Chapter 4

Thursday morning was a lot easier for Gabriel. He knew that he was special and that Jennifer was also. Chances are there were other like them, possibly hundreds of them. But all Gabriel cared about was Jennifer and himself. If and when they ever met others like themselves, then he would address the issue. Gabriel descended the stairs to find his mother grabbing her bag and heading for the door.

"Running late?" Gabriel asked.

"Yes, I have a meeting with a Mr Bancroft. I wanted to go in early to get ready for it, but now it seems I won't be able too," she explained.

"I'm sure you will be fine. What does he want to meet with you about?" Gabriel asked as he went into the kitchen.

"He is expanding his offices in several places around the world and would like to meet with me to discuss some thoughts on their architecture," his mother revealed.

"Sounds like fun," Gabriel said as he returned from the kitchen, carrying some orange juice in one hand, his mother's coat in the other.

"Oh thanks, Gabriel. I'm not sure what time I'll be finished today so if I am not home by dinner time, have it without me. Bye now," she said, walking to the door.

"Bye," Gabriel called after her as she walked out the door. Gabriel finished his juice before returning upstairs to have a shower. Refreshed and dressed, Gabriel grabbed his bags and headed for school.

"Jennifer, I'm going to be busy this afternoon so you're going to have to walk home after practice. Ok, honey?" Jennifer's mother said as they drove up to the school.

"Yeah, it's fine. I was going to walk anyway," Jennifer replied as they pulled up to the school. "See you later."

"Have fun," her mother replied as Jennifer got out. She watched Jennifer walk for a bit before she drove off.

Jennifer walked into the school and met up with her friends on the way to their first class. As they were walking, Jennifer spotted Gabriel up ahead, walking toward them. As he got closer, Jennifer looked at him and he looked back. Then the moment was past and Gabriel was behind her.

"That was strange. I never got the feeling. Maybe it's finally decided to leave. Finally," Jennifer thought to herself as she walked into PDHPE.

"She looked at me. Normally it's a complete face the other way, so why look at me today?" Gabriel wondered. During Software Development, he continued to think about why she actually looked at him. All he could figure out was perhaps it was because she tried to turn him into ash yesterday. Oh well.

Looking over the results of his scans of the computer network, he couldn't tell if anyone had hacked into the school or not. His first thought was that the hackers might be extremely good, but he dismissed it quickly due to it only being a school.

"Guess it was just something on one of the individual computers," Gabriel thought. He had re-ghosted them to make them all the same again; apparently this had also gotten rid of the network problem too.

Wasting time, he spent most of the class rolling pens across tables or spinning them around on his palm, using nothing but his mind. He had the motion while concentrating on them, but as soon as he looked away, they stopped. He had to learn to concentrate without looking, among other things.

Jennifer was sitting in class, but her mind was on anything but PDHPE. Rather, it was a jumbled mess of what she had almost done yesterday, what it could have been, and how it wasn't. All of this ultimately led her to thinking of Gabriel.

"Why are you special Gabriel? Why do I always end up thinking of you?" Jennifer asked silently. She couldn't understand it.

Class finished and she went to lunch with Lisa. They grabbed a table and sat down to talk, but were interrupted by Melissa's arrival.

"Last chance. I'm hosting a party and you better show. I'll have a date waiting for you," Melissa announced. Jennifer said nothing for a moment before standing to face Melissa.

"We've been through this. I am not going out this weekend. Maybe next weekend," Jennifer replied dismissively.

"I don't believe you heard me. You better show," Melissa reiterated. It was clear to everyone present that she had lost all patience.

"Oh, I heard you, but maybe you didn't hear me. I am not going out this weekend," Jennifer said, anger creeping into her voice. She had had it with Melissa.

"You'll be there, or the consequences won't be forgotten soon enough," Melissa warned.

"That a threat?" Jennifer asked. She slipped her hands into her back pockets, feeling the lighter there.

"Merely a warning," Melissa answered.

"Then this conversation is over. I'll talk to you later Lisa," Jennifer said to her friend as she grabbed her bag and walked off. Unsure of what to do, she stood outside the lunch area. "Well that was a brilliant idea. Walk off right at the start of lunch. What do I do now?"

As if to answer her, the feeling inside her rose slightly, getting her attention. In her mind, the thought of Gabriel in the Computer Lab appeared.

"I can't go there. I could have killed him yesterday and it would seem like I'm begging for forgiveness," Jennifer silently. Inside, the feeling spiked, causing Jennifer to visibly shudder. "Alright, I get it, I get it. But where is the Computer Lab? I have never been there," Jennifer said to the feeling. Again, the feeling responded, tugging Jennifer away from the Lunch room.

Gabriel sat in the Lab, chewing on a sandwich while monitoring the virus scan he was running on the computer in front of him. A student had complained of the computer acting weird, so Gabriel thought to check it out during his lunch break. As he ate, he held an eraser in the air above his palm. Every time Gabriel took a bite and his concentration changed, the eraser would descend the 2cm to his palm before it rose again when he returned his concentration.

"Why isn't it working? I can get it to hover while I think of it, but as soon as I do something else, it falls," Gabriel thought. Hearing footsteps, Gabriel lowered the eraser to his palm and went back to studying the virus scan.

"So this is the Computer Lab?" a familiar voice said behind him. Gabriel turned to see Jennifer leaning on the door.

"What is she doing here? I haven't said anything to anyone," Gabriel thought to himself. "Yeah, this is it. How are you?" Gabriel asked as he stood.

"I'm ok. And yourself?" Jennifer replied, as she walked over.

"The same. Have a seat," Gabriel said, waving at one of the empty chairs.

"Thanks," Jennifer replied and took a seat opposite Gabriel. "So what do you do in here? Seems kind of boring."

"I usually just run maintenance and fix problems," Gabriel explained.

"Really, well you might have to come and check out my computer sometime. There always seems to be something wrong with it," Jennifer chuckled. "God, I am flirting with him. Why am I doing that?"

"Is she flirting with me or being serious?" Gabriel wondered. "Sure, whenever you want," Gabriel replied in a casual tone.

"Cool," Jennifer said. An awkward silence followed until Gabriel looked up.

"So how come you're in here instead of out there with all your friends?" Gabriel asked.

"What? I'm not allowed to come and check out a part of the school I haven't seen before?" Jennifer queried. Receiving a blank stare, she continued, "Alright, so I had another fight with Melissa."

"May I ask what about?" Gabriel inquired.

"It's nothing. High School politics," Jennifer replied. Gabriel motioned to continue and Jennifer felt a strange feeling of ease wash over her, as if it was right to talk to Gabriel. "It's simple. Cheerleaders have the image that they go out every weekend and party. Melissa wants to uphold that image. I don't."

"So Melissa is pressuring you into going out?" Gabriel asked.

"She is trying. But I don't want to go out. I just want to have a quiet weekend. Especially lately," Jennifer explained.

"I can understand that, though I can't say that I know how you feel. My weekends are usually very quiet," Gabriel joked. It was obvious to both that Gabriel wasn't exactly part of the popular crowd.

"Well maybe that might change soon," Jennifer said, a surprising amount of sincerity in her voice.

"Maybe," Gabriel said as the bell rang to signal the end of lunch. "You going to go to the forest later?"

"Yeah. You?" Jennifer asked.

"Yes," Gabriel replied.

"Meet me after practice. We don't want a repeat of what happened yesterday," Jennifer joked.

"No, we don't," Gabriel agreed. They grabbed their bags and headed to Maths.

Gabriel spent the rest of the day wondering why Jennifer was being so nice. It wasn't like her. Normally it was complete ignorance.

"Maybe because she almost killed me, she has changed. Who knows?" Gabriel thought in exasperation.

At 4pm, Gabriel left the Computer Lab and casually walked down to the football field. Finding an out of the way spot, he sat down against a tree to wait.

"I wondered if you would come," said Jennifer from behind him. Gabriel hadn't even heard her approach.

"Yeah, I said I would. How did you find me?" Gabriel asked.

"Magic," Jennifer replied. "This feeling can be helpful every now and then."

"Shall we go?" Gabriel asked.

"Sure," Jennifer responded and started to walk out of the school, Gabriel following close behind.

What neither of them saw was the small group of footballers and cheerleaders that watched them leave, together.

"Was that Jennifer, with that Gabriel kid?" one of the footballers asked.

"Yeah it looked like it, Tony," another answered. "What are we going to do about it?"

"I'll take care of Jennifer. Steve, you and Tony make sure Gabriel gets the message," Melissa said. She was already thinking about how to handle this.

Gabriel and Jennifer walked casually to the clearing in the in the National Forest where they had met each other the day before. They placed their bags and jackets against a tree before they sat down against a different tree.

"So what are we going to do?" Jennifer asked casually. Even though she had brought up the subject of them coming to the forest, she hadn't thought about what they would actually do there.

"I'm not sure. I guess we could try a little target practice," Gabriel proposed.

"Target practice?" Jennifer asked, confused.

"Yeah, I have things fly at you trying to hit you and you have to burn them before they get to you. How does that sound?" Gabriel responded.

"Sounds like a warm up," Jennifer announced.

"We'll see," Gabriel commented. He got to his feet and walked into the clearing. Jennifer did the same and they ended up facing each other with about 10m in between then. "Ready?"