Taking Risks

by Cassie Allee

  Gray was actually patiently waiting on me to speak first. He knew how badly I needed to have my mother’s approval, and he felt bad that I could never get it. Gray hated it when people made me feel bad.

  “She thinks I’m taking the fifty year old virgin to prom.” I looked up at Gray and painted a smile on my face. He put an arm around me and even though I couldn’t feel him, the gesture was comfort enough. Gray wasn’t a blood relative, or even alive, but he was family to me and even as bad as it must be for him to be stuck here I don’t know what I would do with myself if he ever decided to cross over.

  We sat at the foot of my bed for a while making crude jokes back and forth to one another then decided to pass the time, until a decent hour to go to bed, by playing cards. Even though Gray couldn’t hold a hand of cards he’s still a worthy opponent. Our favorite game is called war. War is a game that the deck of cards is split between two people and you each lay a card down at the same time. Whoever has the highest card wins their opponents card. Whoever runs out of cards first is the loser. War was the easiest game for us to play because there was really no strategy, it was just pure luck.

  When we finished our game I headed upstairs to get ready for bed and Gray flopped down on the couch to watch The Price is Right. I brushed my hair and teeth and slipped on a tank top with some yoga pants. I looked in the mirror at my big brown eyes and I noticed that they were much more tired than usual. The excitement with Risk and the stress of Little Dirty Boy was keeping me up late and making me restless while I slept.

  That night I had the nightmare of Little Dirty Boy trashing my room again. I knew that was a bad sign. When Gray woke me up the next morning I was groaning.

  “Come on Mar! You’re already going to be late!” Gray was screaming in my ear, “Risk is going to be waiting for you in your first class, remember?” That got me up and moving. I took one look at the clock and realized that I had hardly any time to put myself together before topping out the Delray on the way to school.

  I ran a brush through my mess of waves and quickly brushed my teeth and put a dab of mascara on. I threw on the first pair of jeans that I could find on the floor, which just happened to be my favorite skinny jeans that made me look like I had a little junk in the trunk, and ripped a t-shirt off of a hanger that was black with some kind of smart ass comment on the front. After I was as satisfied as I was going to get with myself (after no sleep and five minutes to get ready) I bolted out of the door. Gray let me know that he was going to stay behind. He said that I needed to stand on my own two feet with Risk and I couldn’t chance looking like a fool in front of him by talking to myself just yet.

  I paused at the door of my English class to slow down and put some swagger in my step. I only ended up being a minute late, but everyone still looked at me as I walked into the room. When I locked eyes with Risk my heart seemed to skip a beat.

  He was sitting at his desk, slouching like a bad boy with one leg stuck far out into the isle and one arm hanging over the back of the chair. When he saw me walk in his green, almond shaped eyes lit up. He was wearing a dark yellow polo shirt that hinted that he was fit and toned underneath. I wanted to find out if that shirt told the truth. My breath caught in my throat and I coughed a little girly cough to try and cover it up and headed to my seat. When I looked back at Risk he had one of those halfcocked grins that I was so used to seeing on Gray. It was the kind of grin that put knots in your stomach and heated your body. I also noticed that his eyes were sparkling and I thought how strange it was that he and Gray seemed to be so much alike, almost as if I were meant to find Risk.

  Gosh, I was turning into a total girly girl if I was thinking of things like fate and meant-to-be. Who knew boys could make you so stupid? When I turned back to face the front of the class the brunette Mean Girl, Gabby, was turned around in her seat and paying way too much attention to what I was doing. Gabby gave me her nicest smile, flashing perfectly aligned white teeth. “So are you two freaks dating now? That would be a match made in heaven.” I blushed and put my head down a little.

  “That’s really none of your business.” I tried to sound confident and a bit snotty while still looking down at my desk. Obviously Gabby noticed that Risk was out of my league too.

  “Well you know why he moved here, don’t you?” She didn’t wait for me to answer, but I knew that she wouldn’t anyway. She liked to hear herself talk too much. “He was adopted and his parents say he’s crazy. They have to drink themselves stupid just so they aren’t afraid to sleep at night.”

  I gaped at her, which was exactly the reaction that she was hoping for, and she shot me a sly smile and turned to face the front of the class. I grit my teeth and hissed, “That’s not true.” But Gabby didn’t even care enough to acknowledge that she heard me. Bitch. However, I did suspect that the story that Risk told me was bullshit, and it was strange for someone to pack up and move an eighteen year old to a different school in the middle of their senior year. Maybe I should ask Risk more about his move when we hang out Thursday.

  The bell rang and everyone scrambled over themselves to get out of class. I never knew why they were always in such a hurry when we still had hours of school left. I took my time getting my things together and hoped that Risk would stop by my seat and walk me to my next class.

  “Hey, I was going to save you a seat, but I thought you weren’t coming today.” He did stop to talk to me! Score!

  “Oh yeah…sorry. Gray had to drag me out of bed this morning…” I chuckled at remembering Gray screaming at me.

  “…Gray?” Oh holy shit! No I did NOT just do that!

  “Umm…yeah listen, I’m kind of in a hurry. I already have a ton of tardies and I can’t be late again.” I was scrambling for an explanation but I had none and I needed to get out of there.

  “Look, if you’re seeing someone I understand. I can see how someone who looks like you wouldn’t be single for long…” His voice trailed off and he shuffled his feet.

  “Someone that looks like me?” I was confused and he saw it on my face.

  “Um yeah…you’re kind of…gorgeous.” My mouth fell open and Risk blushed. “Look I don’t want you to be late…” Risk said.

  “I’m not seeing anyone. I mean, I’m not seeing anyone else.” I kind of blurted that out. I didn’t want to sound too desperate, but I wanted to make myself clear to him.

  His mouth grew into a wide grin that brightened his face like the sun. “Oh, cool. Can I walk you to class then? I don’t really care if I’m late.” I nodded and off we went.

  The rest of the day I spent thinking of Risk. It was a lot easier to concentrate on how I felt about him with Gray being absent. I knew that I thought Risk was gorgeous, but the rumor Gabby told me did fit into place with some things that I had noticed. For instance, Risk always looked away from my face when he was nervous or he thought things were going in a negative direction. That made me think that his self-confidence was shot, and I knew the feeling because that’s how I reacted in those situations. Also, I had met his parents and they looked rough. His dad was a total boozer, just like Gabby said, and his mom acted like she had something to hide. Just because his mom didn’t order a drink at Rocktop didn’t mean that I didn’t see her downing half of what her husband was ordering. Yeah, Risk definitely had some secrets, but I didn’t mind hanging out and seeing what they were. I just had to keep my damned mouth shut about Gray.

  I brought my Rocktop uniform with me to school so that I could go straight to work and have a little time to hang out with Remi, maybe even talk boys with her. I knew she would love that.

  I got dressed in the bathroom and then went to the back to the employee room and waited for Remi to get to work. While I waited, Jane, the bartender, came to take her break. Jane had a more risqué uniform than the rest of us had. She wore a blue Dallas Cowboys jersey that she had cut to show most of her abdomen, which was flat and well defined, and her shorts were white which meant that if she wore panties with them everyone would
be able to see them, but that also meant that everyone knew that she didn’t wear panties. Her tights did nothing to make her skin appear tan because she was already nice and bronze from head to toe. Her black hair was cut as a short bob, which was a popular style, and it was messy and a little spiky in the back, but down to her chin and sleek in the front. She also had red streaks in her hair that framed her face.

  If Jane, Remi, and I were the Charlie’s Angels Remi would be the leader, Jane would be the vixen, and I would be the ditzy awkward girl.

  Jane came and plopped down beside me on the employee lounge sofa. “You’re here early…Are you sick? Your face looks funny.” She scrunched up her face and smiled.

  “I wanted to talk to Remi about…something.” I started to blush and Jane punched my arm.

  “We knew it! You have a boyfriend! We thought that you’d be a single virgin forever with the amount of interest you’ve shown the men around here. I voted that you were a lesbian…wait…you do have a boyfriend right?” I’m sure she saw the look of surprise on my face, but then I burst out laughing. “Oh my, am I that obvious?”

  Jane looked like she was convinced that I was a lesbian. “It’s just weird. You’re totally hot and guys check you out all the time, but you never go out on any dates and you turn down any phone number or invitation that you get.”

  That was twice in one day that someone had commented on how I looked in a positive way. Accepting a compliment was harder than I ever thought it would be.

  “I don’t know, I guess I never found a guy who caught my eye. I can be a lot to handle sometimes and generally people try to stay clear of me.”

  Jane sighed, “Yeah I’ve seen you talking to yourself quite a bit. It’s cool, totally weird, but nothing I’ll hold against you.” She winked at me and got up to walk out of the room. I couldn’t decide if I thought that she was uncomfortable or her break was just over. Shortly after Jane left, Remi walked in and gave me her signature greeting, “Hey chick! What’s up?”

  I started to speak but realized that I never really thought about how I would start the conversation. I decided to bring something up that Jane had said. “How do you all know that I’m a virgin?”

  Remi’s jaw dropped to her chest in surprise. I normally wasn’t the kind of person to come out and ask questions so bluntly. She composed herself quickly and laughed, “Well for one thing I’ve never seen someone turn down so many hot guys before.”

  It never occurred to me that I might’ve been turning down legit invitations. I always thought that I was just avoiding bullies and guys who just wanted in my pants when Remi or Jane wouldn’t give them the time of day. Remi continued, “And we always see you talking to yourself or laughing at things that aren’t there. I would say that you’re in serious need of a good roll-in-the-hay.”

  I blushed at her last comment and then dropped my bomb on her. “I think I’m seeing someone now…” I muttered.

  Remi bounced on her toes and said, “Oh. My. God. It’s that hot guy that’s sitting out there isn’t it? The one that was here talking to you the other night?”

  Wait. What? “He’s out there right now?” I hadn’t expected that.

  “If we’re talking about the same guy. Tall, dark, and gorgeous? He’s sitting in your section.” She looked like she was irritated that I was more confused than excited.

  Without saying anything else to her, I threw my apron on and clocked in five minutes early. I peeked around the corner into the dining room and saw that Risk was sitting at the same table as the last time. He still wore his sexy yellow polo shirt and he was staring down at his hands, looking irritated. He was with his parents again and his dad was already sloppy drunk at four o’clock in the afternoon. His mother didn’t seem as composed as she had the last time either. She must’ve gotten into the hard stuff and it prevented her from keeping up with her façade.

  Next to Risk, his parents looked even more disgusting. They both had sunken faces and wore stained clothes. Their eyes drooped from drunken fatigue and both of them had greasy hair from days of laying around in their own filth, or so I was guessing. Risk looked up from his hands and saw me. He shrugged his shoulders after motioning to his parents as if he were apologizing for them, and I gave him a warm smile in return. Maybe someone who was alive needed my help for a change.

  I tried my best to saunter over to his table, the way Remi once taught me, and he gave me a strange look. It was a look that I wasn’t used to seeing on anyone. Was it…lust? I did my best not to look intimidated by the thought, and also to reciprocate the look. When I got to his table he made sure that he spoke up before his dad got a chance to be a jerk off. “Is something wrong with you?”

  I didn’t know why he thought that. “Um, I don’t think so. Why?”

  “When you were walking over here you were making a strange face.”

  Oh…this is embarrassing. “I was just trying to mimic the look that you were giving me.” I whispered and I felt my cheeks get hot. I hoped that his parents weren’t paying attention to our conversation. Risk cracked up laughing for a second and then leaned in to whisper to me, “You don’t have to try and be seductive, you’re already incredibly sexy.” It sent chills down my spine to hear him say that and I gasped. I backed away and tore my gaze from Risk to take his parents drink order while trying to ignore my blazing cheeks.

  When I went to pick the drinks up from the bar, Remi was giving me that look that girls give each other when their crush is around. The I-know-you-just-had-your-panties-twisted-in-a-knot look. I’m sure my cheeks turned bright red again and I made a point to avoid her. She would have to wait for her gossip until I knew more about my situation.

  I got Risk and his parents their drinks and went to serve some other tables. The bar was pretty full that night with Monday night football fans. As I scurried around from table to table, taking orders and filling empty glasses, I caught Risks mother staring at me again. I couldn’t tell if she hated me or if she was only curious of me. Either way, she gave me the heebie-jeebies. When I was almost done with my shift I decided that I couldn’t hold out anymore, and my customers would have to wait a minute while I emptied my bladder. After I washed my hands, I walked out into the hallway and almost bumped into Risks mom. I apologized and tried to scoot around her but she cut me off.

  “What do you want with my son?” She slurred the words and swayed on her feet. She had definitely had more than enough to drink.

  “What do you mean? We’re just friends…” I didn’t necessarily lie to her. We just hadn’t established what we were to each other yet. We had only been on one date.

  “I see what you’re doing to him. You think you can just shake your ass at some handsome boy and he’ll be at your every beck and call, well that’s not going to happen. He has other people to take care of. We’ve been feeding and housing that little bastard for years and now he’s gonna take care of us without any sluts distracting him.” She spat at me.

  I didn’t know what to say to her. I couldn’t believe that this woman would talk that way about her child!

  “Risk is a great person, he’s no bastard. He doesn’t deserve for you to be talking about him that way.”

  “You don’t know anything about Risk. If you knew about him, or his past, you would be spitting on him instead of trying to stick your tongue down his throat. He’s a bastard and he’ll never be anything different.” She stomped away leaving me there temporarily frozen in shock.

  I worked the rest of my shift avoiding Risk as much as I could. I didn’t even wave goodbye to him as I practically ran out of Rocktop. I was conflicted with what to believe about him. I was hearing so many bad things but my gut was telling me that they were wrong. Risk was a good person, that much I could see, but I wasn’t sure if I was prepared to deal with his baggage. I already had plenty of my own.

  When I got home Gray was there and I noticed that he looked anxious, but I shrugged it off. I wasn’t used to being away from him for so long and I had missed see
ing him at several moments throughout the day.

  “Hey! Was your day super boring? Mine definitely wasn’t…” Gray interrupted me to drop a bomb.

  “I think that you should go somewhere else to stay for a while. There’s something going on around here and I think it’s going to get dangerous.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said. It wasn’t like Gray to freak out about things, and he knew I had nowhere else to go.

  “I went looking for the boy today, but when I went to the old town square to look around I found something really scary. A bunch of the angry ones are gathering there, and none of the other Lost Ones seem to know why. I went back again this afternoon and the number of them had already doubled. Something bad is going to happen around here. Those things don’t just get together to have parties.”

  “They all know I can see ghosts, don’t they?” I said and silently hoped that they didn’t. I didn’t want red eyed crazies following me around.

  “I don’t know about all of them, but I can’t imagine that ghosts gossip any less than the living do and one of them is bound to know about you.”

  I said a few curse words before calming down and very firmly telling Gray, “I can’t leave now. My life is just now starting to feel normal for the first time ever. Besides, I would have absolutely no place to go. I’m stuck here and I don’t want to leave anyway so I suggest that we hang around and see how this plays out. It may be nothing.”

  “Promise me that you’ll stay away from there Marlee.” Gray knew that if he could get me to make the promise that I would keep it, and he looked desperate. “I’m really scared for you, Spud.”

  “I’ll stay away from the old square, I promise, but I’m still going to look for Little Dirty Boy. It’s not fair that we give up on him just because we’re scared.”

  Gray nodded in agreement and then I went upstairs to get ready for bed. The sheets seemed softer beneath me than normal, and I was feeling like I needed to take a mental break. My mind felt tired from all of the anxious situations I had been in lately. I fell asleep next to Gray while he sang the New Kids on the Block song “I’ll be Loving You (Forever). I often thought about how Gray must have loved the eighties. He had the eighties hair style and musical preferences and his dance moves were definitely something from that generation.