“What the fuck?” Lilyon said loudly.
“I don’t want to know.” Trena said quickly and then went back to her homework.
I shrunk back, against a bookshelf and smiled meekly. “So, what do you think?” I asked hoping she wouldn’t be too loud with her reply.
“What the hell is this?” She answered just as loudly.
“A, um, drawing.” I could already tell this was going to be an awkward conversation.
“Well duh, I know that. This side looks like Derek, but who the hell is that supposed to be?”
“Derek,” I mumbled almost incoherently.
“Who,” Lilyon raised an eyebrow.
“Derek,” I sighed.
Lilyon rolled her eyes.
I bit my lip. “Can we change the subject?”
“Fine,” she said. For some reason, I had a feeling that I would hear about this later.
“So do you guys want to come over after school?” I asked.
“Sure,” Lilyon huffed, not really ready to move on.
“I can’t, I have dance.” Trena said.
“Oh yeah, sorry Balletrena,” I said.
“Well I’ll come over.” Lilyon said.
“Cool,” I said. Oh dear, now I knew I was in for it. I would be alone with Lilyon and she would have plenty of time to pester me about Derek. And by the look on her face, she had already thought of it.
Ding, ding, ding. The bell rang, signaling the end of the day. The library emptied quickly. Many people literally dropped what they were doing to pick up there bags and head out the door. I looked at Lilyon.
“Do you want to walk or ride the bus?” I asked.
“Let’s ride the bus.” she said.
I nodded, knowing that in all of the chaos of the bus, she would have a harder time trying to talk to me. At least I’d be able to put off this embarrassing conversation by a half hour, maybe more if she was quiet on the walk to my house.
~~~
“Mom, I’m home. Lilyon is over so we’re going to go for a walk.” I called.
“Alright hon.” my mom responded from the kitchen.
Lilyon gave me an odd look.
I tugged her by the arm.
“What was that about?” she asked once we were outside.
“I know what you’re going to say, and I don’t want my mom to hear it.” I gave Lilyon a stern look.
She smiled deviously.
So we walked down my street. In the middle of my subdivision, there is a huge pond. Near it is a drain pipe covered by a cement box. This is where we chose to sit.
“Okay, now talk.” I said, still reluctant to face this subject.
“Why were you drawing Derek?” Lilyon said, direct as always.
“Do you want the real story, or the story that doesn’t make you think I am insane?” I asked seriously.
Lilyon thought for a second. “The real story, I already know you’re insane.”
So I explained, to the best of my abilities, what happened in my dream, and everything that led up to the scene in the library.
Lilyon raised one eyebrow in question “How do you know him?”
“I don’t know.”
“How could you not know?” Lilyon looked at me like I was five.
“Oh come on, don’t look at me like that. It was years ago. I can barely remember what I did last month.”
Lilyon sighed. “So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
Lilyon rose. “Come on,” she said.
“What,” Where did she think she was going? She didn’t know her way around my house, let alone my entire neighborhood.
“Show me his house.”
“Okay,” I said, taken aback. That was random.
“Well what are you waiting for?”
“Nothing,” I used my crutches to pull myself up and started clicking down the street.
A slight breeze rolled through, rustling the trees. I was suddenly nervous. I didn’t know if I was ready for this. Could I face his house again? And, if chance arose, could I face him again? I stopped myself. I sounded like a cheesy daytime soap opera. Of course I could face him. I already had at school. Jeez, my life was getting more cliché by the minute.
I sped up, angry now. Why did I always have to make something more than what it was? Derek was a random stranger. My dream was just a dream, a coincidence. It wasn’t that hard to imagine what someone may have looked like when they were younger. I was being irrational. And this whole thing was just my being stupid.
“Is this it?” Lilyon spoke up, interrupting my internal dribble.
I focused ahead at the familiar old house that stood just ten yards away. “Yeah, this is it.”
Lilyon scoffed. “This is it? This is the legendary Grunge?”
“Yep,”
“Wow, I see why it’s been deserted.”
“Deserted, but not abandoned.”
There was a soft thud from behind us.
“Well duh,” Lilyon either didn’t hear it, or didn’t care so I dismissed it as well.
Then, I heard soft crunching noises from behind them. Again, I dismissed them. There were plenty of small animals in this little strip of woods and it could have been any of them.
“Brooke, Brooke, are you listening to me?”
The crunching stopped for a moment, then, started again.
“Huh,” I jerked out of my dazed state.
“I said, ‘Are we supposed to be here?’”
“Not really,” The words hung in the air, echoing around us as if we were in a cave. The words were true. The words were taken right from my mouth—right from my mind—but they weren’t my words.
I felt Lilyon jump beside me. If my crutches weren’t weighing me down, I would have jumped right alongside her. Frankly, I was glad I didn’t jump. I hated looking like a chicken, even if someone just snuck up on me in the middle of the woods.
I dropped one of my crutches and thrust my elbow backwards, into the stomach of whoever had snuck up on us. It was quickly followed by a loud grunt. The person behind us stumbled backward. I turned quickly and pushed my only crutch into their stomach. It took all the strength I had not to collapse. And even that was barely enough when I saw the face of the person lying on the ground.
Derek.
