Rabecca Karma: Chapter 6

Chapter 6
Jacob

“You’re 15, right, Jacob?” We were curled up on his bed and I guess I was spending the night. We had no school today, thankfully, but tomorrow was Tuesday, and there was school.
“Yeah, and you’re 13?”
“Mhmm,” I had skipped the fourth grade, so I was in ninth grade and he was a sophomore. We rode the same bus, luckily, but Jamie rode our bus too, and he was in 11th grade.
“By the way… Are you okay?” His thoughts seemed in tune with mine. “About school tomorrow,” He wrapped his arm around me and I was okay…for now.
“Yeah,” I said and snuggled in closer. I turned around so that I could see him. “I’m a little worried about tomorrow, but…it doesn’t matter.”
“What do you mean it doesn’t matter?”
“Well,” I said, and chuckled. “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present”
“Hmmm…,” he laughed too. “Yeah I don’t know what tomorrow’s going to be like either. Two weeks off and then now we just randomly go back. It’s always weird.”
“Mhmm,” I leaned in and kissed his lips, happy about my gift. I closed my eyes and felt his hand brush softly through my long, blonde hair. He kissed my forehead, pressed his cheek gently on the top of my head, and said goodnight.
* * *
“Rise and shine!” I opened my eyes to see Jacob’s beautiful face right next to mine. “Hey gorgeous, Sleep well? Did you know you talk in your sleep?”
“Yes,” I said happily. Then I grumbled, “And also yes. What did I say?”
He looked at me, a sparkle in his eye. He took my hand and with his other he stroked my cheek. He stared into my eyes with a small smile and glowing eyes that said he was the happiest person on Earth. Finally he leaned in, our lips about half a centimeter apart, and said, “You said you loved me.”
His breathe made my head turn, as he said the words, I struggled to keep straight. As we sat there less then a centimeter apart, I fought back the urge to gasp. I couldn’t love him yet… could I? I reached, with the hand that wasn’t held by his, and felt his hair.
It was amazingly soft. Like a bunny’s fur, but I wasn’t about to just pet him. I stroked through his hair, and he caressed my cheek. He moved forward about a millimeter, and we were together at once.
My stomach growled, and he laughed. He tilted away, smiling. “My mom’s here. I’ll go get us some food.”
I smiled and laid back down. I wondered if Jamie had anything against PDA. Jamie had, only to an extent. He wasn’t one of those guys that thought it was lame and un-cool to do that. He would only hold my hand, which was enough, of course. And also, I would always talk to his friends since, like me, he mostly hung out with guys. One of them actually had the nerve to ask me out.
Jacob walked in then, carrying two bowls of Coa-Coa Puffs. I smiled and said thanks. As we ate, a thought came to me. I was going to get on the bus at his stop…What would people think of us? Oh well, I thought, it doesn’t matter. They could deal with it.
After we finished eating, he got some of his mom’s shirts and 2 pairs of her jeans. I got the darker and tighter pair of jeans and a blue and black striped shirt.
We got me squeezed out of his window so he wouldn’t get caught with me in his room, and I met him outside, on the driveway. “Hey,” I said and pointed at the bus driving toward us. We crossed the road and the bus stopped in front of us.
We got on, and there were only about 7 people on it. As we drove, the bus gradually started to get more people on it.
We were driving towards Jamie’s stop, and I saw him standing there, waiting. “Jacob, can I sit on the inside?”
“Yeah, sure,” he said, and picked me up, sat me on his lap, slid away from the window, and set me back down. I laughed, and he joined in.
Jamie walked onto the bus while we were laughing. He looked at me, his eyes blank. He sat near the front of the bus, which was weird to see because he and I had always sat in the very back seat together. But Jacob and I were sitting in the back, not the last seat, but still, we were in the back of the bus. He was only sitting up there because he didn’t want to speak to me, but I understood.
“That was Jamie, right?” Jacob whispered in my ear.
I looked over at him and nodded, “Yeah.”
“Sorry Becca,” He had already picked up on the little nickname. “You should go talk to him.”
“No, ‘cause if I do, I’ll totally regret it.” I wouldn’t be able to go talk to him in the first place.
“Nah, it’d probably help.” I doubted that.
“How would it help?” I asked, looking at Jamie, who was staring out the window.
“He looks down, and you don’t look happy about that.” I looked back over at Jacob, who had been looking at Jamie too. He looked back over at me.
“I don’t care, Jacob. All I really care about right now is you and me.” I reached over and held his hand in mine. He smiled, and Jamie peeked back at us as Jacob leaned in to kiss me.
* * *
When we got to James High School, we separated to get to our first classes. I sat with my friend Kasie, and she asked me how Jamie and I were doing.
“I broke up with him yesterday,” I said calmly.
“What!? Why? He was cute and he was great to you. I thought you loved him.”
“I did-I do. I…ugh…” I explained all of what had happened over the break except for the stuff about home.
“Who is that? Jacob who?”
“Collins. Tenth grade.
“Hmmm…Rabecca Collins. Ooh! That has a nice ring to it. Rabecca Karma just sounds kind of freaky.” She smiled at me. I loved how she could understand things like this.
2nd period, I sat with a few guys and we talked through the whole period. One of them, who rode my bus, asked me about Jamie. When I told him we broke up, he asked me out. I never understood why so many guys liked me. I had asked Jamie about that before, and he said that I was too cool and pretty. I told him I was already taken and he said that it was fine. We all got back into our conversation about who knows what, laughing and giggling all the rest of class, and Mr. Greene got onto us for being loud and not paying attention.
When the bell rang, Josh, Cody, and I left the room laughing. “See you later guys,” I said and walked towards Jacob, who was walking towards me. He smiled at me and asked me how the day had been so far. I laughed and said it was great.
“I’ll see you at lunch,” he said, and then I rushed to third period, wanting it to speed by. “Hey Allie,” I said as I sat by her.
Allie swung her head around to look at me. She was smiling as she said, “Who was that dude I saw you with in the hallway?” I saw someone’s hand tickle her and she screeched, turning, and her light brown hair bounced, falling in twists. I recognized Chris sitting beside her and he and Nick were laughing so hard it looked as though they would fall out of their chairs.
“Chris, stop flirting!” he wouldn’t say anything to that because we all knew he liked her. I smiled as he turned, facing the right direction, his face straight. Allie turned back, a beautiful smile on her face. “By the way,” I started, “it was Jacob in the hallway, my boyfriend.”
“What happened to Jamie?” She said after the bell rung.
I sighed. “Long story short, I broke up with him yesterday.”
“You always have a back-up boyfriend, don’t you?” I laughed at her words. Everyone thought it was like that. They all thought it was so easy for me…of course, it wasn’t. Not at all. Also, since I’d skipped a grade, I was younger than most of these people in ninth grade. I shouldn’t even be in high school.
We walked to lunch and Jacob was there, waiting probably, but he wasn’t alone. He was talking to this girl who I had definitely seen before, not even too long ago. But I couldn’t think of her name. Of course, I didn’t care, seeing that look in her eye. It was how I used to look at him. All I remembered was that she had had a boyfriend.
I walked over to him and said hey. He said hey, told her bye, turned around, and she left. “What’s up, Rabecca?”
“I’m not really very hungry.” I smiled. “I know her, I know I do. But who was that girl? I can’t think of her name.”
“Clair, Clair Soulful. We went to the movies with her, David, and Daniel, remember?”
“Yeah I remember going to the movie, I just couldn’t remember her. I’ll save you a seat.” I walked over to a table where a lot of Jacob’s friends were sitting.
“Why are you sitting here? Don’t you usually sit with him?” He pointed over to a table where Jamie was sitting surrounded by mostly girls, but a few guys. Stupid John.
I smiled, looking at him again. “Well I guess you’ll just have to deal with me.”
“Don’t worry Becca,” Sam said. “We don’t care if you sit here, John’s just being stupid.” he rolled his eyes as John’s name came out. Everyone else at the table nodded. John narrowed his eyes, but didn’t say anything else.
“Hey,” Jacob’s voice came from behind me. “We don’t have to sit here you know.” I laughed at the fact that he was sitting down while he said it.
“It’s fine.” I looked over at Allie and Kasie sitting across the cafeteria.
“Let’s go sit with some of your friends. I want to meet them.” I got up and said okay, walking over to where Kasie, Allie, Sabrina, Jessica, and Destiny. I introduced them all, sitting down and smiling. They smiled back.
“Hey you guys,” he said in his beautiful voice. It was weird, sitting with so many girls. Allie, Kasie, and Jacob struck up a conversation immediately. Jessica told me she wanted to steal him from me.
After school, walking to the bus, I told Jacob that I was never sitting with that many girls ever again. He laughed and said, “Yeah I’ve noticed that you get along better with guys than girls.”
“Yeah…I don’t know why. By the way, Jessica likes you, and Sabrina and Destiny think you’re hot.” He laughed. “And I didn’t get a chance to talk to Allie and Kasie, the only two I actually wanted to talk to.”
“Sorry, you’re friends are cool though.”
“No, Allie and Kasie are the only two of my actual friends you’ve met. The rest are guys.” We got on the bus and it was just about full. Jamie was sitting in our old seat. He smirked at me when I got on.
“Oh crap! I forgot that my mom’s picking me up today. Bye, Becca, I’ll see you later.” Jamie ran off the bus and I frowned. There were only three seats without two people in them—slut, nerd or Jamie. Not just any slut, but one that, if you sat with her, you had to feel her; not just any nerd, but he was gross, sounded like a pig, and he’d probably wipe his boogers on me; and then there was Jamie. Just Jamie, but I didn’t know. I walked towards that very back seat only because of Jacob.
“Hey,” I said to him.
“Why are you sitting with me?” Jamie wasn’t looking at me, he was gazing out the window, but he was definitely speaking to me.
“Because there was only two other seats with just one person”
“And you chose me because…?”
“Nerd…ugh, and slut…” I shuttered.
“And me?”
I didn’t answer. I needed him to look at me. Finally he turned his head, and his eyes weren’t his normal aqua marine color. I had never seen Jamie’s amazing mood eyes ever turn green, which meant jealousy. He had told me a long time ago what all the colors meant. I had seen the red-brown, but never the green, until now. His eyes were a deep green with the lines colored red. “Do you hate me?”
His eyes widened, more redness forming, frightening me a bit. “Rabecca Nicole Karma. How could you ever say something like that? I don’t think I could ever say that I don’t love you, even if it was a lie. But…do you?”
I shook my head. “I still love you.”
His whole eye color disappeared to a very light grey, meaning sadness with orange lines meaning confusion. “Then why?” his voice sounded desperate.
I saw a seat that someone had just left, so I left him to sit there. I tried to take my mind off Jamie by thinking about Gabriella and why she’d come back, when Jacob popped into my mind. He knew just about everything about me, but I knew almost nothing of him. Just then, I saw him walking towards his house, and I got off at the next stop, which just happened to be the one right before mine. I ran to find Jacob, and, luckily, he wasn’t far.
“Hey.” I said when I saw him.
“Did you just get off the bus because you saw me?”
“Yeah, what are you doing down here?”
“Just sort of walking.”
“Are you okay?” I stopped him, looking into his eyes. “You don’t seem—” His lips interrupted mine, crushing down onto them as if it was a need.
“No,” he said simply, and kept on walking.
“What’s wrong?”
He didn’t say anything until we reached his house. We went inside and into his room. We sat on his bed and he finally said, “My life’s pretty complicated too, Rabecca. One thing is that, my family’s main goal is to figure out humans’ purpose on earth. My family isn’t very…normal. There’s something interesting about us that I’m very afraid to say.”
I tried to use my most comforting voice. “You can tell me anything.”
“Almost everyone in my family is...a murderer.” My eyes widened. “I don’t want to kill anyone, though. They killed for information. But I think that the purpose might be just simply…love.” He looked at me. “To find the one you cherish and love and to be happy. But…” he looked away now. “There’s more. How and why were we put here? Why were we given all of this knowledge? Are we being controlled? All of my family has put their entire lives on that. Why do we have a 36 letter word and a one letter word?” He laughed.
“I don’t know why, but I though you might say you were vampires or something.”
He laughed at me and I asked him why he wasn’t okay. He said, “My mom said that I’m a disappointment to the family if I didn’t give my life up to this. But I’ve decided that you’re more important than some weird riddle. Plus, you’ve given me my answer.”
Wow. His family’s big secret that they have killed for, is not as important as me. “But you’re not a disappointment, and if your mom really thinks that, then I could help you.”
“But I don’t want to figure it out,” He looked down, and I guessed that there was more he wasn’t telling me.
“What else is there to this.”
He sighed. “I don’t think I can die.”
“WHAT!?” he must have gone crazy or something.
“My great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents are still alive.”
“Oh…my…gosh. How old are they?”
“323 and 327, but they don’t look like it. They still look like they’re about 35 or 40.”
“Holy crap!” I couldn’t believe it. 327 years old!? “How old are you, then?”
“Oh, I’m actually 15. But I’m almost positive that I can’t die. When I was thirteen, I wanted to kill myself, so I ran in front of an eighteen wheeler.” he stopped there. “Nothing. I was totally freaked out, so I tried again. Electrocution didn’t work, either. I figured stabbing myself in the heart, you know, but it didn’t work. Pretty soon I figured out about my grandparents. And that’s when I thought about it a little more. If you could live forever, why not waste your life to get something? Why not leave everything you have to get that one little other thing that you need?”
“I don’t know.”
“Exactly.”