Winter of Discontent (Four Seasons Book 1) Read Free

far wall laughing and joking with her new friends. I felt weak, all of sudden I felt very weak. I can barely explain what it was, like fire meeting ice, joy meeting sorrow. The inability to understand the way I felt was almost as unnerving as how I actually felt. You know how it feels when you are in the middle of a dream and you’re naked in front of everyone you ever knew? Well, multiply that by ten and that’s kind of how I felt. As I walked almost sheepishly passed her and into the hall I felt her gaze fall on me. Just for a second, a brief moment I raised my eyes to meet hers. She smiled but my expression remained unchanged. I’m not sure if that was me trying to fake confidence, whether it was just confusion on my part for how she made me feel or simply just nerves. Either way, I tried to remain as visibly unmoved and unaffected as I could. Inwardly I knew I had failed at this deception but I just prayed that outwardly she was convinced.
     
    As I thought it would be, English Lit was pretty great. Unfortunately it was over too soon and it was off to meet up with friends for lunch. Simon Jenkins was a geek. I don’t mean the kind of geek people thought I was but a genuine 24 carat, 100 per cent geek. Head of the electronics, math, and science club the guy was Einstein for the 21 st Century. Hanging around with him might not have been the most exciting chapter in my life but he was a good guy. You could hold a conversation with him that didn’t come down to Salma Hayek’s bra size, who was leading the NFL, or whether McDonalds were better than Burger King; as such he wasn’t as mind numbingly boring as the jocks tended to be. We had sat down for less than a minute when ‘she’ walked in with Kacey and her ‘pet dogs’ – so called as they nodded at her every word like the nodding dogs you used to get in the back of cars. I determined I wouldn’t catch her gaze. This proved easier said than done as they sat at the only free table in the canteen; the one next to ours. I kept my head down and just ate my lunch. I ached to look up every time I heard her laugh, speak, or cough. I wanted to know what was so amusing, wanted to know what she was saying and I wanted to join in, but I didn’t. In the end I just blocked out the sound of her voice and talked to the guys.
     
    Twenty minutes later the bell rang for the end of recess. Now the hard work began. Phys. Ed. I loved sport but I couldn’t excel at it. I had to stay invisible, remain the geek. Sports classes were hard for me. I wanted to show what I could do but how could I? It was like cheating and I was no cheat. My father, my brother, and I worked hard to be ‘normal’ so self control was a must. I could never allow myself to be the dark horse. I was more than capable of handling myself under do-or-die fourth down and goal, last play of the game pressure. It would have been too easy to score a touchdown, make that basket from halfway down the court, hit a home run first ball in, but would it be fair, would it be normal? No, it wouldn’t. Although I wanted to be, I wasn’t normal.
    I was a Warlock.
     

 
    Chapter Three – Nurture Over Nature
     
    Erik
     
    Being born into a family of Warlocks was pretty cool; being born into a family of Warlocks that wanted to be normal however wasn’t quite so cool.
    Dad made the decision that we would live a normal human life many years ago. I was never really happy about it but I loved him very much and I would never go against him. It certainly wasn’t easy though, I think the difficulties that came with it were one of the reasons why Jared and I were so close. There were so many times when we wanted to get involved in school activities but weren’t able to because of our physical advantages. We would often sit up for hours discussing how fantastic it would be to stick it to the jocks who mocked us as geeks but of course we never did. After one particular, disappointingly long week of sporting activities Dad took