Shattered Dreams
Part III, Chapter 9
Ami's face was turned towards the window, but her mind was not on the scenery flashing by. There was a dreamy smile on her face, and she was in another world entirely. Her parents were conversing softly in the front; Rei was napping beside her.
Their goodbyes had been...interesting, to say the least. She had been surprised to find out how attached she had become to Serena and Lita. The chipper blonde and the warm-hearted brunette had promised to visit them the next time Ami was home from school, which would be in the early spring. Ami made a mental note to ask Nevan over and solicit Mina's help in matchmaking the unknowing pair.
They would all be together, then... Mina and Kunthan would be spending spring break at Mina's house, but they could always drop by for a visit. And getting in touch with Darien wouldn't be a problem–he and Serena were practically joined at hip. In the spring Zach would have his license, and he and Jaden could drive over...
Ami's smile grew brighter as she thought of Zach and their somewhat harried farewell.
*flashback*
Zach shifted nervously, all too aware of the many eyes upon them. "So...uh...I'll call you sometime, all right?"
She flushed. "Um, okay." After a few minutes, she screwed up her bravery and looked him straight in the eye. "What exactly are we, Zach?"
"What?"
"Just friends...a little more than friends..." Ami stopped mid-sentence, feeling mortified when he burst out laughing.
"I thought we were going out! You didn't know?"
"How could I know?! You never asked me!" she protested, turning redder than before.
Zach ran a hand through his hair, which was sticking up every which way in that early morning hour. "What, you think I just kiss girls routinely and spend the whole night being jealous for no reason?"
Ami's eyes flashed indignantly. "I refuse to dignify that with an answer."
He rolled his eyes. "Fine, fine. Be that way. Do I have to get down on my knees to make it clear?"
She smiled again and, quick as a flash, stood up on her tiptoes, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him. When he looked up again, slightly dazed, she was laughing at him from the doorway, calling a cheerful goodbye before she all but skipped out the door.
*end flashback*
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Ami looked up as a enthusiastic blur of pink rushed into her room and plopped on her lap. She dropped her pen, laughing as she hugged her youngest cousin. "Ne, Keika? Where's your sister?"
The three year old bounced up and down, her pigtails flying everywhere as she replied, "Downstairs with Rei....they're singing karaoke!"
Just then, the microphone in the living room gave a hideous screech, and Ami winced. "I see. So, what would you like?"
"A story!" Keika chirped, just as Ami had known she would.
"All right...which one?"
"The one about the bunny...in the moon..."
Ami smiled to herself and lifted her cousin onto the bed. "Good choice. So, once upon a time..."
The unfinished letter on her desk had been written and rewritten several times over as Ami searched for the words to express her feelings. Her pen was lay uncapped and abandoned on the closing. Her script was neat and elegant.
Dear Zach, it began. That had been the easy part.
I'm so glad that I met you, because you make me feel a way no one else has ever made me feel. When I'm with you, I feel like I can say anything I want to you, and you'll understand. You bring out a part of me that I like, and I feel more real and alive around you. I'm free. I don't care how other people feel. You make me feel safe...although your violent and jealous tendencies are somewhat shocking–just kidding! ...
...I'll be going away to school in a few days. Don't forget to write to me, and call me when you have time. I'll see you over spring break, all right? Don't forget about me.
When she had time to be alone again, Ami read over the note and signed it, sealing and addressing the envelope quickly in case she chickened out. She would send it tomorrow...and then the day after that, she would be gone.
Love, Ami.
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Three days later, Zach was waiting impatiently in the local Barnes and Noble. He was checking his watch every three seconds, and time had never seemed to tick by so slowly... Christie had always been late while they were dating. He was wondering for what seemed like the fiftieth time that day why he'd agreed to her proposition.
He came to the conclusion that it had been Christmas Day, and he'd been in a charitable mood. There was also the factor that before he had asked her out, he had genuinely liked her. She'd been one of his better girlfriends...and she hadn't made a tremendous fuss when they'd broken up. A part of the fondness he'd felt towards her still remained, although it was a completely friendly sentiment now.
Over the past few days, he'd only talked with Ami on the phone once–her cousins from Japan were visiting and monopolizing her time, but she seemed happy to hear from him. Zach sighed, forgetting about his annoyance with Christie. He'd never felt this anxious and unsure of himself with any of his other girlfriends, and something told him that he'd better tread carefully with Ami. He'd had this nagging feeling that he should have told her about his charade with Christie, but their conversation had been cut short when a crisis involving a potted plant and the fish tank had occurred...
"Zach! Hi!"
He glanced up sharply, jerked out of his thoughts. "Oh, hey Christie. About time!"
Her brown eyes narrowed when he just sat there, and under her breath, she hissed, "Stand up and kiss me! He's right over there, by the magazines..."
Knowing that she meant her ex-boyfriend Devon, Zach sighed, rose, and kissed her cheek dutifully with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. When she sat down across from him, he took her hand. "So how are things going?"
Christie could tell his mind was elsewhere, but she continued the conversation cheerfully, babbling away about this and that. All the time, her predatory glance was focused obsessively on him.
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The mall was packed as thrifty housewives rummaged through the after-Christmas sales. Ami, Rei, and Jaden strolled around laughing and joking together–or at least the latter two were. Ami couldn't help but feel like the third wheel, and the lack of Zach's presence was making her gloomy. Their cousins, aunt, and uncle were with Kira and Richard, and Ami and Rei had been given some free time to themselves, at long last.
Casting a worried look at Ami, who seemed listless and preoccupied, Rei asked, "So where's Zach, Jade?"
He frowned. "I don't know. I asked him if he wanted to come with me today...but he said he already had something to do. But he didn't know you were coming, Ames; I bet he didn't want to feel like he was intruding. He would've come if he'd known you were coming," Jaden proclaimed more confidently than he felt.
Zach was a magnificent liar, but he hadn't ever lied to Jaden...just omitted parts of the truth. If he'd said he had something to, he did...but the fact that he didn't tell Jaden what that something was alerted his brother that something strange was going on.
After a few minutes, Ami was tired of, as Jaden had put it himself, intruding. "Rei, Jade, do you mind if I catch up with you guys later? I want to stop in the bookstore," she explained, pointing to the Barnes and Noble.
They stopped, hand in hand. Ami glanced at their joined hands and repressed a sigh of envy. She and Zach had never gone on an actual date, and she was leaving for school tomorrow. She had really wanted to see him before she left...but things hadn't worked out.
Rei offered, "We'll go with you, Ames."
She laughed. "You don't want to look at the ‘boring old books' with me. Besides, didn't you want to look in that new store, Rei? You can go with Jade. Trust me, I'll be fine–no one's going to abduct me."
"Are you sure?" Jaden asked.
"Positive. So what time and where should I meet you?"
Rei checked her watch, knowing that even though she and Jaden were fine with the situation, Ami was feeling uncomfortable. "How about...three o'clock in front of Macy's?"
"All right. See you then!" Ami pulled open the mall door and darted out into the whirling snowflakes, wishing that the Barnes and Noble had a mall entrance. Luckily, the door was only a few feet away, and she was greeted with a blast of profuse heat as she entered the bookstore. Removing her coat, she began to browse in the sci-fi/fantasy section.
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Christie accused, "You aren't listening to me, Zach."
"What? Of course I am."
"Then what did I just say?"
"..."
The blonde pouted. "See. I knew it."
Zach shifted in his chair. "I'm sorry, Christie. It's just–I have a lot on my mind." He looked over at the racks of magazines, where Christie had said Devon was hovering. "Hey, it looks like Devon's gone. Do you want to do your shopping now?"
She had been awfully interested in his life at present...they hadn't talked for a while, but instead of acting paranoid about Devon, as he'd expected, she seemed perfectly content to chat with him. In fact, it was unnerving how her complete attention seemed to be focused on him. She'd been extremely unhappy to hear that he had a girlfriend, but she hid it well... Zach had noticed nothing out of the ordinary.
Christie got to her feet, sweeping her curtain of hair behind her. "Sure. You're coming with me, right?"
"Nah...I'll stay here a little longer and finish my coffee. I think Jaden said he was coming here with Rei today–maybe I'll meet up with them." It was only a half-lie. He didn't really feel like finding Jaden and Rei, who would ask uncomfortable questions that he didn't want to answer. Jaden didn't like Christie, and Zach had never been able to fathom why. That was the reason he hadn't told Jaden he was meeting her today.
She sat again, mascara-laden eyelashes fluttering. "Oh–why don't I keep you company then?"
He looked at her strangely. "Don't you have something to do? I thought you wanted to shop without Devon bothering you."
Christie couldn't repress a huff. She'd forgotten how dense Zach could be when he was trying to play the almighty savior. "Zach. Devon was never here, okay?"
"What? Then why–"
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Ami's fingers reached into her pocket, searching for the slip of paper she'd written the title of a book she wanted to read. Instead of retrieving that slip of paper, she pulled out her note to Zach. She would have mailed it, but when Rei had told her that Jaden would be meeting them, she thought it would be more efficient to ask Jaden to give it to Zach. For one thing, it would save her the postage. She'd almost forgotten she had it with her...she would have to remember to give it to Jaden when they met again at three.
Ami checked her watch, noting that it was two forty-five. She was making her way over to the Starbucks to get a cup of hot chocolate when she noticed a couple at the table directly in front of the cash register kissing passionately... The envelope with Zach's name on it fluttered to the ground from her suddenly-nerveless fingers, and a choked feeling came into her throat as her shocked eyes took in the scene before her: Zach, her Zach, who had dominated her thoughts almost completely for the past three days...was kissing a blonde stranger.
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In a state of utter shock, Zach regained his senses two seconds later and jerked away violently. "What the hell is wrong with you? I told you I had a girlfriend, and you–you lied to me about Devon!"
"Come on, Zach. What Ami doesn't know won't hurt her. Besides, she's away for most of the year–don't tell me you're going to try a long-distance relationship. They never work out." Christie spoke with the conviction of past experience; she didn't notice how angry he was, she was busy feeling annoyed that he had pulled away.
He was so furious that he could barely keep from hitting her. "So you wouldn't have minded if I had cheated on you while we were dating, is that it?"
"That's not true!" she protested.
"But you can do it to other people as long as it doesn't happen to you, right?" Zach shook his head, running a hand through his hair agitatedly out of habit. "If the world is run by people like you, no wonder it's such a screwed up place."
Christie's cheeks were pale under the rouge, and she was breathing heavily too. "How dare you say something like that to me?!"
He gave her a cold look and stood to go, pushing back his chair with a hideous, metallic screech. Christie's hand wrapped itself around his arm with a surprisingly iron grip, and he stopped four steps away from their table, also hearing a crunch of paper underneath his foot. Shaking her off, he bent to pick up the envelope, which now bore a stark brown footprint against the pure white paper. It read Zach in flawless script...
She grabbed the envelope out of his hand and ripped open the envelope carelessly. The note was nearly ripped in half, and her eyes scanned its contents quickly before she started laughing. "‘You make me feel a way no one else has ever made me feel?' What kind of garbage is this?"
His eyes were smoldering as he wrestled the letter away from her. ‘Ami.' An intense wave of paranoia, accompanied by a painful twinge in his chest, swept over him. Had she seen him? It was too much to hope that she hadn't...what were the odds that they would both be in the bookstore that afternoon and that she had "accidentally" dropped the envelope barely three feet away from the table?
"Shut up," he ordered roughly.
"What makes her so special?" Christie demanded jealously.
"She's worth ten of you," he replied–and then he was gone.
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Gasping both from the cold and the pain in her chest, Ami missed the treacherous piece of black ice and went sprawling on the ground. She lay on there for a few minutes, feeling the cold press against her face, into her skin, wishing she could just lie there forever and die.
Eventually her sense of survival got the better of her. She levered herself to her feet, moving stiffly and brushing herself off. Her first concern was to make sure that no one had seen her–there was no one else outside in the heavily-falling snow... Through the windows of the Barnes and Noble, she caught a glimpse of Christie reading something–her note–and laughed scornfully.
‘Why? Why did I have to drop it?' Never in her life had she wanted to turn back time more than this moment. But she knew she wasn't going to wait for Zach to see her and make whatever excuses he tried to. Pushing open the mall door, she walked as fast as she could far, far away without a destination in her mind.
In her stunned state, Ami barely managed to avoid bumping into people left and right. When a shopping bag banged against her wrist, she felt a surprising sting of pain. There was a reddened scrape on her wrist from when she'd fallen. It was the first sensation, besides the incredible cold, that she had felt since she left the bookstore. There seemed to be a vast emptiness in her that refused to be filled, and she didn't even feel like crying about Zach.
All the benches were occupied, but she felt drained of all her energy. She ducked into the comforting shadow of a potted plant and stayed there, pressed against the smooth black stone. She felt as if she were slowly becoming one with it, melting and melding together... Then she tasted the tangy iron flavor of blood on her lip. Touching it carefully, she discovered that it was bleeding. She realized that she must have bitten down when she'd fallen.
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Rei and Jaden made their way towards the agreed-upon spot at exactly three o'clock, arguing all the while about a chick flick Rei wanted to see next weekend. Once they had compromised, Rei glanced around to see where Ami was, but she was nowhere to be seen. Rei checked her watch and frowned. That's strange. Ami's always early...but she's almost five minutes late."
Unconcerned, Jaden said, "Don't worry. Maybe she got lost in some book. If she's not here in another five minutes, we'll check the bookstore."
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She closed her eyes, sinking deeper and deeper within herself. The dark fronds of the plant brushed her face with their whispery touch. She was aware of herself as a tiny mortal dot among the throng of harried shoppers, rushing their lives away... ‘Who was that girl?'
A harsh, bitter voice spoke up inside of her. ‘I understand if you didn't quite catch her name. Zach was a little too busy to introduce you at the moment, wasn't he?'
She bit her lip, ignoring the fresh pain as the painful pressure in her chest increased.
‘What if he was...feeling bored today, and she just happened to be in the right place at the right time? But he didn't just run into her,' she recalled. ‘Jaden said...Jaden said that Zach told him he had other things to do today. So it wasn't an accident. He planned to meet her.'
She covered her face with her hands. ‘What happened to me? A week ago, I hated him, and then I suddenly...fell in love with him? Do I really love him? Can I call all this doubt, this anger, this insecurity love? What if I don't even know the real him?'
Her mind went back to the derisive talk of some guys at the Corunis's house.
"He actually asked the little nerd to the dance!"
"What I want to know is, was he serious or was it just another one of his games?"
"He's too damn confident in himself–who cares if he likes her? He just wants the challenge. Once he's figured out how to get her, he'll dump her. But you know, girls like her don't go for guys like him."
Ami closed her eyes tightly as sorrow welled up inside her. ‘Maybe it's the other way around–guys like Zach just don't go for girls like me.'
Rei had said: "Zach hasn't dated many dark-haired girls. I've seen him with a few brunettes, and most of his girlfriends have been blonde...he doesn't go for quiet girls."
‘I was an idiot to write that note.'
Without her consciously willing it to, another memory surfaced. Saffir faced her in the hall, a curious spark of competitive excitement in his eyes. "I knew I wanted you from the moment I saw you, Ami. And then, when I heard that my dear cousin Zachary was after you as well, I knew I had to have you."
‘Did Zach plan everything out beforehand? How could Saffir have known? Did he and Zach have some sort of bet on me? Who can get the nerdy little bookworm first?'
Ami shook herself. She knew it was no good getting into a self-deprecating mood. But those words had spread like poison through her brain, and she couldn't forget them. In the short span of a half an hour, she had lost her burgeoning confidence and sense of self. She doubted her own judgement and faith in other people, and the world no longer held joy in her eyes.
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Mainpage: Love at Fifth Sight
