“I-I-I was just heading home,” I managed to stutter as I jump to my feet. He shook his head.
“You shouldn’t be out in the dark by yourself let me take you home,” he gave me a creepy smile that made me want to puke, “there’s a lot of creeps out after dark.”
“Liz!” A voice called from behind me. “It’s time to get home.” James said now by my side, to the scum-man he added “Is there a problem here?”
“Not at all,” scum-man said smugly, “I was just telling girly here that it’s not safe out after dark. I better get going.”
“Come on.” James grabbed my hand and walked with me towards my house.
“Thanks for helping me out back there. How did you know where I was?” I didn’t mean to ask, but I did anyway.
“I didn’t,” he scowled as if he should have known “but you were lucky I was walking past.”
“I know that guy was a total creep.” I realized he was still clutching my hand.
“What’s funny is that’s what Keith’s gonna be like in twenty years,” I laugh like it’s the funniest thing ever said. When we get to my house I thank him again and ask if he wants to come inside.
“Na, I have to get back, I wasn’t actually supposed to leave in the first place.” he replies halfheartedly. When he finally released his grip on my hand I ran inside and up the stairs to my room. I reach in my bag find my book, and read. I guess while I was in flashback mode our English teacher assigned us to read chapters 12-14. I waited a half hour before slipping out the door and into Claire’s room.
“Hey Lizzy?” She snickers, “What’s the matter your razor cut to deep.” I roll my eyes; she says the same thing every time I need to talk to her. She’s high of course, on what God only knows”
“Never mind. But did mom notice I wasn’t here?’
“No the warden didn’t have time to make her rounds.” I hate when she does that, she never just answers the question. She sighed, “She had to work late, and you’re lucky I got here before first. School called, apparently you skipped math. Can’t blame ya. Mr. Lionel’s a total ass.”
“Thanks for covering,” I couldn’t have gotten any luckier.
“So who was that guy you were with,” She laughs, “Kinda cute. Mind if I steal him?” I just roll my eyes and try to leave, but she grabs me and jerks me back. “Wait, sorry. But seriously who was he?”
“Just a friend from school.” I can’t help but grin when I say it.
“Would he happen to be a friend of the boy variety?” she jokes.
“Not mine anyway.”
“To bad he’s totally your type. You know, all dark and depressing. You should like, ask him out.” she laughs, I don’t. I haven’t even thought about it believe it or not. I hardly know him, not that I would have a shot anyway. I finally escape when Claire passes out on the bed. I don’t know whose worse me or her, but I still think she’s the crazy one in the house. I glance up at the clock. Already 12:30!? I try to finish my English, but it is not gonna happen. I threw the book on the floor and dozed off.
The next day when I get to school James is no where to be found. Everyone is staring at me, because of yesterday for sure. They couldn’t know what I do could they? English is a major pain because we have to take a pop quiz on the book never actually read. By the time I get to science I’ve just about had it with this place, I’ve always hated school but today was like a never ending hell. And it only went downhill from there. At the beginning of the year Sara and I decided to be lab partners, and when she’s pissed, she stay’s that way.
“Hey,” I say as casually as possible.
“Is everyone staring at you too?” I’m actually glad she asks “They act like we killed each other or something, its crazy!”
“Yea people are like that, well the crazy part anyway.” We both laugh, the kind you do when you try to avoid an awkward silence, it doesn’t work.
“You know you were right about Keith. He’s a total prick, but I knew about that slut he’s seeing.” She says shattering the silence.
“That sucks. I kinda figured from the way you acted.” I say.
“Well you better get used to it Liz. All guys are like that, every last one of them. But some, of course, can be trained.” My mind goes straight to James. Would he be like that? Would he have to be trained? Was it even worth the time? Why am I even thinking about it? He’s not mine to train. Simply the thought saddened me. I finally snapped back when I realized Mrs. Johnson was asking me something.
“What?” I ask.
“What is the next step in the experiment? Honestly Liz, what are you going to do when we get into serious chemicals if you can’t even focus on this simple mixture?” She demands.
“Burn down the school.” Derek remarked. Everyone laughs, including Sara, I don’t blame her ‘because I’d have laughed if it wasn’t about me. Every one laughs, except Mrs. Johnson, she just scowled at us like we where a pile of moldy cheese.
“Derek don’t joke about such things, I won’t even consider bringing such dangerous things in this room. Now if you all can handle it pour 5 ounces of substance A into tube C and 3...” Her voice faded from my mind as quick as it appeared, and the thought of me burning down the school grabs my thoughts. I can hear Amanda now she’d say something like, ’Yea the emo chick like totally burnt my new Iphone. Yea I was all like seriously!? Are you fricken kidding me? I was all like, why don’t you just like go cry in the corner or whatever emo people do?’ First it’s important for visualization purposes that I say that in my mind Amanda was talking on the phone to someone, chewing gum and looking at her nails. It’s also important that I don’t consider my self to be emo. I just think that Amanda would say something like that and most people would.
After school I still haven’t been able to find James, so I just walk home. The second I opened the door I knew something was wrong. First clue had to be that Claire was vacuuming the living room, this is the same girl who’s to lazy to get up to change the channel when she loses the remote. Second would be that Mom’s in the kitchen. Ever since I was little Mom has only been home twice after school, the first time grandma died, the other was when Dad left.
“Lizzy could you untangle the cord? I think it’s caught on the couch.” I can barely hear her over the vacuum but I do as I’m told. I open my mouth to ask what the hell’s going on but she stops me. “Dad’s coming home and Mom’s going crazy. I think she’s still trying to hide the fact that their done with, end of story.” As much as I know it’s true I think they could fix things if they tried. Mom’s ok, but I’ve always been a daddy’s girl at heart. When ever he’s here everything’s nice, fake but nice, we go out to dinner, watch movies, and I feel like we’re one of those families in sitcoms on TV.
“Liz get off your ass and take the trash out!” Mom yells over the roaring of the vacuum, “Your father’s coming over for dinner to night, and this place is a mess. Are you two really that lazy you can’t do a load of dishes once in a while?” I hear Claire muttering something under her breath as I slithered out the door.
Since I wasn’t in any hurry to jump back into the fire, I sat on the curb. I heard steps coming towards me on the grass, I was gonna get yelled at no matter what so what was the point in looking behind me. I felt someone’s presence besides me but I don’t get the first degree about being a lazy slob. No what I get is sticky and rough. I finally decide something’s not right and look up, sure enough it’s not my mom standing next to me, but a dog.
It’s a pit bull, white and creamy brown. Its tail is docked and the fur is full of stickers, probably fleas too. But the first thing I notice is its face, covered in scars, but it sure doesn’t act vicious. I reach out to stroke the matted fur but the dog steps back. I put my hand down, no reason to tempt him. He’s so skinny, and the tip of his ear is torn. I look into the dog’s eyes and I feel as if I know every detail of his life. Born into a fighting ring, his owner probably tried to make him fight by putting a bigger, tougher dog against him, thus the scars. But it wasn’t the dog’s nature, so his owner didn’t feed him enough, finally he gave up on the dog and dumped him on the street. I didn’t now jack about dog fighting or the methods, but somehow I knew this dog. I could in a way relate, although my scars I caused myself, they felt the same.
“Its ok puppy,” I slide over a little closer “see I won’t hurt you.” He walks up to me slowly. First he sniffs it, then nuzzles my sleeve. When he starts chewing on it I roll them both up. I pat his head, stickers and all, “See? We’re the same.”
He’s still wary of me when I get up to go inside, than I realize I’m not capable of leaving this poor dog out here, and I can’t bring him in the house. I remember the shed out back, no ones been out there since Dad left.
“Come here puppy,” I call to him. I don’t know who I’m trying to convince, this dog is huge, definitely no puppy. “Come on Sam.” Sam, where did that come from? It works though, he whines, but he follows me to the back yard. When I open the shed I hear mom calling me to come inside. I hurry and find the extra cat food we keep in here in case we run out. I scoop about a cup of dry food and three cans of cat food onto an plastic bag from Wal-Mart. Sam doesn’t seem to care, he gulps it down like there was only one bites worth. My name is hanging in the air when I get back inside.
“Liz what the hell took you so long?” My mom snaps when I walk in the back door.
“I thought I heard someone in the back, and when I went to check it out I tripped on the driveway and scraped my knee.” I barked back.
“Well if you’re not going to do anything useful why don’t you just go do your homework or something. Just stay out of the way.” I go have to go through the kitchen to get up to my room anyway, but since Mom was in the living room I grabbed a package of hotdogs out of the fridge and put them in my jacket pocket for Sam.
“What are you doing Lizzy?” I hear Claire call to me when I get to the top of the staircase.
“Um...my knee hurts really bad, I just wanted something cold on it.” I don’t have to lie to her, it just comes natural.
“Yea,” she laughs, “you of all people can’t handle a little pain. Whatever Liz just don’t do something stupid.” I want to tell her just how stupid she is, but I hear steps coming toward the kitchen. I hurry to my room and put the hotdogs in my desk drawer when I hear a knocking on my window.
