Categories > Original > Romance > MindStalker
Nobody said highschool was easy, and Reona knows it best. He's gay, he's in love, and guess what? He reads minds, but the only person his powers won't work on is Ashton, the way-out-of-his-league c...
0Unrated
Chapter four – Trapped
Reona furiously rubbed his eyes, hoping that the dark rings would magically vanish somehow, but the mirror seemed most stubborn on reflecting the almost anemic look on his face. He considered pinching his cheeks to make them gain some healthy colour, but that would be too much – it was already more than enough looking like a girl, no need acting like one.
A door clinked open as Elliot got out of a bathroom stall.
“Do I look okay?”
“You look like someone who’s lost sleep over a stupid jock, what else?” Elliot snapped, kicking the door shut.
He’d been in a foul mood the whole morning, and it didn’t take a mind-reader to guess why – not only was he worried for Reona, but jealous as well. Ashton, who’d never shown awareness of Reona’s very existence, treating him to lunch out of the blue, and Reona accepting the invitation without a second thought. Was Elliot the only one who found it strange, to say the least?
Reona splashed his face with the chilly tap water, hissing and chattering his teeth in such a comical way that Elliot would have laughed if he weren’t so pissed off. Ignoring that he was willingly falling into a trap, there was also the fact that Reona would be hanging out with the brainless jock rather than with him, which annoyed him like a bad itch.
It was during times like these that Reona most loathed his mind-reading powers. Although Elliot didn’t voice his thoughts, he could still read them – he couldn’t give his best friend the right to choose, and some things were either spoken out loud or better left unsaid.
“It’s almost time for me to go,”
Elliot washed his hands in silence. Reona was too excited over his ‘lunch date’ to say the right thing, so he decided to keep quiet and started walking towards the door, making to leave.
“Don’t go,”
He slipped to the other side of the bathroom door, smiling at him through the breach. “I’ll be there at three pm straight – don’t want Mae eating you alive,”
Elliot managed to smile back.
---
Reona blew onto his hands, damning the cold. He’d arrived early, hoping that waiting there would somehow calm his nerves. The butterflies in his stomach raged like killer bees, and he was afraid that more than looking sick, he’d actually be throwing up. He wished he had something to do, because his resolve alone wasn’t enough to keep him from daydreaming – although he wasn’t the kind to build castles in the air, Reona couldn’t help but hope.
From his two and a half years worth of high school life experience, he knew that popularity hits and social outcasts didn’t mingle, but he and Ashton were going out. He knew that the jock was straight, the roll of girls he’d dated on the past year being more than enough proof, but he never seemed to stick with a girl for long. He also knew that beautiful people dated beautiful people, and Ashton was absolutely gorgeous – tall and fit, suntanned skin of a creamy golden tone, wild dark-brown hair, enthralling golden-brown eyes – but Reona…
He sighed. There wasn’t much he could do about himself – jet-black hair that knew no other style than hanging painfully straight, eyes that couldn’t decide whether to be grey or green, and skin white as a sheet of paper, not to mention a body straying towards the unhealthy side of slender. We would make a hilarious couple.
He glimpsed at his pocket watch, a geek present from his geek best friend. Five past one. He wondered about what could be keeping the jock, since he pretty much knew his timetable by heart and was sure they both had a half-day. He leaned onto the metallic bars of the front gate… and waited.
And… waited.
Twenty minutes to two pm. Reona slid down to the frosty ground, huddling to hide his misery from the world. He just felt so stupid – he’d been checking the time every five minutes, refusing to believe he’d gotten stood up. Why should Ashton be any different from the other jocks? His eyes began to sting.
“Well, if it isn’t little Reona,”
Reona gasped when he recognized Keith’s taunting voice and defensively brought his arms to his chest, readying himself for whatever harassment was to come from the obnoxious jock.
“What you doing here? Waiting for that boyfriend of yours?”
“He’s waiting for me,” Ashton enlightened, walking down the stairs to the gate, accompanied by some of his goon friends. He didn’t smile, but his expression seemed to soften a little when he looked down at Reona. “Sorry, were you waiting long? We got held up by the coach,”
“Uh, no, it’s okay,” Reona murmured, his speaking articulacy lost in the sight of the handsome jock, making him forget about the forty minutes he’d just spent in the harsh winter cold.
“Hey, Ash,” Keith pointed at Reona, “you never told me he was coming with us,”
“Well, now you know. Be nice to him,”
“Sure, I’ll take good care of him,”
---
Reona had no idea what was going on, or why he was squeezed between Keith and some other bulky jock he didn’t know, in the backseat of Ashton’s car, listening to jokes that were just too lame for record. This definitely wasn’t what he expected. Sure, he’d been the one reading too much in the jock’s invitation, assuming they would be going somewhere alone – but this was too much. He would have thrown himself out the moving car if he were closer to the door.
Never in his life he’d felt so sickly. Keith had promptly swung one of his heavy arms around him, supposedly due to the lack of room in the narrow space, although Reona failed to see how it made any of them more comfortable. It hurt on his bony shoulders, and the sole thought of touching the hateful jock made his stomach turn. The only thing that made it remotely bearable were Ashton’s occasional glances in the rearview mirror, although he knew they weren’t particularly directed at him.
“So, Reona,” The unfamiliar jock addressed him with a mocking emphasis on his name, “what you think of this season so far? Think we’re winning the championship this year?”
“Uh, I guess so?” Actually, Reona didn’t know the first thing about hockey – it’s not like he ever paid attention to the game.
“C’mon, you can’t be serious. Keith here’s been playing like a pussy,” he taunted, earning a smack from the jock on cue and breaking out laughing, “Seriously, I wouldn’t make such an ass of myself if I played blindfolded,”
The both of them soon engaged in a stupid bodily fight, Keith choking him to restore his wounded male jock pride, Reona huddling down on the seat to avoid being squashed like a bug.
“Hey, cut it out, you two,” Ashton intervened, as if on his rescue, and turned the radio on loud enough for the jocks to rave to the music instead of pestering Reona with questions.
The lot of them eventually arrived to their destination, a trendy-looking diner in the center of town where Reona had never thought of setting foot. Judging by their overfriendly interaction with the staff, the jocks were regulars there, which could be easily explained with a glance at the shapely and annoyingly eager-to-please waitresses – that wasn’t the kind of place you’d come back to for the food.
Keith pushed him down onto a booth seat and sat beside him it, trapping him against the window while the other two jocks sat across them, leaving the head of the table to Ashton. A couple of bouncy waitresses leaped to their table, giggling and tugging at each other with excitement as they took their orders, taking no notice of him.
“Hey, Miss,” Ashton tugged at the bow of the girl’s apron, slowly working it loose and making her blush and laugh nervously. “You missed that little guy over there. What you gonna have, Reona?”
Reona flushed to his ears. He usually hated being addressed by his girly given name, and both Elliot and Mae always called him Reo out of consideration, but that was before he’d heard Ashton say it in that low, slightly husky voice of his – he now found that he didn’t mind his name at all.
“Uh, whatever you’re having,”
Ashton nodded to the waitress and gave her a sound slap on the bottom, sending the girl giggling to the kitchen. The other jocks began whistling in approval of their leader, laughing and making nasty remarks about her. Reona just looked away, appalled by the whole scene.
Reona managed to go fairly unnoticed for the hour, taking advantage of the jocks’ heated argument over come upcoming hockey game to concentrate on Ashton. Watching him from up close, he learned small, silly things that only made him more certain that Ashton wasn’t your average jock – he sipped on his milkshake, staying on the conversation without speaking more than necessary while the rest of them went on endless banters, getting rowdier with every beer – and proved he actually had brain, and a good one at that, contrary to Elliot’s fierce opinion.
The clock started ticking a little too close to three pm, making him fidget on his seat. Even though Ashton had promised him a ride, he didn’t have the guts to ask him about it when the jock was clearly enjoying himself, nor did he feel like squishing himself into his car with a bunch of wasted pricks. He threw an anxious look at Ashton, who surprisingly seemed to pick up his plea for help, standing up and fishing out his car keys.
“You guys stay put here while I drop him off,”
Reona sprang to his feet and tried to leave the booth through the narrow space between the table and Keith, but the jock pulled him onto his lap, aiming his stinky beer breath at his neck. “Where you goin’, pretty boy? We just gettin’ started.”
Ashton yanked him by the elbow out of Keith’s hold and smacked his friend on the forehead, the slowpoke of a jock taking a good couple of seconds to grumble a complaint and making the other jocks break out laughing. Ashton just smirked and shook his head.
Reona sighed with relief as they left the dinner, glad that the preview of hell was over. Even the cold felt heavenly on his cheeks, now that he was out of range of those drunkards, and finally alone with Ashton.
“Sorry about that. Keith gets a bit affectionate when he’s smashed,”
They slipped into the car, the thought of being confined in such a tight place with him making Reona’s heart do flip-flops inside his chest. With the jocks gone, the air smelled strongly of Ashton, a warm, spicy scent of summer that did weird things to his body. He stared out the window in search of something to take his mind off the jock.
“So, where should I drop you off?”
“I better head straight to Elliot’s. Just, uh, head to school and I’ll show you the way from there,”
Ashton fell silent, and Reona had no idea how to start a conversation. Just what do you talk about with someone you share no common interests with? When your circles of friends are a total mismatch? He wished the jock would put on some music to end that painful, awkward silence.
“Can I ask you something?” Ashton suddenly blurted out, his eyes still locked on the road.
“Uh, sure.”
“Are you and this Elliot guy, uh, you know,” he started, giving him a quick look and running a hand through his hair, “are you, like, uh, together?”
Reona furiously rubbed his eyes, hoping that the dark rings would magically vanish somehow, but the mirror seemed most stubborn on reflecting the almost anemic look on his face. He considered pinching his cheeks to make them gain some healthy colour, but that would be too much – it was already more than enough looking like a girl, no need acting like one.
A door clinked open as Elliot got out of a bathroom stall.
“Do I look okay?”
“You look like someone who’s lost sleep over a stupid jock, what else?” Elliot snapped, kicking the door shut.
He’d been in a foul mood the whole morning, and it didn’t take a mind-reader to guess why – not only was he worried for Reona, but jealous as well. Ashton, who’d never shown awareness of Reona’s very existence, treating him to lunch out of the blue, and Reona accepting the invitation without a second thought. Was Elliot the only one who found it strange, to say the least?
Reona splashed his face with the chilly tap water, hissing and chattering his teeth in such a comical way that Elliot would have laughed if he weren’t so pissed off. Ignoring that he was willingly falling into a trap, there was also the fact that Reona would be hanging out with the brainless jock rather than with him, which annoyed him like a bad itch.
It was during times like these that Reona most loathed his mind-reading powers. Although Elliot didn’t voice his thoughts, he could still read them – he couldn’t give his best friend the right to choose, and some things were either spoken out loud or better left unsaid.
“It’s almost time for me to go,”
Elliot washed his hands in silence. Reona was too excited over his ‘lunch date’ to say the right thing, so he decided to keep quiet and started walking towards the door, making to leave.
“Don’t go,”
He slipped to the other side of the bathroom door, smiling at him through the breach. “I’ll be there at three pm straight – don’t want Mae eating you alive,”
Elliot managed to smile back.
---
Reona blew onto his hands, damning the cold. He’d arrived early, hoping that waiting there would somehow calm his nerves. The butterflies in his stomach raged like killer bees, and he was afraid that more than looking sick, he’d actually be throwing up. He wished he had something to do, because his resolve alone wasn’t enough to keep him from daydreaming – although he wasn’t the kind to build castles in the air, Reona couldn’t help but hope.
From his two and a half years worth of high school life experience, he knew that popularity hits and social outcasts didn’t mingle, but he and Ashton were going out. He knew that the jock was straight, the roll of girls he’d dated on the past year being more than enough proof, but he never seemed to stick with a girl for long. He also knew that beautiful people dated beautiful people, and Ashton was absolutely gorgeous – tall and fit, suntanned skin of a creamy golden tone, wild dark-brown hair, enthralling golden-brown eyes – but Reona…
He sighed. There wasn’t much he could do about himself – jet-black hair that knew no other style than hanging painfully straight, eyes that couldn’t decide whether to be grey or green, and skin white as a sheet of paper, not to mention a body straying towards the unhealthy side of slender. We would make a hilarious couple.
He glimpsed at his pocket watch, a geek present from his geek best friend. Five past one. He wondered about what could be keeping the jock, since he pretty much knew his timetable by heart and was sure they both had a half-day. He leaned onto the metallic bars of the front gate… and waited.
And… waited.
Twenty minutes to two pm. Reona slid down to the frosty ground, huddling to hide his misery from the world. He just felt so stupid – he’d been checking the time every five minutes, refusing to believe he’d gotten stood up. Why should Ashton be any different from the other jocks? His eyes began to sting.
“Well, if it isn’t little Reona,”
Reona gasped when he recognized Keith’s taunting voice and defensively brought his arms to his chest, readying himself for whatever harassment was to come from the obnoxious jock.
“What you doing here? Waiting for that boyfriend of yours?”
“He’s waiting for me,” Ashton enlightened, walking down the stairs to the gate, accompanied by some of his goon friends. He didn’t smile, but his expression seemed to soften a little when he looked down at Reona. “Sorry, were you waiting long? We got held up by the coach,”
“Uh, no, it’s okay,” Reona murmured, his speaking articulacy lost in the sight of the handsome jock, making him forget about the forty minutes he’d just spent in the harsh winter cold.
“Hey, Ash,” Keith pointed at Reona, “you never told me he was coming with us,”
“Well, now you know. Be nice to him,”
“Sure, I’ll take good care of him,”
---
Reona had no idea what was going on, or why he was squeezed between Keith and some other bulky jock he didn’t know, in the backseat of Ashton’s car, listening to jokes that were just too lame for record. This definitely wasn’t what he expected. Sure, he’d been the one reading too much in the jock’s invitation, assuming they would be going somewhere alone – but this was too much. He would have thrown himself out the moving car if he were closer to the door.
Never in his life he’d felt so sickly. Keith had promptly swung one of his heavy arms around him, supposedly due to the lack of room in the narrow space, although Reona failed to see how it made any of them more comfortable. It hurt on his bony shoulders, and the sole thought of touching the hateful jock made his stomach turn. The only thing that made it remotely bearable were Ashton’s occasional glances in the rearview mirror, although he knew they weren’t particularly directed at him.
“So, Reona,” The unfamiliar jock addressed him with a mocking emphasis on his name, “what you think of this season so far? Think we’re winning the championship this year?”
“Uh, I guess so?” Actually, Reona didn’t know the first thing about hockey – it’s not like he ever paid attention to the game.
“C’mon, you can’t be serious. Keith here’s been playing like a pussy,” he taunted, earning a smack from the jock on cue and breaking out laughing, “Seriously, I wouldn’t make such an ass of myself if I played blindfolded,”
The both of them soon engaged in a stupid bodily fight, Keith choking him to restore his wounded male jock pride, Reona huddling down on the seat to avoid being squashed like a bug.
“Hey, cut it out, you two,” Ashton intervened, as if on his rescue, and turned the radio on loud enough for the jocks to rave to the music instead of pestering Reona with questions.
The lot of them eventually arrived to their destination, a trendy-looking diner in the center of town where Reona had never thought of setting foot. Judging by their overfriendly interaction with the staff, the jocks were regulars there, which could be easily explained with a glance at the shapely and annoyingly eager-to-please waitresses – that wasn’t the kind of place you’d come back to for the food.
Keith pushed him down onto a booth seat and sat beside him it, trapping him against the window while the other two jocks sat across them, leaving the head of the table to Ashton. A couple of bouncy waitresses leaped to their table, giggling and tugging at each other with excitement as they took their orders, taking no notice of him.
“Hey, Miss,” Ashton tugged at the bow of the girl’s apron, slowly working it loose and making her blush and laugh nervously. “You missed that little guy over there. What you gonna have, Reona?”
Reona flushed to his ears. He usually hated being addressed by his girly given name, and both Elliot and Mae always called him Reo out of consideration, but that was before he’d heard Ashton say it in that low, slightly husky voice of his – he now found that he didn’t mind his name at all.
“Uh, whatever you’re having,”
Ashton nodded to the waitress and gave her a sound slap on the bottom, sending the girl giggling to the kitchen. The other jocks began whistling in approval of their leader, laughing and making nasty remarks about her. Reona just looked away, appalled by the whole scene.
Reona managed to go fairly unnoticed for the hour, taking advantage of the jocks’ heated argument over come upcoming hockey game to concentrate on Ashton. Watching him from up close, he learned small, silly things that only made him more certain that Ashton wasn’t your average jock – he sipped on his milkshake, staying on the conversation without speaking more than necessary while the rest of them went on endless banters, getting rowdier with every beer – and proved he actually had brain, and a good one at that, contrary to Elliot’s fierce opinion.
The clock started ticking a little too close to three pm, making him fidget on his seat. Even though Ashton had promised him a ride, he didn’t have the guts to ask him about it when the jock was clearly enjoying himself, nor did he feel like squishing himself into his car with a bunch of wasted pricks. He threw an anxious look at Ashton, who surprisingly seemed to pick up his plea for help, standing up and fishing out his car keys.
“You guys stay put here while I drop him off,”
Reona sprang to his feet and tried to leave the booth through the narrow space between the table and Keith, but the jock pulled him onto his lap, aiming his stinky beer breath at his neck. “Where you goin’, pretty boy? We just gettin’ started.”
Ashton yanked him by the elbow out of Keith’s hold and smacked his friend on the forehead, the slowpoke of a jock taking a good couple of seconds to grumble a complaint and making the other jocks break out laughing. Ashton just smirked and shook his head.
Reona sighed with relief as they left the dinner, glad that the preview of hell was over. Even the cold felt heavenly on his cheeks, now that he was out of range of those drunkards, and finally alone with Ashton.
“Sorry about that. Keith gets a bit affectionate when he’s smashed,”
They slipped into the car, the thought of being confined in such a tight place with him making Reona’s heart do flip-flops inside his chest. With the jocks gone, the air smelled strongly of Ashton, a warm, spicy scent of summer that did weird things to his body. He stared out the window in search of something to take his mind off the jock.
“So, where should I drop you off?”
“I better head straight to Elliot’s. Just, uh, head to school and I’ll show you the way from there,”
Ashton fell silent, and Reona had no idea how to start a conversation. Just what do you talk about with someone you share no common interests with? When your circles of friends are a total mismatch? He wished the jock would put on some music to end that painful, awkward silence.
“Can I ask you something?” Ashton suddenly blurted out, his eyes still locked on the road.
“Uh, sure.”
“Are you and this Elliot guy, uh, you know,” he started, giving him a quick look and running a hand through his hair, “are you, like, uh, together?”
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