Chase

Chapter 1

I have seen two pairs of purple eyes in the entirety of my life. The first belonged to the girl sitting directly in front of me, the one with pleasant smelling hair and thicker than average body. The second pair had belonged to my mother.
A wave of pain radiated from the center of my being at the memory of my angelic mother. Dead for ninety years, it still hurts me to think of her sweet face and even sweeter thoughts.
I looked again at the girl who reminded me so much of her. I would have to make eye contact with her in order to read the thoughts sheltered in her mind. Before I could, however, a soft peal of laughter erupted from pink lips coated in a layer of sheer lip gloss. My blood stirred at the sound as hers rose to her face.
Why had she blushed? Was it at something her friend had said? Or did it have more to do with the hand that had accidently skimmed her back?
She whipped around to face me, her hair automatically floating back to its place at her shoulders. She looked more perplexed than angry. Her eyes locked with mine for the briefest instance before she looked away with a fresh flush. Why is he staring at me? Is there something on my face?
I was almost tempted to answer. She was one of the only people I had to meet eye to eye to read. Unfortunately, she avoided meeting my eyes at all costs most of the time. I often heard whispers of her thoughts, caught traces of her scent as she walked down the hall, but she always averted her eyes when I walked past. It was infuriating. Sometimes, I just wanted to grab her by the arm, spin her around, and kiss her until she couldn't help but look at me.
I sighed and stared at the all again. The girl was too tempting for her own good. Didn't she know not to tease a vampire?
No, she was oblivious to my heritage, of that I was sure.
I studied her again, as I had everyday since she opted to seat herself beside me. A strange occurrence, that. I was usually avoided because of my disguise of being something of a recluse.
Her hair flowed past her shoulders like sleek brown silk, highlighted with blonde and red. She was lender, but wider than most girls. This was good. What guy wanted to wrap his arms around a twig?
Her shirts were black, the over shirt a button up and the undershirt tight. Her muscular legs were encased in dark blue denim. Her feet were held in a pair of strappy, black heels that made her legs look even longer.
Her eyes, purple as lilac, were filled with light and energy, unusual for a Monday morning. I sniffed the air with curiosity. She smelled of melon and orange; her shampoo, and coffee. Ah, that explained the disappearance of the sleepy look she harbored most days.
Her cheeks were aglow with her caffeine rush, and a hint of concealed acne spotted her nose. Full, thick lips, glossed over, were curved into a cute little smile. Overall, she was a pretty little package, with a mind to match. Though I couldn't read her, she spoke very openly with her friends. Insisting that she wouldn't go to the school's homecoming that weekend unless she found a date, her eyes filled with a sorrow and loneliness that almost matched my own. I'm so tired of standing on the back wall, watching happy couples dance." Her thoughts offered to me when she met my eyes.
I felt a sense of kindredness come over me when I hear that. I was tired also, tired of the world being happy while I spent eternity alone.
She was incredibly intelligent, from what a friend of mine related to me. Acing every class, spectacular extracurricular activities, and ahead of the game with a completed graduation project, she seemed like the perfect student. From her friend's mind, she was also the perfect friend. Easy to get along with, loyal, always there when you needed her, and always eager to help with homework or a cram session. Fortunately, I could read the friends mind.
I couldn't for the eternal life of me figure out why she didn't have a date. She seemed pretty much perfect on the outside, and mostly inside too (if a little clumsy), so why was she still free?
I then remember my Ayala. Beautiful beyond compare, she seemed perfect to those who didn't know her well. Once you got to know her, however, her inner vindictive bitch poked through. She had used me as one would use a paper towel; clean up a mess (a jealous exboyfriend in her case), ring it out a few times to get the most use out of it, then throw it away when you were done. I got tired of being a paper towel very quickly.
Maybe she was like Ayala then. I don't think the poor girl really got over Jacob breaking up with her like that. Her friend (Nell, I think her name was) thought rather loudly.
Well then, maybe not like Ayala after all. Maybe she was the scorned lover rafter all.
"You love to dance, Aisling. You should go." Nell prompted my latest mystery. "You might regret it if you don't."
...might regret it if I do. The faint whisper rang from Aisling's mind. My head snapped up off the table, and I looked at her closely.
Her back was turned to me, so I didn't know if it was thought or an actual whisper.
"I'll even lend you Christian." Nell suggested.
"No, keep him. He has two left feet anyway. I need someone who can move."
I can move. My own mind answered her. Bad mind.
Why was it this one little human perplexed me so? Maybe she wasn't human? Maybe because I couldn't read her mind easily?
There was no real answer to that, so I ignore it. It was ridiculous to think too much on the subject.
Finally, the bell rang and she stood to gather her things. I tried to meet her eye one more time before leaving the room. Sighing when her eyes were focused intently on the bag, I walked out the door with my hand in the pockets of my jeans.

As I walked down the hallway, I felt a heated gaze follow me. I went to turn, but there was only Aisling, and she was talking to her friend, one hand emphasizing her words.
Shaking it off as a superstition, I turned again and continued walking. The heated gaze returned, and, again, I turned.
This time, Aisling was alone, but staring at her feet. I stopped, and she ran right into me. A little harder than I thought she would. We both fell to the ground.
She landed on top of me with an ‘oomph!' and a hand on either side. It sounded like something heavy fell out of her purse. She was only a slight weight, but it was painful when her chin slammed into my chest. Her body was flush against mine when she finally managed to regain her equilibrium. She looked up at me and blinked. "Umm...Hi." God, I'm such an idiot. She berated herself in her thoughts as her eyes met mine.
I smiled. "Hi." She smiled back and tried to push herself up. She cried out and dropped back onto my chest, cradling her wrist to her chest.
"Aisling? Are you all right?" There were tears streaming down her face. From Nell's mind, I had picked out that she rarely ever cried, preferring to hold it all inside.
"My...wrist. I think it's...broken." She choked out the words, biting her lip to keep from crying out. Her wrist was already starting to swell. I grabbed her under the knees and behind the back, wrapping her good arm around my neck. I lifted her up and cradled her soft form against my chest.
I walked up the stairs and down the hallway toward the nurse's office as fast as I could without exposing myself. I kicked the door open and walked in with her still in my arms. The tears still rolled down her soft cheek, staining my shirt as she buried her face in my chest.
"Dear Lord, what's wrong?" The plump, curly-haired nurse came around the corner, her bug eyes popping out even further out of her head.
"We fell in the lobby. She landed on her wrist, and she thinks it's broken." I answered.
The nurse lifted Aisling's bad wrist rather roughly, not being delicate at all, to judge from Aisling's reaction. She pressed her face even further into my shoulder, burrowing her fingers in my hair gently. Even through the pain, she tried not to hurt me.
"We need to get her to a hospital now." The nurse picked up the phone on her desk to call an ambulance. I held up a hand from under Aisling's knees to stop her.
"There's no need. I'll take her in my car. No need to pay ambulance fees." I made my voice as hypnotic as possible, pushing her mind to get her to forget school rules and allow me to take the girl in my arms to the emergency room. "She should get there as soon as possible."
The nurse's voice was flat and monotone when she answered. "Right. I'll just mark you both sent home by me and wrap her wrist for support and you two can be on your way." She typed a few buttons on her computer and turned to me. "Could you both please sign in? I need the record that you were here."
"Absolutely." I tried to sit Aisling down, but she had her hand burrowed quite firmly in my hair and her eyes closed. Either she had fallen asleep or had passed out from the pain. My money was on the latter. Sighing, I sat down in the seat beside the notepad, positioning her so that she was sitting comfortably in my lap. After signing us both in, I handed the clipboard back to the nurse, whose name slipped my mind. As she wasn't thinking of it at that time, I wasn't likely to figure it out anytime soon either.
"A-sling Cosse?" She asked, looking at me.
"That's her. And it's pronounced Ash-ling."
"Oh. Then you're Chase Holling."
"Yep."
She typed a few more strokes on the keyboard before walking into the backroom, coming out with a temporary wrist brace and gauze bandages. She wrapped the gauze bandages around Aisling's wrist after deciding that there was no way the splint was going to fit on such extreme swelling. She was being more delicate, but Aisling still groaned in her semi-conscious state.
Once the nurse had completed her task, I stood up and walked to the car with the unconscious Aisling tucked warmly into my arms. She shimmied closer until our bodies met at every spot possible. Tiny fires sprouted up all over my body, arousing instead of burning. The girl was too attractive for her own good. One of these days it would see her killed, or worse, bitten.
I dislodged her firm grip in my hair with one hand while placing her into my car with the other. Luckily, no one was around to see my supernatural juggling act, or I could have blown my cover.
We rushed to the hospital, with her almost stirring into wakefulness several times on the journey. When we finally reached the emergency room, I parked as close as possible and went to retrieve the injured girl from my passenger seat. I picked her up much the same way I had at first, carrying her into the drab hospital, all the while thinking of why I had almost exposed myself to rescue one measly human.
I pushed open the door with my back, turning as I went inside to go to the information desk.
"What's wrong?" A bored receptionist asked as she popped her gum, giving me the once over and deciding I wasn't as good looking as her Tony. An image of a forty-something year old man with a beer belly and bad hair plugs popped into my mind. Shrugging off the insult, I answered with a simple "broken wrist."
She nodded and signed us in, seeing my hands were full. I spelled out both our names, and she asked me to take a seat. I sat down for a long wait on a sofa, again positioning Aisling in my arms so that she would be comfortable. This time, it was my shirt that suffered her death grip.
I settled back to wait for the nurse when she shifted, burying her face in my neck. The smell of her hair hit me again, and I bent down to set my chin on the top of her head, breathing in deeply.
She stirred lightly, and I had not the time to lift my head before she woke.
"Chase? What am I–? Where am I? What's going on?" She jumped off of my lap with wide eyes that only got wider when she jostled her wrist. A flash of pain lit her violet eyes, and she clutched her wrist to her chest again before collapsing into the chair beside me.
"Well, when we fell in the hallway, you hurt your wrist. So I carried you to the nurse's office. She asked me to drive you here." I lied slightly.
"Why did you carry me when it was my wrist that was injured?" She was staring at her knees, so I didn't get the chance to read what she was thinking.
"You passed out." Okay, so it was later that she passed out. So sue me for exaggerating a little.
She asked a good question, however. Why had I carried her? She hadn't need me to until she passed out, and I could have caught her when she did. So why?
The only explanation I could think of was that I hated to see her hurt because of me. I was the one who had stopped in the hall. I was the one who initiated the run-in because I wanted her to look into my eyes, to invade on her private thoughts. So, I chalked it up to guilt.
The thing was, it hadn't felt like guilt at the time. I had wanted to pick her up. I wanted to hold her. But why? The answer wasn't something I wanted to hear, so I didn't bother listening.
"I have never been one to take pain well." She answered, still staring intently at her legs.
We sat there for a while, in comfortable silence, until she whispered. "Chase?"
"Yeah?" I asked.
"Thanks for bringing me here." Her eyes finally met mine. I'm glad it was you.
Her thoughts struck me hard. I was glad it was me too, I realized.
"Hey, don't worry about it. Never could resist a damsel in distress." I smiled at her and she shot me a dazzling smile back before cradling her knees to her chest and resting her head on top of them.
Her breathing slowed and I realized that she had fallen asleep. Poor girl, it had been a trying day. But what an unusual position to fall asleep in!
Figuring she would get a crick in her neck if she slept like that too long, I shifted her gently so that her head was on my lap while the rest of her body laid across the row of chairs. While she slept, a nurse came out and called her name. I motioned him over. "She's asleep. Is it alright if I carry her in?"
"That's fine." The pretty blonde nurse answered. She looked at us curiously, as though trying to guess our relationship. She motioned us back once I had Aisling resting comfortably back against my chest.
Once I had laid her on the table, the nurse opened the door for me to leave, but Aisling grabbed my hand as I tried to go.
"Please...stay." Apparently, I had woken her up when I placed her down. "It will make me feel better."
I looked at the nurse, who shrugged. "What the patient wants... You'll have to keep out of the way while I examine your girlfriend though." Apparently, she had decided that we were dating.
"I'm not her–" I tried to correct her.
"He's not my–" Aisling attempted to clarify at the same time.
"We're not dating." We answered at the same time, before looking at each other and grinning.
The seat beside the examination table was open, so I sat in it lightly. Aisling's left hand was still enclosed tightly in mine. I squeezed it lightly before letting go. I looked into her eyes and wondered if it was a spark of hurt I saw there. Fairly sure that it was, I pondered whether it was over her wrist or my letting go?
The nurse picked up her limp right wrist, though delicately, causing Aisling to grit her teeth and clench her fist. Her grip, I was sure, was paining her, as her nails were digging into her palm in a white-knuckle tension. A weaker woman would have cried out. The nurse muttered her apologies as she worked.
Before I realized what I was doing, her hand was in my own again, and I was taking the brunt of her grip.
She looked at me curiously before the nurse shifted her injury again.
"Sorry, hun, but I have to remove the bandages. It might hurt a little."
"That's fine." Aisling said through gritted teeth.
So the nurse began examining her further, many times causing her to wince and squeeze my hand violently.

We were in that room for hours. I never let go of her hand. The doctor came, took x-rays, went, and came back again, announcing that her wrist was indeed broken.
Strangely enough, no guilt rose the whole time we were in that room, though I had caused the injury. I felt no regret that I was here.
She said nothing to me until the doctor was wrapping her cast. "Thank you, Chase."
"For what?" I was the one who had put her in here.
"For being here, for staying, for holding my hand to help with the pain, take your pick. Just...thanks."
"No problem." I smiled at her, and she smiled back. "I wanted to stay." Her hand felt so good clenched in mine. Her soft fingers were a nice contrast to my own callused digits.
Finally, the doctor finished wrapping the neon green cast and sent us on our way. I walked her out to my car, opening the odor for her. She grinned up at me and slid in. I circled the car and sat in the driver's seat.
"So, we can make lunch if we leave now." We had lunch together, giving me another opportunity to try to catch her eye there too.
"I'd rather go home, if that's okay." The painkillers were starting to kick in. Her eyelids drooped and she leaned her head against the glass in the car. Sunlight strained in through the window, making her hair appear almost blonde. It cast shadows under her eyes and made her look beautiful, more beautiful than Ayala even, despite her imperfections. Maybe it was her imperfections that made her beautiful.
She gave me directions to her home from the hospital. Otherwise, she was silent the whole car ride. I pulled into the long driveway to a large, wood and stone home. She got out and retrieved a key from her bag. Turning the key in the lock, she opened the door and looked back. She walked to my window and I rolled it down. "You're missing lunch too. I'll make you something if you'd like. Want to come inside?"
I was really tempted by her offer, but there was nothing she could make that would have appropriate, giving my diet. I was about to reject her offer when she met my eyes.
He was so nice today. I wish I could help him in return.
I smiled up at her. "I'd love to, but I'm going be buried in schoolwork so I'll get a start on that."
"Oh." Disappointment flashed in her eyes. "Well, thanks again for today." She smiled at me.
I grinned back. She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. "You really should smile more often. See you tomorrow!" She ran inside the house with red staining her face.
Still in shock, I waited until she shut the door before grinning ear to ear, turning the car around and pulling out, one hand still on my cheek.