Ambrose and Angelina
The Assignment
Thrust,
parry, parry, thrust. Ambrose moved fluidly, spinning to avoid his opponent's
jab. He lunged forward, and the rounded tip of his weapon pushed harmlessly
against the boys white padded suit.
"Winner:
Ambrose," said the fencing coach emotionlessly, "big surprise."
Ambrose
smiled sheepishly, he did get a bit caught up in it, but fencing was the only
place where he really felt like himself. At home and school his older brother
Dreu constantly overshadowed him. Dreu was an upperclassman and probably the
most popular boy in school. Ambrose didn't care about the attention he drew
from the school, but he did care about the attention he lost from his parents.
They were so wrapped up in Dreu, that they could only see Ambrose’s
failures; never his successes. Instead of congratulating him on earning five
A's, they'd chastise him for the one B he got in Biology. It was a never-ending
battle that he could forget within every thrust and spin in fencing.
Ambrose
walked into his chemistry class briskly, trying to avoid the people who
considered him their "friend". The last thing he wanted to hear now
was some story about some girl that one of them had "banged" or
anything of that nature. Right now, he had to concentrate. His parents wanted
him to go to med school, and they constantly reminded him that no respectable
med school would want someone who couldn't manage an A in high school biology.
He
sat down toward the front of the classroom, the usual crowd falling in around
him, whispering something about the "stripper's daughter" and trading
inappropriately sexual suggestions. Ambrose just turned and stared out the
window, pretending that he didn't hear; incapable of tuning them out.
"All
right class... settle down now," Mr. Devoulier
spoke pointedly, glancing toward the group of boys positioned around the silent
Ambrose. He continued the lesson, focusing on a lab that they were to do
measuring the amount of water that oak trees transpire on the average in an
hour. Ambrose listened, but didn’t pay attention.
He was busy thinking about his match earlier that day and dreaming up ways to
win even faster until he heard his name.
"What?"
he said aloud. Then he felt a tap on the shoulder and turned toward his left.
"We're
partners," the girl seated next to him said softly, trying not to disrupt
the class.
"Oh,"
Ambrose returned. He then scribbled his phone number and e-mail down so the two
of them could arrange a time to plan out and execute their experiment as the girl
followed suit, adding her name to the paper.
"Angelina,"
Ambrose said softly, realizing who she was slowly.
"Oh
no," he thought. Angelina had a reputation at their school, a reputation
that he didn’t respect and didn't want to be a part
of. He was very serious about this class, and he didn't want to have all the
work forced upon him like usual. He turned to look at the boys sitting across
from him and noticed one mouthing something to her.
"Easy
lay," he spoke wordlessly, causing Ambrose to blush instinctively.
Angelina didn't seem to notice, but Ambrose became more and more uneasy about
their partnership.
The Attraction
Ambrose
and Angelina had decided to meet in the park in order to find any and all oak
trees in the area. That way, they could balance out their experiment by
including more trees in the lab. The nearby park seemed to be a perfect
location. Ambrose sat cross-legged with his biology book in front of him,
obsessively reading over the process of transpiration and leafing through his bag
to make sure he had brought his share of the supplies when he felt a familiar
tap on the shoulder.
"Angelina,"
he said and turned to see her. He was taken with how beautiful she looked
standing over him with the sunlight framing her shoulder length dark brown hair
into an unconventional halo of light. Her blue eyes pierced through the
blinding light causing Ambrose to catch his breath.
"You
OK?" she asked, kneeling to sit next to him.
"Oh,
yeah..." he lied, "allergies."
"All
right," she said quickly, "Let's get down to business, shall we? Now,
I'm sure you already know this, but I like to be thorough with science, ok?
Transpiration. It's basically the process by which water is evaporated out of
the top of a tree through the leaves, and by cohesion and adhesion, the water
throughout the tree is pulled upward, literally pulling the water out of the
soil, into the roots, and up through the tree. Right?"
Ambrose
stared at her and forced a response.
"Um.
Yes," he stammered to her laughter.
"What?
Did you expect me to have no idea what we were doing this project on?"
"Oh,
um... no," he said softly, fearing he had hurt her feelings.
"Oh,
I'm sure," she condescended, "Don't think I don't hear your friends
talking about me. They think that because of the choices that my mother made,
that I will naturally follow suit. I work very hard in school because I have
to. I don't have a free ride like some people; like your brother. When you were
assigned as my partner, my heart sank. I don't want to be forced to hang out
with some kid with no problems who would just look down his nose at me. So,
I'll just go and do the experiment on my own, all right?"
She
stood quickly, gathering her things and turned to leave. Ambrose had no words.
Even if he had them, he wasn't sure he would have the courage to say them. It
had never occurred to him that his silence could be so damning to Angelina.
Even though he didn't crack jokes like his so-called "friends", he
never stopped them. He even believed a lot of the things that they said. Even
though he had spent so much time trying to escape the façade
of high school, he had already fallen victim to it.
Out
of the corner of his eye, he saw something running toward Angelina. Without
even processing what was happening, he ran toward it. If he couldn’t
be man enough to let her know that he was sorry, then he could at least try to
protect her. He tackled the thing, struggling for a moment when he felt an
intense pain in his right arm. He cried out and finally saw what he had hit. It
was some sort of dog; at least that's what it looked like. He shoved the animal
off of him, and it retreated to the woods. His wound was impossibly painful,
and he curled into the fetal position, cradling his arm and trying to ignore
the pain when he felt a familiar tap on the shoulder.
"Let's
get you to my house," Angelina said, pulling him up, and supporting him on
her shoulder.
Awkward
Ambrose
sat on Angelina's bed, his wound wrapped in a surprisingly expert fashion. The
two had been talking about their respective loves.
"Fencing?"
she scoffed playfully, "Isn't that just a tad medieval? Well. I mean it
does make sense. After all, you did bound after me to save me from that animal,
right? You’re awfully chivalrous for a boy in this
day and age."
"Hey.
I might enjoy fencing, but I don't do that Dungeons and Dragons stuff,"
Ambrose shot back, accompanying the jibe with a little smile. Despite the pain
coursing through his entire body her company made him all but forget it.
"Sometimes
it's nice to get away from reality," she said. He nodded thoughtfully,
leafing through some of her artwork.
"You
know, these are really great. Did you ever consider going into the art
field?" he asked politely.
"Well.
I try to focus on just getting into a good college with a big enough
scholarship so I can really support myself," Angelina replied softly,
staring out the window at something that seemed to catch her eye. Ambrose
clutched his stomach quickly, a sharp pain shooting from the pit of his stomach
to his chest. Angelina leaned over toward Ambrose, grabbing his hand.
"Are
you all right?" she asked with deep concern. She recoiled quickly noticing
the compromising position they were in. He had doubled over slightly, and she
had pushed him back by grabbing his hand. She was practically lying on top of
him, and they were in her bed. A crashing sound came from the other room.
"What's
that?" Ambrose asked quickly, sitting up into a less awkward position.
"Right,"
Ambrose remarked, standing up slowly,"I'll see
you tomorrow, all right?"
"Right,"
she asserted, grinning as he walked out of the door.
The Awakening
Ambrose
walked hurriedly out the door, the intensity of his pain finally catching up
with him. He had walked probably two blocks before the shooting pain in his
stomach became wholly unbearable. He sat on a nearby park bench and tried to
focus on breathing, but he couldn't stop thinking about Angelina. Sure, he was
only 16, but he had never really felt this way about anyone before. It seemed
too monumental to be pushed out of his consciousness. In the midst of his
musing, the pain seared back into his mind, and he fell to the ground. While
trying to steady himself and stand back up, he noticed something unusual about
his hands. They seemed to be getting smaller and hairier as the nails
elongated. He put them towards his nose, which seemed to be stretching out,
making him feel as though the bones in his face were breaking. He crawled
toward the nearby trees, trying to hide himself from anyone who might pass by,
as his torso seemed to shrink slightly, forcing him down on all fours. His ears
moved upwards in a parallel motion as he teeth extended. Then, the pain
stopped. Ambrose looked around him in complete shock, his breath growing
heavier by the moment. He tried to speak, but only heard dry panting. He ran
toward the lake in the park where he had just spent time with Angelina and
looked at his reflection.
"Oh
my God!" he thought, staring blankly at the wolf in front of him. He
turned and walked toward the only person that he thought might be able to help
him.
The Acceptance
Angelina
sat at her computer, typing rapidly as she started on an outline for her
biology experiment with Ambrose. She couldn't really rattle him from her mind,
so she thought some science might aid the process. It just stuck with her that
she could belittle him to the point of just turning and walking away, but he
still dove to her rescue no matter what. It seemed that guys like that were few
and far between these days. Of course, with a role model like her mother, it
was a wonder Angelina could even speak to men. She had seen her mother abused,
raped, and Angelina likewise. To her, men were nothing but hormone filled
vessels of control that she had never wanted to have in her life, but she felt
like something shifted tonight. Ambrose was the first guy that she felt really
comfortable with. She felt like he treated her as an equal, and he could never
know how much that meant to her. She tried to stop thinking about it and go
back to work.
"Transpiration
is..." she read aloud. "Well, I have gotten quite far," she
mused. She spun with a jolt after hearing some rustling in the bushes outside
her window.
"Oh
God, not another peeping tom," she thought ruefully as she stood to open
the window and try to scare him off, but something caught her eye. She saw an
animal staring back at her through the window, and she instinctively screamed.
Of course, her crying out didn't really matter. Her mother had probably gone
out again tonight. Angelina tried to calm herself, but the animal hadn't moved.
It just continued to stare at her soulfully, as if it was asking her for help,
but she didn't know what to do. She edged toward the window slowly, noticing
that it seemed to be nodding toward her. From this distance she could tell that
it was a dog or wolf of some kind, something that didn't exactly make her want
to open the window, but she felt like she was supposed to. Not entirely in
control of her body, she opened the window and watched as it crawled in and sat
on her floor, looking up at her with those same, soulful eyes.
"What
do you want?" Angelina asked quickly, as though scared that her speech
would invite an attack. The animal turned and looked around the room as if
searching for some means to communicate. She watched silently, leaning against
her dresser as it walked toward her computer, and she heard something hitting
the keyboard. She walked over to the open Word file and read it.
"Transpiration
isHELP". She turned quickly and gasped, looking
at the animal as it continued to type: "AMBROSE." She immediately
threw her arms around his furry neck, and realized that this must be connected
to the dog that bit him in the park.
"It’s going to be OK," she reasoned half to him and
half to herself, "We'll figure this out. We have to," she finished,
looking at him as he sat silently on her floor.
"At
least I have you here to help me with this," she said politely, welcoming
him back to humanity. It seemed that with her immediate acceptance, his
emotional stress was quelled, and he slowly changed back to his natural state,
grabbing a shirt off of the ground, to cover himself for modesty's sake.
"All
right, what do you think?" she asked, pointing toward the computer screen.
"Transpiration is..."