When Opposites Attract - Chapter 18

This chapter is dedicated to Lexy and Shilpa. Because they are simply Awesome. =)
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After we swam, we just lay on our clothes on the ground, laying opposite eachother so we were just inches apart.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ Mateo murmured.

I blushed and said nothing, and Matt stroked his finger along my cheek. I was most definitely not beautiful. I could look pretty at the most when I was really dressed up for a special occasion – but I wasn’t beautiful. What I hated most was that my colouring was like the typical blue-eyed blonde. My eyes were blue – not sea blue or sky blue. Just blue. My hair was a horrible shade of blonde – actual yellow. I had a button nose, though (thank God), the only think I really liked about my appearance, and my lips were slightly too pouty. I definitely did not like my body. I had an ‘athlete’s body, as Selene always said, which was putting it kindly. I was lanky and wiry and my chest area was not impressive. I was strictly a B cup. In fact, being with Mateo in public sometimes made me feel embarrassed – why would a Hottie be with a Nottie?

I turned over so that I was laying on my back and just gazed up at the sky. It was practically clouded, with the exception of a few clouds.

‘What are you thinking about?’ Mateo whispered into my ear.

I sighed. ‘Just…life.' I paused before continuing. 'Do you think we’d have to carry on like this forever? Meet up in secret and just…hide our relationship from everyone?’

He took so long to answer that I sat up and turned around to face him. ‘I…I don’t know,’ he said finally. ‘But I hope it works out,’

That made my heart drop. I think that I had sub-consciously been seeking reassurance. I needed him to tell me that everything would work out, that everything would be Okay. But if it wasn’t…I didn’t even want to think of the possibility.

He suddenly reached out for me and clutched me to his chest, in…in desperation, I realised with a shock. Yes, it was desperation. I circled my arms around his neck and buried my face in his neck, and he kissed my jaw, my chin and the side of my face repeatedly. ‘I love you, Kaia,’ he whispered into my ear between kisses. ‘I love you so much.’ There was something…something urgent in his manor.

I pulled back from him and looked him in the eye, ‘What’s wrong?’

He looked deeply troubled, his eyes filled with…guilt? That’s exactly what it looked like. ‘Matt,’ I said, stroking his cheek, and he closed his eyes against the touch of my skin on his. ‘What’s the matter?’

He buried his face in my breasts again, and I had to control my desire for him; Mateo seemed to be in pain And I didn’t like it.

‘I’m so sorry, Kaia,’ his voice was muffled against my skin.

I frowned. ‘Sorry?’ I was confused. ‘For what?

Mateo unburied his face from my skin and looked at me pleadingly. ‘Kaia, listen to me. I need to tell you something-’

He was cut off by the shrill ringing of his phone. He sighed and rummaged in his jeans pocket for it, then put the phone to his ear and pressed the green button. ‘Hello?’

I could hear what was being said because of my super-hearing. ‘I need you to come home. Now,’ the unknown (well, unknown to me) speaker said to Mateo.

Mateo’s face turned cold. ‘No. I’m busy right now,’

I blinked. I would never talk to Selene like that, and I assumed that the caller was Mateo’s coven leader, judging from the authorative voice.

There was a long silence over the phone. ‘Have you done what I asked you to?’

Mateo stiffened, and that extremely guilty look filled his eyes. ‘Yes.’

‘Good,’ the person was saying. ‘I assume now you’ve got-’

‘We can talk when I’m at home,’ Mateo said shortly, before putting the phone down.

We were both silent for a long time. ‘Um…’ I started. ‘Who…who was… that?’

Mateo looked at me with eyes that were filled to the brim with bitterness. ‘Leion,’ then added, to my confused expression. ‘My coven leader,’

I nodded. So my assumptions had been right. ‘About before…what is it that you wanted to tell me?’ He looked at me for a long time, and I realised then just how mature Mateo acted for his age – it must have been hard. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said quietly.

I frowned. ‘Are you sure?’ He had looked like he had desperately needed to tell me…whatever it is that he wanted to tell me.

He nodded, then said. ‘I…I want to give you something,’ he paused for a second, then added. ‘If that’s Okay,’

I nodded, my emotions a pleasing mixture of happiness and confusion.

He reached up to the back of his neck and untied the necklace he wore. The necklace wasn’t really a necklace, just a symbol on a brown piece of string.

He motioned for me to turn around, and I obliged, feeling curiously odd. He put the necklace around my neck and then secured it at the back. I turned back around to see him looking at the symbol which now hung just above my breasts.

‘It was my mother’s,’ Mateo said quietly, and I instantly felt a rush of…pity?

‘What…’ I gulped and forced myself to continue. ‘Where…where is your mother?’

He was silent for a minute, and then said in a voice barely above a whisper, ‘She’s dead,’

I think my heart just about shattered to pieces, then. ‘Oh, Matt!’ I gasped, hurriedly trying to unfasten the necklace that was tied in a knot at the back of my neck. ‘I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t have said…’ he stopped my pathetic attempts to untie the necklace, and said in a serious voice. ‘No. I want you to have it. She meant a lot to me,’ he kissed me on the lips, then, slow and tender and just about more passionate then anything I had ever experienced before. ‘You mean a lot to me,’ he whispered.

‘How…’ I gulped, and stopped my sentence. That question was too personal – he would tell me if he wanted to.

‘How did she die?’ Mateo guessed. I nodded slowly, looking for any sign of a negative reaction coming on.

He only smiled bitterly. ‘My father wasn’t…the best person in the world,’ he swallowed hard. ‘He could get…violent sometimes,’ my eyes grew wide, and my heart steadily started thumping faster and faster in my chest. ‘He was always violent to my mother, though. She was the main source of his frustration,’ he laughed, but there was nothing at all humorous about it. ‘One day,’ he said quietly. ‘He thought it would be Okay to throw her down the stairs,’

I gasped, and my hand automatically flew up to cover my mouth. What person in their right mind would dothat?

‘I was nine,’ he said in that same quiet tone.

I couldn’t help it, but tears formed in my eyes, and I tried to brush them away, angry at being so weak, but they fell anyway, trickling down my cheeks and onto my bare legs.

Mateo caught one on the tip of his finger and tentatively held it up to his lips. His tongue flicked out and he tasted my tear. Then he put him arms around me and hugged me to his chest, ‘Sshhh, sshhh,’ he said soothingly into my ear. ‘It’s Okay. It’s over now – it’s already happened,’

I pulled away from him because I felt guilty; he was comforting me when it was clear that the one who was in real pain was him? I was such a bitch.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I whispered, and I put my arms around my neck and pulled him to me, and cradled his head to my chest, while he shook ever so slightly. ‘I’m sorry that happened to you.’

I had never experienced the time of pain that he was probably wracked with. My own parents had abandoned me at birth, leaving me on Selene’s doorstep, as Selene was one of their trusted friends. I was glad that they weren’t in my life, though. I was just fine on my own with Selene and the rest of the coven.

He leaned up and kissed me on the lips. ‘I’m so glad to have you in my life, Kaia,’ he whispered.

I nodded. ‘I’m glad you’re in my life, too.’

And then I asked, ‘Hey, what does this symbol on the necklace mean?’ I pointed at the end of the necklace, where an almost coin like symbol hung, and engraved on it was a red, string-looking thing intertwined with a blue string-looking thing.

‘It means peace,’ he told me. ‘It was made centuries ago when our covens were at peace, when they had made a treaty. Look here,’ he pointed to where the string-like things were intertwined. ‘It’s opposites coming together. Just like you and me, Kaia’ he said quietly. ‘Just like you and me.’