The silence between us felt awkward, and I didn’t want to leave, but I knew he wasn’t going to stay tonight. I was worried about him. I was worried about me. I didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing that all my feelings had returned, but if I was honest with myself, I didn’t want to forget.
I walked him to the front door and we hugged for a few minutes. Finally, I asked, “Are we gonna be okay?”
“I hope so.” He sighed and took my hands in his. “I better go before I don’t.”
We kissed, and I could feel the heat rise in my cheeks again. “Be careful, okay? Don’t take any chances.” I looked into his eyes, and we kissed again. My heart stopped, and there was a sharp pain in my left shoulder. I could feel my knees buckle as the feeling in my shoulder spread like liquid fire through my body. He touched my shoulder and the pain stopped.
He pulled back from the kiss and smiled. “Go inside,” he said and kissed my forehead. He turned, picked up his pack and waved goodbye as he walked away. I stood there for a moment, watching him disappear down the path toward his car.
I turned, opened the door and walked inside. “Thanks,” I called after him, and he yelled and waved from the top of the driveway.
Everything had changed.
The whole world seemed to have shifted and changed after that night. The weather was unseasonably warm and sunny, and the school year had begun just a few weeks before. It was going to be a long one.
Every day, I looked out my window. Yes, I was looking for something or someone, and I was disappointed to see there was no sign of Alex. But it wasn’t just Alex. A few days later, I happened to find myself alone at school. After school classes were dismissed, the hallways emptied and there was no Alex, or other Blackwells anywhere in sight.
Without a reason for my behaviour, the unexplained feelings of anger and fear remained. The months following Alex’s initial disappearance, I began to observe strange things happening in and around the school. And they were happening more and more frequently.
One day as I was walking down the hallway, I noticed Trixie staring at something on the ground. I’d never seen Trixie quiet before; she was usually complaining and trying to pick a fight with anyone who would talk to her. It was odd to see her with her nose twitching and her eyes locked on something. She looked up at my approach and regarded me with a hard stare. I’d never seen her like this.
“What’s up with you, Trixie?” Her eyes locked onto something, and she pointed her finger at it.
She looked like she might be sick.
“Huh?” I said, but something about the way she was acting made me uneasy. I looked around and then back at her. “What, Trixie?”
I looked around, but I couldn’t see anything. I bent down to grab the book she had pointed to, and I felt a chill in my right arm. When I picked up the book, I noticed the flesh on my hand turning pale, and now the chill was hot to the touch. I must have been standing there for several minutes because the class was almost over, and I was supposed to have an appointment with the counselor at that time. I started to panic, dumped the book and ran to my counselor’s office.
Like always, she was annoyed by my lateness. She was impatient and just pushed me into the chair so quickly. “I have something to tell ya,” she said. “Yesterday, I saw a strange cat and some strange men in the woods around the school.”
“Where?” She hesitated, “There are no woods around the school.”
I got up and left, too worried about school disruptions to notice she hadn’t answered me. The mansion was quiet. I felt like I’d never stop hearing that strange hissing sound. It was echoing in my head, a few seconds away, just when I was starting to believe in Alex’s story.
“Strange things.”
I was in the middle of math class, sitting at a desk near the back. I knew someone had whispered my name.
“why are you so odd?” the girl next to me whispered.
I looked up, but she had already turned away, back to her work. The bell rang and she walked out before me. I didn’t hear that voice again until that night when I was switching beds. That’s when I heard it again. I turned and looked in the mirror.
“Why do you act so strange with that boy?”
The boy in the mirror was me. I slammed the door. He had said boy. He was indirectly saying that there was something wrong with me and Alex being together. I was angry. I didn’t even want to watch the movie I’d put in the VCR.
I had barely taken two steps into the hallway when someone grabbed my arm and pulled me behind a locker. I could smell them. It was Alex.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I need to talk to you. We need to talk.”
“Let go of me,” I said and twisted my arm out of his grasp.
“You can’t just leave. You’re leaving me, right?” he whispered.
“You’re crazy, Alex,” I said and pushed passed him.
I turned when I was halfway down the hall. He was following.
“Don’t go!” I yelled.
“Come on, we need to talk.”
I walked fast down the hall to the girls’ bathroom and slipped inside, slamming the door behind me. I leaned my back against the wall, breathing heavily and shaking. I hugged my arms and closed my eyes to calm myself.
