Paranormal After Dark

by Rebecca Hamilton

  I almost talked to him in Math class. I stood outside the door, waiting for him after the bell rang. When he didn’t come out, I went back in. He didn’t see me. He was standing at Mr. Jacobs’ desk, holding out a sheet of paper. I could see that the paper was blank, save for a giant smiley face he had drawn in the center in red crayon.

  “What’s this?” Mr. Jacobs asked, taking the paper.

  “It’s my math homework,” Owen answered, without cracking a smile.

  “No it’s not. This is rubbish.”

  Owen folded his arms and leaned toward the desk a little, “Look again. It’s my homework, and I think you’ll see it’s all correct.”

  Mr. Jacobs seemed confused but, when he turned the paper back toward him he said, “My mistake. I don’t know what I was thinking. Good job on this.”

  Before Owen could come out, before I could ask him what all that was about, Margie Connor, who thought that just ‘cause she got a sash and a demerit card, she was queen of the hall monitors, shooed me toward Language Arts.

  Lunch came with a caveat that I hadn’t considered. It was Thursday, which meant the meatheads that made up the DeSoto High Excavators would spend their entire lunch period going over plays and strategies for Friday night’s game. They’d flick fish sticks at each other and talk about how they were going to ‘completely own’ whatever poor team had the misfortune of having to come to this excuse of a town to play.

  Owen, for all his pluses, counted himself among the meatheads. I never understood why someone like Owen; so witty, so cerebral, saw fit to join their ranks. I mean, they spent their days arguing over whether Becki Saunders or Claire Collins had the more squeezable butt (usually Claire), or who could hock the biggest loogie (Ernie Palmer, though during pollen season Dennis Johnson gave him a run for his money).

  Maybe Owen saw it as a way to fit in. And, to that end, it worked. Less than a week after putting that jersey on, he was one of the most popular guys in school. People started gathering around him in the hallway, girls started flirting their way up to him (though they hit the same Merrin shaped road block I had been dealing with). Even parents in the PTA knew who he was.

  It didn’t change him though. For all the new friends he had, for all the parties he got invited to, it was still rare for me to go more than a day without seeing him. I think, in a lot of ways, he still saw himself as an outsider and, because of that, thought of me as a kindred spirit. At least, I hoped he did.

  He waved as he saw me walk into the cafeteria, and even stood as if to join Casper and me at our regular table. I waved him on, letting him know it was okay that he stay with the team. It was Thursday after all, and this wasn’t where I wanted to tell him how I felt anyway, not in some crowded lunchroom where we’d have to shout over the sounds of last night’s gossip worthy events to be heard.

  I would see him after school. I would take him to the swing set at the elementary school next door, and I’d lay it all out. With any luck, he’d bit his lip, smile that electric smile, and tell me he felt the same way and that he had been dying waiting for me to make the first move. He’d call Merrin and break the news to her, while I planned our perfect future together. Then, he’d kiss me.

  But I didn’t see him after school. He must have left before the final bell, because by the time the student body poured out into the parking lot, making plans for tonight and the coming weekend, there was no sign of him.

  From the corner of my eye though, out past poor neglected Hernando, I saw the black Sedan from Mrs. Goolsby’s idling alongside the road, blacked out windows and all.

  “Is that that car?” I turned to ask Casper.

  By the time I turned back though, it was gone.

  Chapter 3

  Moon in Capricorn

  I DIDN’T HAVE much time to think about Owen or the black car. It was Thursday and, more importantly, the third Thursday of the month. That meant I was busy, that I would have to drive twenty three miles and through two towns to Dr. Conyers’ office.

  By the time I got there, twenty minutes til five, I was already late. She didn’t mind though. Ever since my third speeding ticket going through that stupid speed trap in Cold Creek, Dr. Conyers and I had an unspoken agreement. I would drive the speed limit and get there when I could, and she wouldn’t have to spend the next forty five minutes listening to me complain about how even the cops had it in for me around here.

  I shouldn’t complain though. Having the only therapist in the county live thirty minutes away could be a good thing. It meant I didn’t have to worry about the other kids in school finding out about my twice monthly visits.

  Back in Chicago, it wouldn’t have been a big deal. Everyone saw shrinks there. School dances were scheduled around people’s therapy sessions. But here in Crestview, I shuddered to think what they might say if they knew I was seeing somebody, the stories they’d come up with.

  I’d no doubt be a serial killer, or have nine personalities, or think birds were trying to communicate government secrets to me or something. They didn’t get it Crestview. Therapy was something for crazy people, and I wasn’t crazy.

  I just-I just needed someone to talk to every once in a while.

  I went through the events of the last two weeks with Dr. Conyers, just like always. And, like always, she tapped the end of her pen against her knee and listened. She was around my mom’s age and, with her curly brown hair and pointed features, even looked a bit like her. She was quieter than my mom, though I guess that goes along with the whole ‘therapist thing’.

  Mom would have butted her way into the conversation at least three times if she were here, telling me what she would do if she were me or going off on some tangent that had little, if anything to do with what was going on.

  Dr. Conyers, to her credit, always let me finish before giving me her two cents. Next month would mark one year that I had been seeing her. When Mom first suggested that I start biweekly sessions with somebody, I resisted. The idea of hashing out my problems in front of a complete stranger, of spilling my guts while lying on some overpriced fainting couch, seemed very ‘Lifetime movie’ to me.

  But Dr. Conyers was different. For starters, she didn’t have a couch. Her office was more freeform than that. She would sit on a rounded swivel chair in the middle of the room, sort of like something you’d expect to see Dr. Evil spinning around in, and you had the choice of either sitting on a purple beanbag chair, a giant building block with the letter ‘J’ stamped across it, or a mattress on the floor, complete with down comforter and pillows.

  I usually chose the mattress, but today I was in a beanbag sort of mood.

  “So, you didn’t tell him? Owen, I mean,” Dr. Conyers asked when I finally stopped talking.

  “No,” I admitted, punching the beanbag chair so that it bent more comfortably.

  “I thought your hands were in your pockets.” She swiveled a little and wrote something on the pad in her lap.

  “I took them out, I guess.” I let my eyes trace the floor’s shag carpeting. “I just want the moment to be perfect.”

  “Do you?” She asked. She didn’t look up, but I could tell from her tone that there was more to the question.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” The beanbag crinkled as I straightened up.

  “What do you think it means?” Her pen went back to work across the pad on her lap.

  “I hate it when you do that,” I crossed my arms. Seriously, is there some sort of class shrinks go to to help them perfect the noncommittal answer? How to answer questions with questions and infuriate your patients 101.

  “What do we say about perfect things?” Dr. Conyers looked up at me. I didn’t like the way she asked the question, like I was a preschooler and she was teaching me proper lunchroom etiquette, but that wasn’t a battle I wanted to fight just now.

  “That they’re illusions,” I recited. “That they don’t exist.”

  We had talked about that sort of thing pretty regularly early on. I was so sour about
moving to Crestview, so sour about everything really. My dad has just died, I had left all of my friends, and I was stranded in some ass backwards town that didn’t even have a movie theatre, much less a Starbuck’s.

  Dr. Conyers helped me understand that, while your circumstances might be beyond your control, the way you react to them wasn’t. She told me that the happy peppy people I saw walking down the DeSoto High hallways everyday probably had just as much to be bummed about as I did. They just decided to make the best of things.

  While I disagreed with the last part (I mean, nobody who saw the way Chloe Waite owned the 12th grade would say she had anything to worry about), she did have a point. A big part of life, I decided, was what you made it. But what did that have to do with Owen?

  “I don’t get what you mean though?” I said.

  “You wanted to wait for a perfect time to tell this boy about your feelings, yet you know there’s no such thing. Traditionally, it’s fear that holds us back.”

  “You think I’m afraid?” I asked. Though, she might not have been completely wrong, the idea that she thought that really pissed me off.

  “I don’t think you want to be rejected,” she said, and the pen went back to the pad.

  “Nobody wants to be rejected. That’s pretty simple stuff.”

  “True, but not everyone lets it stifle their actions.” She tapped the tip of her pen against her teeth. “Would you like to know what I think?”

  “I think you’re going to tell me what you think whether I want to hear it or not, so you might as well,” I answered.

  She held off a grin. “People give off cues all the time; in the way they stand, in the way the move, in how they interact with others. People’s intentions, the truths of who they are, are written all over them. They’re in their voices; the tones if not the words. And we often pick up on those cues. We interpret them subconsciously and act accordingly, whether we realize it or not.”

  She moved the pen from her teeth and pointed it at me like it was a gun, or an accusation.

  “I think you’ve picked up on some of these cues and they’ve given you pause.”

  “So you don’t think he likes me?” I asked, shuffling uncomfortably in my seat.

  “I wouldn’t have any idea. I don’t even know the boy. That’s certainly a possibility. It’s also possible that he feels the same way you do and you’re picking up on that.”

  She wasn’t making any sense.

  “Why would Owen liking me back make me afraid?” I asked, like it was the most ridiculous thing in the world. Cause it was.

  Dr. Conyers placed her pen on her pad and then put the pad on the table beside her, which she only did when she meant business.

  “Cresta, you’ve been through a very tumultuous period. In the past two years, your entire life has been uprooted, shaken around, and rearranged. I know you think you’re strong, and you are. But even the strongest of us needs time to heal properly. You’re finding your footing here, just finding it. It’s natural that, on some level, you would be apprehensive toward any changes. You can’t let that fear hold you back though. You can’t let what happened to you, what happened to your father, define you for the rest of your life.”

  I shot straight up in my chair, every muscle in my body tensing, the beanbag rolled under me like waves on an angry sea.

  “Can we not talk about my father,” I asked. My voice was low but terse, like a stifled cough.

  “This is your session. We can talk about whatever you like,” Dr. Conyers said, but she picked her pen back up.

  I hated this; the way everything seemed to come back to my dad. I didn’t want to think about him. I didn’t want to be reminded of what happened to him, of what happened to both of us.

  But it was too late. Just the mention of him and I was gone. I was back on that bridge on the last night I ever saw him, the last night I would ever see him.

  It was clear in my mind, as clear as a movie playing before my eyes. I was with him in the car. We were going over the Clark Street Bridge, headed toward the loop. We had just left Giordano’s, which was regardless of what anybody tells you, the best pizza place in all of Chicago. Mom was working, but we had three pieces of pepperoni in the backseat for her.

  I could never remember what we were talking about, but we were laughing when his favorite song of all time ‘Don’t Worry Baby’ by the Beach Boys came on the radio. He started swaying behind the wheel, dancing along with the song.

  He looked over at me; his eyes free of anything but light and said, “You know what?”

  I didn’t ‘know what’, and it turned out I never would.

  Later on, when everything was over, the police would tell me the driver of the semi in front of us fell asleep, causing him to skid across three lanes. I didn’t see any of that though. All I saw was my dad,the wall of the bridge coming up toward us, and then the water.

  I remembered the force as we veered off the bridge, as gravity pulled all the blood to my face. And then we hit the river. It shattered against the car, splitting like we were driving through a plate glass window.

  I remembered the water seeping in, slow at first and then quicker. I thought it would be a haze. I had heard stories, seen movies about car accidents, about people who go through horrible things. They all say time plays tricks on you, that it either speeds up or slows down; that’s it’s over in a flash or that it drags on forever in slow motion.

  None of that happened though. It was all clear. I knew where I was. I knew what was going on. And, watching ice cold gulps of the Chicago River pouring in, I knew we were going to die.

  Dad was unconscious. He must have hit his head on the driver’s side window, because blood was pouring down over his closed eyes. I pulled at my seatbelt. It whipped off. I pulled at my father, but he was heavy and the water was starting to creep up at our waists. The sounds of the Beach Boys echoed through the car’s ruined cab. They told me not to worry; that everything would be alright. They were wrong. I pulled at my father again. He barely budged. So, I screamed at him.

  “Dad!”

  “Dad!”

  Daddy.

  He didn’t respond. I grabbed for his seatbelt, but the water was everywhere now. It pooled up around my shoulders. I tried to open the door but, like my father, it wasn’t complying. The water grew higher. It invaded my mouth and then my nose, drowning my screams. I opened my eyes. We were completely submerged. My dad lifted off his seat, his blond hair, hair like mine, floated like a halo around his head.

  I pulled at him again, thinking he might be lighter now that he was completely underwater. I was wrong. I pulled hard. Losing my grip, I slammed against the door. This time though, it opened. The current of the Chicago River reached for me, pulling me away from the car, pulling me away from my father.

  I saw the lights of the city toward the surface, but I swam away from it, back toward the car. My eyes started burning; my lungs caught fire. The chill in the water cut through my skin, down into my bones. But I kept going. I wasn’t going to leave him here, not down in the dark all alone like this.

  My father’s eyes flipped open as I got closer. His face got animated, panicked, realizing what had happened. He reached for his seat belt. It stuck. He was trapped. My fingers felt pinpricked as I jerked at his seatbelt. He pushed me away.

  He screamed something. It was drowned in the river, but I didn’t need to hear him to know what he said. It was in his eyes. He wanted me to leave him.

  I shook my head. There was no way in hell that was happening. We’d find a way. He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. What I hoped would be a pocket knife or nail file, anything to cut through the belt, turned out to be a little gold necklace. It was thin with a heart shaped locket at the end. It looked old, but I had never seen it before.

  He gave it to me along with a look. Again, I didn’t have to wonder. I knew what it meant.

  You have to leave me.

  I’m your father. Do what I say.

 
I love you.

  Now the lack of air wasn’t the only thing setting me on fire. I looked at him for another moment, for the last time. I kissed him on the cheek, and then-

  “I think we’re done for today,” I said. My hand was up around my neck, stroking the locket my father gave me. Maybe our hour was up. I had no idea how long I had been sitting there, lost in the moment. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t do this anymore; not right now.

  It was raining when I left Dr. Conyers’ office; the sort of rain I didn’t know existed before I moved out of the city; hard and driven by unbridled winds. I put my IPod on shuffle and cranked the volume way up. I didn’t care what song came on, so long as it was loud and I didn’t have to think about anything else.

  Seeing Dr. Conyers always drained me. It forced my mind into a dark place. Still, she had helped me in the past. She had forced me to look at things, helped me make sense of it all, and guided me away from the bad choices I made after my dad’s death.

  Five miles outside of town, and halfway through the Lumineers album I had downloaded the night before, I caught sight of a car pulled over alongside the road. The rain was beating like bullets against the windshield, but I didn’t need to see much to know who it was. I had memorized that car years ago, along with the guy who drove it.

  Owen stood bent under the open hood, soaked to the bone. I pulled over beside him and lowered my window. If possible, he looked even more out of sorts than he had this morning. Water ran off him in sheets, dripping from his hair and face down to the engine below. He looked frustrated, which made sense. Not only was he stranded in the rain but, given what I knew about Owen, he’d have a better chance of cajoling that car into starting than he would of fixing whatever was wrong with it.

  “Owen!” I yelled over the rainfall.

  “Cresta?” He seemed shocked to see me. He leaned into my open window, dripping all over the door. “Thank God. I’ve been here for twenty minutes. Would you believe you’re the first person who’s come by?”

  In this metropolis, who’d have thought?