SAMANTHA AND THE EMPATH: CHAPTER THREE
The next morning early, as he was walking down the corridor at school to his A-levels Science class, he was preparing himself for the boredom.
He did not feel emotionally connected to Science, and he was doubtful Mr Scott would be able to excite him with the monotone cadence of his voice.
Mr Scott was a boring man, with thinning hair and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses always threatening to slip from his shiny nose. He had never had the ability to grab and hold Daryl’s attention for very long.
In the empty classroom, Daryl settled into his chair.
The room slowly filled as everyone else sauntered in, and he leaned back in his chair as he waited for the class to start.
Samantha walked into the classroom with Annie, a girl he dated for a couple of days, a few months ago.
As they walked past his desk, Annie gave Daryl a scornful glare while Samantha only gave him a quick glance.
He could feel Annie’s loathing radiate off her and all her hate was focussed on him. For a second, it hurt but he quickly pushed it aside. Annie was like all the other girls. He liked her, sure, but he did not like her in a way where he thought he could love her. She approached him first, oozed charm and adoration, and his ego bathed in it. It was easy for him to always have a girlfriend because he could feel the way a girl felt about him, it was like his own superpower. Never had he bothered with girls, whom he knew, felt, was not attracted to him.
This thought brought his mind back to Samantha.
Usually, he would have greeted Samantha casually. No big deal. Today, he wished he could say something. Something clever, but whatever he said would probably just sound stupid. He should say something. Say what?
Even though he felt Annie's abhorrence smash into him like a twenty-ton lorry into a brick wall, he felt nothing from Samantha. The empty space where her feelings were supposed to be irked and frustrated him.
When everyone was seated, he noticed that, once again, the desk beside him was empty which meant Steve had decided not to attend class. It was becoming a regular occurrence.
Mr Scott cleared his throat and instructed them, “In groups of two...”
Daryl put his hand up to inform Mr Scott, who had obviously not noticed Steve's absence, he could not form a group of two.
Mr Scott glanced at Daryl and then his eyes darted to the back of the classroom. Without a second thought, he asked, “Samantha, is Beth late?”
Samantha replied, “Absent.”
Still talking to her, Mr Scott instructed, “Move forward and sit with Daryl.”
Automatically, Daryl started clearing what would be her side of the desk, shoving his books into a pile in front of him.
At first, he grimaced. He was not used to not being able to feel another person’s emotions, but perhaps he could try again when she was nearer to him. When she sat mere inches away from him, she would be closer and it would be easier for him to reach out to her, to feel what it was she was feeling.
She stopped next to his desk and smiled. Her glance met his, and he saw himself reflected in her eyes.
Nothing could describe the way he suddenly felt.
In an instant, he felt his own emotions rush through him, and for a moment it felt as if he was broadcasting his feelings on a fibre-optic Wi-Fi connection to everyone on planet Earth. He did not care. The room full of witnesses who now knew what he felt for Samantha became non-existent. They all disappeared into an abyss of nothingness and was erased from his thoughts as if they never, ever existed. His knuckles turned pale as his hand gripped the edge of the desk.
The classroom door slammed shut and her eyes looked away from his, and then, just like that, he was able to think again.
When Samantha saw the expression on his face, her cheeks turned a pale shade of pink as she sat down in the chair next to him, her movements were stiff and awkward.
He leaned away from her, turning his eyes down to the book on the table in front of him and he felt a sudden fierce pain wash through him. What was this? All his life he avoided feeling emotion too deeply because it hurt. It caused him physical pain and now, a girl he has known for years, a girl he never felt anything for or never felt anything from, suddenly was causing him to feel more than he wanted to. The feeling stabbed him in the pit of his stomach as it threatened to overwhelm him. He tried to decipher the feeling. Was it sadness? Hurt? Sorrow? Depression?
Samantha let her hair fall across her shoulder.
His previous irritation the day before of not being able to determine how she felt, not being able to determine her deepest wishes and desires, did not compare to the anger he now felt. Anger at himself for not being able to get past a barrier between them he had never encountered with anyone else. Angry about the way she was making him feel. He clung to being furious as if it was a lifeline.
He made it through the hour of Science this way and heard Mr Scott say something about working on some kind of project.
As soon as the bell rang, Samantha peeked at him sideways, and he could feel the unjustified anger radiate off him as he met her gaze. She stood up from her chair quickly, and without looking in his direction again, she grabbed onto the strap of her satchel.
He stayed seated and watched her leave the room.
Being an Empath, he hated being in public places. All those feelings swirling around him, creeping into his soul, filling him with turbulent troubled emotions was overwhelming. He was prone to mood swings because he adapted to the emotions of the people surrounding him, and thus he avoided walking down the corridors at school when they were crowded. The only class he would arrive in early was the first class of the day. At all the other classes he would only arrive seconds before the teachers could lock him out.
Feeling the emotions of others and then taking them on as his own was his way of life. He had been like this since birth, since the moment he could feel and express feeling. Sometimes he could even feel emotions from a great distance away, especially if he was emotionally connected to that person, and sometimes people judged these abilities incorrectly by assuming he had a psychic ability, but there was nothing paranormal about him.