Hybrid

by TJ Hines

  We started walking towards the public park down the road from our apartment building. It’s a small park but then again this is a small town. As we walked along the sidewalk, I noticed how cold it had become. I must have forgotten my jacket in the mad rush to leave the apartment. I guess I never noticed how cold it was because I was so infuriated that my blood felt like it was boiling. Nothing like a fight to warm the cockles of your heart. I could always go back and get it, but I doubt the big guy would let me go. And he was right about that. If I went back to the apartment before I was completely calm, well, let’s just say it would not be a pleasant experience. At least not for Abby.

  I shivered as a cool breeze whipped around us. Before I knew it, Drew had taken his jacket off and put it around my shoulders.

  “But won’t you need it,” I said hoping he wouldn’t take it back.

  “Nah. I actually always run a little warmer anyway,” he said.

  “Drew, I am really sorry you got caught in the middle of that. I…I don’t know what came over me.”

  “It’s okay, Kinsey. It wasn’t like you planned for that to happen. Anyways, Will and I thought you would have snapped a long time ago. Remember the time she threw that party while you were at work and you came home to a huge mess and that couple in your bed. I figured you would have kicked her out that night.”

  “Yeah, I remember, and I almost did kick her out, but she begged for forgiveness and said if I kicked her out, she wouldn’t have anywhere to go. So, I gave in—and ended up cleaning the apartment by myself while she supposedly went to work. Now when I want to kick her out I can’t because her name is on the lease.”

  “That blows. I would have enjoyed watching you toss her out on her sanctimonious, two-faced, cheating ass.”

  “Still though I shouldn’t have blown up at her like that in front of you and even Mike. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s actually a good thing that Mike and I were there. I know if you would have gotten your hands on her one more time, you would have beat the crap out of her. I’ve never seen you that mad before. I was thoroughly impressed by your skills. Will is going to be so pissed that he missed it,” Drew said grinning at me.

  We finally reached the park and we both headed for the swings. I thought the sight of Drew on a swing was hilarious. This huge guy swinging like a little kid on the playground. It was nice to hang out with a guy that I had absolutely no feelings for…it reminded me of hanging out with Caleb. Zero Weirdness. It was nice. After a few minutes of swinging with Drew, I started feeling more like myself. All my anger over the situation with Abby was gone. And I could look at it from a new perspective.

  I started laughing.

  “What?” Drew asked.

  “It’s just…I can’t believe Abby pushed me. She never struck me as the violent type.”

  “Really?” he asked incredulously, “you must not have heard what she did to me when I broke up with her.”

  “Nope, she never told me. What happened?” I asked intrigued.

  “She threw one of my dumbbells through the tv. It would have pissed me off if it had been my TV, but it was Will’s, so I just laughed. That pissed her off!” he said laughing.

  “Wow! What did Will do?”

  “Well you know Will. I told him what happened, and he told me to buy a new TV. I asked him if he was going to tell you what happened. He said no because he figured that Abby would.”

  “I’m sorry. I wish you would have told me. I would have made Abby pay for a new one.”

  “It’s okay. You live and you learn. I now know not to keep my dumbbells in the living room, especially when I plan on breaking up with someone,” he laughed.

  I laughed too.

  “I’m still shocked she got so mad about what you said.”

  “Please, Drew. You can’t be that clueless. For as long as I have known her, I have never heard of a guy breaking up with her, except you. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were the first.”

  “But she cheated on me and it wasn’t like we were all that serious. We went out for like…two months.”

  “Doesn’t matter. She can’t stand Will because he wouldn’t give her the time of day, so it only makes sense that she despises you because you broke it off with her,” I said.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  “You don’t have to hang out with me. I’m pretty calm now. I figure I will give them another hour to go to bed and then I will head back home. I know you have to be tired.”

  “I’m having fun, kid. I haven’t had this much excitement in a long time. Girl fights are hot!”

  “Yeah, they’re a freakin’ riot,” I added rolling my eyes.

  We stayed at the park for what seemed like an eternity just swinging. Drew was having as much fun as I was.

  “Hey, did you ever check your voicemail?” he asked as he was swinging by me.

  “Ah, hell. I completely forgot. I’ll check it now.”

  I dialed my voicemail number and listened to the automated system. I had three new messages. The first one was from Will.

  ‘Hey Kinz, I made it to my parents’ house. I’ll call you later today. Stay safe and try to stay out of trouble.’

  Yeah-well trouble found me. It’s like I am a magnet for trouble. The second message was from a number I didn’t recognize. Probably someone trying to sell me something. Annoying telemarketers. It borders on harassment.

  ‘Kinsey, its Tyler. I wanted to say that I have been thinking about you all day and I can’t wait to see you tomorrow night.’

  That was definitely not a telemarketer. I smiled. He was thinking of me. That is so sweet.

  The third message was from Will again.

  ‘Hey, Kinz. It’s a little after midnight. You are probably asleep. Sorry, it took so long to call you back today. I have been busy, but I will be back tomorrow around six. By the way, I have a surprise for you.’

  I must have missed his call during the ‘epic battle of good versus evil’ (that’s what Drew is now referring to it as). Damn it. Why did I have to lose my temper tonight? I needed to talk to him. Wait…did he say surprise? For me?

  “When you talked to Will earlier today, did he mention anything about a surprise for me?” I asked Drew, who was still swinging away.

  “Maybe,” he said coming to an abrupt stop.

  “Well did he, or didn’t he?” I asked narrowing my eyes at him.

  “Calm down, tiger. Yeah, he mentioned something about a surprise for you,” he said grinning mischievously at me because he knew what it was.

  “Well, what is it?”

  “Sorry, sworn to secrecy. You are gonna have to wait till tomorrow,” he said as he started swinging again.

  What kind of surprise did Will have in store for me? Maybe he’s decided he wants more than a friendship with me. I know it’s a ludicrous idea, but still, a girl can dream.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Damn it, Abby. Let me in!” I screamed through the door. Obviously, she was still pissed at me because we never dead bolted the door. You can only lock and unlock the deadbolt from the inside and with our varying schedules’, it wasn’t feasible.

  “Abby! Damn it! Open up,” I screamed again, beating on the door so hard that I was sure my hand was going to be bruised. I knew better than to make so much noise, seeing how we have neighbors who wouldn’t take too kindly to being woken up at three o’clock in the morning. But I was pissed off. And not only was it cold outside, especially since I gave Drew’s jacket back to him, but with the door deadbolted I was going to have to come up with an alternative sleeping plan. I guess I could always sleep in my car, but it was cold. And there is always the issue of embarrassment. People walking by and peering in at the girl asleep in her back seat. Pathetic.

  “She locked you out, didn’t she?” Drew asked as he peered down over his balcony at me.

  “No, I just enjoy yelling at the top of my lungs and beating on a door in the middle of the night,” I said sarcastically as I shivered again.r />
  “Huh. Who knew she had it in her to be so cruel and petty? Oh, wait I did,” he said laughing to himself because I wasn’t very amused. “So, are you gonna beat on the door all night and keep the neighbors up?”

  “Well, it’s either that or sleeping in my car.”

  “You know you can always stay here tonight. Will wouldn’t mind if you slept in his room. Seeing how this is partly his fault.”

  “How is any of this his fault?” I asked incredulously.

  “First, are you going to come up here or do you plan to stand outside and freeze to death?” he asked.

  I looked back at my apartment door with a sense of longing for my comfy bed and pajamas. At least there is one upside to sleeping at Will’s tonight, Abby won’t get the satisfaction of seeing me sleep in my car.

  “I’m on my way up. I need a drink,” I said as I headed to the stairs, which lead to the third-floor apartments.

  Will’s apartment was above mine, actually from what I had deduced his bedroom was directly above mine. I have dreamt about him being with me so many times and he is actually less than fifteen feet above me as I sleep.

  “Thank you,” I said taking the drink from Drew’s outstretched hand as I walked through the front door.

  Alcohol, usually beer, is the one bad thing I do. I don’t smoke or do drugs. I’m not sexually promiscuous and I rarely ever, if at all, use really vulgar language. And in my defense, I usually only drink at parties or when I really need to unwind. Hence, the reason I am drinking now. I’m technically not 21, but Caleb got me a fake ID for graduation. We wanted to get into this really cool club back home and you had to be 21 to get through the door. So, Caleb met up with this guy, gave him two current pictures of us, and voila, I was a twenty-three-year-old girl named Jennifer, and Caleb was a twenty-three-year-old guy named Max. If Jack knew I had the ID, he would probably burst a blood vessel in his head, make me come home, or worse try to kill Caleb. I haven’t used it lately because Drew has been 21 for a year now, so he buys the stuff and brings it home.

  “Are you going to explain how this is partly Will’s fault?”

  “It’s quite simple. If he hadn’t left, you two would have been hanging out and he probably would have been able to calm you down better than I did. So, it’s partly his fault in a roundabout way.” I shook my head at his logic because it didn’t make any sense. I would have still gone off on Abby for making out on my couch. And who knows, if Will had been with me instead of Drew she may would have started in on Will and I was quite certain I would have punched her. It would have been a total brawl right there in the living room.

  “What are you gonna do about the Abby situation?” he asked as he plopped down on the couch.

  “Well, since Will isn’t here to lecture me on the importance of attending class, I’m going to skip class tomorrow. Abby has class at one, so I’ll go home when she leaves…Do you have plans tomorrow?” I asked as I sat down on the giant black beanbag on the floor. Single guy décor. I know it’s horrible, but what can you do? I have to admit, though, giant beanbags are very comfortable. They completely mold to your body. Only downside--trying to get out of them.

  “I usually have a class tomorrow evening, but it’s been canceled because our professor has to take his kids trick-or-treating. Why? What are you planning?” he asked lifting his eyebrows in a sinister fashion.

  “Seeing how I can’t sleep here every night my plan is to remove the deadbolt from the door so that she can’t lock me out,” I said mischievously as I rubbed my hands together trying to act sinister.

  Drew laughed.

  “You can count me in. It will at least be a small payback for the TV. Her reaction will be priceless. Muahahahahaha…,” he said chuckling in that evil genius sort of way.

  “Yeah. I’m looking forward to it myself,” I added chugging the rest of my drink. “I guess I need to go to bed. Otherwise, I’m gonna be useless tomorrow.”

  “Sleep well, Kinz.”

  “You too.”

  I walked into Will’s room closing the door behind me. His room had to be the cleanest room in the entire world. It was so organized and polished. It looked like one of those designer bedrooms you see in magazines. I was sure that Drew’s room looked nothing like this. Drew was more of a live in the moment type of person. Whereas, Will was more of my life has to be scheduled and organized type. It suited them well as far as roommates go. They balanced each other out. I guess that was the underlying problem with the Abby situation. We never balanced each other out, so therefore we were always going to have conflict. We are both too stubborn to be roommates.

  I found Will’s favorite t-shirt and changed into it for bed. He didn’t have a radio in his room, but I still had my MP3 player on me. I put in my earbuds and drifted off to sleep listening to The Veronicas—who I absolutely love.

  Son of a Bitch!!! I am on the damn plane again! This is getting really old. I was so pissed off by the lack of a good dream that I didn’t even start looking for any new clues. I stood next to the emergency exit while the passengers started freaking out. I kept looking at my parents. I missed them so much. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to go back in time and stop them from getting on that plane. This plane!

  My parents stood up. Well, at least I would be waking up soon. That was something to look forward to. I saw the heavy smoke start filling the cabin. I did realize that the smoke didn’t have a normal burning smell. I sniffed the air again trying to figure out what the smell was. It was a familiar smell. I knew that I had smelled it somewhere before. But where?

  That’s it! It smells like the geysers at Yellowstone. We went there on vacation when I was twelve. My parents loved making our vacations educational. Jack hated it, mostly because he wanted to hang out with Emily over Spring Break, but I loved how beautiful it all was. The only part we could all agree upon was that it smelled bad. Like sulfur!

  Why did the smoke smell like sulfur? That didn’t make any sense. But the part that really didn’t make any sense was that I was still dreaming.

  Before I knew what was happening the smoky veil lifted and I felt the plane hit the ground. But it didn’t explode, hell it wasn’t even that hard of a landing. When I did my own research on the plane crash, the sources I found said the plane exploded upon impact. So why was my nightmare differing? What was going on?

  A moment after I felt the plane make contact with the ground someone slid the curtain open that separated the cabins from one another. And that person was now standing five feet from me and staring at my parents.

  “Benjamin, Melaine,” the oddly captivating man said.

  I felt like gravity was pulling me towards him. Almost like I was meant to stand by his side. But from the look on my parents’ faces, I knew this man was more awful than anyone I had ever met in my life. So, I resisted the urge to walk over to him.

  “Alec,” my father said while my mother glared at the man.

  “Tell me where she is?”

  Before my parents could answer the man’s question, I loud howl came from behind the curtain. Then I heard screams and pleas of help coming from the passengers in the coach section. I turned to investigate, but then I heard my mother’s voice, which stopped me dead in my tracks. She said to the man that they called Alec, ‘Never’. I turned back in time to see something white and glowing, which resembled a ball, fly out of Alec’s hand at the exact moment something blue and glowing came from where my parents were standing. The glowing spheres collided in midair with so much force that I was thrown back a good ten feet, collapsing in the middle of the aisle. When I got back to my feet, I saw my mom lying on the floor in a contorted position and my dad hovering over her. It took me a second to realize why he was crying and saying ‘No’ over and over again. And why the man named Alec had an evil smile on his face. Then it hit me, she had been killed by the blast.

  That’s when I started to scream.

  “Kinsey, wake up,” a voice called from the darkness as someone began shaking me. “Y
ou have to wake up.”

  It took me a second to process that someone was trying to wake me up and that someone was Drew. I opened my eyes a fraction of an inch to make sure it was indeed Drew. I was half expecting it to be that totally evil man from my nightmare.

  “Kinsey, oh thank goodness. You were screaming for five minutes. I was really starting to panic,” Drew said with a heavy relieved sigh.

  “Sorry. I was having a nightmare,” I said sitting up in bed.

  “It must have been one scary nightmare to make you scream like that,” he said.

  “Yeah, it always is.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No. I don’t even want to think about it,” I shuddered at the thought of having to explain what I had witnessed in my nightmare.

  “I understand, but I still think you should talk to someone about it. I hear it helps. If you won’t talk to me about it, will you promise to talk to Will?” Drew asked staring at me like I was going to break.

  “Is he back?” I asked elatedly.

  “No, but he’s on his way. He called about an hour ago. I told him that you were sleeping. Then he asked me how I knew that and so…I kinda had to tell him what happened last night,” he said with half a smile.

  “Crap. What did you tell him? What did he say? Was he mad?” I asked as I got out of bed and started putting my jeans back on. I noticed that Drew turned his back on me to give me some privacy. How could Abby not think he was great? He was a total gentleman. Of course, Abby doesn’t go for good guys…probably because she likes her men as mean and nasty as her. “Wait, what time is it?”

  “It’s a little after one. I would have woken you up when he called but you were sound asleep, and he said not to wake you. I didn’t tell him a lot about last night—just the basics. I figured that it would be better…for both of us…if you told him all the details,” he said with his back still to me.

  “You can turn around now,” I said to Drew as I pulled my hair up into a ponytail. “So, what exactly did you tell him?”