radioactive hearts // Will

Minding my own business wasn’t exactly something I was known for, and I wasn’t going to deny it. How foolish would I be if I said otherwise? With all the interesting things happening in this District it would be any less than smart to know what was going on. It was sort of like this book that I have in my hands. All I had to do was take the initiative to pick it up and once I did that everything inside was mine. Stupid metaphor but I made sense if you thought about it long enough. First off it shows that I don’t hide in a whole like half the people in this district. Granted, they don’t want to show their faces for one reason or another but being interested in the world around you was the first step to success. The second was telling no one anything about yourself. That could lead to unwanted problems and it’s best to eliminate that threat as a whole. Lastly, it shows people you care. But I will be honest, I don’t care even the slightest bit. I am just curious.

At the time I was minding my own business. Well, as much as I could. I was in my own little world thinking about how people don’t take the time to get to know someone until they find out they are someone who they would have never guess and guess what happened next? I was knocked out of my own world where I should be! At first I was taken back by the fact the person that ran into me had the nerve to tell me to watch out. Oh no. That was not what happened at all. It happened in the exact opposite manner. He ran into me. Granted I souldn’t be zoned out thinking about books, metaphors, and ways to change myself in the middle of the walk way but how could you miss me? It wasn’t like I was wearing neutral colors… OK maybe rosy pink was but that’s besides the point. A look of irritation spread across my face as my book was knocked out of my hands and into the fountain next to me. My book with the crisp pages and a good story line disappeared under the water before it popped back up and floated to the side. Rolling my eyes, I brought my attention back to the real problem. I could honestly get upset about my book but I knew how to push that aside.

Taking my eyes from the book to this boys face I couldn’t help but smile a little. Only a little though because I wasn’t happy… at all. I wasn’t one that judged someone only on their appearance after my whole thinking process on the books. Pretty cover, ugly on the inside. But wow, this boy was something else. I tried not to let it faze me for all I know he could be one of the meanest people I have met in my life. I know that it’s hard not to be attracted to pretty things, and by pretty things I ment pretty men. He had the beach boy look like every boy on this damn district did. Tanned skin, muscled calves from swimming all that great stuff but he looked more… what’s the word, luxuriant. I blink once at him before I move my pink lips to speak, “Maybe, if you weren’t squabbling you wouldn’t have caused me a heart attack.” I say with a tip of my head and a purse of my lip. “You can stop gawking now.” My quick tongue added. I had to smile.

I was always told to believe something wonderful was about to happen.

People always say things that they don't mean. No one ever thinks about what they say unless they are super a where. I usually plan out each thing I say before I say it but this time it was different. I just found myself popping off. There is one thing I never do. Point out when someone is staring at me. But I felt like the devil inside of me was trying to escape from deep down in y heart. The last person I wanted him to think I was was a devil. For some reason I wanted him to love me.

After moments, more like seconds of examining this boy I decided he looked like a merman. Strong, sleek, and well, most certainly handsome. Like a prince of the sea. I am reading, well was reading a book on mermaids, an adventurous tale or so it seemed of a young mermaid who was quite found of the human world.
... News flash, it sucks. She should have stayed under the waves. I never really got past chapter two because it got tossed into the fountain carelessly. And how sailors would mistake seals for a beautiful creature when it really wasn't in reality. I just imagined him diving into the water and when he smoothly glided through the water as though it was repelling off of him.

I might have gotten caught up in myself because I found myself staring at him as he retrieved my book in such a hurry. Merboy, my secret name for him now, seemed to stumble a little. I looked at him in his dark eyes and shook my head as he spoke and I took my book back. I wondered if he was thinking about me? Can he tell I was thinking about him and imagining him as a merman? hopefully not because I think someone like him would take offense to that. For all I know he could hate swimming. His attitude changed suddenly when he saw me.... which has to be a good thing right? God, Angel, pull yourself together.My silly thought had me caught up in small details and not the whole picture.

Staring at the wet book in my hands, I sighed. "Sometimes things on the outside look pretty but in reality they aren't on the inside." I say quietly opening the book to reveal the wet, limp pages with bled ink on the page. You could barely make out the words on the page. So much for my good read on mermaids, huh? I smile and laugh to myself out loud and close the book and set it down. "I wish I could tell you I it was good or not... it looks like I will never know, hmm?" I say. Choosing to get over the book (which was really making me angry) I share my name instead of sharing my feelings. "I'm Angel, Angel Vegara."

I didn't want to admit something.

I try to look for good things in life. Everywhere I look I try to find something that makes people happy, other then love. Because people like me don't find love, the genuine love. True love. Gosh, I am starting to sound like the mermaid in my stupid book. Always wishing on a star hoping her freaking prince charming would come. I tried that once and it didn't work. People like me only find love by how we look. It's the only way. I want to prove my brother wrong but I am starting to believe him when he speaks about this silly thing he calls love. Gabriel says good things come to good people. He speaks with such truth that we will never find good. There is always a little good in evil and there is always a little bad in every good. The good is so hard to find.

He stuttered over his words as though he was searching in a box to find the perfect ones. I watch as his soft lips roll his name out like he had never spoken them before, then reassure himself by saying it again. Like he was trying to convince himself he was saying the right things. Isn't it funny how much we go through to impress the people we want? Iapetus. What a funny name. I had no room to judge because Angel was a weird name. How many times do you come a across a girl named Angel, who really isn't one? I wondered what it meant. Maybe something beautiful, or maybe nothing at all. Just a name to a face.

Glancing down at the round and then finding his face again in front of me, I had to admit he looks like Merboy more then an Iapetus. But that is not my place at all. It sounded Old Latin. Something an old myth about the Gods and Beasts and a hero would save a beautiful girl while saving the kingdom. Maybe he would save me. Wishful thinking. This is wasn't a story, this was real life. "Iapetus." I say pronouncing the 'tus' slightly more then the rest and having it roll off my tongue like it came natural. "It's interesting. I have never heard a name strange yet beautiful as yo-" I stop myself and push back my embarrassment. "Iapetus." I meant Iapetus all along. Lying was something I was always good at. But not this time.

I still didn't want to admit it.

… I am falling for some boy with a crazy name.

I would love to tell you what I was feeling right now. Excitement? Worry? Pressure? Happiness? It wasn't exactly quite like any of those words. I am scared to say but I must admit that it is something I have never felt since I fell off my swing set in my youth and cried to my mother. And what was this? It was hope. Hope that I was something better, something more then just a girl with a mask. But I didn't want to let my guard down. I couldn't afford that. Not now, not ever. Because once you let someone in, you are over. But I wanted to be over no matter what I told myself. Because I wanted hope. I wanted to be loved.

My eyes glazed over when he spoke my name. It was so sickening yet beautiful it scared me. The way it rolled out of his mouth with such suave made me melt. Was he doing this on purpose? Was this his plan? Swoon me and when I am most delicate he crushes me and runs. Just like everyone I have met. I watch as every heart is played and stabbed. I didn't want that to happen but I wanted to take that leap. I wanted the chance to maybe grasp hope in my little hot hands. Even if it was for only moments in my life.

All I wanted to do was say that he was wrong. That it suited me very wrongly actually. But I couldn't say that Because no one would ever love me. Boys like him wanted perfect, I knew that. No one wants a broken girl they have to take the time to fix. "We sin as devils do we love as angels do." A smile danced a playful dance on my lips. The corners of my mouth curved up. I couldn't look in his eyes but I forced myself too. He wasn't meeting my gaze but all I wanted was for him to look into my eyes so I could look at him. Have a picture in my mind of him. Taking my fingers I push his chin from the ground to meet my face. "Is it really that hard to look at me?" I ask blushing a little but keeping my cool so to speak. It's hard to resist a bad boy who is a good man. Moving the piece of my hair out of my face I speak once more. "Iapitus, how come you decided to run into me out of all people? Why not someone else. Have you ever thought maybe God is telling us something?" I don't believe there even is one. I speak in riddles when I want something to happen. So if it doesn't happen I don't feel as bad, because riddles are hard to solve.

In a sea of people my eyes will always search for you.

love
noun \ˈləv\
: a feeling of strong or constant affection for a person

Love was the one thing that was so fearful yet everyone wants it. Everyone no matter who they are just want people’s affection. It it beautiful, yet it makes you heart when it is taken from you. I have never had love. Real love. People give out love like it is extra change but somehow I can never get it. Because people don’t really love me. They just fear me. I am such a silly person to fear. All I was was a teenage girl who didn’t even know who she was. Yet, I don’t think I will ever love. I am not tender or affectionate. But I have heard from people and books that love changes you. I don’t know who I would be if I changed. Love is all that I fear.

Something about this boy made me worry about if my hair was just right or I picked the right outfit for the day. It was the little things I worried about, things I never paid attention to. I don’t believe in God. Nothing could be that good. Everything is horrible. There are no angels. Just evil that hides behind a mask of one. My mother told me that if I prayed to God good things would happen. But I never prayed to him. And now that I said that, I think to how nothing has happened that was good. Not until now. Maybe God was accepting me back. Back though his boy. It was a silly thought. Who would ever want me?

A smile finds it’s way to my lips as he asks me to walk with him. I didn’t want to walk away from something that was just so good in front of me. That’s taking your blessings for granted if you do. Picking up my book from the edge of the fountain where I had set it, I nod my head in agreement. “Why not?” Why not. “I always tell myself that I will put down my book.” Stumbling a little I try to find words. “I tell myself that I will go on my own adventures, be around good energy, connect with people…” I feel the water from the pages of my book leak onto my hands. “Learn knew things, grow….” I look at Iapitus in the eyes for a moment. “And you know whats funny, I find myself doing the exact opposite.” I wanted to ask him to take me on an adventure but I didn’t want to be rejected. I wanted to change.

It occured to me just then that no one has ever called me a good person. Maybe he will change me.

I find my feet following him until I catch up with him. The silence was comforting, no one said a word. He says nothing, just thinking. I can tell because of the look in his eyes he is conflicting his feelings. Asking questions he wouldn’t dare ask out loud. I wonder if he feels like I do? I get ahead of myself and its horrible knowing nothing you are thinking will come true. Because thats believing. And having belief is the most complicated yet simple thing in the world.

Sometimes you meet someone, and it is so clear that the two of you, on some level belong together. As lovers, as friends, or as family, or as something entirely different. You just work, whether you understand one another or you’re in love or you are partners in crime. You meet these people throughout your life, out of nowhere, under strange circumstances, and they help you feel alive. I don’t know if that makes me believe in coincidence, or fate, or sheer blind luck, but it definatly makes me believe in something.

I have so many things to ask and say but I stay silent for awhile just letting him think, dream maybe. That was the case until I couldn’t handle it anymore. “Where are you taking me? I usually don’t go anywhere without knowing where I am going.” Where is my sense of adventure? You meet thousands of people, and none of them really touch you. And then you meet one person, and your life is changed forever. Maybe this is my turn, No, not maybe… this is my turn.