Airel - Aaron Patterson [28]
My mind was finally starting to shut down, but not because I was ready for sleep. It was probably because I was in over my head and I knew it. My life had officially become berserk.
As far as I knew, the rest of the night was uneventful. I slept through the night and even had a nice dream about Michael Alexander. Nothing too weird, just about our afternoon at the mall and how he looked at me. He could look at me one minute like I was a science project and the next, I was beautiful. Did he like me, truly? Or was I some sort of sick dare that he had with his guy friends? “See if you can get that girl to like you,” or, “I dare you to get her to go to prom with you.” So juvenile.
A few short hours later I got out of bed. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I looked in the mirror to see if my skin had gone back to normal. Nope. Not that I was disappointed. I was beginning to like my new, airbrushed look. If this kept up I could be on the cover of People or something. Hopefully it wouldn’t be the National Enquirer. I guess I didn’t need to put on make-up today. I ran my hands through my wet hair after a shower, pulled it up, and twisted it into a messy bun. I found a #2 pencil, stuck it through the center of the bun, and smiled. Why not? City worker chic. Sweet.
Kim sauntered into the room and looked like she was the one who was up being harassed all night by a killer. Her red hair was off in crazy-land and the bags under her eyes had their own zip code. “Morning, hot stuff!” I said as she waved me off.
“Shut-up! I need coffee and a bagel—in that order.” She dragged herself into the bathroom and turned on the hot water. I looked at the clock.
“If you want coffee you’d better hurry.” We had less than a half hour to get to school. We had a hardnosed teacher in our first class together and cracking down hard on tardiness was a part of his motivational technique.
On the way to school, I couldn’t help but tune out some of Kim’s chatter. It was like I was a magnet and the fridge I was drawn to was all this crap that was happening to me. My thoughts were so crazy that they seemed like they didn’t even belong to me half the time.
Thank God for history class. Come on, like I cared what Chinese dynasty was what, or when they built the Great Wall. But this time I wasn’t thinking about how my jeans fit, or how Marcie should really not be wearing a 6, or if I would get asked to prom by Michael—and if he did ask me why was I so scared of the question?
No, I was stuck with the face of a murderer looking up at me from a dark movie theater, the footsteps sounding on a hard tile floor, the echo that made him far scarier. I could have very well lost my life.
Or maybe I was just over-thinking again. It was almost painful to be this confused. Kim would have laughed and joked about that nonstop, if she would have heard me say it.
I looked for Michael, but he was not in school that day, as far as I could tell. I wondered if he was sick—maybe he had what I had, or what I was getting over—or if something worse had happened to him. Airel. You’re acting like a lovesick headcase. Then again, maybe that’s exactly what’s happening here.
After school, I went right home. Dad’s orders. He had made it perfectly clear what he expected from me, until this killer was caught and locked up. No negotiation. Not that I was any good at it anyway.
The sky had a large gray and black cloud hanging over part of my fair city, like a schoolyard bully waiting for the nerd to come around the corner so he could blow off a little steam. It smelled like rain and I didn’t care. Rain, snow—who cares.
I was stuck at home until my own personal cloud passed over and my parents decided it was safe for dear little Airel to go out and play again.