Read The Forest of Adventures (#1 of The Knight Trilogy) for Free Online

the movements of others; doctors,
nurses, canteen staff, tea lady, cleaner. Day after day, I sat
there in the beeping-silence, waiting.
    On the third Monday, I
automatically found myself dressing for college and before I’d
become fully conscious of it, I was standing outside the school
gates. For fifteen minutes I stood there, hands holding onto the
bars as if they were the only thing holding me up, bracing myself
for the overwhelming concern and sympathy that was bound to be
dumped on me – or alternatively, the judgements as to why I wasn’t
sat by Sam’s bedside in his hour of need.
    When I threw this question at
myself, I couldn’t answer or the only answer that I could come up
with made me sound like such a bitch that I couldn’t or didn’t want
to believe it could be the truth. After all, how does citing
boredom as a reason sound when your loved one lies in a hospital
bed fighting for his life? Only the thing was, Sam didn’t look like
he was fighting, he looked like he was taking a nap on the job and
watching somebody sleep for more than an hour at a time is about as
fascinating as watching paint dry - even when you do love them.
    I weighed up the option of
giving college a miss, but the thought of going home to a whole day
of my mum’s grief stricken company didn’t seem any more attractive.
When I’d left her that morning she’d been sitting by the window,
lost in her own worry. She hadn’t even surfaced to say goodbye.
    As it happened, the morning was
almost bearable. People mainly kept their distance from me and
avoided eye contact, as if they were too embarrassed by not knowing
what to say. Before I knew it, I’d sat through two of my morning
lessons with almost no recollection of having been there.
Eventually I came out of the depths of my own world and discovered
that I was sitting in the English room alone apart from Blake who
sat silently at my side.
    The class had been dismissed
early for break. With embarrassment, I suspected that this might
have been the result of my painfully sorrowful presence. The room
was pleasantly warmed by the weak winter sun on the glass and I
felt no hurry to get up and leave. I felt no awkwardness at Blake’s
presence and for the first time in days I felt a small moment of
peace. Time passed. Blake’s eyes were closed, basking in the warmth
of the sun. His hands were locked together and they rested on a
leather bound copy of Tennyson’s works. I noted it wasn’t
the one that he’d brought in the bookshop but an antiquarian copy.
I wondered if he were really asleep or just waiting.
    I traced the outline of his
face, his neck and his body with my eyes. Around his neck he wore a
black leather strap on which trembled a small, metal cross. It
seemed a daring display of faith in such cynical times. A shiver
washed over my body and it seemed that this invisible movement
alerted him to me watching him. He opened his eyes, concern flitted
over his face which made me register I was crying. I blushed,
expecting Blake to either look away embarrassed or move over to
comfort me like most people would do but he didn’t do either. He
locked eyes with me and held them there before whispering, “I’m
really sorry Mina. If there’s anything I can do, please just
ask.”
    Part of me hated him and it was
a hate that desired to move to violence. I wondered if he could
read it in my eyes, if he could sense how I wanted to hit him and
kick him and beat him but most of all I wondered if he could read
the longing and how at that precise moment there was nothing more I
wanted him to do than to lean over, take my face in his hands and
kiss me.
    Picking up my books, I stuffed
them deep into my bag and left, slamming the classroom door behind
me. The stairs behaved like the crazy stairs of a fairground
funhouse and I had to dance on the edge of balance. Pain seared my
hand as I dragged my knuckle along the brickwork. When the wall ran
out, the pain flared causing yellow starbursts to