Daeva: Black Diamond Chrysalis - Danielle Bolger (essential reading txt) 📗

everyone and you do it with a smile! Sure, you cry sometimes but I think that you have to if you have any chance of succeeding at what you do."

Despite my fear I giggled then. "You always do that, make me out to be some wonderful person, but really I'm just a teenager who tries to help her friends and family. And with that, I don't think I do such a good job. I care, but I can't do anything more than that. I'm not strong, or really smart. I know that... I have been given potential but even if I can somehow use it for anything I don't think that I'd even be very good at it."

"No, Abigail!" Eric grasped both my shoulders again forcing me to stop. With resolve he responded, "That's not true, you're more than that! You might not be an athlete or get the top marks in all your academic subjects, but you are special in so many ways! And not just your art, though you are pretty amazing at it."

His intensity broke wanly into a smile. "But it's not even that that makes you special, it's this part," And here he placed his hand just under my collarbone to the left. It was above the deep placement of my heart but I knew he purposely rose it higher to avoid any ungentlemanly contact. "This is the part that makes you so amazing, which gives you your amazing talent for art. It's hope, passion, love inside here that sees beauty in things where most people can't. You're sometimes naive but that's not a bad thing because, what that really means, is that you refuse to believe in the bad in people and the terrible hurtful things they can do to one another. That's why I love you, Abigail, that's why I cherish you, because you don't just make works or art, you are a work of art and the greatest one of all!"

It was only when he finished that I realised how heavily I was breathing and also how red my face must have been.

"Oh, Eric..." I gushed. "You are perfect, the perfect boyfriend!"

"But that can change, right? Like the weather?" He smirked but no sooner did he finish his statement that a crack of thunder vibrated through the sky overhead.

We both laughed as we resumed our walking.

"I guess we better hurry up before it starts raining!" I advised.

"Damn, and it was so sunny today. I guess it makes sense, the brightest hottest days are always the ones to be finished with a storm."

Storm, my mind mused over. Like just before I had said we were running into the eye of the storm and here was the calm...

My mobile phone was still clenched in my hand and here I pulled it up again and unlocked it back to life. But to my disquiet it showed no change in the signal strength.

"Probably 'cause of this storm coming." Eric explained as he witnessed my action. "The weather interferes with the towers. We'll probably have to move a little further down before we get into range, I'm sure that won't take long though."

"Eric?" I asked. "How are you so smart? And I don't mean like, intelligence, even though I know you super are! But I mean, how can you look inside someone and just know things about them? How do you know that I'm as good a person as you say I am?"

"Well that one's simple, I learnt it from my brother."

"From Jordan?" I repeated.

He smirked. "Yeah and it's really not all too surprising, especially how smart he was as a toddler. But then, when the disease came the logical... cognitive type of thinking slowed and even backtracked, but there was another part to him that was never affected. And more than that, it actually grew stronger!" He exclaimed excitedly. "You know how you lose one sense and another takes over, well I know it's true for the brain! As Jordan lost his ability to think in academic ways he suddenly became so smart at understanding people! Which is probably why the kids at his special school didn't like him, since most of them struggle in that area but Jordan was more aware than ever. That's not to say he was the life of the party, he stopped being able to talk so well and that frustration made him withdraw somewhat, but that didn't mean he didn't stop viewing the world. When we were out just getting things from the shops he told me everything he saw, things I never even considered, like how the clerk was depressed, the girl behind us in the line was heart-broken, the old person at the counter was sad because her stiff hands were slowing the whole line down. He didn't tell me with any flamboyant words so no one else paid attention, but I understood the whole time how smart he had become."

Eric smiled across at me, his features lighting up from his enigmatic aura amidst the black backdrop behind him. "I realised then that, even though a person doesn't sound smart, doesn't look smart or doesn't do things that appear smart that doesn't mean that they're stupid. Because there's so much intelligence inside someone but sometimes can only be found when you're looking. I learnt that from Jordan but you..." He gave my hand a warm squeeze. "You knew that all along. That's what makes you more special than anyone else. You don't have to be shown the beauty of this world, you already see it."

Tears etched the sides of my vision but I refused to allow them to fall - I surely couldn't cry when I was so happy. "I don't know how you do it, but you, someone so good at school can make me feel so important."

Again Eric stopped as he grazed his free hand up against the side of my face gently. "It's not hard and anyone who doesn't see it are the real fools."

I giggled as I felt a raindrop fall on my nose. "Lucky I got such a smart boyfriend then!"

"Have."

"Huh?" I repeated bewildered.

"You have such a... smart boyfriend." He corrected gently. "Got means you just received something which, I guess if you think about it we haven't been going out too long..."

"Shh..." I placed a finger up against the boy's lips silencing him. "You are such a nerd, but that's what I love about you." Then I leant forward to kiss him and during that wonderful tingling contact my phone slipped from my grasp where it fell to the bitumen with a clatter.

Hastily Eric bent down to pick it up and with relief he presented my phone back to me. "You're lucky, there's no spider-web crack."

"Oh, thank goodness! I only just got this phone. Yes, got! My parents bought it for me so technically that's proper English!"

Eric was smiling ear to ear. "I never said it was wrong but it's so adorable how defensive you became!"

I rolled my eyes, grinning before looking up to the sky overhead. "It's raining now..."

"It is." Eric smiled in response as he held out his hands to catch the drops. A moment later the sky flashed white and the wind picked up before us. Eric's playful expression dropped at once. "A storm is hitting and we're out in the middle of it."

I checked my phone again and again there was no signal. "Darn it! I don't like this!"

"Hey, don't worry, Abigail. Here..." Eric pulled his bag in front and after reaching inside pulled out a grey mound of interwoven cotton and polyester and handed it to me.

"You brought your jumper to school." I observed the linen after accepting it.

"I'm prepared." He smiled. "Go on, use it as an umbrella, can't have those pretty curls of yours going frizzy."

I frowned before I realised the full meaning to his action, he really was protecting me. In just this small measure he was protecting me from the weather.

A cold gale blew from in front of us as a crack of thunder sounded.

"Maybe..." Eric amended. "You should actually wear that."

 "Um, okay." I murmured as I placed the oversized fabric onto me and though it was mainly composed of cotton it seemed to warm me instantly. But my skull on the other hand, that was cooling as the rain began to cascade down atop my head, drenching my once tidy curls.

"You wouldn't happen to have an umbrella in that bag, would you, Merry Poppins?" I teased.

"No... I didn't think it was going to rain today. It wasn't forecasted to so I didn't bring it. But who are you calling Merry Poppins? You're the one with a thousand tubes of paint and what-not in this fifty kilo bag!"

"It's not fifty kilos!" I giggled as I felt my hair become more drenched. "It might be fifteen..."

"For a little girl like you, that's ridiculous." Eric scolded as a lightning bolt bleached the sky white ahead of us. A scant second later thunder boomed so loudly that the trees seemed to shake around us. The wind too had picked up its velocity so that now it had become a gale.

"Goodness, this is really picking up very quickly..." I murmured anxiously. Thick droplets pelted down before I even finished the sentence.

"C'mon, let's hurry." Grasping my hand Eric hurried me into a jog.

"Wait!" I cried. "My art diary is in my bag, I can't let it get wet!"

Eric turned and winked at me. "The bags are lined with a water-resistant material, you're artworks are safe."

"Oh..." That was news to me, but then I did recall that none of my books ever became wet when I was caught out in the rain before, albeit those times having much milder showers than this. "That's good to hear but I really wanna swim home now!"

An echoing crack boomed in the sky ahead almost in the instant that white flashed. Everything was drenched in a matter of moments, the rain hammering loudly on the foliage around us. And my hair certainly had no risk of becoming frizzy, not when it was being pelted down with the voracious water.

Eric turned to me meekly, a drizzle falling from the tip of his nose and amusement in his eyes. "Maybe that's what we should do."

"What, swim?"

"Yeah, it's obviously too dangerous to run!" And jostling out ahead he waded through the falling drops.

I slowed as I watched him move ahead. Only, Eric, I thought, would be capable of amusement in such a dreary scene.

Then thunder and lightning crashed at once, but not the drawn out sort where it was retained to the skies, but an instant violent and deafening snap. That was followed by terribly loud cascades as if an explosion had been set off. Low roars surrounded me, the ground shook in every direction, but high pitched cracks signalled up and across to the very near peak of the mountain.

Instantly I turned across to look at the source of the commotion and with horror realised that Dorothy's omen was proving true for from up there, trees upon trees were breaking apart as they fell atop one another. All sorts were falling down with them, logs, branches, stones as terrified birds shot through the air and flew into the sky. Eric and I however, had no wings that could take us to such a refuge.

"Abigail!" Eric whipped back and through the seven meter gap horror blanketed his face.

He was looking at me, the beautiful boy, concerned about my welfare, but yet had a glimpse at the tree falling steadily for the gap between us. And towards the collision Eric began to run.

"No! Eric, stay away!"

But he didn't hear me, his feet pushed off the ground, at first slowly and then increasing their pace with zeal.

Just then I almost heard Dorothy's voice beside me telling me again what I so desperately did not want to believe.

There are just two outcomes here... you will survive or he, but only one will wake up to see the new morning.

It was