My room is right over the back porch, which has an open roof. I pull back the curtains and James is sitting on the awning. I open the window having no idea how he got up there.
“Hey Liz,” he says “what’s up?”
“Nothing.” I say flatly, “How the hell did you get up here?”
“I’m a good climber. Was that your dog you where out front with earlier.”
“Not really, he just kinda found me.” I say. I realize if James saw me with Sam, he probably saw my arm too.
“Can we go see him? I mean, if he’s still around here somewhere.” James asks.
“Sure, but I’ll have to sneak past my mom.”
“Just come out the window.” I hesitate, “Come on it’s easy.” I grab the hotdogs from the drawer and crawl out the window. I throw them to the ground and James grabs my hand,
“Ok put your foot here and grab on to that post” I try to do exactly what he tells me, but I get my foot stuck on some wires about five feet from the ground
“We have a problem,” I say quietly.
“Hold on,” He laughs, and jumps from the awning to the ground with a thud. “Just kick off your shoe and jump backwards. Don’t worry I’ll catch you.” I don’t wanna do it, but I don’t have a wide variety of options. I know one thing for sure; James did not get on the roof this way. “Ok, jump.” I jumped and land on top of James, our faces are less than three inches apart. I gaze at his deep blue eyes. He runs his hand over the back of my hair, and leans in what little he can, when the back door clicks, someone’s unlocking it. I bolt up on instinct and James sit’s up, Claire opens the door and laughs.
“It’s nothing Mom, just some stray cats up on the roof.” She calls over her shoulder, and closes the door.
“Was that your sister?” He asks grinning after a long silence.
“Yea,” I mutter, “come on lets go see Sam.” I sigh and pick up the package of hotdogs. When I unlock the shed Sam is laying on the concrete floor, I’ll have to get a blanket for him later, but for now I give him one of the hotdogs and stash the rest.
“He’s a fighter for sure.” James says as he closes the door behind him. I doubted that this dog was even capable of standing for more than five minutes, let alone fight another dog. “Unless he was the bait of course,” he added seeing the doubt in my eyes, “that’s the only way he could have gotten those.” I smile because I know that’s not the only way, well maybe it is for a dog.
The whole time Sam is watching me, not even glancing at James. Sam stumbles over to where I’m standing and starts pulling on the sleeve of my jacket, almost if he had heard my thoughts.
“Come on Sam, cut it out.” I plead. But he doesn’t listen, instead he growls as I try to pull to pull away. “Sam stop!”
“Sam sit,” James commands, and for the first time Sam looks at him and sits down. I’m not very surprised when I see James slip Sam a piece of a hotdog. “Lie down.” he commands, and once again the dog obeys, this time his only reward is a few strokes of the head.
“Thanks. I don’t know what got into him, he wasn’t like that earlier.”
“I know,” he doesn’t even look at me, “I was watching him when he came up to you in the yard.” There’s sadness in his voice, is almost sounds like grief. He’s still watching Sam, I try not to think much of it but I do, something’s not right.
“I didn’t see you out there,” I try to sound calm but inside I’m panicking. I don’t know why but I don’t want him to think I’m some sort of goth freak. For some reason I care what he thinks. “You should have said something.” I force myself to laugh when I say it.
“Na, climbing on the roof sounded like more fun.” We both laugh. “I have to go,” he holds me close and whispers so low that I can barely hear him “just so you know, I don’t think you’re a freak.” And he leaves.
