My breath came out in a white, nagyelo ulap before me and smelled heavily of my mint gum. My footsteps’ sounds were wet on the sidewalk. It had rained just before I left the bookstore and, just sa pamamagitan ng my luck, someone estola my car (boy, was my dad going to have a cow when he hears that…), so I had to walk all the way tahanan in the wet night, all sa pamamagitan ng myself. I prayed silently that I would be able to find my way because I was new in town and barely knew where everything was. I had to use a crappy GPS to find the bookstore. I was just lucky I found it.
    The town was Cassidy. Very small—I guess that’s how I found my destination alright—and very dark. I moved here to live with my dad and brother because my mom died three weeks nakaraan in a car accident. I didn’t even see it coming. I was sitting tahanan alone, waiting for her to come back with the pagkain for dinner. She was very late and I began to pace back and forth in the kitchen. I jumped two feet in the air when the phone rang. It was the police, telling me they had found my mother. I went hysterical. I threw the phone into the sink and took all the glass objects in my reach and smashed them against the floor and walls. I kicked one of the walls so many times I left dirt marks and holes. I screamed and cried. I had never acted like that. I felt ashamed afterward. After the funeral I became madami quiet and withdrawn. I sulked. I became sullen. But what can I say? My mother died.
    I shuddered as a gust of wind blew past my face. It forced me to turn my head away from the direction it was blowing from and spot another pinagmulan of life. On the opposite side of the kalye I noticed another person—possibly a teenage boy—walking, which I thought was odd, considering it was nearly midnight and not a lot of people were out. I continued to stare at him, my intrigue getting the best of me. I can’t explain it, but something was forcing me to gaze at this stranger; something was urging me to.
    His body twisted backwards and suddenly I was staring into his eyes. I quickly looked away, but when I began to tumawid the kalye I snuck another glance. He had stopped walking and was watching me. His face hid a look of curiosity. Once he was done being curious his expression turned both angry and shocked, and frustrated. Without thinking, I stopped too. I didn’t even hear the tires screeching across the street, or see the lights. I was too mystified. In the susunod few segundos I saw the lights bright in my eyes. I was tumbling onto the kalye but someone caught me sa pamamagitan ng the waist before I hit the ground. They became a shield over me, arching over my small body. I heard metal bending, tires shrieking, and then I was sitting susunod to the automobile slanted on the road, completely dumbfounded. I panted and looked around wildly for my savior. The driver franticly hopped out of his car and rushed over to me.
“Oh, my goodness, miss, are you alright?” he asked. But I ignored him.
    “Who…who did that?” I stuttered, still searching the streets for my hero, my head twisting all around me, my hair flowing erratically in the biting wind.
    “Who did what, miss?”
    “Who saved me?” I was still panting, except a little harder now because I was becoming extremely confused. I stared at the man, waiting for my answer, but then my eyes wandered again and stopped on the man’s car. There was a dent in his driver’s side door, in almost the shape of a hand, it looked like. I remembered vaguely that I had heard metal bend and crease during all the commotion…
    “I don’t know, miss,” he admitted. “I didn’t see…anyone. It was just a blur. You were there, then a blurring object came, and you were gone, over here.” He pointed at my spot on the ground and I stared at it.
“I’m so sorry,” he blurted. “I didn’t see you at first and my wheel was going outta control. You’re lucky something pulled you outta the way.” I nodded in agreement.
“I was.”
“Again, I’m really sorry. I didn’t”—
I held up a hand to stop him in between his rushed words. “It’s fine. I’m fine. You don’t need to apologize anymore.” I carefully stood up and brushed off the wet gravel on the back of my jeans, searching the streets again, but not for my savior this time; for a way to get home. I still wasn’t sure.
“How am I going to get home?” I muttered to myself.
“You should get to a hospital first, miss…uh, miss…um”—
“Carlton. My name is Esmeree Carlton.”
“Esmeree?” he mumbled to himself. “Wow, what a name. Well, Esmeree, I think you should get to a hospital.”
I shook my head nervously. “No, I’m fine. I didn’t get hurt, since I was pulled out of the way and all. I don’t need to go there. But where I do need to go is home.”
“I could drive you there,” he volunteered. “It’s the least I could do.”
I stared at him apprehensively. A free ride was hard to turn down, but I barely knew the stranger. He could be a pedophile or something. That’s just what I needed to tuktok off a perfect night.
“Uh…n-no, that’s fine. This town is small, I’m sure it’s not that far of a walk. And it’s not that cold.” I hoped he couldn’t see through my lie.
“But I don’t think”—
“Thanks, but no thanks. Goodbye.” And I turned on my heels quickly, but swiftly, and headed down my original direction, walking a little faster than I had before. The chill in the air was biting and made my cheeks and nose freeze. I kept my arms and hands close to my chest, tucking one under another. February always sucked in this town.
Further into my walk I came close to a neighborhood with small ranch and two-story houses. I ran over to the kalye sign to read the name. I did that with every one until I found my street. Then I looked for my house number in the black, silent night. I felt a rush of relief at the sight of it, at the sight of my house, and sprinted up to it, ignoring the chilling wind that pushed me back in protest. I snatched my key out of my pocket and jammed it into the lock.
“Esmeree!”
Geez, people were screaming my name before I had the door all the way open. I was too exhausted to respond, so I sat on the bench in the front hallway, slowly untying my black Converse and unbuttoning my black coat. I panted as I rested my head back against the wall, warmth encasing every inch of my body. My father and brother were in the front hallway, their faces painted with the very signs of pure anger and worry.
“Esmeree, where the hell have you been? It’s almost one in the morning!” Dad boomed. Once I had collected myself I stood up and sighed.
“I’m sorry, Dad. I Nawawala track of time at the bookstore—you know how I am with books. Anyway, when I got outside afterwards I spent twenty minutos looking for my car. Once I realized it was nowhere to be found I came to the conclusion that it had been stolen. Lovely, right? I know.” I spared them both the details of almost getting run over. “It took me, I think, about forty-five minutos to walk back here.”
“You walked?” my brother Ben questioned. “All the way here?”
“Yes, I did.”
I looked over at Dad, who was leaning against the wall, his face ashen, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Your car was stolen?” he asked in barely a whisper. I nodded, though I knew he couldn’t see me since he was looking down. “And you walked? Oh, goodness.” He looked up, his eyes closed, and sighed. “Alright, alright. We’ll take care of this tomorrow.” I nodded again.
“Okay, Dad. Tomorrow.” I got on my tiptoes and kissed his forehead, near his dark, curly hair. “I’m going to go take a paliguan real quick. Goodnight. Goodnight, Ben.”
Ben didn’t even look at me when he said, “Goodnight, troublemaker.”
“Shut up, Benjamin,” I sinabi over my shoulder as I quickly climbed the stairs to the bathroom. I slowly undressed and stared at my naked self in the square, cracked-in-the-top-corner mirror. I was very pale, almost as white as paper in the bright light of the new light bulbs in the bathroom. Of course, it didn’t help that I had long, dark brown/bronze-colored hair that fell in a graceful, straight cascade down from the tuktok of my head to almost the middle of my back. The color just made my face look whiter. My eyes didn’t make it worse, though. They were a crystal, watery blue that easily sparkled whenever touched sa pamamagitan ng the rays of light. And they were shielded araw after araw sa pamamagitan ng long, dark eyelashes. My looks weren’t plain, but I didn’t exactly think of myself as gorgeous, or even beautiful.
I spit out my gum into the waste basket, realizing it was still in my mouth and starting to taste disgusting, and stepped into the bathtub to take my shower. The water was hot as it ran down my body and burned my skin. I started to feel some sort of throbbing, stinging pain around my waist, over my stomach. “What the hell…?” I asked myself before looking down. And there, clear as day, was a black and purple and blue bruise in the shape of a hand and part of a lower arm. “Oh—oh my gosh.” How did that get there?
The hot rinse went on for what felt like hours, but when I got out I found I had only been in for fifty minutes. I stood in front of the mirror again, but this time I wasn’t looking at myself. I was glaring at the big, deformed bruise draped across my stomach and around my waist. The hand shadowed my bellybutton, and the mark of the lower arm snaked around my waist. I took my right hand and laid it over the spot. The hand was a lot bigger than mine. It looked masculine, too, nothing that fit my dainty, girly hands. I furrowed my eyebrows. I hadn’t felt pain there before. Why was I now suddenly aware of the warm throbbing and the aching of the large mark?
I quickly combed through my Gusot damp hair and dried my body, then I crossed through the hallway to my room in my bathrobe. Dad and Ben were now in their rooms, probably asleep. It was almost two in the morning. I got dressed in a T-shirt and sweats and curled into a ball on my bed, being careful not to have anything come in contact with my bruise. I closed my eyes and tried to drift into sleep, but I couldn’t, even though I was exhausted. I tossed and turned in my kama and suddenly the face of the stranger on the other side of the kalye popped into my head. The stranger who had directed my attention away from where it needed to be and almost made me die. I hadn’t thought of him for hours and now his face was abruptly in my mind.
I shuddered.
His face brought unexpected and unnecessary tremors to me.
It was odd. I could still remember it clearly. Even if it was dark, I had still gotten a good look at him. His jaw was square, his face carefully sculpted to something that made gorgeous look dull. His nose was straight and perfect, his lips curved and full and, just like the rest of him, perfect. Flawless. And his eyes—oh, his eyes—had to be the most flawless part of all. I know I hadn’t seen that detail of him as clearly as the rest of them but they were. I know they were. His eyes were big and round and…green, I think. A beautiful green, like the crystal-clear water of a pale jade lake or pond. Around his eyes, but darker under them, were purple and black spots, the color of bruises almost, as if he hadn’t slept in years. The smooth, creamy canvas that all those features occupied was skin paler than mine. Way paler, way whiter. His skin was so white it glowed in the dark night. It looked silky and smooth, and colder than anything I’ve ever felt. His tsokolate brown hair fell from the tuktok of his head and stopped at almost the end of his neck in the back, some strands or tufts flying off in different directions.
Gosh, I hadn’t known how much I’d paid attention to his features till now.
Well, now I know there’s one thing to be certain: I’m enchanted sa pamamagitan ng a person I’ve never spoken to, only seen from a distance.

The rest of my weekend went sa pamamagitan ng in a blur. Before I knew it, it was time to start my first week of school. Great. The first araw went sa pamamagitan ng slowly; all the faces I first met became distorted in my mind, soon leaving my memory. I arrived to all my classes late—the map was no help—and all my teachers sinabi my name wrong.
“Ez-mer-ee Carlton?” they would guess.
“Ez-mer-ay,” I would have to correct.
One girl, named Julia, that had been bravo enough to confront me, the frightening, but at the same time interesting, new girl, was in my gym class, and she pointed out something that I hoped nobody would’ve noticed.
I was changing into my gym uniform at the locker Julia offered me, and she was babbling on about all the available and unavailable guys in the school—I wasn’t paying much attention, though—when she suddenly let out a sharp gasp. I turned to her, frightened, my eyes wide. She was staring at my stomach and then she looked up at me. I quickly slipped on my gym shirt, tied my hair back into a ponytail, and ran out of the locker room. “Esmeree!” she shouted after me.
She stared at me all throughout the period, a look of pity and horror masking her startled face. I hoped silently that she wouldn’t say a word to anyone. That’s all I needed: to be known as the weird new girl with the large bruises on her body.
It wasn’t my fault! I didn’t put it there! I had no clue who did, actually. It eluded even me.
Well, now I knew that I would have to wear a tank tuktok under my shirts until the damned thing went away, which probably wouldn’t be for another month, if my calculations were correct.
When school ended I stood sa pamamagitan ng the picnic tables near the parking lot, making sure I had all my things, when suddenly my bruise started to throb. I furrowed my eyebrows in frustration and lifted up my sando a little to sneak a matulin peak at it. It looked the same: big, black, frightening. I sighed and pulled down my shirt. When I looked up I caught the familiar eyes of someone standing sa pamamagitan ng their car in the parking lot.
I froze.
Those eyes were familiar. Very familiar. And so were the purple and black shadows around those familiar eyes. And so was the mad, brown hair. And so were the curved, full lips that now, at this moment, pull together in a hard, mapait line. And so was the startlingly pale skin.
It was the boy from the kalye the other night. I realized that he had noticed my bruise too.
He looked at me for a long time. His round eyes were frustrated, yet again, but also pained, and critical. That expression seemed to apply only to himself, in my imaginative mind. He shook his head in disapproval and turned away from me. My face reddened in hurt, and I looked down.
I slung my bag over my shoulder and started to head to my car when someone stopped me. It was Julia. She seemed to be ignoring our incident in gym, so I went along. “Damian Gregory was staring at you.” I could hear the wide smile in her voice.
“I saw that,” I replied.
“That’s pretty odd. He doesn’t usually notice any of the girls around here.” She sighed and her voice became bitter. “Apparently none of us are good enough for him.” She snickered. “So, I warn you not to get your hopes up.” I turned red again, and quickly glanced in his direction. To my dismay, he was looking my way again. And there was a smug grin on his pale face. Had he heard what Julia said? No, he couldn’t have. That’s impossible. He was at least thirty feet away.
I squinted and sneered. His grin was annoying…and contagious. I turned away, back to Julia. She was watching me, haughty, and looking back and forth between me and Damian. “He seems to like looking at you, Ez,” she giggled—she had come up with a ridiculous nickname for me, that way she wouldn’t have to pronounce my whole name, though I didn’t much mind the silly name “Ez,” strangely.
Again, Damian responded to what Julia had said: his grin faded into a scowl and he looked down at his feet. Someone placed themselves susunod to him, clamping their strong hand on his shoulder.
It was another pale-faced boy, incredibly handsome like Damian, and mysterious-seeming. But he seemed madami open than Damian; less secretive. Damian muttered a couple quick words to the other boy, and then the boy looked up to meet my gaze.
Hazel eyes; green and brown and big. They gazed at me in a straight and perfect face. He smiled openly. Julia scared me sa pamamagitan ng speaking: “That’s Wesley, Damian’s brother.”
“They don’t look like brothers,” I responded, still watching Wesley, who was watching me too.
“Oh, they’re not really. Wesley is adopted, as are the other kids that live the two boys.”
I looked at her questioningly. “There’s more?” She seemed startled sa pamamagitan ng my question.
“Uh, yeah. Why?”
“Oh, uh, no reason.” I turned to look back at the two boys, but they were now gone.
There were madami beautiful, pale-faced teenagers at this school. Lovely. I didn’t do well with attractive, intimidating people. They can lower my self-esteem.
“C’mon, Ez,” Julia started. I rolled my eyes at the name. She grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the parking lot.
The susunod araw I walked into my classes with caution. When I walked into my first class, English, I nearly died from an erratically sputtering heart. My palms became sweaty and I felt dizzy. There was Damian, sitting in the back of the classroom with an empty upuan susunod to him, and a girl sitting in my seat. How had I not noticed him before? Before I had the chance to walk over to the girl in my upuan and ask he why she was sitting there, the teacher, Mr. Lubbers, pulled me over to his desk.
“I’m sorry, Ez”—was everybody calling me that now? I guess the name sinabi sa pamamagitan ng Julia and her friends, who were starting to accept me now as her friend, and theirs, had reached some of the teachers—“I forgot that Laura wasn’t here yesterday, and I gave you her seat. I’m going to have to ilipat you.” He looked around the classroom and stopped in the one place I would rather die than sit in. “You can sit susunod to Damian. He can assist you if you need any help.” I turned to Damian. He was staring at me with intense, fiery eyes. I gulped and sauntered over to my new seat. As I set my bag and books down I could feel his eyes on me. I tried to concentrate that hour, but it was so hard. He watched me. He didn’t take his eyes off of me once. That made me insanely self-conscious. Why was he staring at me? What did I do?
That araw I found out I had four out of seven classes with the infamous Damian Gregory—I sat susunod to him in all of them; what luck!—and two with his brother Wesley. And each period I could feel Damian’s intense green eyes on me. I wish I could escape them, but they were always glued to me. Every time I snuck a glance at him I’d have to quickly turn away because there his eyes were: on me. I couldn’t even escape his eyes at night, where I knew he wasn’t, because they leaked into my dreams, haunting me. I couldn’t escape.