I pushed him away and took a step back. But apparently the rush of adrenalin from this accidental impact made me push him away too hard, and he fell against the ground.
“Sorry,” I leaned back and moved my hands to my sides. I could feel the heat from his eyes over my body. I put one hand over my stomach to cover myself, and then offered my other hand to help Joe stand back up.
He didn’t take my hand.
“I …um. I actually need to go…” He glanced over at his mom who had started to walk toward us. He jumped up.
“I gotta go,” he said, gesturing with one hand.
Joe almost sprinted away. Meg came up to me and smiled. I couldn’t smile back. I could hardly breath.
They held the dance in the commons area, and my group stood near where we always ate lunch. The music was too loud, and the decorations were cheesy, but it was all right. I lost my hat before the first song was over. On the fast songs, I jumped up and down with my girl friends, the guys in our group standing around talking about guy-type things. I’m not sure what. I don’t speak the language. Joe eventually came back to the group, his hair wet, as if he dunked his head in water. He stayed by the guys and wouldn’t look at me.
On the slow songs, Joe and the guys of our group would filter into the circle of girls to ask them to dance. I tried to stand near Joe for almost every dance, but the dumb kid never asked me. He danced, of course, just not with me.
It was then I realized for sure that he didn’t like me, at least not the way I liked him. I mean, this was the guy who said anything that popped into his head, broke into my house on more than one occasion… He didn’t have any boundaries. If he liked me he would have said so, and then followed with some obnoxious comment on the origin of runelight. We were just friends... and not ‘just friends with the possibility of more’ like I thought we were. We were friends in a ‘just friends’ box surrounded by walls I couldn’t cross. Like always, the only one who could walk through those walls was Joe.
I danced a lot with different guys, and tried not for any of them to realize I just wanted to go home and cry. The audiovisual guy, Kenny, came on the speakers and announced that this would be the last dance, so I walked with determination to where I thought Joe was. I was pretty enough, and we got on well. Maybe he just didn’t know I liked him, and he needed a push. I’d ask him.
When I found him, he was standing by a group of pretty girls, asking one of them to dance. Maybe I wasn’t… enough, like I’d thought. It hit me then, as if someone had taken all my self-worth and said, “nope… not there yet.” I had to go home. I would have walked straight to my car, but Ryan asked me to dance for the third time that night.
Ryan’s nice; I don’t know if I’ve mentioned him. He’s been my friend for a long time, since like third grade. He put his hands on my waist, and it became just a bit too much for me. I pulled in closer to Ryan than I did before and rested my head on his chest. It was more like a hug than a dance... though our feet kept moving in that obnoxious back and forth shuffle. It was then, with Ryan’s hands around my waist and my hands at his neck, that I felt the warmth of Joe’s look on me. I ignored it. At least I tried to. The heat focused on me for the length of the entire song. Eventually, Ryan and I turned our slow circle so I was facing in Joe’s direction. I dared myself to look at Joe. The side of my face lay against Ryan’s chest.
For once, Joe didn’t look away. We just stood there staring at each other until the end of the song. That was when I glanced at the girl he was dancing with. It was Erica Fisher.
The song ended, and I backed away. I felt bad that I hadn’t spoken to Ryan for the entire song, but looking at his face it seemed he didn’t mind. He was about to say something, but I interrupted him.
“Thanks, Ryan, for the dance.” I smiled at him and then walked away, grabbing Meg’s arm for a second. She left her dance partner in the middle of a sentence and put her arm around my shoulder.
“Oh sweetie,” she whispered. We walked out together, and I gave her a ride home. We didn’t speak much on the way, except for Meg to say she had a great time. Joe had danced with her, during the third song. Neither of us mentioned that. She gave me a hug from the passenger seat when we got to her door, and a few of my tears fell then. She didn’t mention them, and I didn’t say anything. That was the nicest thing about having a best friend like Meg. I didn’t have to say anything for her to understand.
I miss her most of all.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
You would think things would have been weird between Joe and me after that, but no, they went on just the same as normal. Almost rube-like, I should say.
Halfway through November, Joe broke into my house early in the morning. This happened a lot, so that in and of itself wasn’t too remarkable.
I woke up in the morning, and Joe lay on the side of my bed where I was facing. This too was a common occurrence. You would think it was… you know… romantic, but by then it felt more like an insult. He could lie down next to me on my bed with no one in the house, and still not be attracted to me.
Rude.
Joe seemed agitated, his head in his hands, his elbows almost pushing me off my own bed.
“Morning,” I said, and then I turned from my side to face the ceiling. I had glow-in-the-dark stars up there since my ninth birthday. My dad bought them for me because I was in my ‘sleep under the stars’ stage, and they wanted me to occasionally sleep indoors. Go figure.
“I saw something strange on my way here,” Joe said.
I looked over at the clock on my alarm. It was four-thirteen in the morning. With a groan, I pulled my pillow from under Joe’s head and held it over my own.
“Don’t you ever sleep?” I asked.
He ignored my complaining. That too was common. “You know that house on Lincoln?”
There were many houses on Lincoln.
“Yes,” I said, hoping for him to finish whatever he was saying so I could go back to sleep.
He turned on his side so he faced me. He jostled the bed, waking me up more. I put the pillow back under my head and then adjusted so I could watch him as he spoke.
“That abandoned house, the one with the wood covering the windows and the rotten roof.” He looked at me as if I was supposed to know what he was talking about, but I didn’t. “With the graffiti on the side.”
Suddenly I remembered, “and the birds” I said.
‘Yes.” He answered. It was this ancient house on the corner of a busy street just itching for a bulldozer. It had one of those commercial ‘for sale’ signs in front for more than a year, and no one ventured near it, even with stores and restaurants going up all around it. A flock of blackbirds had made their nest in the top window. I looked at Joe.
“I saw a rune on the front door.”
I sat up on my elbow, my comforter falling down to my waist, reminding me that I didn’t have my thin rune on. I didn’t really care. Joe didn’t like me thin or regular, so who cared what I looked like in front of him?
Okay, me. I cared. I tried not to, but I still did.
“What?” I asked.
Joe smiled when he could see I was interested. “You want to go check it out with me?”
I sighed and lay back down on my pillow, turning my face to my silent clock. Two more hours. I had two more hours of blissful sleep.
“Fine.” I said, knowing he would keep bugging me until I said yes.
I moved my feet out of bed and walked to my bedroom door. I gestured for him to leave the room so I could change. He stood up, and I saw he was wearing his jeans and a black jacket. His fingers and his cheeks were red with chill, so I knew it would be a cold one today.
“Don’t go back to sleep.” He said pointing his finger at me.
I rolled my eyes, even though I had considered it. Just for a moment. As I dressed, my curiosity started making me excited to find out who had left a rune on the abandoned house.
I did the rune on my stomach so I could put on my clothes and then
stopped in front of my closet to decide what to wear. The outfit I had picked out to wear: my too-large polyester pink bowling shirt with a brown leather belt to turn it into a dress, and wool tights, would be perhaps a bit too obvious for breaking and entering. While pondering what to wear during my first felony, Joe popped his head it.
“Don’t go back to…”
I was just wearing a bra, my patterned wool tights and black ankle boots. Joe stared at me for a second, and then jumped back behind my wall.
“Sorry,” he shouted, his voice muffled by the plaster walls.
I stood there, frozen like a rabbit in front of a semi. I grabbed the first shirt I found from my dresser. But it wasn’t a shirt, it was my black lace dress from the Halloween dance. I threw it onto the floor and instead grabbed a plain tee shirt and an old black jacket I had recently thrifted. I zipped up the jacket, and then pulled a gray cotton skirt over the tights. I pulled my hair back in a ponytail and didn’t bother doing a rune to make it curl.
Joe was downstairs eating one of my Pop-Tarts. He handed me one of the crinkly packages: blueberry (my favorite) and said, “let’s go.” Like nothing stressful had just happened.
Then he walked out of the room leaving both boxes on the counter. I put both my blueberry and the box of smores flavored ones that I bought for him back in the breakfast cupboard and closed the door.
“Riz, your OCD is slowing us down,” he said from the front room.
I laughed once, and then walked in slow motion from the kitchen to the front room.
Joe wasn’t laughing, “I will pick you up and drag you there.”
“I’d like to see you try,” I teased, slowing down my walking even more.
He threw me over his shoulder, his arms around the back of my knees, my butt next to his head and my head over his back.
“How much do you weigh, Riz? Sheesh.”
Rude. I ignored his comment, glad that we were back to normal. We walked straight though my closed front door. I hated when he pulled me through a wall. It felt itchy. I can’t explain it. He put me down on my front porch.
“You’re being way too serious for four in the morning, Joe,” I said, prickling at the chill.
Fresh snow covered my front lawn, but I could see the dark gray cement on my driveway.
Joe had shoveled my driveway, all the way up to my front steps. I stood there with my mouth open.
I wanted to hug him, but I didn’t. I wasn’t exactly comfortable yet with the idea of that part of my body so close to him.
“You are the nicest guy,” I said instead.
He smiled and shrugged, looking down at the ground.
“Larissa, we’ve got to hurry. I want to get home so I can shovel my mom’s before she goes to school.”
I nodded and then walked down the steps, careful not to slip on any ice. The steps didn’t feel slippery though. My garage was open. He already had my keys, so I went around to the passenger side and wiped the runelight for stay so I could open the car door. Joe preferred to drive, and I didn’t mind so much. It made me feel like someone was taking care of me, which sounds weird now.
He drove us to the abandoned house and then parked in the shopping mart parking lot next door.
“Why’d you walk all the way out here in the snow?“ I asked.
“I didn’t want you to slip,” he said, combing his hair straight up again. It was a constant war against gravity. “So I bought some more ice melter for you.”
Touched by his thoughtfulness, I fought the desire to hug him, because I knew a stronger desire to kiss him was right behind it.
“Thanks.” I said instead.
He gave me one of his giant smiles, and I wanted to touch his face, put my fingers through that hair of his and kiss those curved and gentle lips. I felt his eyes on me, burning the skin of my lips, and warming my chest.
I opened the car door and stepped out into the frigid air, grateful for the icy freedom.
The house was lit by streetlights, and the eerie orange glow made it look more like a haunted house than ever before. Its gray wood shingles were cracked, and a few were missing. The moldy front porch creaked when I stepped on it. I hoped it wouldn’t break and make me fall. As we took cautious steps across the ancient wood on the front porch, Joe grabbed my hand, and I worried about a different kind of falling.
“Careful,” he said, his eyes on the ground.
On the front door, beneath the peeling white paint, was a deep green rune. I had no idea what it was for, or what it was doing. I peeled back the paint a little bit more, revealing a larger view of the rune.
“I already wrote it down in your notebook,” Joe said when he looked at me.
I tried the doorknob. It was locked.
We stood there for a little while; all the hurry was gone from Joe’s expression. He nodded once when it seemed like he made up his mind to go in.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked Joe as he put my arm around his shoulder.
He hoisted me up into his arms and then turned to look at me. Our noses were about an inch away from each other.
“Sure, what could happen?” A flash of nervousness crossed his face.
Then with my eyes closed, we walked through the front door.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It was dark inside the creaking house. Joe put my feet down on the ground but still held my hand. The streetlight shined through cracks between the windows, and the walls. There was furniture inside covered with drop cloths. It was incredibly dusty, and the air tasted damp and stale. As my eyes adjusted, I saw one pair of footprints in front of us. It looked like a woman’s high heels, pointy at the top with just a speck missing behind, walking toward the back of the house.
Silently, my heartbeat pounding loud enough I could almost hear it, we followed the footsteps. The air was so thick with dust I felt I was about to sneeze. Several of the floorboards were missing, so our eyes were on our footing. Neither of us saw the black thing fly toward Joe’s head.
Joe swore and let go of my hand so he could brush his fingers through his hair. I didn’t see anything move; it was almost as though a shadow had fallen and hit him.
There was a creaking sound coming from upstairs. I put my arm around Joe’s waist and moved in close to him. I was so scared, I didn’t notice this was something I wasn’t supposed to do.
“Can we go?” I whispered.
Joe talked in his regular voice, “Just a little farther.”
He put his hand on my shoulder, and we followed the footsteps around the corner. Black shadows streamed in and crashed into both of us. I closed my eyes, but still it felt like someone tapped my shoulder and the side of my head with warm bursts of air.
This isn’t real, I thought. Nothing was going to hurt us.
The footsteps went through a series of four filthy rooms, ending again at the front door at the base of the staircase. The footprints weren’t headed up the stairs when they first came into the house, but they were now. The ceiling creaked above us. Someone else was in the house.
“Seriously, I’m voting we go,” I said pointing with my thumb to the front door right behind me.
“Come on.” He started walking forward away from the door, but I didn’t move. He let go of me and started up the staircase. There was another creak in the ceiling above me, and I swear it felt like someone was watching me. I could feel the goose bumps rising up my neck. I sighed and then followed behind him. The ancient wood on a step gave out, and Joe slid through up to his left knee.
He swore again, and then for my benefit he said, “um… watch your step.”
When we got to the top, the morning sunrise streamed through the window, illuminating the dust motes floating in the air. There was no one up there. The attic was one open room, the floor beyond the staircase led to a window. Joe followed the footprints as they walked to the window and then he stuck his head out, blocking some of the light.
“She’s gone,” he said, after a moment.
I felt like I could finally breathe. When I reached the top of the stairs, I looked around. Behind peeling plaster, thin horizontal beams made the arched walls look like notebook paper. There were birds’ nests and dust everywhere. In the corner on the floor, something sparkled. I walked toward it and bent down, reaching between thin branches and a cold mouse body to retrieve a sparkly pink shoe.
It was my sister’s princess shoe. The shoe that had been missing since the accident had a dark red stain on the inside. When I realized what it was, I dropped the shoe with a scream.
It was my sister’s blood.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
We drove back to Joe’s house in silence. I held the shoe in my left hand, and every few seconds I picked it up and looked at it. I’m not going to lie and say I wasn’t freaked out. I was freaked out. I kept turning the shoe around in my hands, the sparkles rough against my fingertips, trying to convince myself that the shoe was real. Trying not to think about what it meant that someone left my sister’s shoe for me to find.
I didn’t consider Joe’s reaction at all, but apparently, he was also freaking out about something.
We pulled along the side of his house, but didn’t pull in the snow-covered driveway. Joe left the car without removing the keys from the ignition, or even opening the door.
Joe walked through the garage door and pulled out a brand new snow shovel. I opened the side door with the hand not holding the much-freaked-out-over shoe.
“You want some help?” I asked, trying to think about something else.
Joe didn’t look at me. “No.”
“Okay,” I said trying to hide that his tone hurt my feelings. “I’ll come pick you up for school.”
The shovel scraped against the broken cement of his driveway. Joe finished a line and then threw the snow on his lawn.
“I don’t want you to,” he said, not looking at me.
I felt the emphasis he put on the words I don’t want you, so I clenched my lips together, got in the driver seat, and left without looking back at him.
Funny Tragic Crazy Magic (Tragic Magic Book 1) Page 6
