Diana was more then happy to hear Samantha's request to go out with Trish and Beth. She told the girls they could stay all they like and to have a good time, before they left the house in search of their bikes behind the house. The three of them rode back to Beth's apartment, Sam on her bike and Beth doubling with Trish. So many questions and thoughts rushed through Trish's mind as they pedaled the back paths of the neighbourhood on their way to Beth's place. She loved Sam with all her heart, but Sam did not love her and she knew that, and yet Beth just admitted that she loved her, or at least she thought that was what Beth was doing, and this confused her. She always thought her heart was settled on one girl and no other, but as she glanced down at Beth, the girl's arms around her neck, she felt something different stir inside of her. The love she had for Sam was pure and while she was curious about what it would feel like to kiss the girl, the idea of going further always made her feel odd. She always saw Sam as a sister and she wondered if that might be why she loved the girl so dearly. That moment in the basement with Beth she felt something different. When the girl whispered into her ear a shiver ran through her like when the girl's hand brushed the back of her neck. It ran through every part of her being and made her quiver all over, even her lips. She never felt her lips quiver like that before, while she wished for a kiss from Sam the sensation she felt for Beth at that moment was more of a longing. Her eyes gazed down at the girl's black glossy lips several times along their trip and she was feeling herself growing weak. Only months ago she hated the girl and now she wanted to kiss her. What was wrong with her? She felt so confused and Beth's body close to her's was not helping. She was glad when they finally arrived at the towering apartments and Beth finally let go of her neck and she panted uncontrollably. "Are you alright?" Beth inquired of the girl. Trish nodded, "I... haven't doubled that far before..." She panted, covering up the real reason for her shortness of breath, trying hard to will her heart and mind to slow down, keeping her eyes upon the ground and off Beth. "You can get something to drink in my apartment." Beth offered, gesturing to the building in front of them. Trish glanced up at the immense structure; still averting her eyes from the girl, and was startled by what she saw, "WOW!!!" She said in awe, "How many floors are there?" She asked as her eyes moved over the impressively expensive looking structure. "Twenty-three." Beth stated nonchalantly and pulled off her pack to retrieve a ring of keys from a small pocket on the side, "Come on up." She offered opening a tinted glass door for the two girls and stepped up to a second glass door and turned the key in the lock, opening the second door for them to enter the lobby. Trish's eyes moved around the lobby as they crossed the room towards the elevators, polished dark black marble floors reflected her image back up at her and for a moment she caught a glimpse of Beth's black panties under her skirt, noticing for the first time that her lace pantyhose were actually stocking and held up by black garter belts, quickly she glanced up in embarrassment at the walls, which were covered in a textured grey brick that gave the room the feel of a business office and not an apartment building. "I didn't know you were rich." Sam said, mesmerized by the sheer size of the lobby. Beth blushed under the makeup, "I am not rich." She insisted, "Not poor, but not rich by far." "This place must cost a fortune." Trish breathed as they approached grey steel doors of the elevators and she glanced up at the rows of lights above the elevator to see them light up as the elevators moved smoothly up and down. Beth shook her head, "It is not that grand." She stated wearily, "It is tiny when you see the inside of the apartment itself." She said as she hit the call button and one of the elevator doors slid open silently. The interior of the elevator was covered in mirrors and ceiling lined with lights that lit up every corner of the tiny room. The floor was made of the same polished marble as the lobby and Trish's eyes quickly moved up from the floor to the line of lights above the door, trying hard not to look around her as they entered the elevator. Beth pressed the one marked fourteen and they watched as the doors closed before them. The elevator smoothly began to rise and Trish could feel her stomach drop slightly and grabbed hold of the silver railing that ran along the edge of the walls, "God, it moves fast." She looked up at the display of numbers overhead as they blinked past and swallowed hard. Her hand slipped into Sam's and held onto it tightly. The elevator slowed it accent and the doors opened, a red carpet rolling out in either direction in front of them. "I was worried it wouldn't stop?" Sam nervously confessed as she exited the contraption. Trish followed the girl; hands still intertwined together, "To think we pay for rides like that." She chuckled in nervously. Beth blinked at the two girls, "That was nothing." She said with a grin, "You should try to express elevator that runs from here to the very top. We can go up there later if you want, there is a pool up there that we can use if you like, you can see the whole city through the glass walls." Trish quickly shook her head, "I'll pass." She said nervously, "I'm not good with heights." Beth frowned, "Awww..." She said in disappointment, "It is something up there late at night, you should really see it." "Maybe another time." Sam said, trying hard to force herself to smile as she glanced up at the ceiling, thoughts of the roof of this place in her mind. Beth shrugged, "Well here we are." She said stepping up to a door marked 1406 near the elevator and putting another key in the lock and opening the door, "Welcome to my home." She greeted as she gestured to the entrance. As the girls took off their shoes Beth moved to a kitchen off to the side of the main entrance and opened the refrigerator, "You want anything to drink?" She inquired, "Orange juice, water, a cooler or beer?" She held out a yellow wine cooler in one hand and beer bottle in the other. Trish blinked at the drinks, "Should we be drinking those?" She nervously asked, "Won't your mom get angry." Beth set the beer back in the fridge and twisted off the cap of the cooler, "She lets me drink these all I like, as long as I only do it at home." She stated as she took a swallow of the drink and took another from the fridge and handed it to Trish, "Try one." She insisted. Trish took the drink in hand and stared at the label, "Is it safe?" She asked, reading over the label. "Don't be silly." Beth said as she reached for another and held it out to Sam who shook her head. "I shouldn't." She said pointing to the wound on her head, "I'm still taking pain killers remember?" Beth winced in shame, "Sorry, I forgot." She placed the drink back in the fridge and closed it, then moved through the exit at the other end of the kitchen, "Well, here we are." She said as she entered the living room and gestured around her, "Welcome to hell." They entered a small room and all around them were colourful Technicolour paintings and rainbow coloured beanbag chairs. Grass skirts hung from the lamps, reflective disks hung in front of the balcony window, and beads over the hall entrance and a single bamboo table took up the middle of the room. The whole thing made the girls feel like they stepped back into the 60s or some bad retro movie. They gazed around the room in astonishment. "Did your mom decorate the room?" Sam inquired curiously, playing with one of the disks near the balcony. Beth nodded slowly, "This is what happens when you live with a hippy mother like I do. I hate it here, but I guess it could be worse." She moaned slightly as she dropped into one of the beanbag chairs in the corner, near the balcony, and opened the balcony door a crack to let some air into the room. Trish glanced down at the girl, "Is that why you dress like you do?" She inquired wanting to know more about the girl, "To rebel against this?" Beth took a sip of her drink, "How can you rebel against something like this?" She said dismally, "Everything I do she approves of." She pulled her hair over her ear to show off her ear full of earrings, mostly loops and studs, "She paid for most of these." She said with a sigh of defeat and pulled up her shirt to expose her belly and tugged on a ring attached to her belly button, "She didn't even flinch when I got this one. She is impossible at times." Trish found she needed to look away from the girl's tummy, not out of disgust of the piercing, but more because she could not help staring at the girl's tight stomach. She twisted off the cap of her cooler and took a drink without thinking. She was surprised to find the cooler actually tasted good, it was like drinking lemonade a hint of something else that she could not quite describe. "This is good." She admitted taking another sip. "Don't drink it too quickly." Beth warned, "It might not have much alcohol in it, but it will give you a slight buzz after a while." Trish stared down at the girl and watched her suspiciously, "What happened to the way you talk?" She inquired curiously, "You don't sound like you are from some old movie anymore." She noted with a smile. Beth flushed and squirmed in her seat, "You don't think I talk like that all the time do you?" She asked cynically, "That is just how I act at school, very few get to see the real me." Sam smiled at the girl, "So we are some of the lucky few then?" She asked. Beth shrugged, "I guess you have grown on me. Hell I don't allow people to come over much either so consider yourselves special then." She rolled out of the chair and crawled across the floor to a cabinet with a small TV atop of it and opened one of the cupboards, "You wanted to see a photo of Star didn't you." She inquired, changing the subject, as she pulled out a photo album with the same pattern as the posters on the wall, "There are some of her in here I think." She said as she flipped through the pages of the book with her legs crossed and the album upon her lap. Sam quickly moved to the girl's side and glanced down at the album as Beth turned the pages and finally stopped on one page. Sam dropped to the floor as she spotted the photo of Star before Beth could point the girl out and pulled the album closer, "That's her!" She exclaimed triumphantly, "That's really her." The girl was a year or two younger then she remembered her, but she could never forget those eyes or that hair. Beth sat on the ground with her back against a wall, "I thought as much." She said with sigh and gazed at Sam, "Are you sure you want to go after that girl? You have no idea the things she has been through." Sam nodded, picking up the photo album as she did, her eyes never leaving the photo of the girl, "Of course, I'll do anything to see her in person." Beth scratched at the back of her head and glanced up at Trish, who was leaning heavily on the wall while drowning half of her drink, and then turned back to Sam, "Maybe I should tell you more about her before you make up your mind." Beth suggested. Sam glared over the photo album, hugging it close to her as she did, "No matter what you have to say I want to see her. You can't scare me off." She said with a hard stubbornness to her tone. Beth raised a hand in defence, "I'm not trying to scare you, but you need to know that girl has a dark past and is very fragile." Sam continued to intensify her gaze upon the girl, "I don't care. If you know where she is then tell me." She begged, her eyes turning soft and filling with pain, "I need to see her, at least once." Beth sighed and held her drink between her knees, "You need to hear this, even if you don't want to listen." Beth stated coolly, "You need to understand what it is you are dealing with here." Trish sat down next to Sam and set a hand upon the girl's shoulder, "Let her talk, she is not the enemy here." Trish said sympathetically. Sam let out a deep breath and looked down at the photo again, "I'm sorry... I just..." Beth nodded, "I know." She said with another sigh, "But you have to understand, Star is not like other girls. She has had it rougher then anyone else I've ever met." Trish glanced up at Beth, "What do you mean? Was she abused or something?" "Worse." Beth said dismally, "Her father tried to kill her when she was four years old." Sam cringed while Trish made a sound through her teeth, "Kill her? Why?" Trish asked, suddenly wanting to know more. Beth took a swallow of her drink before continuing, "Not everyone can handle having a psychic child. I was lucky because my mom is also psychic." She waved her arms around herself, "She is a local fortune teller and people pay her a lot of money to have their fortunes told." She explained woefully, "While my mother took me away from my father the moment I started to show signs of psychic powers, living at carnivals and traveling all over, Star wasn't so lucky. "Star's mother insisted that her daughter have a father figure. She ignored my mom's warnings when birds started showing up on the windowsill outside of the baby's window. She was convinced that her husband wouldn't do anything to harm their child. However as Star got older she began speaking people's thoughts out loud, without even knowing what they meant. Her father started referring to her as a freak of nature and wanted to take her to doctors to get her fixed, but her mother would not allow it. No one is sure what exactly happened but one day her father went insane and tried to drown Star in the tub. He was going on about how she was inside his head and they hauled him off to a Mental Institution. Somehow Star lived, but she changed from that day on. Her powers were more intense then even mine at her age and this frightened even her mother. So her mother took off with the girl and has been moving from town to town ever since." "Shit..." Trish breathed, unsure she believed the entire story. "That poor girl." Sam hugged the album close to her again, "Does she kept in contact with your mother at the very least?" Beth nodded, "She drops by from time to time, to ask for money mostly, and Star writes me. Mom loved her sister dearly, hell I love her too and I don't blame her for running. Mom helps her out whenever she can, but it has been rough on Star. She acts like nothing is wrong, but when she is visiting she I can tell that she is growing tired of the moves and you should hear some of the strange things she tells me about, things that would blow your mind." "Like what?" Sam inquired curiously, "She seemed to know a lot about psychic stuff." "That girl could write a book about the subject and she is only fifteen." Beth remarked and took another drink of her cooler, "She has talked with ghosts, traded bodies with people and she can even control fire, to an extent. She writes me every now and then with new stories to tell and when she visits she shows me some new tricks that she has learned. I have to admit she scares me a little, but she is like a little sister to me." Sam gazed down at the photo of the innocent looking little girl whom she had come to call a friend, "Geez, I never thought about how hard it would be to be her. She seemed so in control and understanding. I'd never suspect that she had gone through so much." "That is what I find creepy about her." Beth explained, "She acts like all of this is part of everyday life. She is not fazed by much of anything and talks about it as if it is something everyone goes through." "Maybe she doesn't have anyone else to talk to." Trish suggested, "And she trusts you." Sam nodded in agreement, "She told me she doesn't have any friends and she seemed very lonely to me." Beth shrugged, "I can understand that, but she is so open about things it is unreal. When we went to visit her for her birthday she pulled me off to the side to tell me that she is attracted to a girl and even kissed her, but when they kissed her mind melded with the girl's and the girl freaked out and ran off." Trish breathed in shock, "I don't know how I would handle something like that. Having someone enter your mind all of a sudden and having your desires and fears exposed." She shuddered, "I'd feel violated." Sam wrapped her arms around her knees, "That's why she was so excited to meet me. I wasn't scared of her being inside of my mind." She mumbled more to herself. Trish glanced at her friend, "What was it like? I mean to share someone's mind?" She asked curiously. Sam shrugged, "It is hard to explain. I could feel her everywhere I went and sometimes I could smell her. It was like she was a part of me and it made me feel..." She thought for a moment about the experience, "I felt whole." She said with a smile. Beth returned the smile and stood up, "Maybe you are the right girl for her." She remarked and finished her cooler, and then glanced down to see Trish's drink was finished, "You want another?" She offered, reaching out for the girl's empty. Trish suddenly noticed that she was holding an empty bottle and handed it out to Beth, "Sure, if it is alright." Beth took the bottle and looked down at Sam, "You sure you don't want something to drink?" She offered, "Nothing alcoholic I promise you." "Maybe some juice." Sam requested. "Sure thing." Beth retreated to the kitchen. Sam looked down at the album again and touched the photo of Star. "You really love her don't you?" Trish said unhappily. Sam nodded before she realized what she was doing and then shrugged, "I don't know what I feel, but I have to see her again. I can't let her die that way." Trish patted the girl on the shoulder, "I have a feeling you will see her again." She said with a smile and then frowned and turned to face the kitchen, "Hey, Beth? Where is Star's father now?" Beth stepped out from the kitchen with a glass in hand as she filled it with from a pitcher of orange juice, "Last I hear he was still locked away. Not likely they would let him out after trying to kill a little girl." Trish turned back to the album, "That's a relief." She muttered, then lifted the page of the album and flipped through the pages, without turning the page on Sam. She stopped and looked at it sideways, "Sam? Can I see that?" She requested and the girl relinquished the book, keeping her finger on the page with Star's photo. Trish turned to the photo that she spotted and stared at a old photo of a cute young girl with short mousy brown hair and black rimmed glasses, dressed in a frilly brightly coloured gypsy's dress. She blinked at the photo a few times before she realized who it was she was looking at, "Beth, is this you?" She inquired pointing at the photo. "Who?" Beth handed Trish another cooler and a glass to Sam, and then glanced down at the album and her eyes widened in shock and she snatched the album out of the girl's hands, "Don't look at that." She demanded. Trish set her drink down on the coffee table and got to her feet, "Why not?" She said with a grin as she reached for the album, "You don't want us to know what a cutie you are without your makeup?" Beth froze in place at what she was hearing, "Y... you think I'm cute." She asking slightly flustered. "Got it!!" Trish called out as she retrieved the album from the girl's hands and flipped to the page again, turning it around to show Sam, "What do you think Sam?" She asked, holding up one hand to make sure Beth couldn't steal the book away again. Sam took the album and looked at the photo in question and then glanced up at Beth and smiled, "You are cute." She agreed, "I always thought you had beautiful eyes. Why do you cover them up?" Beth flushed and flopped down on a beanbag chair and gazed down at her hands, "A girl once told me I had beautiful eyes." She said sorrowfully, "She told me all kinds of things, that I was beautiful and that she loved me and promised to never leave me." "And?" Trish asked as she lowered herself to the ground again and picking up her drink. "I caught her kissing a boy during the Junior High Prom." Beth said miserably. Trish paused with her bottle at her lips and lowered it, "I'm sorry. She doesn't deserve you." She stated coldly. Beth forced herself to smile, "Well, I decided to hide my eyes from people from then on and let my bangs grow over the summer." She turned away from the girls and stared at the wall. Trish moved closer to Beth and set a hand upon the girl's leg, causing the girl to turn and look back at her. She reached out towards the girl only to have her flinch away, "I just want to see, you let Sam see your eyes, why not me?" Beth sighed and brushed bangs from her eyes and for the first time Trish got a good look at the girl's green eyes and let out an awed breath, "Your eyes are gorgeous." She breathed, not taking her eyes off the girl. Sam smiled, "See I told you so." "I wish you wouldn't hide them." Trish said, still looking the girl in the eyes. Beth blushed so deeply that it could be seen through her makeup and dropped her hand, allowing her bangs to fall back into her eyes, "I think the cooler is talking." She stated sceptically. Trish looked at the bottle then back at the girl and shook her head, "I don't feel it." She said, then moved back upon her knees and looked between her two friends and then around the apartment, "When is your mother returning, anyway?" She inquired curiously. Beth shrugged, "Not for the weekend." She stated simply, "She is off at a fair right now." Trish gave the girl a sly grin, "Why don't we have a slumber party?" She suggested. Sam lifted her head in surprise, "Today? Here?" Trish nodded, "Why not? You missed your birthday sleepover and I bet mom wouldn't care if we stayed the night, if she doesn't know about Beth's mother being away that is." She turned back to Beth, "What do you think? Can we stay?" She pleaded, partly begging. Beth shrugged again, "I don't mind, but we don't have much to sleep on other then a few sleeping bags, if you don't mind sleeping on the floor then its alright with me." Trish clapped her hands together excitedly and hopped to her feet, "I'll give mom a call and tell her the plan." She glanced around a couple of time, "Where is the phone?" "Here..." Beth said uneasily and reached up to a globe next to the TV and lifted part of the base, revealing a receiver and causing the globe to light up like a strange crystal ball and held it out to Trish, "You still want to stay here." She asked while eyeing the globe in embarrassment and holding the phone out. Trish nodded as she took the phone and turned it over to find the buttons glowed rainbow colours and smiled, "It is kind of neat actually." She giggled and began to dial. ***** To be Continued . . .
Back to In My Heart and In My Mind Index - Back to Original Fiction Shoujo-Ai Fanfiction