Chapter 9
Building Chemistry
What if Levon was sent to The Seventh Zone?
My heart starts beating really fast. I think to myself, The Tragedy of The Commons book.
All the answers must be in there… I think.
I need to go to the library. Lost in my thoughts, I look to the right to see the brunette girl come up to me.
Before I can say anything, she pushes me forward and into the Chemistry Hallway!
Shocked, I look back at her.
“Sorry, we volunteer you go next,” she whispers.
I look at the Patrons and slowly drag my feet backward before I am noticed. But before I can move out of sight, they all turn my direction, including Pesh. My eyes meet his and I am caught up staring at him, terrified. He looks at me, puzzled, but his gaze stays on me, unwavering.
Lenon looks at him with a smirk. “Yo, she just disrespected you. She’s staring. Are you gonna let her get away with that?” he challenges Pesh.
“Brown eyes just stepped into fire!” Patron Suzandrick exclaims, grinning.
Pesh does not react to them, his gaze still on me.
I have no clue what to do. Where to go. I can’t run.
I can’t keep walking toward them or that looks like I’m asking for attention.
And I can’t go back. I’ll look weak. So, I simply stand still.
For some stupid reason, I can’t look away from Pesh.
I think that by staring at him, he’ll save me, or something. But he does not.
“If you’re not gonna punish her, I will.” Lenon begins to stand up, but in the same moment, Pesh strikes his hands down and stands up.
I take a huge breath. My goodness.
Pesh approaches me in a fast, confident walk. My heart starts to beat louder and louder. I hold my breath and look down instantly as he stops right in front of me.
He pulls my neck closer and whispers, “Didn’t you know? Or are you trying to get my attention, is that it?”
My palms sweat in nervousness at being this close to him. “I was pushed.”
“Do you wanna go back?” he asks.
I peek back. I don’t want to go back there, so I shake my head.
“Do you want to keep moving?”
I look forward, and somehow, for some reason, I don’t want to leave now that he’s here in front of me. So I’m honest. I shake my head.
He eyes me, a light in his eyes. “Okay,” his voice gently says, drawing closer. “But if you do stay, you know what I have to do?”
My eyes flutter, lost in his gaze. Have to do? Is it that much of an obligation for him to kiss me?
“Are you scared?”
I nod again as he draws closer. He pulls my waist up to his level and tightens his grip.
“Don’t be,” he whispers. “But you do have to trust me this time, no matter what I do. Okay?”
“Oka—” Before I can respond, he cuts me off and begins to kiss me.
I gasp, overwhelmed by the ocean thrust of his lips flooding mine in a heated current. I am at a loss as to when he will stop, so I surrender myself completely to his persistent pressure and let go of my thoughts, just for a moment.
His tongue courses around mine, forming its way through my tongue, tying it tighter and tighter and running rounds on it in circles and circles, and all I can do is open my mouth in order to somehow keep breathing.
His tongue is a universe all on its own and its power is bringing every part of mine to its knees.
If tongues could bow, mine must have fallen flat on its face.
I try to inhale a single breath that is outside of his mouth, but he catches it with his tongue and drags my lips into his as though to remind my tongue of its place in this moment. Oh my.
He stops kissing me, but before I can gasp, he goes in for another quick round and bites the tip of my lips.
I am dumbfounded by his passionate persistence, but he does not relent.
I can hear complete quietness as everyone watches.
He lifts me up, grabbing my butt with vigor in his veins and pushing me against the wall.
I am tense, but I choose to trust him in this moment.
His hands contract and expand vigorously against my butt, tightly squashing it into his grip completely, so much my skirt feels so embarrassed at its claim of being a covering.
Pesh’s hands are a meteoritic force that cannot be studied or stopped.
The way it moves, it cannot be understood or predicted, and I am a subject to its unwavering current surging mightily into my skin, demanding my body to moan in service of its agility.
Mmm, I’m so screwed. He pulls my legs up, and I feel his hands scroll from my hips to the tip of my skirt.
I try to hold my gasp, unable to predict his next move.
Before I can open my mouth to speak, I feel his hand slip a note into my underwear. I swallow my spit in a gulp.
“Go!” he says, and lets go of me.
Shaking, I instantly start walking toward the door.
Pesh begins to head back to his Patron group.
“What the fu… fork.” Suzandrick turns to Lenon in disbelief, grabbing a fork and putting something in her mouth as though to control her emotions.
“What in the Commons just happened?” the other Patron whispers to her, but she swallows hard, slamming the fork down and ignoring him. He turns away from her, shock plain on his face. “Who was that girl?” he murmurs, looking through his tablet.
Lenon’s eyes stay on Pesh in a dark flare as he returns. “Okay… Pesh with the heat. What was that note?”
“You don’t want to know,” Pesh responds in a mutter, returning back to his tablet.
The other Patrons react with a forced smile. Lenon strokes his hair back and leaves. Pesh’s eyes shoot up.
I continue walking, overwhelmed. I honestly don’t know what just happened. I don’t know what I thought would happen, but I didn’t expect it to be that intense.
Shaking, I start the three mile walk to the O Library. When I am out of their sight, I take the note out and read it. It says: Meet me at the back of the O Library – P.
I don’t know what to do.
There is something about Pesh that fascinates and terrifies me.
I don’t know. Maybe it is just me. Maybe I can see something that others cannot.
All of a sudden, it hits me. It is kindness—a different kind of kindness.
The kind that hides behind a mask when it does something nice, the kind that does not let its right hand know what its left hand is doing.
Is he hiding something or is something more hiding in him?
Am I fooling myself? Am I telling myself that I need the information he has, but my emotions are really seeking an affection within his heart? I can’t say. But don’t tell that to my mind. My mind and my emotions absolutely cannot agree on anything, especially when it comes to Pesh.
I go to the O Library—I mean I’m already heading that way anyway. I make my way through the shelves of books and leave through the back door.
I see an area with tall trees. I look around, hearing nothing but the sound of the wind and birds chirping.
Just as I close my eyes to listen to the tranquil sound of the birds, I feel a hand barely touch mine and I see Pesh’s back walking behind a tree.
I follow him, sensing the secrecy of our meeting.
He leads me down a narrow path lined with leaves, behind a wall of grass and flowers.
That’s where we come to a stop. I look away, not knowing what manner of meeting he intends this to be.
Should I be thankful or curious or doubtful?
Quickly, I look down. That’s the one thing I know to do by now—show respect.
“You don’t have to do that. Not here anyway.”
Slowly, I look up. His eyes are so beautiful in natural light, brown and golden and light green…
He isn’t imposing. He isn’t overbearing.
He isn’t as aggressive as when he kissed me or as passive as he was with the Patrons.
In fact, he smiles with an invested and interested look and this scares me a thousand times more.
Shantavia, you cannot trust him, he probably kisses a hundred girls a day.
“You know I had to do that.” His words cut into my thoughts. The choice of words again, had to?
I turn to him with inquisitive eyes.
“Kiss you, that is.”
“Should I be saying thank you?”
“I guess that’s up to you.”
I want to ask him about The Seventh Zone. Or the study abroad again. If The Seventh Zone is really deadly and something that no one speaks of, I can’t just ask someone I don’t fully trust about it, especially someone who is as powerful as Pesh in The Commons.
I say, “So what? You have to put up this act that you’re mean in front of everyone?”
“No, I don’t do that. I’m in the hallway for one reason alone. To protect the students when I see fit.”
“And how many girls have you kissed in this protection?”
“No one.”
I turn to him with open eyes.
“Except you.” He draws near.
I blink, taken aback, flustered in his presence. So I push harder, to see what’s behind his actions. “Why did you kiss me?” I speak softly, almost under my breath.
He draws closer to my face. “Because I read your mind.”
“What? The Cognitive Test shows my—”
“No, it doesn’t. But I just read it right now.”
He draws closer to my lips, but I can’t afford to show him how I feel. I am still not sure if I trust him. I did give him my first kiss. I can’t give him a second one without knowing that I trust him with my mind as much as I do with my emotions, so I draw back and turn my face away to the right.
He looks at me, then looks down. “I am sorry if you were humiliated.”
“I wasn’t. Thanks to you. So, what’s your story? Are those your friends, Lenon, and the other Patrons?”
He steps back and turns away. “Those are my fellow Patrons. That’s it.”
I notice his disesteem when he says the word Patron.
“So, you don’t agree with what they’re doing?” I walk toward him, curious.
He turns toward me. “The Powers that Be grant the Patrons a high level of untamed freedom. I don’t agree with a lot of things that a lot of people do.”