Chapter 2
As, I drove
home from school, I came to the realization that my first day in a new school
wasn’t all that bad. Of course, I started
the day with low expectations, so the bar was set pretty low. That didn’t stop me from being surprised at
how well it went. It wasn’t too hard,
but I was expecting it to get a lot tougher.
It only being the first day, I didn’t have a lot of homework, which was
going to make the rest of my day a lot less stressful. The people weren’t bad, or at least I could
handle them, not that I thought I couldn’t.
Angel was a welcome ally, and as much as I really wish Bret would have
toned it down a notch, he was a great person to be around. Caleb, I really didn’t really get to talk to
him all that much, but he seemed okay.
Only having to be in school for half a day probably had a lot to with
how easy of a day it was. God knows how
I would have felt if I had any more classes.
The ride
home was uneventful, and basically time
to calm down from the rush of the day.
In all truthfulness, it’s a really beautiful city, even though there was
hardly any grass, and the palm trees didn’t look real. It was like someone had just placed a full
grown palm tree in that exact spot.
There was no evidence that the tree had been planted there. However, it looked neat and clean. The roads were in good condition, and that
was something I was not use too. In the
city people were to busy trying to avoid potholes. Then, they head to avoid other cars as a
result of trying to avoid those potholes.
Here, I had no fears about ruining my tires or scraping the bottom of my
car because of stupidly placed dips in the road.
When I got
home, the first thing I did was change out of my clothes and threw on a pair of
shorts, and old t-shirt and running shoes.
This was the only rime I would get to run before I headed out to
work. No one was home, so I didn’t have
to worry about giving my mom the run down of how my day went, and I probably
wouldn’t have to do that until the morning anyway. I stretched out in the living room. There was no way I was going for a long jog
without stretching. Being a track
runner, I knew from first hand experience what it felt like to pull a muscle
because of not properly stretching out.
For lack of a better word it is painful.
It could also keep you off the track for a week, which for me was
counter productive. There was also no
food, or drinks, except water. The last
thing I needed was to be out jogging, be a mile, or more, away from home and to
end up with the dreaded cramps. Drinking
anything with sugar was usually the culprit for that happening. I could probably make it home if that
happened, but that wasn’t very efficient, not to mention the pain factor. I was not fond of distance running. Running four minute miles just didn’t seem
all that fun to me. If it were, I would
also run cross country. I might run a
couple of miles a day to make sure my endurance stays up, but I could not
really see running six miles everyday just so I could run a competitive 5K. Talk about boring. On the other hand, I wasn’t going to get hurt
because I was careless.
After I
left the house, I basically took a route that I knew well. The root basically consisted of jogging
outside of my neighborhood. On the
surface, it didn’t seem like it was really that long of a run. Of course, if you factor in the amount of
land around some of the houses, my own included, it was a considerably long
route. The first time I ran it, I almost
died. Maybe that was from the heat,
because it was really hot. The route was
not circular. It was more oblong, and it turned out to be
two laps. I wasn’t even sure of the
distance. I just know that I was dead
tired afterward, and drenched with sweat. It was a feeling that I loved, since it makes me
feel that I had actually accomplished something. Of course, I didn’t know a female that
actually like to sweat, but it’s good for a little while. Well, it’s good until it starts to get cold,
and I started to feel all icky, and nasty.
That was when a quick shower was essential, and that was the first thing
I did when I walked into the house.
After I was
done, I went through the basic drill of getting myself ready for work. My appearance for work usually plays the role
of the corporate homer. I usually wear
all Aeropostale gear. That was with the
exception of underwear. I didn’t really
mind wearing the stuff, and I thought it looked good on me, so I wasn’t just
doing it to kiss my manager’s butt. I
spent the most amount of time on my hair, which was a normal occurrence. I usually wear my hair down when I go to
work, a big difference from when I went to school this morning, and getting my
hair ready was a real chore. I guess
that was what was supposed to happen since my hair fell to about a third of the
way down my back. Even since I had a perm in my hair, I really took my time in
making sure my hair was perfect. Having
a bad hair day was unacceptable because a bad hair day for black girls was like
a disaster because it usually didn’t just stop at a bad hair day. Besides, I was taught at a very young age to
not leave the house looking like trash.
Mom wouldn’t hesitate to send my brother and me back to our rooms to
change if our clothes didn’t match, or to comb our hair if it was nappy. That was coming from someone who had no
problem going to the grocery store with rollers in her hair. God, I couldn’t even go check the mail if I
had rollers in my hair, not that I would want to. It was the principle of it or as Big Worm
from the movie Friday would say, “It
was the principality of it.” Things were always different when it came to
us.
After I had
finished getting dressed, I went downstairs and grabbed something to eat. As
usual I was always hungry after doing a run.
It never failed. I had to have
food. Sometimes I wondered how I stayed
in shape because I did love my barbeque and collard greens. Oh, and I won’t even get started on Chitlins. I loved that stuff, even though the smell of
them being cooked wasn’t very appetizing.
Then again I couldn’t really except pig intestines to smell good. Sometimes I ate that stuff so much that I thought
that I would have a heart attack before I reached the age of twenty-five. Talk about clogged arteries. We had some good stuff in our fridge thanks
to the Labor Day barbecue we had at the house where my parents invited all of
the family up from downtown. Of course I
didn’t eat any of it because the result would have made me sleepy, and that was
the last thing I needed when I had to go to work in an hour. So I was stuck with eating a couple of
bologna sandwiches and chips, while not exactly healthy, would hold me over
until my break at work.
After eating,
which didn’t take long considering how hungry I was, I went right back up to my
bathroom to brush my teeth and did the last once over to make sure I looked
presentable before I left the house. God
forbid I smiled at someone and had a piece of bologna stuck in my teeth. Talk about embarrassing. When I was satisfied with my appearance, I
left the house. I had to drive to a mall
which was two towns over. The total
driving time was about fifteen minutes. Of
course that was because I was taking some of the back roads to avoid the
irritating freeway traffic. At this time
of day this was a very pretty ride, with all of the curves going through the
sandy hills of desert country. At night,
however, it was a totally different story as it was a little unsettling when
huge trucks come out from around corners.
I mean the big eighteen wheeler trucks.
I wasn’t sure those big trucks was supposed to be on this road. Didn’t
it have a weight limit? At that point it
didn’t really matter anyway. Besides, I
never see the police when someone made a traffic violation that was so obvious
that a two year old could have figured out it was the wrong thing to do. There wasn’t much on this road except for one
big gas station when I was closer to the city.
Other than that, there was nothing.
My mom hated for me to take this road home when I left work at
night. I could understand why that would
scare her. It was a little creepy out
there, but I’d driven the road so much that I’d gotten kind of use to it. Besides, I don’t usually scare easily
anyway. There were a lot of dried up
plants here beside the road. Things that
would easily be great fuel to a fire. In other words there was a whole lot of nothing
out here between towns.
The mall
where I worked was in a town called Rancho Ruiz, and it was another one of
those towns that I would never had known existed if I hadn’t all ready been
there. I was saying that from a point of
view of someone who had lived in the county her whole life. The mall had the same name, and I had arrived
there about twenty minutes before I was supposed to be on the clock. The mall itself had the same characteristics
of any mall that you see in Southern California. It had a very outdoor feel which basically
meant that you entered every store from the outside. The mall itself had four floors and a ton of
stores. I wasn’t sure how the mall got
so much business since the population of this town had to be even smaller than
where I lived, especially since there were all the outlet stores in Carlsbad which wasn’t that
far away. All the stores held their own
I guessed. I was not complaining because
as long as business was good, I got to keep my job and I didn’t have to worry
about my hours being cut.
I was lucky
enough that the store where I worked was on the first floor, and I parked in
the spots closet to the back door to my store.
I got off work too late at night to park far away, and there were some
crazy people around those days. I walked
in through the nearest mall entrance and made my way to the Food Court to get something to
drink. This was an everyday ritual since
I always had time to spare before the start of my shift. I would basically just sit in the Food Court watching
people. I was kind of a people watcher,
since I’ve always been uncomfortable in the spotlight. I was very content being around a whole lot
of people as long as I blended in and no one noticed me. As much as I enjoyed running track and
winning, I didn’t like all the recognition that went along with it. I hated losing as much the next person, I
just had higher goals than to be a professional athlete, not that there was
anything wrong with that. It’s just that
Track was basically an amateur sport, and I didn’t know a lot of stars in that
sport that made a lot of money. Besides,
I didn’t think I had the personality that would be able to handle being a big
huge celebrity as I would have probably killed the paparazzi
photographers. TMZ be damned, so I
really didn’t think that anyone would mind if I stayed in the background
despite all of the success that I’ve had in my high school career of track
running.
I hung out in the food court for about fifteen
minutes sitting around watching who seemed to basically be other mall employees
walking around. There weren’t a whole
lot of people shopping, which meant that it was going to be a long shift for
me. Those shifts were the worst. I never understood how I was always more
tired after a boring shift then I was when I was actually busy. It always seemed to take more energy to find
something to do to make time pass, than it was when people were in the store
and it was busy. I had brought my Shostak
book to do some of the work so that I could learn those words. My
manager didn’t mind if we took time out to study while it was slow. Actually, our manager didn’t care about a lot
of things unless the work was done and it was done correctly. I entered the store, clocked in, and got to
work. My time was spent basically
straightening the clothes on the shelves and refolding and making everything
looking presentable. It wasn’t too
difficult. I happen to luck out in the
fact that most of us that work here didn’t happen to be lazy people, so our
supervisors didn’t have to babysit us too much.
That was even true of Angel, even though she was off today. There was the occasional customer who came in
to the store to look around or actually buy something. I wasn’t expecting much as far as getting a
lot of business was concerned. The
school year had started so much of the back to school shopping had already been
done by most people, so the store wasn’t going to be making a whole lot of
money. I was actually able to get most
of the side work done that could have been done, and got right to
studying. That changed about three hours
later when I had a visitor, one I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to see at that
point.
“Val, I
didn’t expect to see you here today,” Bret said when he walked into the
store. He instantly broke out his
trademark grin like this was the first time he saw me. “You clean up really well. I almost didn’t recognize you.”
“Save the
bull. You’re so full of it; your eyes
are going to turn brown at any moment.
You and I both know that you knew I would be here.” I didn’t move from behind the counter when he
approached, and there wasn’t anyone else in the store when he came in, so I
couldn’t use the excuse that I had to get back to work. My boss was even in the office, which was not
unusual whenever I worked because I was supervisor trained and could run the
store better than my current supervisor ever could. I was stuck having to talk to him.
“And what
do you mean that I clean up well?” I asked him. “Are you trying to say that I look trifling or
something?”
“Not at
all,” he said a tad defensively. “It’s
just that…well I guess you kind of….you look different, in a good way.”
“Bret, what
are you talking about? I always look
good.”
“I couldn’t
help but notice that. You look even
better than when we first met.”
“Okay
enough,” I said. If I didn’t have brown
skin, I’m sure that my face would have been bright red. “So, is there something you’re looking for,
or were you looking for an excuse not to study your Shostak words?”
He chuckled
at this and said, “Not really. I’m more
of an Abercrombie and Fitch guy myself.”
That didn’t
surprise me one bit. He certainly seemed
to be the type, attitude and all. “So then why are you here?”
“I’m here
to see you of course.”
“I thought
you didn’t know I would be here,” I said.
“And I
thought you knew I was bullshitting,” he shot back.
“Okay so
what do you want? Obviously, you didn’t
come here to watch me work.”
“Maybe I
did,” he said leaning up against the counter.
He rested his arm on top of the counter, giving me a view of his big
muscled bicep, and I immediately thought of how it would feel to have that arm
wrapped around me in a hug. He looked so
good right then. God, he even smelled
good. He continued, “You’re a lot easier
on the eyes, then looking at my parents all night.”
“Oh so
you’re a stalker. Maybe I need to get a
restraining order.” This brought out
another chuckle. I really needed to get
him out here for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that he was a
distraction. “Well, I’ve got work to
do.”
“Really?”
he asked. “Cause it looks to me like
you’re doing more studying than working.”
“Studying
is what you should be doing, since you plan on trying to get into Harvard.”
He laughed
at this. Then, his demeanor
changed. It was weird. He, all of a sudden, couldn’t look me in the
eye if his life depended on it. He
looked like a scared puppy, a very cute one.
“I was
wondering,” he started. “Are you working
this Friday?”
Oh, no. He
wasn’t going to do this. He was actually
going to make me have to turn him down, even though I really didn’t want
to. As he waited for an answer, I
actually considered lying to him and telling him that I had to work just so I
had a good excuse to say no to whatever he was going to ask. I thought better of it though. That wouldn’t be the cool thing to do. Besides, I probably would have gotten caught
anyway, along with it being the easy way out.
It was possible that he knew that I was not working on Friday. He seemed to know everything else. Angel, lacking the ability to know when to keep
quiet, probably told him. However, if he
did know, he probably would have been more confident, especially since he had a
problem hiding his arrogance in our previous conversations. That didn’t mean he couldn’t find out later.
“No.” I said.
“I lucked out and have Friday off.
Why?”
“Well.” He still had yet to make eye contact with
me. “I was thinking that maybe we can do
something.”
“Like
what?” I was quite curious.
“I was
thinking,” he paused as if he was unsure of what my reaction would be. “That maybe we could go to the Padres game
this Friday.”
Well, he
had a good reason to expect a bad reaction from me. However, I wasn’t the least bit mad or
annoyed. “I hate baseball. We’ve had this discussion already.”
“I remember
that.”
“So how
could you possibly think that I would want to go to a baseball game with
you?”
“Well,” he
explained. “It’s better than going to a
movie. We’d have a better chance of
getting to know each other. That and the
tickets are free. My dad won a pair at
work, and he doesn’t want to use them.
They are in one of the Luxury Boxes, so there is free food too.”
At least he didn’t say that I should go
because I would be going with him, which was what I had expected. The fact that it was free was a very good
reason to consider it. I had to admit.
Add the fact that we probably weren’t going to have to pay for food, made
it a lot more attractive. Well, I
couldn’t say that he couldn’t plan a good date.
One less reason I could use to say no.
He obviously had thought this through.
His explanation didn’t sound like something he had came up with on the spur
of the moment. He knew I would react the
way I did, so he had to have a good reason to ask me to go see a sport I had
let him know that I didn’t like. Not
having to pay, that was a good reason.
This whole thing was totally planned, and I became even more curious.
“How long
have you planned this?” I asked him.
“Three
weeks,” he answered without a care in the world.
“Three
weeks?” Was he kidding me? Three weeks.
I was expecting something a little more reasonable, like a couple of
hours. Even since we had met in English class, was an acceptable response, but
three weeks. Not so much. Maybe I was really going to have to see about
getting that restraining order. “You’ve
only known me for a day.”
“I’ve known
about you for most of the summer,” he said.
“Angel spent a lot of time talking about this great girl who she worked
with who was going to be in our school.
I’m sure that you’re well aware that Angel has a big mouth.”
“What about
before this summer? You’ve already
proven that you knew about me before then.”
“I saw you
running at last spring’s state meet,” he answered. “I was wondering who was that pretty girl who
winning all of those medals. I’ll spare
you the details of how good you looked.
I don’t want your head to get too big.”
“That’s hilarious,”
I retorted. “Especially coming from
someone who had the nerve to ask me when I was going to give him my number like
he was entitled to it.”
“After I
saw you talking to my sister,” he continued ignoring my last dig. “I asked her about you. She had only good things to say about you,
which was surprising considering she usually doesn’t go out of her way compliment
girls.”
“I’m
confused,” I said. “If you knew about me
most of the summer and obviously wanted to meet me, why did I just meet you
today?”
“I didn’t
want to seem too eager, and I wanted to meet you on my own terms and to make my
own personality judgment. Considering
the last girl I dated, I wasn’t taking any chances.”
“But you
just said that Angel was talking me up.
What was the difference? How
could you make your own personality judgment?”
“She
actually didn’t say that much. It was
mostly about how you and she got along.
Like I said, she has a big mouth, and if I gave her any indication that
I was interested, she would have blabbed to you. I wanted us to meet without you having any
inside information on me.” He paused. “You didn’t have any did you?”
“Angel told
me nothing. I didn’t even know that you
existed until today.”
“So I was
able to figure out rather we would get along or not.”
“And that
was?”
“That we
would get along just fine,” he said with a trace smug. The confidence had definitely returned.
While we were talking, about five
people had walked into the store. These
were people who were actually going to buy something. I told Bret that I had to get back to work
and he turned to leave. Before taking
his first step, he stopped and turned back to me.
“So what
about Friday?” he asked. “You never gave
me an answer.”
I should have
said no. Then again, I didn’t really
want to. I just didn’t want to go
through all the hassle in my house when my mom found out that I was going on a
date with a white guy. I didn’t think my
dad would mind too much. However, it was
only one date. We could end up having a
horrible time and end up hating each other.
I wasn’t sure what to do.
“I’ll think
about it,” I said. I was such a chicken,
and I wanted time to think about it.
“Well at
least that’s not a no.” He smiled. I
don’t think he was actually expecting me to say yes, so he had come out of this
better than he anticipated. “Don’t keep me waiting too long.”
“Or
what? You’re going to ask Kendra?”
He scoffed
at this. I knew this would get to
him. “You’ll find out.”
With that
he left, leaving me to work for the rest of the shift wondering what he could
possibly do. The fact the he even asked
me out in the first place was just baffling to me. It didn’t make any sense. This guy was supposed to be the stud of the
entire school. He could probably date
any girl that he wanted, and yet he picked the new black girl. I knew that he wasn’t desperate. If he was, I wasn’t the one to change things
for him. He hadn’t made any attempt to
hide his flirting, but now it has moved beyond that. His asking me out said that he was interested
in more than just flirting. But how much
more?
I thought
about those things for the last three hours of my shift, and it made it hard to
concentrate on work or even studying. I
was beat after closing the store and making the drive home. Thank God, I didn’t have to stop for
gas. The drive home was boring, as it
usually was. I had the hardest time
trying to stay awake. I arrived home and
didn’t even stop in the kitchen to grab something to eat. My route was basically straight up to my room
with no stops in between. I took off my
clothes, through on my shorts and a t-shirt and jumped straight into bed. The moment my head hit the pillow, I was
asleep.
****
I woke in
place that was certainly not familiar; at least it wasn’t when I first opened
my eyes. It was also extremely hot. I
didn’t remember it ever being this hot in the morning. I sat up and looked around. My room was extremely small. There was only this small bed that I was
sleeping in and a dresser with small a closet.
The one window that was on the wall across the room was closed. No wonder it so hot. I got out of bed and walked on the wood floor
to the window. The room was lit by
candles which meant that there wasn’t any electricity. After I got to the window, I spent about five
minutes trying to get it open. The
window obviously hadn’t been opened in a while, and added the fact that it was
heavy didn’t make it very easy to open.
I knew that I was a female, but the window shouldn’t have been that hard
to open. I was a lot stronger than I
looked. It was obviously night time,
which made it even more baffling that it was hot inside that room, even though
the window had previously been closed. I
made the walk outside the room into what looked to be part living room and part
kitchen. This place was actually kind of
depressing. No electricity and it was
like an oven, even at night. Who could
live here?
I didn’t
spend a lot of time worrying about that though.
I went outside the front door. I
didn’t really know why I did it, I just did.
I walked out on to the front porch, down the steps, and into a front
yard that a house like this had no business having. Talk about a well manicured front lawn. The grass was green and well kept. There was a dirt path bordered by rocks and
flowers going from the porch steps to the fence gate, and there was a brown
wood fence surrounding the yard. It was
totally unexpected; unlike the two guys I saw standing right inside the gate. For some reason I totally expected to see
them, even though I had no idea why they would be at what was apparently my
house at this time of night. However,
they were surprised to see me. I could
tell by their expressions that they really didn’t know what to do at
first. They had stopped dead in their
tracks almost frozen.
The two had
a slight resemblance to each other, probably cousins. One was taller than the other. The taller one had blond hair was very well
built. The smaller of the two was brown
haired and just as built as the other one, if not more so. I could tell by the look of them that the
shorter one was the older of the two.
Obviously they were up to no good.
Why else would they be here in the middle of the night? I kept my eyes on them while the shorter of
the two moved towards me. The taller one
didn’t move.
“Well it’s
good that you came outside on your own,” the tall one said. “You saved the trouble of my brother having
to come in and get you.”
“Why would
that have been necessary?” I asked.
“Brother,
she is just as pretty as you said.” That
came from the shorter of the two. “I can
see why we’re here though. She really
doesn’t seem to know her place around here.”
“Really,” I
said with a slight hint of irritation.
“If you are supposed to be so superior, why are you here in the wee
hours of the morning? Looks to me like
for superior white folk, you’re terribly lacking in manners.” They bristled at this. The taller one looked at me intensely.
“Brother,
just do what you need to do and get home.”
The taller one was obviously the one who in charge here. “I’m leaving.
Dad will get pissed if he found out I was anywhere near you.”
That was
strange. These two were brothers, and
yet they couldn’t be seen together.
Obviously, they had some pretty big family issues. I didn’t really care as it wasn’t any of my
concern. The taller one then turned and left
the other one behind. It seemed as if he
left his older brother to do all of the dirty work. Not surprisingly, the younger, taller one
also seemed to be the smarter of the two.
The older brother watched the other one leave and then he turned to me
with an evil grin on his face. I just
stood there waiting. Even with the evil
grin on his face, he seemed to be thinking.
I was sure it took him a lot of energy.
I did notice the gun on his belt, but he had yet to draw it out.
“So why are
you here?” I asked.
“I thought
you were supposed to be this smart colored girl,” he said. He waited from a reaction from me, and when
he didn’t get one, he continued. “I’m
here to teach you a lesson. We in these
parts would rather you colored folks hang with your own kind. Besides, it will teach all the rest of you
who is in charge around here, since the rest of them seem to value your
opinion.”
“And how do
you plan on doing that?”
He threw up
that evil smile again. “I’m going to
have a lot of fun with you. I have a
thing for you colored girls.”
I knew
exactly what he meant. This was supposed
to be total intimidation. It was too bad
that he obviously didn’t have any idea who he was dealing with. “That’s interesting coming from someone who
just said that I should stay with my own kind.”
“You know,
you really do have a smart mouth.” His
evil grin had changed into a face full of anger. “I’m going to enjoy making you bleed.”
“Do what
you feel you must,” I said indifferently.
Then, I my facial expression went stone cold. He seemed to notice because he momentarily
flinched. It lasted less than a second,
and I was sure he didn’t think that I would notice. “However,” I continued. “I must warn you. I will also do what I feel I must.”
He laughed
at me. “The more you fight me, the more fun I’ll have.” He then took off toward me. He moved pretty fast, but once he got close
enough that I could reach, I shot out a closed fist that connected with his
nose. I could hear the bones in his nose
crack. He staggered backward,
stunned. His face was covered with
blood. He was in obvious pain, and went
down to one knee. I didn’t wait for him
to recover. I ran up to him, and taunted
him.
“Catch me,
if you dare,” I whispered into his ear, and I took off running into the
woods. There was no way I was running
back into the house. That would have led
him right to me. Not that it
mattered. I could easily take care of
him. However, I wanted this to be a
little more interesting for me.
Now I
didn’t want him to catch me, however I wanted him to stay close enough that he
could always tell which way I went. That
really wasn’t the way to run away from someone, but I wasn’t really trying to
get away from him. I ran through the
tress at half of my top speed. I knew
that he was thinking that he could easily catch me, and I was willing to let
him keep thinking that. I chose my
routes carefully through the huge trees.
It wasn’t that I had the woods memorized, but that I could see
especially well during the night, probably too well. There wasn’t a lot of moonlight, and the
trees blocked a lot of the light, but that didn’t tamper my ability to see more
than ten feet in front of me. I made a
right and hurdled the knee high bushes that were in my path. I could hear my adversary running behind me,
but he wasn’t really that close. He
didn’t recover that quickly, and like my ability to see in the dark, my hearing
also seemed to be nicely enhanced. I
kept running and soon made my way into a clearing with a single huge tree with
huge branches that could easily support my weight. I quickly climbed up the tree, and crawled
out on one thick branch that stretched out over the clearing and then
waited. I could see the stars through
the tree top. The night was so still I
could have heard a pin drop in the grass.
I could still hear him running. I
was wondering how far he was. I could
hear him almost as if he was right under where I was in the tree. However, it would be ten minutes before I
actually saw him. He came through the
bushes into the clearing, and then suddenly stopped. He looked around trying to figure out where I
went. I stayed perfectly still up in the
tree. Of course, if he looked up he
would have found out where I hiding.
That thought didn’t cross his feeble mind, however. He walked around again for a few more seconds
and then he made his way over towards the tree.
He walked slowly not really in any kind of hurry. I watched him pass under me. When he made his way to the tree trunk, I
dropped down out off the branch, turned two flips, and landed perfectly on my
feet like a cat without making a sound.
I easily could have left him there.
The escape would have been too easy.
However, making an escape wasn’t the reason why I had brought him here. I waited a couple of seconds watching him
look around confused. When I finally got
tired of waiting for him to turn around, I decided to move things on a little
bit.
“Looking
for me?” I asked breaking the still silence.
He turned and looked at me with a surprised look on his face. He had no clue of what I had in store for
him. “For a person who is supposed to be
so superior, you sure haven’t shown it yet.
I am not impressed.”
“You stupid
bitch.” Now he was mad. Before, he was more menacing, evil. It was more matter of fact when he was saying
how he was going to have fun teaching me a lesson, almost like he was toying
with me. Now it was quite different. I’m sure if someone else was standing before
him, they would be quite intimidated. I,
however, stood there with no fear. This
alone should have clued him in that things were not actually like he thought
they were, but he didn’t notice. I guess
he was actually stupid. It certainly
didn’t stop him from talking.
“At first,” he said. “I was going to let you live. I was going to take what I wanted from
you. Scare you really badly, so you
would think twice about messing with people you shouldn’t. You would learn your place, and you would see
what would happen to you if you continued acting without respect. You niggers talk a lot, so I’m sure everyone
would find out what happened to you and would start to act right. Now, I will just rid the world of you
permanently. One less nigger in the
world wouldn’t be so bad anyway.”
That was the first time he had used
that word to describe me or anyone else.
Oh yeah he was mad. I just looked
at him. He still had all the blood dried
up on his face, and he looked like a clown.
That was enough to make me want to get rid of him because I hated clowns
with a heated passion. He was about ten
feet away in front of me, and he still had his gun in his holster, even though
his left hand was next to it, ready to draw and fire quickly when the need
came. The fact that he didn’t have the
gun pointed at me says that he really didn’t think of me as much trouble
regardless of what had happened earlier.
That was going to turn out to be a costly mistake.
“What are you going to do shoot
me?” I asked. “You haven’t even drawn you gun.”
“So what?” he said like I was the
village idiot. “You’re pretty fast, but
you aren’t that fast. You are at least
ten feet away. I’d like to see you try
and stop me.”
“That can definitely be arranged,”
I said. My voice was cold, and I spoke
with intense confidence. “Why don’t you
stop talking already? The more you
speak, the dumber you sound.”
“Look, whore,” he said. He drew his gun, but before he could get it
pointed at me, I brought up my right hand.
I pointed my open palm directly at him, and out of it fired a large
flame. It came out of my palm like a
blowtorch, but as it traveled to its target, it formed into a massive
fireball. The fireball didn’t stop
moving, making its way to my adversary.
It hit him square in the chest, and he let out a loud scream. The force of the impact knocked him backward
and he was instantly slammed into the tree, the fire ball totally engulfing him
in flames. Then, just as quickly as it
had appeared, the fire disappeared. The
tree, it didn’t appear to be burned at all, even though it just had just taken
a huge fireball squarely into its trunk.
I walked over to the tree, to
confirm that it hadn’t been damaged and then looked downward. There I saw the brother. All that was left of him was a burnt skeleton
that still emitted a lot of heat. I bent
down towards him where his ear should have been, but all that was left was a
blackened skull. His remains still
smelled of burning flesh.
I smiled coldly and spoke. “So now who is superior?” I got up and left the clearing, leaving
behind his burnt remains to rot. The
smile never left my face.
I suddenly
opened my eyes and jerked myself upright in my bed. Light was shining through the curtains of my
bedroom window, so obviously it was morning.
Glancing at my alarm clock told me that it was fifteen minutes before I
was actually supposed to get up anyway, so I shut off the alarm and got up out
of bed. I immediately felt sluggish and
drained, but not in the sense that I didn’t get enough sleep. Going back to sleep wasn’t an option because
I was wide awake and even though I had the normal pains of early morning
hunger, I still had a lot of energy.
Still, something didn’t feel quite right. I felt as if I had lost something. It was kind of like some of my soul had been
lost or something. It was weird, and for
a few minutes I sat on the bed totally discombobulated.
Unable to shake out the cobwebs, I
got out of bed and jumped into the shower.
While the hot water was spraying on my body, I thought back to the dream
that I just had. I remembered it
vividly, as if it had actually happened and not some weird subconscious
hallucination that was happening while I slept.
The coincidence of having this dream after a damn good looking white guy
had just asked me out didn’t go unnoticed, but I thought little of it. I wasn’t one to believe that dreams told the
future. I had a friend at Roosevelt High
who would swear her dreams would always happen in real life later. It was never right away but a few days or
weeks later, and then she would claim that she was having a weird sense of déjà
vu and drive everyone out of their minds until she figured out where it came
from. It was actually pretty creepy. Not for me.
I also didn’t think much of that fire thing at the end of my dream, even
though it was kind of cool. It wasn’t
the first time that my dreams had me feeling like I was inside of a Final Fantasy video game. No, what stuck with me was my state of mind
during the whole thing. I was cold,
mean, and calculating. I had toyed with
the redneck that I had killed. I was
playing games with his life, and I enjoyed every second of it. I got a creepy sort of glee from it. Even now, wide awake, I could still feel an
out of place sense of joy from what I had done.
However, it wasn’t from the shooting huge fireballs out of my palm, but
it was from the fact that I had taken that Redneck’s life so thoroughly and
quickly. It initially scared the hell out of me, but I
blew it off as being part of the dream.
Getting dressed wasn’t the chore
that it usually was. It was actually
quite enjoyable. I was keeping things
simple since trying to do too much is usually when disasters occurred. Plus, it was still summer, so it was hard to
screw up while trying to look like I didn’t have to work really hard to look
good. I decided to wear my hair down
again, since the saying goes that if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. I got too good of a response to not continue
doing it. While finishing my morning
ritual, I started to feel better. The
sluggish feeling began to slowly seep away and by the time I got downstairs for
breakfast, I felt totally normal, well as normal as I could feel an hour after
waking up.
When I arrived downstairs, I didn’t
smell the usual scents that would make my stomach growl with hunger. That usually meant that it was going to be
one of those fend for yourself mornings.
The cause of that was usually my mom worked so late the night before that
there was no way that she was going to wake up early enough to cook, especially
when she was not really a big fan of cooking to begin with. The alternative reason was that she was just
really having a really bad morning, and for the sake of the rest of us, I hoped
it was the former. When she was having a
bad morning that usually meant the rest of us would have a bad morning. I made a simple breakfast of eggs, toast, and
a bowl of oatmeal, and when I had finished my dad had made his way into the
kitchen and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me inside cooking.
“Oh, it’s going to be one of those
mornings,” he said. I could literally
see the smile on his face fall. Even Dad
wasn’t immune to Mom’s ranting when she was having a bad morning. We all would get it in equal doses, or the
one who screwed up last would take the brunt of the punishment.
“I still don’t understand how you
can’t ever see these things coming. You
sleep in the same bed as she does.” I
joked with him.
“That because I usually stay asleep
until the last minute,” Dad explained.
“Imagine what would happen if I were to get up at the same time as she
does. I would spend the first few
minutes of my day getting yelled at about how I left crumbs on the kitchen
counter that it seems only she could see.”
Wasn’t that the truth? That was usually
how it went.
My brother and mom showed up a few
minutes later, and soon we were all sitting at the table as normal. Contrary to what we had expected, Mom was in
a very good mood, and rest of us made sure that she didn’t see any sighs of
relief. Regardless of her uncharacteristic cheery
mood, she asked what would turn out to be a dangerous question.
“So what is with wearing you hair
down, Val?”
“It’s something different,” I
said. “I can’t wear my hair the same all
the time.”
“She must be trying to impress a
boy,” Dad said. He had a knack for
figuring out those types of things. My
brother and I could never hide anything from him. “It’s either that or she has already made the
desired impression, and she was just trying to keep up the effect.”
“Come on Dad,” I protested. “It’s only the second day of school, and I
hardly know anyone. Who could I possibly
want to impress?”
“How about Bret Spencer?” That gem came from my brother.
“You don’t even know who that is,”
I said.
“Sure, I do. He gave me a ride home from school yesterday.” This was surprising, but I showed no
reaction, so he continued. “Plus, most
of the school knows that he likes you anyway.
Anyone who doesn’t will soon know that he asked you out while you were
at work.”
“And I’m sure you will have a big
hand in that.” As much as I wanted to
know how Bret even knew who my brother was to give him a ride home, my worries were
that I was already a part of the gossip after being there only one day. God, those people worked fast. Of course, I then knew how Bret knew that I
was working last night. He probably
asked my brother, along with God knew what else, and my brother, being the
jackass that he was, probably told Bret everything he wanted to know and then
some. Then the thought occurred to me
that Bret now knew where I lived, and I was again thinking about getting that
restraining order.
“Mom, you don’t have to be worried
about him.” My brother’s voice brought
me out of my thoughts. “Especially since
she like girls anyway.”
“What?”
“Clay.” Mom had said his name in a way would have let
the neighbors know that he had stepped way over the line with that
comment. However, I acted without
thinking and picked up the spoon that I had just cleaned off after finishing my
oatmeal and smacked him in the back of the head with it. It definitely wasn’t a love tap, and I had
left a mark on the back of Clay’s shaved head.
Mom was pissed, and Dad was laughing.
“What did I tell the two of you
about acting uncivilized at the table?”
Mom was actually yelling. Usually
when I say that she yelled at us, she was actually just being a nag. “We’ve raised you better than that. Damn. If we would have had company, they
would have thought you two had come off the streets. You two know better.” She paused and turned to Dad. “What are you laughing at?”
“Nothing,” Dad answered and
immediately stopped laughing.
No one said anything else. Mom was too mad, and the rest of us didn’t
want to be the one on the receiving end of Mom’s anger. We all just ate in silence.
After I was done eating, I went
upstairs and finished getting ready. It
was only a five minute process including putting on my makeup. Again, keeping it simple was the key. As I was about to walk out the door with my
books, I stopped. Something in the room
was definitely different. I looked
around the room and everything looked as it should have. My room was meticulously organized, and it
drove me crazy when things were out of place.
Mom never had to tell me to clean my room. The feeling that something was different
didn’t go away, so it was definitely something that I had already seen but just
didn’t notice at the time. Not finding
any of my things in the room out of place, I looked up and my eyes settled on
the painting above my bed. I didn’t
notice anything different about that either, at least at first. The girl in the painting looked the same. Same facial expression, clothing, and
stance. My eyes traveled down her left
arm, which was outward, palm up as if she was handing someone what was in her
hand. Usually, that hand was empty, but
not today. Resting above the palm of her
hand, not making any contact with the skin was a flame with the smoke from the
flame rising upward into the sky.
****
My brother and I arrived at school
about twenty minutes later, after a drive where the both of us were totally
silent. I was still pissed at him
because of what he said at the table, and he was mad because I had hit him in
the back of the head because of it. The
mark on the back of his head had now turned into a small knot. He was going to have fun explaining that one
to all of his girlfriends. Another
reason that I didn’t speak was that I was too busy worrying how that flame
showed up on the painting. I couldn’t
think of any logical explanation for it, and that was what bothered me the
most. It definitely wasn’t there before. I knew that for a fact, and it was rather
coincidental that the flame had showed up on the morning after I had a dream
about burning some stupid redneck to a crisp.
No matter how much I racked my brain on the drive to school, I couldn’t
think of anything that didn’t sound ridiculous.
When I pulled into the school parking lot, I dropped it, and after
parking, my brother and I again went our separate ways. I wasn’t getting any help today, so it was a
good thing that I remembered where my classes where. I walked into school, and if others in the
hallway stared or were whispering anything about me I certainly didn’t
notice. My focus was on getting to my
locker and getting to English class, and I didn’t run into Angel or anyone
else. I made it to class with plenty of
time to spare, and sat down in my seat.
Bret had entered class a few minutes later, flashed me a smile and sat
down a couple seats in front of me in the row to my right. We didn’t say a word to each other. Mrs. Ross started promptly when the bell
rang, and we were quickly down to business.
It was funny how the class had a totally different tone than the
previous day. She was very lighthearted
in her lecture, and even cracked a couple of jokes. The entire class took notes furiously because
we had no idea what would turn up on the test on Friday. The time had passed quickly, and before I
knew it class was over. Of course, we
didn’t get out of there unscathed. Mrs.
Ross gave us a reading assignment, and handed each of us a copy of The Catcher and the Rye. We had already known what we were getting
into because her lecture was all about this novel. Two guys who were roommates in boarding
school, and their friendship. From the
way she explained it, I thought were going to be reading about some quasi
homosexual relationship. Before even
reading a page, I was wishing that the guys would just kiss already and get it
over with.
After leaving class, I was walking
alone to my locker. I figured Bret had
decided to keep his distance, and for that, I was thankful. I didn’t want him hounding me all morning about
whether or not I had made a decision. No
one spoke to me while passing through the halls, and everything went how I had
expected yesterday to go. The only
difference was that this time I knew where I was going. The next two classes went as the others
did. More lectures and more
homework. I wasn’t going to have an easy
day after school today.
Advance Biology was my most
interesting class of the day. We had
split up into lab partners to do our first lab assignment. Most of everyone had already picked their
friends as their lab partners, so I basically got stuck with the
leftovers. I ended up with a guy a blond
haired guy, that I was actually kind of shocked that he ended up being one of
the leftovers. I wouldn’t be shocked for long though because
the reason no one was going out their way to be his lab partner soon became
apparent.
“Blaine Webb,” he said. Before I could get a word in, he
continued. “And yes I’m gay.” That was an interesting and quite pretentious
way for him to introduce himself. This was especially true since I wasn’t
questioning his sexuality and didn’t really care what his preferences were. I knew plenty of gay guys at my last school
and they really didn’t go around introducing themselves to people like
that. It wasn’t that they were all in the
closet, even though some of them were.
It was just something that while I couldn’t say that it went unspoken,
it wasn’t pushed to the forefront of every conversation either. Basically most of us respected the fact that
a person’s orientation was their own business, emphasis on the word most.
“Val Robinson,” I said, I decided
to play along. “And I’m straight.”
“I didn’t think otherwise or Bret
would definitely be wasting his time.”
“He still might be wasting his
time. It’s just that isn’t the reason.”
He seemed to like that
response. “I’m surprised that you’re not
surprised that I knew about that.”
“Don’t be. My little brother also goes here, and he was
more than happy to clue me on that bit of gossip before we got to school this
morning.
He perked up at the mention of my
brother. “You have a brother? Is he as cute as you?”
“Whoa, down boy,” I said
amused. “He’s my brother. I wouldn’t tell you he was cute, even if he
was. Besides, you don’t have a chance
anyway. He likes girls.”
“That’s a shame. Such a waste.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. I liked him instantly. However, I was surprised that he was so out
about his sexuality. Most people who
were out around our age had enough feminine qualities, that the fact that they
were gay could have been figured out anyway.
I wouldn’t have assumed he was gay upon first meeting him, if he hadn’t
told me, not that I went around trying to assume that about people. He seemed very much a man’s man. It was obvious that he was in very good
shape, had a deep voice, and had a blond mustache and goatee. He also made masculine gestures when he
talked. It was refreshing to see a gay
guy around my age who actually enjoyed being a guy. I saw enough guys like that in Hillcrest in
the city to know that they exist, but never in high school. I
looked down at his notebook and noticed pictures of a young Elvis Presley
plastered all over the front cover.
“I’m a big fan of Elvis,” Blaine said when I asked
him about it. “That’s about the only
music I listen to.”
Well, that explained why he didn’t
have a lot of friends. Besides, a gay
man being a fan of Elvis was quite a combination. I thought all gay guys like techno. We got started on our lab assignment or
attempted to anyway. Now, I had
originally thought that we were in an Advanced Biology class, but our lab
assignment was more like something that should have been in a Chemistry
class. Whatever happened to dissecting
cats? The way things were going right
then, I figured we’d be making Tylenol by the end of the year. That seemed more like a college Organic
Chemistry class then something we should be doing in a high school advance
biology class. That wasn’t the problem,
however. The main problem was that we
couldn’t get our Bunsen burner to work properly, because there wasn’t any gas. The whole class had this problem and not just
us, so it wasn’t incompetence on our parts.
Even our teacher couldn’t seem to get the gas working, and after a few
minutes of watching him struggle, I was starting to get quite bored. I started to fiddle around with the top of
the Bunsen burner not with any real purpose.
It wasn’t like I could really do anything anyway. The striker was lying harmlessly on the
counter, and I hadn’t touched it. Blaine was looking on quite
amused.
“What are you doing?” he
chided. “Trying to start a fire using
magic or something?”
“It would be great if I could,” I
said. “It would definite move things
along. Wouldn’t it be funny if I just my
hand next to the top of the Bunsen burner and flicked my wrist and a fire
actually started?” I was performing the
action as I was saying it, but what happen next clearly wasn’t funny. As soon as I flicked my wrist, a fire came
out of the top of the Bunsen burner. It
wasn’t a small one either, as the flames reached the top of the beaker. If my face had been any closer to it, I would
have burned off my eyebrows. Both of
Blaine and I jumped backwards, stunned.
The fire didn’t stay lit. It
quickly disappeared as if it was some kind of illusion
“What just happened?” Blaine
asked clearly freaked out.
“I don’t know,” I answered just as
freaked out as he was. “Maybe what his
face got the gas working.”
“Yeah, but you weren’t using the
striker when that happened.” Blaine was clearly
suspicious of something.
“Well use the striker and see if
you can get this thing working.”
Blaine clearly didn’t want to do this. However, he went ahead and picked up the
striker and used it. Apparently the
teacher had gotten the gas working, because after a few sparks, Blaine was able to get the
fire started. Getting the fire started
seemed to placate whatever suspicions he had, and we tried to get to work. Unfortunately, our fire went out again, and
numerous attempts to get it started again were unsuccessful. After again trying to figure out what was
wrong with the gas, our teacher gave up when he could not figure out the
problem. We got out of having to
complete the lab assignment, but got stuck having to listen to this guy talk
the rest of the class. When class was
over, Blaine
and I had stayed behind for a couple of minutes to put our stuff together.
“If you keep that up, you are going
to turn out to be a very interesting lab partner,” Blaine said as we finally headed toward the
door.
“What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything.”
“No you didn’t,” he said. “You only tired to blow up the entire class.”
“Very funny,” I said as we entered
the hallway where Angel was waiting for me.
“See you later, Fire girl,” Blaine said, and quickly
took off. I couldn’t even get a word in
edgewise. Angel gave him a look that
would’ve spoiled cheese. That was
curious to me because just based on personality alone; I had figured that he
and Angel would have hit it off perfectly.
“I can’t believe you were actually
talking to him,” she said dismissively.
“Why wouldn’t I talk to him?” I
asked her. “Besides it’s not like I had
much of a choice. He is my lab partner.”
“Just be careful. He has a habit of spreading nasty
rumors.” We started walking toward the
cafeteria. At least on the surface, that
seemed like a valid reason. At first I
had thought that I shouldn’t be talking to him just because he was gay, since that
seemed to be the only thing that made him different than anyone else, his
infatuation with Elvis not withstanding.
“Explain please.”
That she did. It was something that was way too hard to
believe at first. Apparently, Caleb,
Angel, and Blaine had also been pretty good friends. The two of them weren’t as good friends with Blaine as they were with
Bret, but they were good friends nonetheless.
Now Caleb and Angel had suspected that Blaine was gay for a long while before he
told them. However, she didn’t explain
what caused those suspicions. It wasn’t
something they had really cared about.
What they did care about was apparently what he was saying about them,
or more specifically Caleb, when they weren’t around. Blaine
was going around telling people that Caleb was gay. I was totally shocked by this because I
couldn’t figure out any logical reason as to why he would do that. Apparently he had been telling people since
last fall, but they had just found out in the spring. It turned out that it didn’t really matter
what he had said about Caleb because no one believed it anyway. I found that hard to believe at first, but
after thinking about it I came to the conclusion that was probably the reason
that it took Angel so long to find out about it. If it had been really damaging they would
have found out a lot sooner. Still there
was something about this whole story that bothered me.
“I’m confused,” I said after she
told me the story. “Did either of you
actually ask Blaine
if he had said it?”
“Well. I asked one of the girls who was supposedly
told was one of his best friends, and she did say that Blaine had told her.”
“That doesn’t answer my question?”
“Well he hasn’t denied it,” Angel
said a tad defensively. “Okay, I didn’t
ask him. Then again, I was too mad at
the time too ask him. I didn’t even want
to talk to him. Whether Caleb or not
asked him? I don’t know. You have to ask him.”
“Why would Blaine do that though?” I asked her.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that Blaine would get no benefit from spreading
that particular rumor. It makes no
logical sense.”
Angel was quiet for a second, and
then said. “I thought the same thing. The only thing I could think of was that he
actually like Caleb.”
“So he’s going to spread a rumor
that Caleb is gay when he actually isn’t?
I don’t think that would have gotten the results that he would have
wanted. He had to have known that.”
Something about this whole thing
just didn’t add up. Angel’s explanation
as to why Blaine
would do such a thing was still illogical.
It wouldn’t matter that Blaine had
started that rumor because Caleb wasn’t gay, and Caleb would never hook up with
Blaine just for
that reason alone. The only result that Blaine could have counted
on is that he would have lost two friends after doing it, and that seems to be
exactly what happened. I could
understand why the two of them were upset if he actually admitted to doing
these things, which he hadn’t. As a
matter of fact she didn’t even ask him. Angel
had just a right to be upset, even though it was being said about Caleb. There isn’t a girl in the world who likes
being told that there is a rumor that the guy she likes is gay. Angel either wasn’t telling me everything, or
she was flat out lying. The latter was
far less likely. She seemed like she was
really hurt by what had happened. I got
the feeling that she was closer to Blaine
then Caleb was, and she took it a lot harder.
That made it even more baffling that she didn’t ask him if he had said
those things. She just took it as being
true. I didn’t for a minute think that
just because he didn’t deny saying it was an admission of guilt, and basically
Angel should have known better. Besides,
if he had admitted it to Caleb, I was sure that Angel would have known. However, this was high school, and things
like that happened all the time. Perception was everything, and it’s not like
the national media where as long as people were talking about you, good or bad,
it was okay. Having a bad perception in
high school was like the kiss of death, so Caleb kind of dodged a bullet there. All that said was that people won’t believe a
rumor about a person if it goes totally against their perceived perception of
that person.
“Anyway,” I continued. “He’s never done anything to me. You two might hate him, but that really
doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
“Fair enough.”
We got our food and sat down, and
again the boys showed up after we had sat down and starting eating. Bret flashed a smile and sat next to me
while, Caleb sat next to his girlfriend.
The interaction between the two of them was a lot more natural then it
was yesterday. Maybe Caleb was having a
bad day yesterday, but their being together didn’t look fake. Bret, on the other hand, decided to sit way
too close to me. Our legs kept
touching. Obviously, he didn’t have any clue
about how to deal with people with personal space issues. He went from one extreme to the other, from
keeping his distance to being all up in my grill. The two lovebirds across the table were….well
making out.
“And here yesterday I was chiding
Kendra for her lack of manners,” I started.
“Now, I have to see this while I’m trying to eat.”
“Disgusting isn’t it?” Bret asked
jokingly.
Caleb stopped sucking face long
enough to ask, “What?”
“Get a room.” Bret and I both said that at exactly the same
time. We turned and looked at each
other.
“Whoa, talk about creepy.” Caleb
was laughing.
“Great minds-“Bret started.
“Great minds what?” Angel asked. “I
hope you’re not trying to say that you have a great mind.”
“So says the Mexican who doesn’t speak
Spanish,” I quipped.
“Shut up.” That was the best Angel could come up with,
which means that I had actually gotten the best of her for once.
“That’s all you’ve got.” Bret then put his arm around my shoulders and
said to me, “Good job. It’s not often
someone can stop Angel’s mouth.”
“What are you doing?” I asked him. I casually knocked his beefy arm off of my
shoulders. “You asked me out on one
date, and I haven’t given you an answer yet.
That doesn’t give you permission to touch me.”
“You still haven’t given him an
answer?” Caleb asked. He knew good and
damn well that I hadn’t answered him yet. “It Wednesday, what’s taking so
long?”
“The whole school wants to know,”
Angel put on a sly smile. “Especially
the girls. They are hoping you say no,
which is not shocking.”
“I took an unofficial poll this
morning,” Caleb said. “The results were totally split along gender lines. Seventy-five percent on the girls said that
you would say no. All of the guys said
you would say yes.”
This time I put my arm around a
horrified Bret’s shoulders. He was
slumped down in the chair, and that was the only reason why I was successful
because he was so big. My hand rested on
his chest, and boy, did he feel good.
Bret, caught totally off guard, looked at me.
“This is all you fault,” I
said. “You just had to tell my brother
what you were planning, not knowing that we take pride in making each other
lives miserable.” I then gave him a peck
on the cheek.
“I thought we were not supposed to
be touching each other?” However, he
didn’t move my arm, not that I thought he would; so he wasn’t complaining but
instead was being a smart ass. I would
have thought by now that he knew that I was a better smart ass then he was.
“That was about you touching me,
pretty boy,” I answered. “You asked me
out. I know you like me touching you.”
He put on a sly smile, looked me
right in the eye, and said, “You have no idea how much I like you touching me.”
“Ew. Gross,” Angel said disgusted.
“What?” Bret asked laughing as I
pushed him away. “We just had to watch
the two of you basically suck the skin off each others faces.”
“Yeah,” she said. “You’re like a brother to me. That was like imagining my parents having
sex.” All three of us reacted badly to that.
Leave it to Angel to find a way to make our food, which didn’t really
look good anyway, unappetizing.
“I wasn’t talking about that. Get you mind out of the gutter.”
“Don’t you realize who you’re
talking to?” I asked him. “Her mind is
always in the sewers.” To be honest, I
thought he was talking about that too. I
was initially as horrified as she was, but that still didn’t give her any room
to talk after what the two of us had to just witness.
“Who cares?” Caleb asked
effectively changing the subject back to where it was originally supposed to
be. “Are you going to go with him or
not?”
“Putting me on the spot are we?”
“Well,” Bret said. “Friday is now less than two days away. I’ve got to make plans.”
“Plans? It’s a damn baseball game, a sport which I
hate by the way. As you said everything
is supposed to free. It’s not like
you’re buying me dinner.”
“Maybe he’s planning something afterward,” Caleb answered.
“He’s not dumb enough to have that
kind of nerve,” I countered.
“Well, I do have to plan some
things,” Bret started. “Like how not to
embarrass myself when I meet your parents.”
“Please. Who said anything about you meeting my
parents? You’re acting like I’ve already
said yes.” I was getting a little tired
of this tag team that they were putting me through.
“Are you?” Angel asked.
I guessed it was now or never. I couldn’t really put it off any longer. Besides, all of my reasons to stall were
actually kind of stupid, and not to mention that every reason why he wanted an
answer was fair. All three of them
stared at me, waiting patiently while I thought things over. How would my mom react if she actually met
him? Clay was kind of enough to not
describe what he looked like at the table this morning, so she no clue as to
what I had in store for her. How would I
react to her reaction if I said yes? And
probably the most important one, how would I keep myself from being bored as
hell for about three hours? Not reaching
a conclusion to any of the unanswered questions, I gave him my answer.
“Yeah, I’ll go,” I answered finally
giving into to my own desires.
I looked at the other three since
it had seemed like all three of them wanted this particular outcome. Angel was smiling widely. Caleb’s face was
totally unreadable. He was going to be a
good actor, or he actually really didn’t care one way or the other. Bret, on the other hand, just…. well I
guessed I could call it shock. I really
didn’t know what that was. I mean
Caleb’s face was also unreadable, but you tell he was trying to mask his
thoughts. Bret, I really couldn’t figure
out. I mean the guy has been flirting
with me for every second he was in my presence for the last two days. I finally said yes, and this was all he could
come up with. I didn’t get it. Apparently, neither did anyone else.
“Couldn’t you look a little bit more excited?”
Angel asked, obviously annoyed. She does
seem to annoy easily. “She just said yes
to going out with you, on a date that you
asked her on, jackass.”
He recovered rather quickly after
that, and plastered on that same smile.
He must have a U.S. Patent on that thing he flashes it so much.
“Good, I’ll pick you up at
five-thirty,” he said to me.
“Isn’t that kind of early?” I asked.
“Not really. We’ve got to drive downtown. It’s a Friday, and a game night. Who knows how the traffic will be?”
“Probably, not that bad.” That came from Angel. “Especially since the home team is actually
horrible.”
“Still, I’d rather be safe than
sorry.” Bret, I guessed, was now the poster child for being responsible.
I agreed to
that time, and Bret got up to leave.
“Hey, where
are you going?” Caleb asked.
Bret
ignored him, and turned to me. “So can I
have your number now?”
“You
haven’t earned that yet,” I answered.
“Besides, you don’t need it right now.
We’ve already agreed on a time.
Plus, since you drove my brother home yesterday, you already know where
I live.”
“Fair
enough.” He knew better than to ask for
too much. He said his goodbyes and again
turned to leave, but this time I stopped him.
“Oh, and by
the way, you’re driving.”
“Why am I
driving?” he asked quite amused. I knew
for a fact that he didn’t mean what he said next. “You have the better car.”
“Maybe, but
you asked me out. So you get to waste
your gas.”
“Something tells me I would have been driving
whether I had asked you out or if it was the other way around.” He then took off like a bat out of hell.
It was
quiet for about a second, and then Caleb just started laughing. “You two sound like you’ve been married for
years.”
“I wonder where he took off
to.” Angel said, almost to herself.
“He’s
probably going to rub it in Kendra’s face.”
That was Caleb’s idea. “All she’s
been doing is cussing Val out since first period. I’m sure he’s going to have a lot of fun with
that.”
“That would
be petty,” Angel said as the bell rang ending lunch. “But man would I love to be there so see the
look on her face.”
We got up
to leave, and as we stepped out into the courtyard, Caleb said to me, “Here’s a
hint, Bret loves Italian food.”
I stopped
and looked at him. “Why did you tell me
that? It’s a first date, and I don’t think
I’ll be cooking him anything anytime soon, if at all.” The funny thing was that was the most real
he’s been since I’ve met him. No funny
accents or anything like that. It was
just him being himself. It was nice to
see.
He didn’t
revert back into his crazy fake accents when he answered me. “Get off it.
You’re not fooling anyone. You
two might was well just make out and get it over with.”
“True,”
Angel said as we starting walking again.
“But, Caleb, you’re assuming she knows how to cook.”
Before I
could respond to this blatant put down, Caleb retorted. “Val can’t be any worse
in the kitchen than you are.”
I sneered as
Angel started to have smoke coming out of her ears. He didn’t notice the danger
that he was heading into, and I was more than happy to make matters worse as
long as it kept the conversation from being about Bret and me. “How bad is she?” I asked him.
“Lunch
ladies make better food.”
I didn’t
even stick around to see or hear Angel’s response. That was the perfect time to sneak off while
she was probably beating him to a pulp.
She was already fuming, and the one thing she hated was to be
embarrassed. I left them there and made
my way to Calculus class alone. I didn’t
want to stand there and watch the fireworks. I was going to be subjected to my fair share
when Angel showed up to class, so I sat there at my desk and enjoyed the last
few minutes of peace and quiet I was liable to get for which was probably going
to be for a long while.