Chapter Ten

Once again, the day passed in a blur. It's crazy, the more I think about school, the faster it seems to slip by. So I reasoned that if I think about it all the time, maybe I might just be able to enjoy this year.

You know what the best part of the day was though? Kicking back in my chair once I got home, slipping on the good ol' headphones, and letting my music just carry me away. There's nothing left to think about, nothing to worry me, not a single thing to give me hell. Just the music and me.

That's how it always should be.

As I let the music play, I gazed out of my bedroom window, over to the hill at the end of the street. The sun was beginning to set, and the familiar golden rays began playing on the grass, tiny glass shards reflecting the light in every direction. I knew that I was hoping to see Zahra, I won't deny it. She wasn't there though, just the hill and the sun, nothing more.

"Screw this." I said to myself, and with that, I pulled off my headphones, grabbed my jacket and headed downstairs to go to the hill. I needed to get some air anyway.

Well, that's what I was telling myself. Purely for the fresh air. Purely.

Chapter Nine

Mondays. Everyone's either happy to be back at school, seeing all their friends, discussing the weekend assignments, or depressed, pissed off and far behind in their work. Mentally, I began to check boxes as I proceeded to my locker.
Happy to be back at school? No.
Seeing friends? Yeah, why not. Check.
Weekend assignments? Er, check. Of course check. Of course.
Depressed? Check.
Pissed off? Check.
Far behind in work? What rubbish, the checked box for weekend assignments is clearly not a lie.
I sighed. Convincing myself that I wasn't screwed in maths class for my half finished assignment didn't change the fact that Mr Lester would jam my eye out with a metal ruler. Swearing under my breath, I slammed my locker door shut.
Late for class? Check.

This week was getting better and better wasn't it?

As I walked to the classroom, I began praying that Mr Lester had broken an arm, leg, anything, over the weekend and wasn't here today. I peeked through the classroom door's window. Prayer sucked, there was Mr Lester, ready as always, writing notes on the board. My eyes roamed over the desks. Troy was at our regular spot, and seemed to be intensely focused on something in his lap. Everyone else was busy writing down the notes on the whiteboard.
Then I saw it. That head of flowing, golden-brown hair. Sitting next to the empty seat Troy had reserved for me. I rubbed my eyes in disbelief. This sort of thing only happened in stories, not real life.

Oh, of course it did. Rubbing my eyes helped a lot. I was actually staring at the school hippie, with his also flowing, golden-brown hair. Lovely, I said quietly to myself, lovely. With that, I opened the door, quickly padded over to my chair and slid into the seat.

Need to get this girl out of my head? Check.

Chapter Eight

"Oh Kason, you're so wonderful!"
"Please, please, it was nothing, I'd do anything for you baby."
"Oh KASON!" Zahra held my face in her hands, the tender embrace filling the room with emotion. Then she slowly leaned in, eyes closed, and we kissed. My hand lay on the small of her back, holding her body close to mine, the other tangled in her beautiful hair. Our breaths came in unison, as the liplock became stronger, and more passionate. Every sensation in my body was filled with pure bliss, and then I fell off my bed.
I spat out the corner of my pillow cover from my mouth in disgust, and unraveled the bedside lamp cord from my fingers. Tender embrace my arse. I sat on the floor in a semi depressed state, wishing so ferverently that the dream had been a reality. The clock on the bedside table read three thirty-five a.m. Perfect. Just what I needed to start a school week.

It had been two days since I'd last seen or heard from Zahra. The weekend had been boring, yet somehow I hadn't managed to find time to spend with her. Not like I'm desperate to be in her company, don't get me wrong. Right?
Why do I bother.
I don't even convince myself.

Chapter Seven

I closed the front door of my house quietly, then leaned back against the wall. That name. I'd never heard such a beautiful name before. Mind in a daze, I slowly shuffled up the stairs to my bedroom. I just couldn't stop thinking about that name! Finally, the face had a name, and now it was plaguing my mind just as badly.

Zahra. When you look at it, it doesn't seem like much. When she said it though, that was something magical. The air was alive with electricity, her voice sent thousands of sparks running through my body, all the way to my fingertips. I know, stereotypical metaphorical garbage, but a better way to describe the feeling I will never find.

Zahra. The name that changed. Everything.

Chapter Six

"How was I wrobu-bu-buh..."
Yes, that's exactly what dribbled out of my mouth when I saw her. Standing there, eyes looking deeply into mine. I actually felt my heart hiccup. She came and lay down next to me, less than half a metre away. My eyes widened with excitement, as it struck me that this girl was actually so close. Okay, it's not that I don't have any girl friends, but let's be honest, they all paled in comparison to this girl, this purely angelic being. Then again, she could be as thick as two short planks, which would just ruin the entire magic of the moment. I decided to find out.
...Once my heart dislodged itself from my throat, having managed to jump all the way up there with the damn hiccup.
"S-s-so it's really that beautiful?" Oh dear, another episode of Casanova lines. She didn't reply immediately, and I turned my head to look at her. Eyes staring straight into the sunset, I could tell she was mesmerised. "Um-"
"Shh!" She cut me off hastily. "I want to see the sun go down, and don't want to miss a second! It's incredible!" The thrill of happiness was ringing in her voice, and that's when she grasped my hand with excitement. I can tell you right now, in all honesty that I almost shook her off with the shock. One minute my hand was lying beside me, fidgeting with my tshirt, the next it was being strangled in the girl's vice-like grip. I probably couldn't have shaken her off anyway, too strong for me.

We stayed like that till the sun disappeared, and darkness flooded the valley. The hill suddenly went from being a golden monument, to a quiet lump in the night.
"Could I get my hand back please?" It took me a little while to realise that the girl was asking me. Wait. What?! She asking me? "I'm pretty sure I should be asking you that, after you grabbed mine so quickly." I said with a wink. Not like she could even see it. Great timing, once again.
"Oh very funny," she threw my hand back at me. We both sat up, sitting in the same position, legs drawn up close to our bodies with arms wrapped around them. Stars began to appear in the already dark sky, like diamond dust cast upon black velvet. This hill was a veritable jewellery shop, with gold by day and precious stones by night.
The silence between us didn't feel empty, and yet it was so loud, almost as if it were drowning out everything else. I tried to think of something to say, but the words wouldn't flow.
"I should probably be heading home." With that, she stood up and began to walk down the hill.
"Wait!" I called after her, and hurriedly scrambled to my feet. She stopped walking, and waited for me to stumble my way over to her. "What's your name by the way? I'm Kason, and I forgot to ask you yours yesterday." At first, she didn't reply but simply looked into my eyes. I waited for the response.
"My name?" She bit her lower lip, and gave a little smile.
"My name is..."

Chapter Five

Thanks to a ridiculous amount of work my teachers lovingly decided to hand out, I was distracted enough to forget about the incident that occurred in the morning. However, as the day drew to a close, I remembered that the odds of me seeing the girl were considerably high, seeing as she lived less than thirty metres from my bedroom. When the final bell rang for the day, I gathered up my books and headed to my locker to meet Troy.Once we'd gotten our bags, we set off for the walk home, talking about the stupidity of our english topics. Troy was mid-rant when the girl from yesterday and this morning's incident pushed past us without so much as a by-your-leave. I was slightly peeved, so I called out after her.
"Hey where's the damn fire?" She whipped her head around to look at me, and as my eyes met her gaze I saw the glimmer of tears in hers. Shock was still registering in my mind as she turned back to face the front and walked off. Troy hadn't seemed to notice, and as my surprise slowly diminished, I caught the last of Troy's lecture: "... and that's why love is like an egg, get it?"
"Sure, sure, whatever you say man." Egg? What the hell was he on about? We continued to walk on, with Troy beginning a new speech on how maths should die. To me, his words went in one ear and straight out the other. My mind was too busy thinking. Yes, again about the girl. I think I might have a slight problem.

When we arrived at our street, I said goodbye to Troy and headed towards my house. I looked hopefully towards the end of the road, hoping to see the silhouette from yesterday, but it wasn't there. Not wanting to go home just yet, I walked up to the top of the grassy hill, lay down on the grass and stared at the horizon. It was a picture perfect moment, something not unlike what you would find on the back of a stereotypical postcard. A few birds skittered across the now golden with sunset sky, and their piercing calls hung in the air. I savoured the moment, perfect peace settled upon me, and I began to doze off. Nothing could make this scene better. Nothing.
Just as my eyelids shut, a familiar voice cut through my reverie.
"You were wrong." What? "It's more beautiful than anywhere in this world, not just the country." I turned around as my answer tumbled from my lips.
"But how was I wro..." the sentence trailed away, as I found myself looking once again into the most beautiful brown eyes.
Heart failure anyone?

Chapter Four

"Welcome to the most beautiful street in the whole country."
As the feeble words left my mouth, my mind didn't completely register what exactly I was saying. When it did however, a few seconds later, I mentally kicked myself in the shins. Welcome to the most beautiful street? You idiot boy, you deserve to be slapped! Silence followed, and I felt my embarrassment rising to my cheeks. I turned to leave, when a voice stopped me dead, saying, "Yes, it's breathtaking isn't it?" Heartbeat failing, failing, beeeeeep.
Her voice was so quiet, so sweet, it's hard to describe it without getting ridiculously cliche. I faltered for a few seconds, and stumbled my feet around to face her. When I looked up into her face, I found myself staring into those mesmerising hazel eyes from the morning. Staring, staring, staring for too long it felt, and yet not long enough. Finally I managed to strangle a few words from my dry throat. "I sometimes lose track of time just staring into the same sunset." Great, once again, so smooth aren't we, Mr Suave? "Don't blame you, I've never seen the sun in such a way before." came the reply.
"I haven't seen you before, are you new around here?" I asked, suddenly realising the obvious.
"Yep, just moved to this street two days ago, and I'm glad I did." So was I. The small conversation fell quiet, as we both turned back to the sunset, which was almost already over. A few seconds later, the sun disappeared behind the hill, and the street was suddenly dark and colder. "Well, I better get going." and with that, she walked towards the house opposite mine. I quietly thanked God for His perfect placement, then made my way back over to Troy, who was doubled up with laughter, gasping and wheezing at my dismal failure. "Wow, that was so sad, I should have recorded it and put it up on youtube!"
"Oh very funny Troy." I punched him lightly on the arm. "I'm going home, catch you in the morning bro." I walked into my driveway and through the doors of my house, the hazel eyes firmly embedded in the front of my memory.

The next day, as Troy and I arrived at school, there was a commotion happening in the main quadrangle. We pushed ourselves through the surrounding crowd, only to see the girl from yesterday sitting on the ground, hands covering her face, while two other girls were pointing at her yelling insults. In the space of a second, I was on on the ground next to her, put a hand on her shoulder and told the other two girls in a rather impolite manner to piss off, which they did after throwing me a dirty look. Troy quickly dispersed the crowd, while I helped up the fallen girl. "What was that all about?" I asked her as she clambered to her feet.
"It was nothing, don't worry about it, they just thought I'd stolen something from them." Stolen something? Bit of a steep accusation wasn't it?
"You sure you'll be ok? Do you want me to - "
"I said I'm FINE!" she snapped at me, promptly pushing me away then storming off with her books. I must have been staring after her in such a bemused manner before Troy interrupted my reverie by clobbering me over the back of the head with his heavy maths book. "Snap out of it Kase, let's get to class." Casting a final look at her retreating back, I headed towards my English classroom. What a way to start the day.

Chapter Three

The day passed quicker than I anticipated, all the classes seeming like a blur. Although I had crumpled it up and thrown it into my bag, my mind kept refreshing the image, constantly bringing the face up with the fleeting snapshot my eyes had registered of the girl in the hallway. Why had I drawn her? What was going wrong with me?

School had ended, and as Troy and I walked towards the street where our houses lived side by side, I was still thinking about the picture, head bowed in concentration, rotating it over and over as Troy babbled on about "this babe who was so totally digging him", and then entered an extravagant descriptive rant on her appearance. Same old Troy, same old interests.

Our street was one of the most fortunate and beautiful in the district. Why, you ask? Well, firstly, it was lined with large maple trees which, now in autumn, turned the street into a living sea of golden red. Then there was the park at the end of the street, with a large grassy hill overlooking the rows of houses. In the daytime, especially during summer, the hill was washed with sunlight, creating the perfect picnic spot. Sunset was the most spectacular, for the sun falls behind the hill, making it the most breathtaking place to both see from afar and be. However, not many of the street's residents knew of this hidden treasure, with most of them too busy with their careers and studies. Typical, never pay attention to the finer details which create the surviving happiness in a being.

Turning the corner into our street, Troy suddenly stopped walking and talking. At first I didn't notice, until the quietness of my own footsteps registered in my mind. I looked up and behind me to ask him why he'd stopped. Instead of a verbal response, he simply lifted his hand and pointed to the far end of the street, to a figure with long amber hair, flowing in the soft wind. The figure was facing the hill, and in that instant, the sun began to set behind the hill, casting brilliant rays across the street, and illuminating the figure in front of me. It was an image I still carry with me in my minds eye to this day.

I turned back to Troy, only to my surprise he was right next to me, staring as well. "It's that girl!" he said in hushed tones, almost fearful of ruining the moment.
"So what?" I growled, knowing very well what he was hinting. Yet again though, in the place of saying something, he took a physical approach, and began to quickly shove me in the girl's direction. Loudly protesting, I was steadily herded towards her, desperately trying to escape Troy's long reach. Before long, we reached a point a few metres behind the girl, and with a final heave, Troy sent me stumbling, almost crashing into her. Waving his arms at the girl in shooing motions, I knew he was telling me to talk to her. I was already to close to just sheepishly leave, so summoning up my courage, I took a deep breath and said...

Chapter Two

First impression isn't really the best way to describe what I received from her. First indentation is more like it. She ran around the corner into me so fast that she left her elbow mark in my chin. As I helped her pick up her books, which were scattered far and wide from our collision, she kept apologising profusely.

"I'm so sorry, I really am, it's just that I have to get to maths right now, and I've been late every single class! Sorry sorry sorry!"

Then, before I knew it, she was gone again, running down the corridor at ten to the dozen. It all happened within the space of ten seconds, and all I remembered was a whirl of amber coloured hair and a pair of large hazel eyes. Nothing really to grab my attention, after all going to a co-ed school has it's fair share of girls and a pair of pretty eyes isn't uncommon.

"Kason! Hurry up man, or else you'll be late to class!" My best friend Troy walked up to me and nudged me with his elbow. "So, you going to tell me who she was? Eh? Eh?"
"Yeah, I'll tell you when I find out for myself," I said with a chuckle, "We didn't exactly talk much, as you might've seen."
"Looked good enough time for me, in that short space of time I would've gotten her number just like that!" he said, snapping his fingers to accentuate his point. All I did was laugh along with him as we walked to our first period of the day, maths. I hate maths, plain and simple. As we stepped into our classroom I was already dreading the lesson to come. Anyone up for a nice big helping of trigonometry? No? Didn't really think so.
As usual, Troy and I took the seats to the far left, next to the window which overlooked the school car park. A few times, when the teacher had left temporarily, we would grab all our books, climb out the window and skip the rest of the school day. This became a regular little habit until we got caught. Big time. By our parents.
"Trigonometry!" began Mr Lester, "This is a perilous journey, not for the faint of heart! I trust you are all well equipped, with your pencils of power! Your erasers of elegance! And finally, your -"
"- Minds of magic." the whole class monotonously recited. As you can see, we're a happy bunch in Mr Lester's excel maths class. He began writing on the board, with a few students scribbling madly on their pads to take down every single note. Most of the others, like Troy, read and tried to decipher his scrawl, while one student, a.k.a yours truly began to draw in his maths book. Which, for your reference, didn't have a single maths note in it, but a whole heap of little sketches and the likes. Maths notes were crumpled loose leaf sheets of paper genius given to me by my tutor, a brilliant uni student who came up with foolproof ways of learning maths.
I started to draw, except this time, I began drawing a face. That was odd, I only drew cars and weird random monsters, but this morning seemed different. The face began to take shape, a graceful jawline, small rounded ears and long flowing hair. Then came the features. A set of heart shaped lips, elegant nose, and finally, the large, innocent eyes. As I finished the final details of shading, it occurred to me what I had just drawn. It was a portrait of the girl who had bumped into me before class. This was sufficient evidence to scare me, the thought "Am I a stalker or something?" running through my mind. Tearing out the page, I scrunched it up and threw it into my bag, deciding to pretend it hadn't happened.
Little did I know that the picture I had drawn held the key to the doors of my destiny in the coming year.

Chapter One

When we sat on this quiet hill, I promised you everything that came into my mind. Love, hope, a family, safety, wealth, I weaved every word till it looked like a fabric so tangible. We were young, oh so young weren't we? When you cried, it shattered my every thought, spurred my protectiveness of you, ready to fight anyone and everyone you wanted me to. You were everything to me weren't you? Do you remember the time, when we came up here on that hot summer day after school, and simply sat, held hands and watched the sunset? It was the fifth day after you found out the news. The damn news that made you cry so much, and shocked me speechless. I guess it was bound to happen at some point in time though. I missed you then, and I miss you now. Someday though, someday this hill won't be so quiet and lonely. It will be ours again, and we can watch the sunset... just one more time.

The young man took a final, fleeting glance at the setting sun. A shadow of desperation leaped into his eyes, pleading for something only he knew was missing. With a jagged sigh, he placed his hands in his pockets and slowly made his way down the gentle grassy slope, every step as painful as the next. As he walked, memories began to flood his mind, as they did every time he visited this place. Memories from the past, swirled with darkness and laced with the illusion of hope.

It's a quiet hill. It is. It wasn't.