Okay, I kid you not; I was shocked and very confused. “You forgot your bike”? That’s all this dude has to say to me after coming all the way to my house after the mishap at the museum? Not “Get in the car” (Well… Not here, but you get what I mean), or maybe something TV casual yet diabolical like “Well aren’t you out late?”
You know something creepy like that. But no. “You forgot your bike.”
I didn’t know how to respond, was he expecting me to take it the bike like a gullible three year old offered candy? Hell no. I wasn’t coming anywhere near this guy. If I was going to get away from this guy, I was going to have to outsmart him (Woo. I’m the best person for this sort of thing. Not.)
I wasn’t sure how to respond, I’m sure that he thought I was completely dumbstruck since I hadn’t replied to his comment for a good forty-five seconds already (Of course not… I was only a little dumbstruck.) Finally I choked out an answer to his mind-boggling remark, “No. This isn’t my bike. I’m sorry.” And with that I pushed those bike handles out of my stomach.
I was way better off having my bike stolen than me getting kidnapped. Me sorry, bikey…
The evil bike jacker raised an eyebrow, of course not at all convinced by my little white lie that seemed to not go over well. He gave me these eyes that said Yeah right. He leaned over the bike handles and came close to my face. If I could’ve seen my own face, I was sure that I was paler than printing paper. I could feel his warm breath brushing over my face, and my cheeks went into a palette of rosy reds and soft pinks. I could see this small smile coming over his lips as he came in closer and closer to my face.
This was it, I was dead. I was sure of it. All I could do now was close my eyes and wait to die. Oh please let this be painless… It was like the kiss of death I guess you could describe it as. But he didn’t kiss me, and I didn’t die either.
This completely pissed me off.
He. Started. Laughing. Laughing!
He was laughing so hard that little tears of pain started forming in the corners of his eyes. He pulled away and leaned on the wall to supply a force of balance. I was blinking in horror, what the hell was going on!?
“Y-you should’ve seen your face!” Choked out the poor laughing sap. He held his ribs as he fell to the ground and started kicking, “Man! That’s a keeper!”
I looked at him with a look that said Who-the-hell-are-you. Seems he didn’t take it that seriously. He just got up to his feet and brushed himself off of the excess dirt that had stuck to him in his laugh fest when he’d fallen to the floor, “Sorry.” He coughed out, gasping for breath, “Sorry.”
“Who are you!?” I burst in a rush of adrenaline mixed with pure hatred, confusion, and red hot anger.
“Uh... Yeah. Um, I’m…” He seemed lost for words, “A close friend.”
I just went “?”
“Oh come on Key, you aren’t that stupid.”
That really scared me, I was almost choking, “How do you know my name? Are you a stalker or something!?”
Damn, that guy’s face goes white fast, “Huh? No! No-no-no!”
“Then who are you!?” I demanded, “Who are you!? Why were you trying to steal my bike? Why’d you take a picture of me? Why did you almost KISS me!?”
This time, he didn’t seem at all shaken. Starting to count on his fingers, he named off answers to all of my questions, “A: I was just checking if you still had that paint spot on the seat. B: Justin asked me to. And C: Just for some good natural fun.” He smiled wide, hoping I would take the hint.
… “Uh…” I wasn’t quite sure I understood anything he said there, but then I started to think. Making the little imaginary hamster on a wheel run. Paint spot? Justin? Good- Wait… Justin? I looked up, “Jack?”
The troublesome red-head clapped to me with a sympathy clap, thinking Bout time, stupid…, “Very good dog. A little slow, but you get a cookie.”
“Dog- Wait…. Jack!” I screamed, jumping and putting my arms around his neck to get a good hug outta him that probably squeezed life out of him. He coughed from the force of my bear hug, “Ack! Doggie killing me!” Jack wheezed in pain, though still containing the humor. I slowly pulled away. I couldn’t believe it was Jack. After all of these years, since the day he left… Since I went into denial without any of my friends at my side. That really hurt in the pit of my stomach, and in anger, I raised a hand and smacked him across the face.
Jack winced and looked at me in horror, rubbing his cheek, “What was that for!?” He demanded as he rubbed his rosy cheek that easily matched his long shagged red hair. I had always known him as the guy who wasn’t afraid to cry (Me and Chel would always joke and say “Manly tears!” At those particular moments), and yet I have never seen him shed a tear before, other than like three years ago, but that’s an exception. But still, I may have forgiven him if he got to his knees right now and begged for my forgiveness. But I know him. He’d never stoop as low as to apologize. Well, at least in no way that included humility. He just continued rubbing his cheek and said, “Well I’m sorry I didn’t say bye. I never got around to it, so I had asked Justin to tell ya. And Chel even asked him the same thing since she had had an early plane to go to Paris. For her dad’s migration in work.” He got that kinda high pitched prep imitation/sarcasm notice. I noticed that pretty quickly.
“Well Justin never did tell me, because I haven’t seen him either.”
Jack blinked, “Really? He didn’t move or anything.”
“Well still, I called him, I emailed him, everything. But he never returned my calls, so I thought maybe he’d been casted into oblivion…”
Jack shook his head, “Naw. He’s still living at his house, but I guess he just is going to a different school now or something. He hasn’t told me why yet.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“Huh? Oh. Yeah. I saw him yesterday.” My heart was pounding when I heard this, so he didn’t disappear like magic. “Well is he okay? Does he talk about me at all?”
Jack blinked a moment in quiet, but then he grinned as he pulled out his cell phone, starting to wave it in my face. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
My eyes were boggling as I watched the cell phone go back and forth in front of my face. I put out a hand to try and snatch it away, but then Jack raised it up so that I couldn’t reach it. I glared at him, “Jack…” I moaned in a whiny voice.
… He lowered it a tad.
“Lower.” I hissed. He dropped it about a centimeter. It took about five minutes before I was finally able to reach the phone, yanking it out of his hands, I went to the phone book until I found Justin’s number. I dialed it in and waited for him to answer. I was jumping on the balls of my feet with the pressure of talking to him after… Three? Four years?
Four rings… Five rings… Six rings…
Jack looked away bashfully as he slowly muttered the remark, “It is kind of… Oh I don’t know, passed midnight, you know.”
I paused, closing the phone I nodded, “Yeah that might be a reason why he’s not answering.” I couldn’t help but feel cheated, this was so not fair! Jack seemed to see my disappointment, and so he crouched a bit to see my face and said, “Why don’t we go and see him tomorrow?” That’s why I like Jack; he’s like a big brother. I nodded happily, “Yea!” I exclaimed, bouncing on the balls of my feet.
Jack nodded and headed to the door, “Fine. We’ll go there tomorrow.” He waved and left. The house went quiet as he left. It seemed almost spectral how things went mute like that… It was creepy.
I walked off to my room and lay down in bed with my brain-hamster running at miles a minute. Why didn’t Justin ever talk to me anymore? Why was Jack in town? Would Justin be happy to see me? It took me until about four in the morning to fall asleep under these conditions. Well I’m going to find out tomorrow.
The next morning, I woke up bright and early even though I had been up so late the night before. The thought of seeing most of my friends (I’ll see you again someday Chel…) is what made me wake up so early to see them. I jumped out of bed, which almost made me fall over in an entanglement of my bed sheets, and I got dressed. I pulled on some of my jeans that I randomly grabbed out of my drawers, the ones that had tons of rips all over the place (Mom thinks I ran them over with a truck); A black t-shirt; and my wonderful black converse that would have cost me my life if it hadn’t been Jack playing pretend-bike-jacker. I walked off into the living room and saw Momma passed out on the couch, I shook my head. She must have been out really late again.
Everyone says that momma and I look basically the same, like a big sister and a little sister. Except for the fact that the big sister is married, has a job, and gave birth to her little sister. Okay, that sounds just gross, but you catch my drift. I never really thought that we looked that much a like, well so I just ignored people’s comments about it. But when I saw mom sleeping, I kind of realized that we at least sleep the same. We are really loose when we sleep with our legs sticking off of the edge of the bed and our arms cushioning under our heads since we sleep on our back. I smiled as I walked by mom as she slept and started writing down a note on an old sticky-notepad in the house. I wrote down:
“Going out to see some friends.
I’ll be back later.
- Key”
I ripped the note off of the pad and put it down on the coffee table next to mom’s couch where she had crashed. I didn’t care to eat anything; I’d grab something later I thought as I grabbed my elbow high gloves that I wear all the time. Slipping them up my arms, I once again let my mind race, wondering how Justin and my reunion would start and end. Would it go smoothly?
Right as I my thinking started to run up to second gear, there was a light knock at the door, which of course had to be Jack. Opening the door, I saw him there with a smile, we must have looked like a couple at this point (Inside note: Ew!) because I walked out and closed the door behind me as we walked off out of the apartment complex together. (Double Ew…)
As we walked through town, Jack explained that he had hitched a ride with his dad for a business trip, so that was why he was back in town. And then he said that since he’ll be turning eighteen in about two weeks, he was thinking about getting an apartment complex back in town so that we could all hang out again, I thought that that was a great idea. All I needed was Chel back from Paris and the picture would be formed again, all of us together. That’s all I’ve hoped for in a long time.
Jack had said that we should’ve grabbed a bite somewhere before going to Justin’s, but I refused, I wanted to see him so bad that I’d starve if I had to.
It took us about thirty minutes of walking before we finally arrived at Justin’s house… It was more like a manor. I didn’t remember it being so big… Then again, I live in an apartment; most houses look big to me. Well in that case, this house looked gargantuan. It had security gates, drive ways braced in cobble stone for cars to drive across to reach the house, and even a walkway for people that are too lazy to rather drive a car or too poor to buy one (A.K.A: Me.)
Jack saw my expression and grinned wide, “It’s big huh?”
I just nodded stupidly as I looked around in awe, “It’s… It’s huge! Since when has it been so huge?”
“Since his step-mom moved in. She was like some main street rich lady from across the country. So she moved them around to this really nice neighborhood and giant of a house.”
“Wow, I’m sure Justin is thrilled.”
Jack shrugged, “I don’t know. Money does things to people.” I knew he was right, but just to the girl with the ripped jeans and cherished converse, this place was heaven on earth. We came to the entrance of the house and Jack nodded on the newly painted white frame doors. We waited for about two minutes straight before the door finally started to open. My heart was pounding as the door opened wide enough for me to see in. I knew right there that that was Justin. In the flesh.
He had this longer black hair that basically draped over his eyes, but I could still see those blue marble glossed eyes. My sight was trapped when I looked at him completely, he was in some boxer shorts and a white t-shirt, and he never was an early riser.
Justin rubbed his eyes and sighed heavily, “Hey Jack…” He muttered sleepily. What about me? I pleaded in my mind. Justin looked down at me, but didn’t say anything, and not in the Oh my god, she’s back happy kind of way. It was more like… Oh no. It’s her. My thoughts were proven when he closed the door right in my face.
I stood there in shock, blinking as I tried to compute this all to mind… All that came up on my brain screen was what just happened?
Jack frowned, “What the…?” He didn’t seem to understand it either.
The door didn’t open again, the only thing that opened was my tear ducts as tears started to form. He didn’t want to see me at all I guess. I’m starting to wish we had stopped for something to eat – and then just went back to the house.
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Where Me, Myself and I will be held... Revision will commense soon enough.
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