The Boy Who Stole My Heart - Jordan Link (primary phonics .txt) 📗

I met him at the forest gate, lantern in hand. I could see him standing at the tree line, stoic and pale as ever, even before I got within a hundred yards. He only came out of those trees once a month. And it was always a surprise what he would do. He had visited my house sometimes, talked with my parents, but of course they had not received him. It was like they wanted my ‘forever alone’ status to stay forever the same. But I didn’t want that.

“Avery.” He whispered briefly as he reached me, taking my arm and leading me back in the direction I had come from just before, through the park with the gentle lights. I turned my head slightly to examine him, with his jaw set firmly and his grayish eyes expressionless. He stared at the ground intensely as he walked, leading me through the romantic path at a casual pace.

Suddenly, he stopped. We were beneath the stone archways that lead out of the park, the place’s soft backdrop now behind us. We had stood here all the time as kids, though I rarely ever saw him. He had told me many things, many stories of where he came from—of what people thought of his kind. I knew that already, of course. The vampire people were simply not accepted. They were recognized but not accepted

.

“Stop thinking, Avery. You think too much. It worries me what you are thinking about.” He bowed his head and stared at me deeply, trying to read me, his stormy irises meeting my pale greenish ones. But I didn’t recognize the look, not at all. It was unlike any look that he’d ever given me, unlike the childhood gazes that we had exchanged.

I moved my brunette hair back nervously, refusing to look away and spoil the moment. I could anticipate it, so close but so fragile. I had been waiting for it, ever since I had met this boy at the corner café. It had been love at first sight, that’s for sure.

He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close, to his cold chest. I didn’t care about his temperature—he still felt very so alive. I looked up, waiting, as I had always done. And he did kiss me. He did lean in and capture my heart, suck it from the place where it sat. His lips were tender, delicate, and he was frighteningly gentle with me. I was frozen, frozen to the touch that had bound me for so long.

Slowly, he withdrew, and my heart was already screaming to return to me. I was a shell without him, and I knew it. “Please don’t leave.” I begged quietly, knowing my pleading would go unheard.

He held onto my fingers for another moment, watching them sadly as they fell from his hand. “If I should go now, Avery, and never return, please stay strong. The hunters come fast, and go fast. One moment I could be here, with you, and the next I could be gone. If everything else fades away to granules of sand, at least remember this moment. Remember me.”

I stared after him, the boy that had stolen my heart. He still had it, even as he faded out of sight, even as he crossed the tree line and disappeared back into the woods. He still had it.

Publication Date: 07-10-2012

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