She was like a heartbeat.
Lexus Hart.
I found myself breathless and staring at her every moment she was around.
Call me a creep, but I just couldn't help it.
I wouldn't even say she was the epitome of beauty.
She just was.
With a pretty face and a skinny body, her chest was the complete opposite. She had dark hair, streaks of hot-pink mixed in a long braid that went down to her lower back.
Whenever I saw her, she wore our school's uniform. Which consisted of a black skirt and a white button-up top. She wore dark brown loafers and carried her school handbag consistently.
I watched her, smiling in my head and on my face.
"Eyes on your paper, you creep." A fist hit my shoulder.
I rubbed my arm, looking to my right.
"What? Is your mind still connected to your d*ck?" The girl with flowing crimson locks says with fake contempt.
"Naomi," I say calmly.
"Don't say my name with such a sweet tone, you buffoon," She says with a pout.
"Sorry," I apologize for nothing.
"Do you like her that much?" She asked.
"Yeah. A lot." I said simply.
"Then just go talk to her."
"I-I can't do that. I mean, look at her, and then look at me."
I wouldn't say I was ugly, but neither could I say I was handsome.
I was mundane, that's the word.
A face you get used to.
A face that if you don't see it everyday, you'll forget it.
It's harsher being normal. Being a nobody. Being unrecognizable.
At least ugly people get attention, even if it's the wrong kind.
But guys like me? What do we get?
A badge of the most overlooked? Of the most middle-class people of the world?
It's more than being alone.
It's isolation.
A badge of honor would do me no good.
I want a badge of merit.
A badge of friendship.
A badge of a man of many.
I'm not lonely though.
I have friends, a few.
Yet even so, a hollowness cannot be filled.
There is a need for something.
My body is alerting me of something.
Her, Lexus Hart.
If I am the body, she is the heart.
And what is the body without the heart?
I'm a creep, say it as you will, but I need her.
Yet I know she doesn't need me.
Our story goes back further than this.
Middle school, 2nd year.
I met Lexus on a rooftop. She sipped at her juice, after she had recently just been backstabbed and abandoned by her friends. Yet she didn't cry, I hardly saw her show a sign of sadness at all.
I wasn't the type of guy to just go up to people. But something drew me to her. Maybe it was the pretty face that a guy like me couldn't possibly handle or compete with, or perhaps my body moved on it's own.
I had to know.
I moved ahead, seeing her eyes glazed with drying moisture and she hardly blinked. The breeze of the sky colored atmosphere blew over us, causing her eyes to blink cautiously.
A tear fell, a single one.
Was it a tear of eye-strain?
Or... sadness?
I needed to know.
I wanted to know.
I moved forward, setting two drinks down nearby her. I saw her gaze turn to me, frantic blinking overcoming her.
"I didn't notice you were there," She said in a strained tone.
"I could tell," I replied.
She started at me for a few moments, causing me to avert my eyes to the view beside us.
"You're weird."
"I know." I agreed, scratching my head with a warped smile.
A giggle escaped her lips.
It was like music for me.
I wanted to hear it again.
That sweet melody of happiness.
"You're also funny."
"I-I didn't know that."
She picked up a drink.
"Thank you."
Her smile that she gave me was like a stab, a stab to the heart.
Yet it didn't hurt, and neither did my heart bleed.
The knife made a gold, turned mine into a shimmering gleam.
Was this the forbidden word?
Love.
"...You're welcome."
..
But that was years ago.
I looked over to Naomi.
"I don't think she even remembers me," I spoke with a solemn tone.
With optimism, "How do you know that?" Naomi asked.
"I-I just do. Alright. There's no way she remembers my face. Me."
"Don't knock something...."
A chop accurately struck my temple.
--Until you try it," She finished.
My eyes lit up from the wake-up call.
"You're right. I have to see this through. If she doesn't remember, I'll make her remember!"
I scooted from the chair, running along to find her.
Running over the school to find her, I was left undisclosed.
Until, I remembered the only place I had ever come face to face with her.
Running with a pant, and a widening in my gait, I reached it.
The roof.
I opened the doors, letting in a breeze of outside.
What I expected.
Wasn't what I got.
Lexus was surrounded by 3 guys.
Each of them trying to get something from her.
They didn't look like students.
I didn't think much.
My body moved, and my brain just had to catch up with it.
I ran, and ran, my pace becoming a sprint.
I speared the first man in the ground, startling the rest and Lexus with it.
"What the?-" One of the men said.
"Get off of him, you brat!"
My collar was balled from behind, and yanked.
I rolled back into a kneel, getting into a wobbly stance.
I looked into Lexus's eyes.
They glowed, to me.
'What am I doing?'
I questioned myself.
Yet I moved.
'Does she remember?'
'Does she care?'
'Why am I going this far?'
The honey-sweet voice of soothing melancholy pierced the swell of my eardrums.
"Is that you, weird boy?"
Music met my ears, yet it was her voice.
A hand compacted into a ball of fury met my jaw, sending me crashing.
"Yes... It's me."
I said with a smile, and the inflation of my cheek.
"Why are you doing this?" She asked.
"I don't know." I replied.
"Stop, you'll get hurt."
"You will too."
"I won't."
"You will" I said back.
"How do you know I need protection?"
A pause was in the air, and a sincere expression graced my face which was a smile.
"Your eyes."
Her eyes lit up, before growing wetter.
"Idiot."
I gripped my knee as I rested in a kneeling position, pushing myself up.
I expected to fight.
And to win.
A fierce violence met my abdomen, drawing crimson.
"A knife?..." I said with withering eyes.
"Yes, a knife, you idiot. I don't have time for you. We're after something valuable.
--And she has it."
I laid on the floor, my vision blurring.
Heat being sapped from my body, and replaced by a deadly frost.
The crimson grew darker, becoming aged as time passed.
Or was it because my eyesight was leaving me?
"Death..."
I strained outward from my hollowing voice.
Yet even as the grim fate grew closer, I thought of her.
"Lexus..."
The men lunged for her bag, which she never seemed to put down.
"Give us the gem!"
"You idiot.." Lexus said with greater melancholy toward me.
Opening her bags latch, she pulled out a cracked gem of sorts.
She threw it at my moribund existence.
As it draped in my blood, it glowed a neon red.
My blood reversed, being absorbed into my body.
Following it, was the gem.
When it was all over, the gem had been embedded in my chest.
"What have you done?!" The men went into a frenzy.
"The gem chose him, can't you see? And you know once the ZERO gem chooses it's host, trying to remove it is useless."
The men clenched their jaws and balled their fists, yet did nothing about it.
The gem's decision was final.
In a blink, they were gone.
...
I opened my eyes to find her sitting over me. The girl of my dreams.
"Hey, weird boy."
"Hey..." I replied with a growing smile.
"Also, you remembered me?" I asked, curiously and with hope.
"For starters, your name?" She said just as quickly as I finished my previous sentence.
"Oh. You remembered just my face. That's fine."
"You never told me your name that day. But I surely did remember you. I managed to get over the loss of 2 big things that day thanks to you. Your energy woke me up."
Her beautiful smile widened as her eyes narrowed, forming a sincere face of delight.
"Thank you."
"Your welcome" was not enough for this.
"My pleasure," I told her.
This was the start of my new life, that would only be a rollercoaster.
***
Is there a heart worth mentioning?
A heart worth fighting for?
Fight for a tomorrow that may not exist.
Fight to make it real.
For a heart worth saving.
To pump the heartless body full of love.
Fight.