On a dark, cloudy Monday morning, Julietta Dawson was late to school, not that it mattered, for she’d be excused anyway. She walked through the metal doors into Woolridge High School, was greeted by the uncharacteristic presence of a quiet hallway then, the more uncharacteristic sound of rubber soles on linoleum and the clink of chain against skin. She heard someone hit a locker down a nearby hallway and the sound of shrieking rubber soles grew louder. They attempted to skid to stop just inches from her. She grabbed the pale wrist to steady him and he was pulled toward her, maybe a bit too close. He unlatched her hand from his wrist as her caramel eyes met his baby blues, iced over with anger. He backed away and she looked him over.
He was young, couldn’t have passed over nineteen, she bet he was seventeen. His look was icy, soulless and pierced a fire right through her. His shoulder length bangs hung to the left of his ice blue eyes. The rest of his sort of wavy chocolate brown hair hung to his ribs. His chain collar turned necklace fell beneath his black jacket which stopped at his hips. From his jeans hung a bike chain turned wallet chain. Under the bottom of his jeans, a pair of well worn Vans peaked out. He stood at five eleven with the build of a football player meets mixed martial artist.
She was a beautiful, seventeen year old girl who looked to be the poster child for innocence. Her wavy dark chocolate brown hair lay at her collarbone. Her caramel streaked milk chocolate eyes stared into his. A small silver chain held a tiny diamond heart that stood out against her smooth tanned skin. She was in a dark purple low cut top with a black cami under it. It showed off every curve and the black skinny jeans weren’t much different. The purple converses she wore were a contrast to the dull linoleum. She was Julietta Dawson and he was a face no one would remember, except for her.
He turned to walk away,
“Sorry,” His voice was deep, smooth.
“It’s fine, umm...” she couldn’t place his name.
“It’s not important,” he said as he turned down a hallway just as the bell for break rang.
She tried not to think about the boy as she walked to the snack room to get her usual, Gatorade and M&M cookies. She was supposed to be the girl who knew every name, every name except one. She racked her brain as she nibbled on her snack. She knew him from somewhere.
~
Meanwhile, the boy sat in the art room, simply writing in a notebook while scratching out a thing here and there. He wanted to fight at that moment. Hell, he wanted to fight any moment if given chance. That was just him. He pulled off his jacket to reveal a black muscle shirt and he threw his jacket over the nearest easel. He began to write again before marking through that line. He couldn’t think straight. He looked around the art room.
It wasn’t much except for rows of easels and stools and desks with a white board at the front of the room and a desk in the front left corner. Still, it was an escape from people and people were not in his best interest. He shook his head trying to clear his thoughts. Of course, it didn’t work. It never did.
~
Julietta sat with her usual crowd of friends:
a small redheaded girl with a taller yet still small brunette boy wrapped around her waist like always,
a tall guy with braids and a natural tendency to make anyone smile with his arms around his shorter blond hair girlfriend,
a quiet guy with long brown hair with a tall redheaded girl standing beside him,
a very short poster child emo girl,
a tall country boy with long brown hair,
and a smiley girl with mid-length brunette hair and bright green eyes.
The short, redheaded girl was the first to notice the difference in the girl and inquired,
“Who did you see?”
“What?” Julietta shook out of her own thoughts and realized the question, “Oh, no one, Aiden.”
“You’re acting different so apparently something happened,” the girl identified as Aiden said rather apparently.
“I'm just thinking too much again,” Julietta said as the boy with braids looked at her, with a curious expression, “I swear, nothing happened.”
Aiden watched a boy in a muscle shirt walk across the courtyard. It was out of the ordinary for this cold weather. He seemed familiar but she couldn’t place his face and therefore, shoved her curiosity out of mind.
“Who’s the new kid?” the boy attached to Aiden asked. Aiden shrugged and Julietta followed their gaze as the bell rang. The boy turned towards her then, he turned to walk into the snack room as Aiden snapped Julietta back to her senses. The group walked back into the school.
~
The boy got himself a Gatorade and walked slowly out of the snack room. He didn’t care if he was late; the teachers passed it off as routine by now. There wasn’t a day that went by when he wasn’t either late or sleeping in class. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the work; he was a genius. He just didn’t care.
He walked into his anatomy class, avoiding the eyes that attempted to read him, including the girl from before. He simply took his seat in the back of the room at the only vacant table and laid his head down to go to sleep.
~
Julietta sat working on her work as she always did and she finished the worksheets with ease and Aiden did soon after. They turned their work into the teacher. Julietta grabbed an extra set of worksheets, walked to the back of the room, and placed them beside the sleeping boy. He didn’t stir. She just smiled softly and walked back to her table where Aiden, the boy with braids, and the smiley girl sat waiting for her.
She picked up a clean piece of notebook paper and began to draw. Aiden watched over her shoulder as Julietta began to draw a heart made of glass or ice shards. Aiden figured the shards had to be made of ice. Julietta drew the melting heart but no source of heat. Aiden looked confused.
The boy awoke just as quickly as he had fallen asleep. He saw the worksheets lying in front of him and shook his head before beginning to work on them.
After what seemed like hours later, he looked up to the window. The sun was just piercing the horizon, bathing the dark, bleak city in an eerie, orange glow, an after effect, he knew of Hurricane Bill or Chris, whoever the hell it was.
A cat on the ledge outside slinked by, tail flicking, ears back, in obvious anticipation of what the weather man had repeatedly assured was “our impending doom.”
~
The coastal town of Franklin, Alabama had one of the oddest histories in the United States as far as its residents were concerned. It was established in the late 1800’s as a shipping city. It didn’t ship much for, like clockwork, it was destroyed by a hurricane every seventeen years. It was then rebuilt seventeen mils down from its original setting, funny, huh?
This was the city’s eighth incarnation and had been nicknamed The Eighth City. One would be bursting with laughter by now. It was that time again and everyone was preparing for the festival, yeah, festival, for the end, the destruction of the city. People had already moved to the new Franklin. After 119 years, one would think they’d have sense enough to move.
~
He finished the worksheets just as second block ended, wrote his name on them, and tossed them on the teacher’s desk before walking out. Julietta walked up to the desk and picked up her extra credit folder but not before, she saw his name: Daemon Mason. She took note of it.
“Jules, aren’t you going third block?” Aiden asked as any good friend would.
“Yeah,” Julietta said softly as she followed them down the stairs. They walked into class to find Daemon already asleep.
“No surprise,” Julietta smirked and he rewarded her with a rather rude hand gesture. She returned it. Though he still seemed to sleep, Julietta could have sworn she heard him laugh.
Aiden sat off to the side talking quietly to the boy with braids. Julietta thought of starting a conversation with him but the words never came. The rest of the class began to file in. Julietta sat thinking, hell bent on breaking the silence between them. He kept his head to the desk though he could no longer sleep.
He snarled very quietly, almost inaudibly. She looked over at him then back to the front of the room. She could have sworn…Finally, she walked to the back of the room. Hell, the teacher didn’t notice. Aiden smirked as she saw her friend walk up to him. She woke him up quietly.
‘ Please don’t be mad,’ she thought. She contemplated walking back to her seat until she noticed the dark eyes peering out from the brown curtains of hair.
“What do you want?” he asked tiredly.
“Just to talk, did I wake you up?” she asked as she noticed the dark circles under his eyes.
“I don’t talk much and yes, you did so, if you don’t mind, fuck off!” he growled in response. She jumped and smiled apologetically. She hated when people were mad. Her eyes were wide.
“Well…?” He snarled. She stayed silent looking very much like a deer caught in headlights. He sat up sluggishly, extending himself to his full height all the while glaring icily into her eyes as if to burn her alive.
“What…the…fuck…do you want?” he barked menacingly.
“I just wanted to fucking talk, damn,” she glared at him.
“Well, talk to your own damn friends! You don’t even know me! Why the fuck can’t you just go away?”
“Daemon, you…” she uncurled her fists and took a deep breath in an effort to calm herself. He raised his eyebrows in confusion.
“How…how do you know my name?” he seemed to forget his anger momentarily. She thought for a moment though not only on one subject for her mind refused to focus itself. Finally, after gathering her thoughts, she spoke.
“Hmm…I wonder…you would think after knowing someone all your life, you might recognize them,” her anger was hard to conceal and yet her eyes stayed soft, “God, Daemon are you really that blind or do you just not care?” Her voice caught as she turned to walk away.
She may not have remembered his name but she couldn’t forget his face. Nor could she forget the way his eye of ice blazed with anger. She also could never forget the way his eyes lit up when he smiled though a rare occasion that was.
"Wait...Julietta..." he managed to whisper, "Is it really you?" His face softened as the hatred in his eyes died out and was replaced by something else...something human, "I didn't mean to...I mean...why didn't you say anything?"
"Would you have listened?" She turned to face him, her eyes brimming with tears. She refused to meet his eyes, "Who else could it be?"
"It's been so long...I didn't recognize you...I'm sorry..." he lowered his head dejectedly getting quieter as he finished.
"You haven't changed a bit," she smiled, "I..." She stopped as if lost in thought, "I'm not surprised," he smiled faded, "You...how've you been?"
"Hah," he laughed bitterly, "I'm definitely been better...but you...you look...great! I mean...uh...I'm sorry...that was out of line," Daemon stammered, slowly lowering his head to hide his embarrassment.
"It's fine. I've been better," she said trying not to laugh,” I’ve been worse too. You look good. You look really good, but that's no surprise either."
"What do you mean by that?" Daemon said, now sitting upright with a dazed expression on his face.
"It's no surprise you look good. You always have. I know you don't believe me but it's true," she spoke quickly as a blush marked her cheeks.
He pushed his hair down to cover his face.
"What did you mean when you said that you've been worse? What happened?" Daemon said quickly trying to change the subject.
"The better question is, what didn't?" She refused to face him. She couldn't look at him, "It's not important...it's just...it's not important." She dropped her head, trying to push thememories away as she put her hands in her pockets to hide the shaking, not wanting to worry him.
He always seemed to worry about those he cared about. Daemon could be a very thoughtful person and that had been proven time and time before. She also knew he didn't need stress and she didn't want to cause it.
"Well, it's important to me..." Daemon whispered quietly, " I can't stand to see you like this..."
"Daemon, I'll...I'm fine...I will be...don't worry about me," She spoke just above a whisper.
"We both know that's bullshit and you know damn well I'm gonna worry!" He let his voice get louder. She took a deep breath knowing well that had turned a couple heads.
"I know, Daemon," she said making evident people were listening, "I know."
"Your friends are getting curious," Daemon said to change the subject momentarily.
"Let 'em. It won't be the first time," she replied, nodding toward Aiden as a 'it's fine.' Aiden turned back around.
Julietta wrapped her arms around herself as if one slight movement could shatter her, though she tried to make it look casual. Daemon saw right through her facade.