Forbidden Love: Fate (Zac and Ivy Trilogy Book 1) (24 page)

I’m being defensive. I don’t like where Ivy
is going with this conversation. So in retaliation, I argue back,
“You said so yourself that if your family sees me as a friend, then
you would be my friend too. So why do you want to stop being
friends with me now?”

“I said it’s because of Dillon,” she says,
her voice also rising a bit.

“So what? What’s that got to do with
our
friendship?”

“Because Grandma saw Dillon and now she’s
sick.”

I gasp. I know Dillon is in Dunedin. I just
saw him last night, talking to Dad, but I didn’t expect the world
to be that small that Nancy would see Dillon’s face that fast.

“I’m sorry Nancy’s sick. But I still think
this has nothing to do with us.”

“It has everything to do with us, Zac. If
Grandma or Clare know you’re related to him, then Grandma will only
get worse.”

“I can’t guarantee what will happen to
Nancy, but know that I’m a very honest person. I’m not like Dillon.
I won’t hurt you or your family. Haven’t you already seen how your
family likes me? Isn’t that enough proof that I get along well with
them. So you don’t have to worry about them not liking me.”

“I know you get along well with everyone in
my family, Zac, but the matter still remains that if they know
you’re Dillon’s brother, everything will change.

“Then I’ll deal with it when the time comes.
Just let me continue to be your friend.” I plead my case to
her.

“I don’t want to deal with it, Zac. I want
to forget it.”

“Why are you being like this? You were fine
with us being friends before.”

“Like I said before, I can’t help seeing you
and being reminded of the past. It hurts too much.”

“Then don’t think of the past.”

“How can I not think of my parents and my
brother?”

“Ivy, why?”

“Just forget about it. I don’t want to talk
anymore. I’ve told you the reason, so I’m going now.”

Before Ivy takes a step from me, I grab her
hand and swing her around. “Ivy.”

“Let my hand go, Zac,” she yells at me.
“From now on, you don’t have the right to touch me. We’re no longer
friends.”

Ivy tears her hands from mine and runs
away.

“Ivy!” I yell at her disappearing figure.
When she doesn’t turn back and continues walking, I kick my foot at
the concrete pillar to release my frustration.

“What the hell just happened?”

CHAPTER TWENTY

IVY

Torment

I am in torment. I am now living a life of
hell, my soul dying slowly while my body still functions like a
normal human being. Essentially, I am nothing but a living doll. To
eat, to sleep, these are all the normal things one would do as a
normal human being, but to do so without any emotion at all, that
is what is defined as a living doll. I am nothing more than a
fragment of myself from before. Everyone around me notices the
changes that take place in me. Even Mandy notices my lack of
appetite, saying I’m not eating my usual fill. Clare even comments
that I don’t fire back my usual retorts. Everyone around me is
starting to get worried.

Although I say I don’t want Zac in my life,
my inner self says something else. At night, I am constantly
plagued with dreams of him, usually waking up sweating and craving
his touch. In these dreams, Zac kiss me, he confesses to me that he
loves me, or sometime it is just Zac laying his head on my lap with
my fingers running through his hair.

How I crave his kiss. How I want his touch.
Now I know why I’m constantly dreaming of him. It’s because this is
what my subconscious self wants. I need for him to tell me he loves
me. For him to confess to me that he’s loved me all along. That is
what I’ve wanted to hear; that’s why my subconscious mind conjures
up all these images of Zac in my dreams.

Now there’s only one conclusion. This is no
normal crush. This is love. I now admit my feelings, raw and plain.
I love Zac. I’m in love with him, and the knowledge that brings me
also brings me pain.

I’m in love with the guy whose brother
killed my family and did not feel remorse for his actions.

How can it be like this? I ask myself. To
love a person to the point of not thinking straight, that is just
preposterous. I’m so young. Feelings change.

But my feelings don’t change. It’s been two
weeks now. In that time, Zac has not even called nor texted.
Despite that, at school, I constantly seek him out, wishing he
would appear so I can see him.

But Zac never appears. He’s gone forever
now. I know he must have been hurt by what I said. But this is for
the best, I tell myself when I do find myself crying to sleep after
another day of not seeing him at school.

Is he trying to avoid me?
Sometimes
when I get these thoughts, I hit myself.
He’s not hiding from
you, Ivy. It’s you who wanted this all along. Zac is only doing as
you told him. So you should be happy, right?

On the third week, when I think I can’t take
it anymore, Zac appears in front of me in the art room while I’m in
class.

My heart leaps into midair like I’m a kite
flying over a cliff on a windy day. Zac turns to me once, his eyes
boring into mine, a sad air around him, and then goes to sit in the
center of the room.

I wonder what he’s doing sitting there when
Mrs. McIntosh speaks. “Zac will be our live model for today.”

I finally realize he’s to be our live model
for our art project this year. I swallow and lift my hand up,
feigning sickness.

I realize I cannot stay in the same room
without breaking down.

Mrs. McIntosh arrives by my side. “Yes, Ivy.
Do you need something?”

“I… I…” I try speaking, wanting any excuse
at all to get as far away from Zac, who’s still staring at me with
his fixed gaze in my direction.

“You should focus on your lines a bit more,
Ivy. Keep trying.” That’s all Mrs. McIntosh says, and then she goes
away. My chance of escape is gone.

Throughout the whole session, Zac continues
to stare at me. Once or twice, I catch his eyes and he turns away,
his eyes registering pain like me, but like two stubborn people, we
both ignore each other. But sometimes, I can’t help feeling his
heated stares in my direction, and when I look up again, he turns
the other way.

I start to feel agitated and nervous under
his heated stare. I fidget in my seat; my hands tremble as I sketch
his eyes.

His irises, they are a dull-looking green.
It’s so painful to look at, so hard for me to stare into. I don’t
want to stare at them. I hate them. They remind me too much of
Dillon’s, but I’m so sucked into those eyes that I can’t stop
looking at them.

“Zac.” Mrs. McIntosh’s voice brings me out
of my thoughts. “Would you just stay still? Stop looking in Ivy’s
direction. Look at the whiteboard.”

Suddenly, the whole class turns to me. I
blush and concentrate on my drawing, trying my best to ignore those
heated stares from everyone around me. When I think it’s safe to
look up again, Zac’s eyes are focused on the whiteboard.

It’s a grueling fifty-minute session of my
life, filled with tension so thick I can’t breathe properly. When
the bell rings, I pack my bag before everyone else and flee out of
the art room before Zac gets a chance to talk to me.

It’s now late afternoon. I’ve an empty
period, but not wanting to think of the pain in my heart, I go to
the art room again to finish my painting of Zac.

“Hey, Ivy.”

I don’t know when Sam appeared, but he did
and is now sitting beside me. Perhaps my mind is too cooped up with
the current event in my life that I fail to notice his
presence.

“Hi, Sam,” I respond quietly. I dab the
paintbrush into green paint to paint Zac’s eye color, but somehow
it doesn’t look right. Wondering why Sam is still sitting beside
me, I ask, “Do you need something? Our lesson won’t be until next
week.”

“I… ur… I was just wondering, is anyone
going to take you to the prom?” I look at him, wondering why he
would be bringing this subject up. “It’s tomorrow, and I know it’s
a bit late, but if you have no one to go with, I want to ask you to
be my partner.”

I put the paintbrush down. Releasing a deep
sigh, I tell him, “I’m not going.”

I decided long ago that I wasn’t going. When
Zac bought me that dress, I thought I would wear it if he asked me
to go, even as a friend, but now it’s not going to happen. I let my
feelings get in the way of reality. And now my heart is paying for
the consequences.

“Why not?” Sam asks.

I find it annoying that he’s being
persistent like this. I sigh again. “I don’t want to go.”

“Ivy, I think you should go. It’s your last
year here. Plus. I’ve already bought you tickets.”

Mandy appears out of nowhere and voices her
comment.

“You two go,” I tell them, returning back to
my artwork. “Prom is not my thing. I’ll pay you back for the ticket
you bought.”

“Ivy. Please.” Mandy begs me. “It’s our last
year here. I don’t know what’s going to happen when you enter law
school. You might be even too busy to socialize with me. This is
our final year of high school. Shouldn’t we spend it
memorably?”

Sam has to add, “Yeah, Ivy. Come on.”

I give in, mainly for the fact that I want
to be left alone to finish this painting of mine rather than my
enthusiasm for wanting to go to prom.

“Fine. We’ll go as a group, then.”

“Excellent. I’m not going by myself and Sam
won’t go if you won’t go. So that settles it, then,” Mandy chirps
in happily.

“Good. Now can you two leave me in peace? I
want to finish this project.”

Sam chuckles and Mandy only shakes her head,
saying the usual line of my obsessive nature of hard work.

When they leave, I sigh again. I really
don’t want to go to prom. Everything is happening so fast. Prom is
tomorrow already.

It’s now three thirty in the afternoon. The
sky has an orange glow to it, like the sun is about to set. I wish
for the sun to not set just yet, wishing for the sky to not grow
dark just yet, for it’s this sun that I crave, because in the dark,
I dream of Zac… or the nightmare.

Ignoring this gnawing feeling inside me, I
pick up the paintbrush and start mixing the paint on the many
trays. Suddenly, I hear footsteps approaching me.
It must be Sam
or Mandy again.

Ignoring those footsteps, I focus my
attention on mixing the paint so it turns a lovely shade of green,
that emerald of Zac’s eyes.

The footsteps stop behind my back. I still
don’t flinch. Then all of a sudden, a deep voice speaks, a voice I
know so well that I start shaking in fear and trepidation.

“Ivy.”

CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE

ZAC

Confession

The sounds of my footsteps echo along the
empty corridor, leading me to the art room at the end of the
hallway. I really hope she is alone there. I don’t want to have a
private conversation when people are about.

I’ve been meaning to talk to Ivy for some
time now, since our heated fight from two weeks ago. I decided to
let her cool down first, without texting her or calling her
constantly. But it’s approaching prom night, and I want to ask her
out for my date. I think it’s about time I man up and fire the
bullet.

When I was in the art class, posing as a
model, I kept on wanting to talk to her, but the opportunity never
presented itself. Then when I wanted to approach her after school,
she left class early. Now I’ve found out she is working on her art
assignment, so I make sure I stay behind and confront her.

When I open the door, I expel a breath of
relief. Ivy is all alone with her back to me. All her attention is
focused on mixing her paint.

I find each step I take leading me to her
makes my mouth run dry. I wonder why. It feels like I’ve swallowed
sawdust. It’s so dry and gritty. I simply deduced it to plain
nerves.

I’ve never been nervous like this before.
Maybe I’m just scared I’ll be rejected. This is the point of no
return. This is going to be the day I confess.

I shake my head and make my way to where Ivy
sits. Upon hearing someone approach her, her body stiffens and
tenses. Her fingers grip onto the paintbrush tightly, making her
knuckles go white.

She doesn’t speak as I go to her. Nor does
she move or turn around to look at me. She just sits there
listening to my movements.

I let out a heavy sigh and take a chair to
sit down. I sit close to her; my face is just inches from her back.
Ivy still doesn’t say a single word.

“Ivy,” I say, the sound of my voice
resonating onto her back. She stiffens a bit more but still says
nothing.

I try again. “Ivy.”

Ivy still doesn’t respond to me. I’m a
little upset but then put it down to plain feelings. Maybe Ivy’s
still feeling upset over our fight, so she doesn’t want to talk to
me. So I’ll let her listen and I’ll talk instead.

“Ivy. We have to talk.”

“I have nothing to talk about,” she says
after a little while.

“But I do. You can just listen,” I tell her.
“I want to ask you out to the prom.”

She stays silent for a moment and then
starts dipping the paintbrush into her array of paint trays and
then dabbing them onto the canvas. Only then does she speak. “I’m
sorry, but I’ve got someone I’m going with already.”

“What?” I shout in my sudden surprise,
screeching my chair back and standing up. I wasn’t expecting anyone
to take Ivy out to prom since she’s such a bookworm, so I thought
this was the perfect opportunity for me. “Who’s taking you, Ivy?
Who?”

“Sam will be taking me,” she replies
impassively, as if she has no emotion at all. She puts her
paintbrush down again and remains silent.