affectionate - Chapter 4: Chapter 4

FALLON
The days following my weird encounter with my father were...interesting. That night at dinner both of my parents acted like nothing happened and the table was more talkative than usual. My father ranted and raved about a new apartment complex that his company was building on the other side of town and my mother blabbed non stop about the new book her book club was reading. They even went as far as including me in the conversation and asked me numerous questions about school and my job. I was beyond confused but if they wanted to act like nothing was wrong then so be it. There was a lull in the conversation at one point and my father took that as his chance to once again remind me to come directly back to the house after school and not to make any unnecessary stops anywhere. I pressed my luck, not even caring if he got mad because damn it I was going to get answers, and asked if something had happened in town or if I was in trouble. Of course I was met with nothing but silence and a sympathetic smile from my mother that I paid no attention to. They were being shady and I didn't like it at all.
Sometimes I wished that I had relatives who lived in Melrose or at least a sibling I could contact who maybe knew something about our family. But I was an only child and all of my other family members lived out of state and I had only met them a handful of times when I was younger. At times, living here felt like I had been condemned to solitary confinement for a crime I wasn't aware of.
Despite my reluctance to listen to my father and obey his words, I came home straight after my classes everyday for the rest of that week. My pride as a grown ass woman was hurt but the fear of being touched was stronger than my urge to disobey. Even though my freedom was snubbed, I rebelled in different ways. With so much free time around the house, I started sneaking into my father's study when he wasn't home. The new apartment complex took up most of his time and he was gone more often than not which gave me ample time to sift through his study, more specifically his bookshelves and the drawers on his big oak desk. My mother wasn't a problem either. She didn't work but she liked to keep busy and when she wasn't out shopping or at her book club she wasn't in the house either. Which left me all alone.
I won't even lie there wasn't much to see in his study. The first time I went in there I was scared to get caught so I only spent around thirty minutes rifling around in his papers and all I found were contracts and blueprints. The second time I went in, I payed more attention to the bookshelves because I thought I'd find our family history in some of the books. I did not. However, there were multiple books on supernatural creatures which confused me greatly because my father didn't strike me as the fictional type, I would've thought he spent his free time reading biographies or non fiction books or other boring old man things. The third time I went in there, I found a grimoire. Now this made me a raise a brow. Why my father had this, I didn't know. It looked and smelled old but it had to have some type of importance if it was here in his study. My father was by no means a collector or hoarder of any kind. I wanted to flip through it but my father had apparently gotten home from work early that day which had me scrambling to put everything back to the way it was and racing up the stairs to the safety of my room.
I sat at my desk and tried to make sense of all of my findings. Countless books on supernatural beings and a fucking grimoire. There was a big chance that this was all a coincidence and my father was just secretly hiding his niche interests from me and my mother but I highly doubted it. Silly things such as witches and vampires and werewolves had no place in his life whether they were real or not. If it weren't for the incident that transpired between us and my aversion to physical contact, I would've chopped up my suspiciousness as paranoia and considered talking to my mother about therapy. But I knew deep down that I was right, and they really were hiding something.
My eagerness to investigate my parents had died down. I kept finding myself running into dead ends with information and my fear of being caught by either of them stopped me from exploring his study further. It had been three weeks since everything had happened and I decided that I was being oddly obsessive and forced myself to stop. Finals were getting closer and things at school were getting serious. I needed to put energy into finishing the winter semester strong and to stop worrying about family secrets and mystery boys with dark hair and cunning eyes. I hadn't seen him in almost a month and I was starting to think the whole thing was a fever dream. I had never seen him around town and when I wasn't rushing home after classes I was looking for him. But after weeks with no luck, I gave up. What I felt from him when we touched was gone and just like I had accepted every other unfortunate thing in my life, I accepted that I would never again feel the delicious tingle that ran through my body when we made contact.
Currently, I was on my way home from a late afternoon class. It was only six but with winter on the prowl, the sun had already retired. Burnt pinks and cool blues painted the sky along with stars that burned competitively against one another. The moon was there too, a beautiful waning crescent that sat high and mighty as it watched over Melrose and its people. The streets were quiet, everyone either home or working later than usual. The stores that lined the sidewalks were dark inside and their closed signs were flipped to the public. Smoke billowed out the tops of them, indicating that the owners were indeed tucked away for the night and wouldn't be seen until morning.
I huffed and walked a little faster wishing that could've been me right now. It was a little warmer today, if you could count fifty five degrees as warm. I ditched my puffer jacket for a cotton jacket with a faux fur lined hood and black spandex leggings with thick socks pulled over the top of them. I had braids in just like my mother and they were pulled into a high pony on my head, a large headband covered the better parts of my forehead and I tugged at it so it covered my ears too. I don't know why I didn't take my car today. I'd kick myself in the butt for that later. I pulled out my phone to send my mother a text to tell her that I was on my way so my father wouldn't pop a vein. I was still walking on eggshells around him and didn't know when that would change.
I was just about to hit send when I bumped into something—or rather someone. My phone fell out of my hands and I bent down to pick it up before looking up to see who was out at this time and in this weather. My breath hitched and my eyes widened just a smidge as eyes as blue as as the ocean stared into mine. After weeks of searching for him and coming up empty handed, here he was, standing directly in front of me, once again with nothing on his arms despite it being colder than all get out. We watched each other for what felt like hours, his eyes took in every inch of my face and I could feel it. Every time his disgustingly gorgeous eyes found somewhere to look, sparks bloomed beneath my skin. It didn't hurt either. It was strangely pleasant and it filled my stomach with butterflies. Surprisingly, he broke the silence first.
"We need to talk." Was all he said and I just continued to stare at him because what was there for us to talk about? I didn't know the guy and he didn't know me either. We had a total of one interactions prior to this one and it lasted a total of ten seconds and now he was in my face saying we needed to talk? Was he crazy? Confusion was only a fraction of what I felt at the moment.
"Talk? I think you've mistaken me for someone else." I knew I should've pushed passed him and continued my way home but I couldn't move. I had been wanting to be back in his presence ever since our first meeting for reasons that I could not come up with. I wasn't going to squander this just because I was scared. He closed his eyes all but for a second and grabbed my wrist. I was going to go insane with how many times I had been touched in the past month. This had to be a personal record.
My eyes closed and I let pleasure wash over me. His fingers around my wrist felt nothing like how my father's had felt, they were gentle and warm and felt so good, like they belonged there. I was so caught up in the feeling of him on me that I didn't realize he had pulled me into an alley until I opened my eyes and I was no longer on the sidewalk but in between two buildings. He let go of me and I felt myself shudder at the loss of contact. He looked at me curiously and I pursed my lips and looked away.
"What the hell do you want? I'm five seconds away from calling 911. You can't just-" He grinned mischievously which only made me more upset because what about this was amusing?
"I won't hurt you like that prick did, okay? Just calm down." I furrowed my eyebrows and turned my head slightly to the side, my chin jutting out a little because I had no idea who was he was talking about. This entire situation didn't feel real in the slightest. My tongue was stuck in my throat at the sound his voice, it was deep and his words poured over me like molasses, all sticky and slow, preventing me from thinking straight.
"Calm down? Don't tell me to "calm down", you dragged me into an alley, which is shady as hell by the way, and I'm starting to think that you bumped into me on purpose. Not to mention it's cold as fuck, i'll calm down when you tell me what the hell is going on." His lips parted at my outburst, gone was the mischievous grin he was sporting earlier. I felt somewhat bad but I was tired of being lied to by everyone and kept in the dark about things. If I couldn't take my anger out on my parents, then he would have to do.
"You feel something when I touch you, yes? And when I look at you?" I didn't know when, or how, but he had gotten considerably closer to me. Our faces were inches apart and my heart was beating wildly in my chest. His eyes glanced down as if he could hear my heart pounding against my rib cage to be let out. With us being so close, the difference in our heights was prominent. I was tall for a girl, five foot ten, but even then I had to crane my neck up to look into his eyes, which was a mistake because I was entranced immediately.
"And if I do?" I don't know why I wasn't pushing him away and running. This wasn't normal or safe at all and I was definitely going to be late getting home now. He smirked, and it annoyed the shit out of me.
"As soon as I met you in that corner store I knew." He knew? Knew what?
He backed away and it finally felt like I could breathe again.
"If he touches you with ill intentions again, I can't promise I won't do anything." I raised my eyebrows in disbelief. Was he talking about my father?
"How do you know about that?" He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned to leave the alleyway. I took long strides to catch up with him but he was walking briskly, almost like he was floating on the ground and his long legs didn't make it any better. "Hey! You can't just say that and then leave, how the fuck do you know about that?"
He turned around to look at me one more time and it felt like hundreds of little pop rocks were popping on the skin of my face.
I blinked and he was gone.