Chapter 59

Claudia's POV
I said goodbye to Westley and slipped my phone into my pocket. He had said he was bored and wanted to talk to someone, and I was the only one that came to mind. I didn't know whther to fell honoured by this or not. I'm sure he had other friends, so maybe he was just lying and trying to make me feel special. All these doubts rushed through my head and I almost wanted to slap myself for overanalysing things. It was a simple phone call, we cracked some jokes and finally, he said that he wanted to go.
I played with my fingers trying to think of a new topic and frowned. I needed to go to a nail salon, because my nails required some serious fixing. This made me shake my head and laugh. Before becoming a witch, these little things used to be one of the biggest problems in my life. Between getting my hair done, nails buffed, and making sure I booked my monthly spa treatment, I pampered myself like a princess. And now here I was, not having done my nails in so long that I was almost ashamed to look at them. I sighed wistfully. What I would give for just some plain, old relaxing time.
This line of thought proved to be a sufficient distraction, as, when I looked up, I heard footsteps approaching. My eyes first landed on Kenneth, who had a faint smile on his face, as though hearing something pleasing. I wished for a second that I could read minds too, but changed that thought when I realised how intrusive I would feel. And what if someone was being mean in their head? I would have to hear it too and not say anything. This suddenly made me glad I couldn't read minds.
Kenneth was wearing a red V-necked shirt that hugged his chiselled body, with a pair of black shorts that reached his knees. I subtly admired him, before remembering my damn mind shield, slamming it into place. Whew, that had been a close one! How embarrassing would that have been? His eyes were covered by black ray-bans, so I couldn't make out if he had heard or not but didn't notice his facial expression change, so I think I was clear.
However, my reaction to Kenneth was nothing compared to my reaction to Maxwell. My jaw practically hit the ground when I saw him, casually strolling in my direction. His face was blank, showing no emotions what so ever, and for some reason, this made me feel extremely sad. He was wearing a black Lacoste t-shirt that showed off perfectly his sculptured chest and bulging muscles. He was wearing ray-bans identical to those that Kenneth wore too. To say I practically drooled when I saw him would be an understatement, because I think I even let out a dream-like sigh. What can I say, he looked sexy.
"Hey."
Kenneth's voice snapped me out of my trance and I looked at him to see him smirking. Crap! I guess I should also learn to keep my mind shield in place even when I get distracted by fantasies involving men called Maxwell, whoops. Damn mind reading vampires! I got up, dusting the dirt off of my jeans and smiled sheepishly at Kenneth. Good luck living this one down, Claudia.
"Hi guys."
I said, fixing my shirt and trying my hardest not to look at Maxwell. I failed miserably. However, just as our eyes locked, Maxwell looked away, clearly avoiding my stare. What's up with him? I wanted to ask this question aloud but knew I was too much of a chicken to do that, deciding to just ignore it for now.
I looked behind them to see if my trainer had come or not. He wasn't late, well not yet, but I wanted to start as soon as possible, as my nerves had already started to set in. It was a mixture of both excited anticipation and fear that I wouldn't be able to do it in front of my trainer and mess up. I sighed, running a hand through my hair when I saw no one.
"Do you know when my trainer is going to come?"
Kenneth smiled so wide that it looked like he just won the lottery. That's never good.
"He's right next to me."
My eyes widened. What? No, no, no! Kenneth can't be my trainer. Imagine how embarrassing things will be, especially if my fear comes true and I can't do any of it again.
Yesterday, I kept on thinking about this over and over again. My head was going to explode because of how confused I was, so I finally cleared my thoughts and went through everything I was thinking about and felt. Therefore, as much as I hate to say this, and never would out loud, to anyone, I like Maxwell. There. It was out in the open now. Well, only to me, but that's all that matters.
However, Kenneth smiling from ear to ear and looking like a damn cheetah made me realise it wasn't only out in the open to me. One sneaky like vampire had heard it too. Oh well, I guess it was too late to take back what I had said in the privacy of my mind. Yeah right, privacy was a foreign concept around Kenneth. I mentally rolled my eyes, secretly glad he was content by my declaration, and decided that was enough chit chat for one day. My eyes wandered to Maxwell, who took off his ray bans and put them in his jeans.
"Come on, time to train."
He said, a devilish look on his face. Things are not going to end well.
"It's too hard!"
I whined, crossing my arms. Maxwell and I have been training for half an hour now. That's it. But it felt like a hundred years! We had been arguing the entire time and it was getting on his nerves. Yeah well, it was starting to get on mine too!
Kenneth had been sitting under a tree, watching us bicker with an amused look on his face, until Maxwell got fed up with his snarky comments and he told him to leave. And that's exactly what Kenneth did, but not without shooting off another funny joke about Maxwell's childhood.
Right now, Maxwell was teaching me how to do a firestorm. At the beginning, it sounded so easy, but boy was I wrong! Maxwell first taught me how to position my hands. He told me that both of my arms should be extended upwards and then I should turn around in circles, my arms going lower and lower each second, an equal distance from my body. I have to do that many times so that the firestorm can grow bigger and bigger
Any yes, like I said, I had sounded easy. But it made me dizzy enough to want to throw up and required so much energy and strength, strength I just didn't have in my arm muscles. They already were screaming in pain from the amount of time I had had to hold them in the air in a fixed position, and it was not worth this much torture just.
Maxwell's face could have made any girl run away screaming bloody murder, but I held my ground and pinned him with my best 'I'm not doing it' face. Enough was enough. The only reason I had even stayed this long was because his handsome face always managed to distract me, but with him so angry, it kind of defeated the point.
"Everything for you is so hard! This is life, deal with it."
He exploded, the veins of his face popping. Wow, he really was angry. A real genius statement that one, Claudia, I added mentally.
"Now, stop being a cry baby and let's try to work on this again."
He demanded, running a hand through his hair. It seemed to be a habit neither one of us was able to break, and this almost made me smile, until the current situation and the words he had just spoken came back to me. I glared at him through thick eyelashes and put my hands on my hips.
"I'm not a cry baby!" I protested, making Maxwell chuckle humourlessly.
"Suit yourself, lollipop."
I gritted my teeth, holding back my tongue as it wouldn't have been pretty, I'll tell you that. Oh, I wanted to kick his ass so much right now!
"Try it one more time."
He ordered, crossing his arms with an angry look on his face. I shook my head repeatedly, I'm done. I've been trying and trying but it just won't work.
"No."
Maxwell's eyebrow twitched and it looked like he was having an inner battle on whether he should kill me on the spot, or shoot fire balls in my direction.
"Claudia, I'm going to say this once. If you don't do what I'm asking, I'm going to throw you in the underground dungeons and chain you up. No food, no water, and mice and rats will be your best and only friends. Got it?"
He raised an eyebrow, daring me to defy him. I nodded, but rolled my eyes when he turned around. I didn't know if he would actually do it, but I guess it was too big a risk to take. Mice and rats. Freaked. Me. Out. But I would die before EI did as he told me once agin. I stood in the right stance. I kept on turning around, concentrating on the energy running through my veins. I took deep breaths. But this time something was different, because unlike all the other times, I felt heat rush through my body and everything went hot around me. I opened my eyes and stood still as I looked at the small firestorm surrounding me. Yes! I did it! I smiled as I saw what I had accomplished. And it was all by myself! Well, mostly, as Maxwell only helped a little bit.
As I felt my success flow through me, I got the urge to achieve more. An even bigger firestorm! I wanted to show Maxwell that I could do it, and not just a small, bay sized one. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the fire surrounding me and imagined it going higher and higher, until it surrounded me.
"Claudia, that's enough."
Maxwell's voice rang through the field, but I didn't listen to him. I felt the firestorm get stronger and higher every second passing by and the energy that I felt in my body was amazing. I took a step back though when another force hit me. I tried controlling it, but it was too strong. I lost control over the storm and opened my eyes, only to find myself staring at two silver orbs.
"When I tell you stop, you stop! What the hell is wrong with you Claudia? You were going to burn down the whole forest."
He yelled harshly, making me wince. I looked down at my feet, anger boiling in my blood. Anger too strong to hold in. And so I didn't.
"It's because of you! You made me feel like I was so weak and can't do anything. I wanted to prove you wrong, to let you know that I can do it! But here you are shouting at me."
I screamed, but my voice cracked at the end of the sentence. I felt hot tears threatening to spill but blinked them away, not wanting to look like the cry baby he accused me of being earlier. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
Maxwell's face softened, all trances of anger gone.
"You know I never meant to make you feel weak."
I shook my head, still angryI shook my head, still angry with him, and took a deep breath.
"I'm done for today."
I stated, turning around. I clenched my fists and started running in the school's direction. However, I was so wrapped up in my thoughts I didn't notice that there was a big puddle of mud ahead of me, until I accidently slipped on it. I closed my eyes, waiting for the pain to come, but it never did.
I opened my eyes and gasped softly when I saw Maxwell face inches from mine, staring at me. There was a light behind his eyes that had been there earlier, when he had stopped my firestorm, but this time was different. There was no firestorm raging out of control. There was only us.
A tingle ran down my spine at the word us. Was there an us? Right now there was, and I wanted to capture it, remember it, because it doesn't get any better than this. We kept looking at each other, not wanting to shatter this moment, until Maxwell finally shifted his gaze. To my lips. My heart began to thump out of control as the moment I had been dreaming about began unfolding to become reality. My own eyes trailed down his handsome face until they rested on his lips, his full, kissable lips. I felt him leaning closer and closer, until our foreheads brushed together lightly.
I closed my eyes and instinctively leaned closer, until our lips met.