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Jesse was just an ordinary kid who lived with his parents. He was in high school and suffering all of the normal pangs of adolescence that kids his age would. The pains of growing up, the adolescent emotions, social problems, acne, and all the rest. But what he found the one thing he could not understand was women. Damn them and their psyche! He would be revered by all the other guys if only he could take a look into their minds and know what was going on in the grey matter that was protected ever so ferociously by a bony casing and was kept under mental lock and key. How he would love to take even just one small fleeting peek into the 'inside'.

Jesse was getting on the bus with all of his other friends one day to go to school. It started out as what seemed like an ordinary day. The usual routine; get on the bus, rush to his locker, grab out his books, slam it shut and run in time to beat the bell to class. But, oh how wrong he was. When they sat down at their desks for first period, he noticed there was someone new in amongst all the others. It was a girl. And man was she pretty! She had longish blonde hair that cascaded down her back, sparkling blue eyes and smooth milky skin, yet it wasn't pasty. She had beautiful rosy lips and wasn't really skinny and bony, but at the same time, was not 'big boned' either. She was HOT!

Of couse, Jesse didn't pay attention in class for that period and vowed to sit next to her, to get closer to her in the next period.

Maths was up next. Damn Mr. Hilton! He was one of the strictest teachers in the whole school. Oh well, at least he could sit next to her and pass notes. Jesse was really good at maths and so was in the accelerated class. He found it quite interesting that the new girl should be in the same class. No new kids ever joined the accelerated class. She must be really good.

"Hey, I'm Jesse. You're new right?" Jesse whispered to the new girl, running the risk of getting caught talking instead of taking the option of notes.

"Yeah, hi Jesse, I'm Hope. Is this guy boring or what?" she replied friendly. 'Well, at least I got off on the right foot,' thought Jesse.

"Yeah, but he's a good teacher. He really prepares us for tests and stuff like that. So, Hope, do you like it here so far? Mrs. Enkle for english isn't too bad eh?" He had no idea what else to say. Girls wasn't one of his strong points.

"Yeah, she pretty good. So, like you said, I'm new here, would you mind giving me the run down on how this place works later?" Hope asked him. Of course, with her own intentions in mind.

"Sure," Jesse replied, with a little too much enthusiasm. Woah! He couldn't wait. She, Hope, the prettiest girl in the school, asked him, him of all people, to show her around! Thank the LORD! "Hey, are you new to town as well?" at her nod he continued, "Cool. Then maybe I can show you around there too? There's the -,"

He was cut off by a sharp pain in the side of his head, induced by the whiteboard marker Mr. Hilton had thrown at his temple, which was followed in quick succession by him tumbling off his chair and hitting the ground with an audible thump. Of course, this was accompianied by the laughter of the few other candidates in the class (seeing as it was accelerated there were less than 10 of them.) Only Hope seemed to care and looked at him with sympathetic eyes. But Jesse didn't see that. The tidal wave of rage had hit him full on.

'How dare that old fart mock and make fun of him when he was trying to score!' And before he knew what he was doing, his face had screwed up into the mask of anger. No one noticed that the pen next to him was shaking, twitching, and then it happened so fast that not a single student in the class could have later described what happened. The pen shot off the ground and flew straight at Mr. Hamilton's head.

An eye for an eye. Almost quite literally. The pen hit him just above the left eye and no one made a sound, least of all Jesse, while the teacher clutched his head and danced around the class room swearing and stamping his foot.

'Shit,' thought Jesse, 'I must have thrown it a bit too hard.' Only he hadn't thrown it. He had used his mind to project it. He didn't know it either. He just assumed he had thrown it in his flight of anger seeing as it was right next to his hand.

***After school that day***

Jesse had been sent to the principal's office after Mr. Hamilton had concluded his jig around the classroom. With a sense of foreboding he stepped in quietly and waited to be noticed by the Heasmaster. He had never thought how intimidating the idea of being sent to the 'principal's office' could be, let alone actually having to be in the situation. But now he could speak from first-hand experience. It was scary.

"Sit down," said Mr. Jeffries. So he sat. This was not a man to mess with or disobey. "I hear that you have behaved in an aggressive manner toward a member of our staffing community. Mr Hamilton was it?"

'Oh my God,' thought Jesse, 'are these teachers psychic or something?' "Yes Sir," he replied. At the silence of the Mr Jeffries, he added, "I threw a pen at his head Sir. I was talking about the work set and was rewarded with a pen to the temple. I thought this unfair so reacted rather hastily. And without thought. My actions were perhaps not the best mode of justice to be taken, but it was impromptu."

"Well, that is hardly a reasonable excuse Jesse. I think perhaps you should have councilling." suggested the Headmaster.

"With all due respect Sir, I don't think I need to have therapy. I can promise it will not happen again." 'What?! Me, need therapy?! Well, excuse him, but I am perfectly sane, I am not one of those psych children who bring guns to school!' thought Jesse, but kept his emotions in check at least until he was out of there.

"Very well, but you only get one chance. The next time, you will be put in to see a councillor." Mr Jeffries replied. Taking the hint that the conversation was closed, Jesse got up and resisted the urge to slam the door behind him. He felt the anger building up in him again, faced the door and let it fly. The door stayed intact but inside the office, it was a shamozzle. Papers were flying everywhere, books were falling off shelves, and the funniest thing was the look on the principal's face. Through the small window in the door, Jesse could catch fleeting glimpses of his headmaster looking as baffled as a giraffe with a short neck, in between the pages of paper flying past the door.

Outside Jesse showed no signs of having noticed and quickly turned away with a normal expression on his face. Inside he was smiling and positively shaking with mirth. But that feeling of joy was being conflicted by another thought; 'I did that? And if I did, then what more could I do?'

As he recounted what had passed in the Headmaster's office to his new best friend, and potentially his first girlfriend, his story was accompianied by small sound effects emitted from her red lips. Of course, he left out the part about how he thought he caused the mayhem in the office. And was suddenly struck by another thought, 'If I could move that in my bout of anger, then could I have made the pen fly at Mr. Hamilton's head?' Later this would lead to him feeling that he was a danger to all those around him and would be the foundations for his own small, one person version of 'The Great Depression'.

After he had finished she marveled at the events of the day. She guessed that Jesse may have some secret within him. Wait, could he be like her? She had never found anyone that was as weird and different as she knew she was. Could he be...? Nah, she was just kidding herself.

***Later That Night***

Jesse was lying on his bed staring up at the ceiling his mind wandering. His mind was not on school that day, his work, nor where he was or what he was doing. He was not even thinking of his new telekinetic abilities he had discovered within the vault of his being. This was just one of the many things that was about to change in his life. Yet he was completely oblivious to it.

He was so deep in his stupor that his mind failed to register that he was alive and breathing and he was completely ignorant of his surroundings. His mind was for one thing that night. It was her. The new girl from school. Hope. He drank in her beauty and glory during the day and lay at night on his bed replaying and envisaging those visions of her. Her deep blue sapphire eyes that held so much. So much knowledge, so much emotion, they contained feelings and wisdom with the capacity of the ocean. Her long golden mane that when she flicked it, it caught the sunlight and dazzled the eye. Her rounded features, the curves of her body, he knew them all and in his mind fancied that he was with her, strolling down a beach at sunset, just them, and nothing in the world could touch them.

She enchanted him and mesmerised him. She ensnared his senses and completely tore all reason from his mind.

Hope also, co-incidently was lying on her bed at the same time as Jesse, and was in her own little reverie, completely drowned in her own imagination. She was not interested in the evnts of the day, or the classes, or how life was going on in this new future of hers. She was scarcely breathing she was so still weith concentrating on one subject that truly confused her. Jesse. He was cute, funny, smart, and was not all too deficient in the looks department. She thought she was falling for him. She liked the way that his eyes smiled at her every time they passed in the hall. No other guy had done that to her before. All of them just wanted to get on her and 'ride and buck' her for all she was worth.

Jesse was different. He was charming and had an air about him that suggested that there was more to him than meets the eye. She was completely and utterly taken with him. Those cloudy greay eyes as if there was a storm raging on inside that no one but him knew about. That spiky blonde hair and the muscular features; the way he set his jaw when he was concentrating really hard, how his biceps swelled when he moved, just everything about him. But most of all, she loved how he looked at her and smiled his sheepish toothy grin that lit a spark in her everytime he saw her.

She ended up thinking so hard over him that her conscious had had enough and her sub-conscious took over and kept functioning while her conscious rested; she slept. She dreamt. About Jesse. If her brain had have been paid for working overtime she would have been broke in the morning.

***Friday***

They woke up, they got dressed, they ate, and they thought. They both had big plans for that day. The "usual routine" was followed as normal. They sat on the bus together. Jesse was looking out the window and moved his hand which bumped into Hope's. To his surprise, she didn't move. In fact, he felt that she looked straight through his eyes and into his mind, and she slipped her hand inside his. And they sat there like that until they got to school, and walked across the school yard like that, and to their separate lockers like that. They were separated for classes though. When they reached Hope's first class, she stood on her tippy-toes and kised him on the cheek. He hun his head and let his unspiked hair (for today) fall in front of his eyes as he bowed his head to cover the fact that he was blushing.

He didn't concentrate in class at all that day. He couldn't stop thinking about waht he was going to do.

Finally the end of the day came and they had briefly talked at lunch. When he saw Hope walking towards his locker when everyone was leaving to get on the bus, he closed the door and spun the combination lock. He looked at her and said "Do you wanna go for a walk?" and gestured towards the door with his head.

"Love one," she replied enthusiastically. And so they did. But before they were past the school gates he had slipped his hand into hers and they were comfortable.

"Have you been able to concentrate today? I've been completely whacked," Jesse said to start up the conversation to try and nudge it in the right direction.

"Not at all. I was just sitting there twirling my pen looking the typical blonde." She replied with a melodious giggle that melted his insides to molten gold.

"If anyone thought that they would be so wrong that it would be a crime. That one mistake to take something so wonderful and misjudge it would be a sin great enough to get them kicked out of heaven." He said this without looking toward her but saw her look up at him from a couple of inches down, from his peripheral vision. She smiled at him.

They made idle talk the rest of the way back to their street (they lived on the same one) but before they turned the corner Jesse slowed down and pulled her one hand gently and caught her otherone and pressed up agianst her and kissed her passionately. For what seemed like forever he was drowned in pleasure, and normally, though she would not let any other guy kiss her like this, it was Jesse, and so she made an exception. Besides, she liked him. And she loved the way he kissed. Had he done this before? He was really good at it. Moreover, she found herself drowning in a sea of pleasure.

Finally they broke of and he looked deep into her eyes and almost as if he could read her mind said "Wow, I've never done that before and it was really hard. Now for the next bit." He drew in a raggedy breath. "Will you go out with me Hope? I have never felt this way about anyone before, and I want to share it with you."

"Wait a minute. Back up. Did you say that you've never done that before?" She looked at him with a look of scorn on her face.

"Never," he said with a nervous tone. He wanted her to answer the question.

"Never? Never as in never never?"

"Absolutely." Now he was really uite scared.

Suddenly the harsh look dropped from her face and she said in a mock furious tone "You are too good not to have done that before. You should be sued for being such a good kisser." And her eyes lit up with something more than happiness. And his just exploded with a brilliance that she had never seen before. She moved to kiss him again but he pushed her away and his grey bored into her blue and he asked her to her dumbfounded and confused face with the sterness of one who is reprimanding a child "so is that a yes?" and she relpied with such a burst of relief that her head struck his ribcage so hard he was winded.

"YES!!!" She laughed at him. She laughed with relief and shook with love for this handsome figure. She was IN LOVE! And he with her too.

So, just like the "light 'n' easy" adds, life went on, while the weight came off. The weight of the world, that is. Everyone at school knew that Jesse and Hope were going out. Yet neither of them had told anyone. Even their parents didn't know. Jesse's brother was going out with some girl he ad met in uni, she was tall, brunette, hazel eyes, and very rounded in physique. But apart from looks, she had nothing.

The end of the year rolled closer and closer and they finished their exams and both Hope and Jesse passed with plying colours. They got straight A's. When they got home their parents positively squealed with delight.

The biggest event of the year was coming up. Commonly known as the "Big Dance" amongst the students was the biggest and most important even of a kid's social life at school. If one wasn't there, they were doomed forever in the eyes of their compatriots.

This knowledge in their minds, and their outstanding grades, they both asked their parents' permission to attend this dance. Of course, both sets gave their children consent.

They met up the next day and told each other the good news. Suddenly Jesse got cold feet, and felt very nervous.

"Um, Hope, I'm not sure that we should go to the Dance together." He ventured. Of course he wanted to go with her, but this was a big step. Everyone noticed who you went with and what you did with them.

"But Jesse... I want to go with you, if i don't i won't go."

She said in a tone of voice that suggested he was doing wrong. He was overcome, more hurt than anything at how she said it so he got a flush of hot anger and told her firmly and fiercely "Then don't go." And stalked off without another word.

All of the next week, right up until the Big Dance they didn't speak a civil word toward each other. In fact, they stared coldly at each other and spiked each other with words just to get their hackles up. They fought incessantly.

Finally it came to the dance. Jesse was there. In a tux. No less. But try as he might he couldn't find Hope anywhere. He even asked Zoe to check in the toilets for him. He didn't think she was serious about not going. Try as he might've for the past week, he could not stop thinking about her. He could not bring himself to hate her. He had stayed at home at night and lay looking at the ceiling and the terror that he had caused her face to mutate into; a mask of anger. He hated himself for it. He hated to hurt her that way.

He was still in love with her. He always had been, and he never would give up on her. But she was not here. Why not? Had she taken his anger too seriously?

Weirdly he felt this strange tugging sentsation in his mind and immediately put it down to the suffocating air of stuffiness and brutish, single-minded love. That of sex. He went outside to get some fresh air and to clear his head.

As he walked through the schoolyard walking past the willow tree that had been their home of talk and confession. The basketball court which had been where they had just sat and looked into each other's eyes after school. Then he walked past the gates of the school and the moment when he had first made that fateful outburst at her rushed full pelt into his mind. The one memory of her that he had been trying to repress as far into the deep recesses of his mind as he could. After his sub-conscious had finished reliving that moment the tugging sensation grew stronger and he put it down to paranoia this time.

Then he thought he heard a scream. Not just any scream. But her scream. His heart and body took over. His legs carried him as fast as he could in the direction of the scream. The tugging was directing him. He heard the scream again and this time could make out his name. It WAS her! She was in trouble.

He ran and ran and ran. He sprinted until he thought his legs would drop off from exhaustion. But he knew they wouldn't, so he wouldn't rest until he found her. He may die trying. But he didn't care. And he certainly didn't want to live knowing he hadn't saved her. He HAD to save her.

He ran towards the music of her voice, which was now like an orchestra of cats strangling themselves, she was hurting so badly. The tugging got stronger and directed him towards her. The screaming got louder. Couldn't anyone else hear it? Why weren't they running out of their houses to help her?

His legs took him to the park that they often visited. It was their sacred place. There was one willow tree in a hidden clearing to the forest on the right of the park which they used to go to and hide, talk, and do all of the other stuff that teenagers in love do. He stopped for a moment in the middle of the park, simply to orient himself in the pitch blackness of the night. For he felt not his exhaustion.

He heard the scream again and made straight for their willow tree. after he broke through the copse of the trees he saw the sillohouette of a cloaked and hooded figure. He had bound and gagged Hope and she was stuck to the tree. The figure had their back to him and when Hope caught Jesse's eye he felt relief flood through him and he could feel it spread through her veins too. It wasn't until later that he wondered at how she could scream wtih a rag shoved down her throat.

He skidded to a halt when he entered the clearing and rage stormed through every fibre of his body that someone should take her and treat her so crudely. His anger fuelled the magic inside him and on pure talent alone, without any training resorted to instinct. He flung out his arm and screamed as the figure tried to use the force of gravity to pull himself back down. He flailed wildly to no avail. And then Jesse's anger burst out and the man or whatever it was shot straight up into the air hundreds, possibly thoushands of feet up. Then he released his hold on the man and the screams in the night could be heard for miles around. Jesse counted to 50 and the man came hurtling back into the clearing faster than a speeding bullet. Of course, Jesse had never killed and intendid to keep it that way so, with all of the cold and icy calm that came over one as angered as Jesse, he flung out his palm again and the man stopped mere inches from the ground.

He screamed and cursed Jesse and yelled at him at the top of his lungs. Finally he would put up with it no more and so swung his arm really hard to the right and the man smacked into the trunk of a thick tree with a sickening crunch and the man (it was distinguishable by now) had never screamed so loud. He shouted so hard that his throat cam apart and blood spattered all over the clearing and the trees, of course, Jesse did not let any of it touch Hope. He did not want to marr her beauty. To shut him up he swung his arm as hard as he could to another tree, on the opposite side of the clearing. The man stopped crying out in pain and when Jesse released his hold on the man, he slumped to the ground and lay in a heap.

He tried to untie Hope's bindings with his power, but his anger had left him and anxiety for Hope came over him. He had exhausted his power and without the training it had taken a great toll on him. So he walked over to her and untied her bonds from behind the tree and then those round her hands and feet.

As soon as he unbound her hands she stood up and Smacked him as hard as she could and, like any other guy that has just rescued his girlfriend from near death and has knocked their assailant unconcious using meta human powers, he stood there and look like a confused hound who had just been whipped and didn't know why. He rubbed the side of his face in a vain attempt to make the pain go away, although there was nothing he could do to ease the emotional hurt he felt. Then she spat out the rag that was inhibiting her speech and she yelled at him "I HATE YOU!" and then his spirits hit rock bottom and shattered like a window pane falling from above the altar onto it in a church.

Then all of a sudden she grabbed his head between her hands and... kissed him. Full on the lips. So hard he thought they were balck and blue with bruising. He pushed her away after bubbling and protesting futilely and in the end drowning in the ocean of pleasure that he was most mercifully plunged into. His spirits went in quicktime reverse then, they all melded together and flew back up so high they almost touched the sky.

"Who was that? What was it doing to you?" He asked looking into her eyes (which she tried to hide by ducking her head) to find any sort of internal or mental hurt. Just as she started to reply he realised again that he didn't understand how he could have a) heard her scream with a rag in her mouth and from so far away and b) how she could have screamed at all.

"Wait... Tell me something first. How did you do that?"

"Do what? Kiss you?" she asked incredulously.

"No, I know how you did that," He smiled sheepishly. "How did i hear you scream? And how could you scream with that dirty cloth down the back of your throat?"

She sighed, "I am a mind-melder. I can see into people's thoughts and minds and can also speak to them mentally. Hence the screams." He looked at her shocked and with a look that said 'How dare you?' and he opened his mouth to speak but before he could she butted in. "And no I haven't looked into your mind Jesse. It would have been disloyal and unfaithful of me." Relief washed across his face.

"So you're saying that you can do magic?"

"After a fashion, yes." She replied.

"Really? I've always thought up until tonight when I proved it to myself that i could move things without touching them."

"You could and you can. I saw you do it to Mr. Hilton. You threw the marker at him with some difficulty, but, your emotions control your powers in a sense. You were angry and undisciplined so it took a second or two to get off the ground. But it was an impressive start."

"Thanks." He blushed.

They walked back to the dance and she told him her whole life's story.

She used to live in the mountains. Somewhere in the North, far away towards Greenland. Her parents were schooled in the occult arts and hse herself was beginning training like the rest of the witches of Greenland. She had loved her tutor. He had taught her well, and he had always suspected that she had special talent. However, he had neglected to tell her that he was trying to escape from the evil mage Joseph.

One day a band of Josephs ninjas attacked the temple where she trained while they were in meditation. The other girls scattered but Hope loved her master and she stayed and fought for him. His old age hindered his abilities and the best he could do was to cast a spell of protection around Hope. So she fought like a cfeline, with teeth and claws and showed no mercy. While she took on five of the Unholies, One slipped past her vision.

He crept behind her and she turned around just in time to see him swing his blade up in an arc to cleave her master in to. However, she had been taught well and she shouted three words which rang clearly through the chamber and green beams of light shot out of her eyes and caught the sword mid swing and deflected it so it just missed his head but dealt him a fatal blow. Thinking he was dead she yelled and cut the assassin down with the fading beams and ripped into the other five with nails and vengeance in her heart. She mowed four of them down and the last fled with a bleeding eye. She wanted to save her master so she hurtled to his side and raised up the three quarters of his body.

"Master what can i do? I must help!" She cried and sobbed.

"There is nothing. No help for me now." He rasped. She started to protest but he cut her off so sharply it caused him to cough and rattled his body like a child might a toy marracca.

"I must tell you this before I go. There is one named Rebecca. She is a master in the Arts and Fighting. She will help you. Find her. And these men. They were the men of Joseph. He is evil. Beware him. Do not make decisions in haste. That is waht i have seen. Now you must go. Quickly before they come back."

"No! I won't leave you!"

"GO!" He commanded and with that single command the last breath of his life faded away into the stone halls never to be heard again. She closed his eyes and lay his body to rest in it's pool of purest blood that was now expanding more slowly.

She rushed home and found her parents with a frantic surveyh of the area with her mind. They had heard what was going on and so had camouflaged themselves in the next room. They met her tendril with the combined force of both their minds and almost annihilated her mind. She yelled into their heads 'STOP!' the assault halted abruptly and they came running round the corner shimmering back into view.

They grabbed their most prized possessions and left after Hope had relayed her masters message.

"And so we fled to the other side of the world and here I am." On this last word she flung her arms out slightly and raised her shoulders as if to present herself.

Jesse was dumbstruck but managed to smile and joke "And you have no idea how glad I am that you are being chased by a gang of murderers and an psychotic evil dude." She laughed.

Suddenly they found themselves at the school gates. "Shall we?" He asked Hope, extending his arm.

"Most definately." And the two danced and partied th night away. At the end of the night however, when the slow ballroom dancing music poured like liquid through the school hall, Jesse brought Hope close to him and slowly they revolved and they felt like one. They enjoyed each mothers company whole-heartedly.

Jesse walked Hope home and they parted at her doorstep with a sumptuous goodnight kiss.