered the words that she wished she could take back. And she remembered the way that both Nolan and Taliyah purposely avoided Hailey.

Neither of them had said a word to her all week, let alone looked at her. Nolan had changed seats in the classes they'd been sitting together, and whenever they were about to cross paths, he turned around and walked the other way. Even Ash could only distract her for so long. Eventually the heavy cloud came back over her.

At least Taliyah and Nolan were talking to each other. So even if she was on the outs with the two of them, their own friendship still seemed somewhat intact. Maybe, there was even more than friendship brewing. But Hailey didn't dare to stare at them for too long, for fear that they walked away from her again. She knew there would come a moment when she could apologize, but she had to leave them be for now. Nolan and she had gone through so much, they'd been friends for as long as she could remember. They would get through this.

At least that was what Hailey thought. She came home on Friday in a hurry. The hockey practice had gone on for longer and she still hadn't decided on what to wear for the party that Ash had enthusiastically reminded her off several times that day. And, she still had to fix dinner. Her dad wasn't home; probably working late. Hailey dropped her schoolbag on the couch and whirled around to hunt for something edible in the kitchen. Then she saw it. The thing that made her heart drop, her appetite was immediately gone.

In the corner where Nolan's guitar was supposed to be, there was only dust. He'd picked it up. Even with the risk of his mom finding and selling it. He'd picked it up and with it severed every last tie he'd had to her.