I Rize (10 page)

The gun wavered back and forth in Adny’s shaking hands.

The sound of his parents calling from afar disrupted the painful memories from continuing. Each dice was buried much deeper into the sand than before, and he ran back home.

I
N THE early morning hours, Junior sat in his car, putting the key back and forth into the ignition. Throughout the entire day, his mind was a constant whirlwind, searching for the right moment to confront Mickey again. He decided not to go to Mickey’s house when he removed the key for the last time. On the porch chair was his laptop left from the night before. Sitting on the porch chair, he watched another video.

Adny’s hair was drenched, as she rung the water out. She struggled to speak, shivering from the cool water sprinkled on her skin from the pool. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying.

I’m sitting here on this lonely bench freezing my but off, waiting for Mom to come get me. I don’t understand how it’s one hundred degrees outside and the pool water feels colder than ice. You were smart not to come on this stupid trip to Jungle Rapids. No wonder this trip was free because it has proven to be a complete waste of valuable time.

Our imaginations as children made this place fun and wild. The long, massive water slide was the dragon’s dungeon. We fought our way through with the use of swords made from sticks we found under the chairs. The dungeon was below the water and home to the killer dragon.

Life stole my imagination. Everything is black and white now. No color. No amount of matches can bring my spark back.

I thought coming on this trip would be a minuscule escape from the evils of Valley High. My judgment was wrong. Mickey and Jace’s presence made the experience a tad less unbearable.

The initial bus ride wasn’t bad. Surprisingly, the circus of fools was dead silent. I didn’t have to endure Terri’s stank morning breath or hear her lapdog’s bark. The few minutes of peace from them were great.

Mickey sat beside me first, but then Jace kept glancing at me across the aisle. He recognized Jace’s signal for me and moved to a different seat. Jace wore chocolate spray again, which still managed to drive my insides crazy. We’ve still been texting, but he doesn’t say much in person. He just stares and smiles a lot. A lot equates to the whole entire bus ride. I get too nervous to ask why he’s two different people. I’m not complaining, but nothing is adding up.

Junior sat back on the porch, tempted to close the video the more she mentioned Jace’s name. He pushed the skip button to lessen the sick feeling in his stomach.

Stepping off the bus changed everything. Terri shoved me while walking up. I felt my mouth tighten up with anger. I clenched my fists in front of me where she couldn’t see.

Her lapdog decided to shove me, too. Monkey see, monkey do. The first shove, I was heated. The second shove, I snapped. I took both of my hands and pushed her into Terri.

Do you remember our dog, Goldie, who died when we were in middle school?

“How could I forget? Best dog ever.”

He was the sweetest dog, but it was so sad when he got ran over by the weird guy with the missing eye. I still remember Goldie’s yelps of pain. Shandi reminded me of our dog Goldie, just yelping away for her owner, Terri, to come help when she fell back.

Mickey led me out of further danger, and we sat by the pool’s edge, dangling our feet in the water. He told me jokes, which never failed to make me laugh. We played a game of truth or dare, and he dared me to jump from the diving board.

“I don’t know who Mickey is anymore. He is a stranger to me and probably to himself.”

When I stood on the diving board, it felt like I was reliving the dream I told before. I haven’t dealt with the nightmare in a long time. All of a sudden, it came back. It felt too real.

I blinked and the diving board became Suicide Hill all over again. I took one step and jumped.

I blinked again, and Mickey was sitting beside me in the chairs. Glad the nightmare faded away quickly from my view. It was beyond scary. Mickey knew something was wrong and started with the lamest jokes ever. But I didn’t mind. You and Mickey understand me so well.

“Shoot, I can’t really say much about Mickey being a stranger, because I looked in the mirror this morning and didn’t even recognize myself. Adny, we all need you.”

We were sitting on the chair when Madison walked by and ruined my peaceful state of mind. ‘Looks like someone forgot to cover up. You remember these pictures, home-wrecker? Jace wouldn’t want anything to do with you.’

At first, I didn’t realize what everyone was laughing at until I looked down. There was a red substance all over my seat and the bottom of my bikini. I knew it wasn’t my time of month. I also knew Madison and her crew were involved. Terri, Shandi, and the same group of girls walked by and played their game again. They all shouted, ’Whore!’ while laughing at the opposite end of the pool.

Then Jace came up and told everyone to back off me. When everyone left, he reached out his hand to help me up. I ignored him. I ran as far as I could to the front of the building and called Mom. Jace yelled back to me, and all I remember hearing was ‘Ketchup.’ I came to this lonely bench to cry in private.

Every time I try to ask him about the way he acts, he sweats profusely, and his Axe spray permeates stronger. Despite our odd interactions, my feelings for him are growing much stronger. I hope he feels the same way.

“I hope not.”

I want the type of relationship you and Mickey have. It seems so loveable; so perfect.

“You don’t know the half of it.”

I have to go now because Jace is walking up. I don’t want him to see me messed up like this.

“You’re going to stop talking to me to talk to him? Still don’t know what you see.”

He watched as she quickly pulled out a hand mirror from her purse to clean up a little. The tears were hard to wipe away because more kept flowing from her eyes.

J
ACE WALKED along the outskirts of the village. A group of people was huddled in a circle chanting with crosses raised high in the hair. The chanting grew louder as he pushed through the crowd. In the center were Junior and the rest of Adny’s family. He tapped them on the shoulder, but they didn’t turn around. Everyone’s eyes were glued to the ground. Moving past them, he saw Adny’s body. When he leaned down to pick her up, her eyes couldn’t be distinguished from her mouth. A wind of darkness traveled down from her legs and up to her head. He tried pulling her arm in his direction, but the body vanished.

It was the middle of the night back in Cape Town when Jace woke up on his stomach, tugging the covers from beneath himself. He woke up with a dry mouth and with cracked lips chattering for moisture. Everyone in the house could hear him rustling in the bed through the thin walls.

Mosi stood with a tilting cup in his hand in the opening of the room door. “I have bad dreams. Elders give me watery stuff. It helps.”

Jace took little sips as the cup shook violently in his hand. As his mouth inched closer to the tip of the cup, the strong smell caused his eyes to water. His nose turned up at the bitter taste. The liquid substance loosened the cracks in his stiffened lips, allowing him to talk with ease.

“You got letter back from her?”

“No, not yet. I’m still waiting.”

As Mosi left, his bare feet could be heard sliding across the hard wooden floor. The shaking stopped. The drink continued to calm Jace down, causing him to think about more encounters with Adny. He could hear Mosi moving around outside of the door and decided to think out loud on purpose. “At the water park, Adny didn’t say anything, but only waved to me. I was still too nervous even after a year to give her my number. It is crazy, I know, but her presence almost paralyzes me. I bet she thinks I have mental problems.”

Mosi opened the door slightly and whispered, “Stop.”

The drink warmed his body temperature, and he grabbed a tissue to wipe the sweat droplets forming on the top of his forehead. He wrapped the tissue around his fingers and smiled. Mosi’s voice could be heard, but he kept chattering away. “I gave her a tissue because I knew she cried prior to my arrival. Time stopped as we became more engaged, our bodies closer in contact. I could almost touch the softness of her lips.”

Before he could think further, Mosi shoved the edge of the cup in his mouth. Extra juice spilled all over the bed sheets. The house remained quiet for the rest of the night.

I
T WAS a rarity for everyone to wake up to a messy kitchen. Two large piles of dirty dishes were scattered in both sinks. The kitchen island was bare. Usually a light breakfast was cooked and placed on the island for everyone to make his or her own plates. A small pile of dirty clothes could be seen on the living room couch from the kitchen view. No clothes were washed since Adny’s hospital stay.

“Hey, Momma, I missed the bus again. Are you going to make some breakfast for us?”

Michelle straightened Darla’s ponytail as she spoke. “Not this morning, Darla, just have some cereal. Junior, could you run her to school for me?”

Junior nodded, not saying anything.

“Are you feeling okay? Usually you come downstairs very boisterous, putting us all in a better mood.

He nodded again, still not saying anything.

She gave each of them a hug. Terri and her father were not acknowledged when they came into the kitchen. Outside, she sat in her car for a moment before work to call her good friend—Gracie’s mother. They became close friends when working the graveyard shift at the dispatch office. A cup of coffee and conversation about family each morning became commonplace.

The dial went straight to voicemail.
Beep.
A voicemail was left. “The longer Adny is in the hospital, the more motivation I lose for everything. My heart is bottled up with too much rage. Each day, I’m becoming increasingly frightened of what I am capable of doing to my husband and his daughter. I will kill for my daughter’s sake. Call me back when you get a chance.”
Beep.

D
uring first period, Junior sat silently in Miss Nora’s classroom while she reviewed the Pythagorean Theorem with the class. The title of the new video sparked his interest.

Junior year officially starts tomorrow, and I couldn’t sleep at all last night. It has been over a year, and I still have the same nightmare. This time I wasn’t standing on Suicide Hill alone. Terri was behind me. She extended her hand and pushed me closer to the edge of the cliff. I was almost out of breath when my eyes opened.

I just don’t understand what Terri has against me. She moved into my house, took up my space, ate my mother’s food, and continues to make my life misery. She treats me like a mere houseguest, and her so-called boyfriend treats her like crap. He calls her bad names regarding her weight, and she stands there and takes it. What constitutes wrong is universal, no matter how demented the person is, but I will never have sympathy for the enemy.

Yesterday, we went to a new hair salon which opened up a few months ago out of town. It’s called Curl-Up-And-Dye. I wish Terri, Shandi, and Madison would get the memo.

“I agree two hundred percent.”

Anyway, Terri’s dad paid for Darla, Terri, Shandi, and me to get our hair done. The stylist started with Darla first, forcing me to sit across from Terri and her boyfriend in the waiting area. He kept staring me down with his scary owl-like eyes and licking his lips in a disgusting way. He is a dog who needs to be muzzled and put to sleep immediately, if you know what I mean.

“Don’t forget to muzzle Madison.”

Terri pretended to ignore him. A blind person couldn’t miss how obvious he was about the situation. I kept telling him to glue his eyes to the ceiling, but he wouldn’t listen. The stylist called Terri and me up next.

I knew Terri was staring at me as I took my hair out of the ponytail. Her hair is much shorter. I flipped my hair back and forth before the stylist came back with the shampoo. I glanced into her jealous eyes and enjoyed watching her squirm in the seat.

Junior formed his hand into an imaginary pair of scissors pretending to cut across the screen. “You still need to cut those bangs.”

When the stylist started washing Terri’s hair, I looked back over in the waiting area. Shandi was sitting far off from Terri’s boyfriend with her legs crossed tight, acting like she was scared of him. He tried multiple times to touch her leg, and she kept pushing him off. From a distance, it looked like she wanted to cry.

This isn’t news to anyone because since the beginning of August, Shandi has acted weird every time he comes around.

When the video ended, Junior closed the laptop and took his headphones off. Miss Nora sat at her desk patiently with her arms folded under her chin, watching Junior’s confused look.

“Miss Nora, where did everyone go? Is class over?”

She walked over to his desk and handed him a recent test with a grade of a twenty circled on top. “Junior, class ended fifteen minutes ago. You’re a straight A student, and lately I haven’t heard you talk about college as much. If you need someone to talk to, I’m always just a knock away.”

He placed the test back into her hands. “Betrayed by my love and losing my best friend seems impossible to overcome.”

She sat on the desk in front of him and pulled out Adny’s poem from her purse. “We are all guilty of not helping her at some point along the way.”

He ruffled the poem back and forth between his fingers. “Can losing people you love mean losing yourself?”

“I’m going to tell you something I rarely talk about with anyone.” She leaned in closer to a near whisper as if someone in the hall would hear their conversation. “I was diagnosed with breast cancer three years ago.”

Junior looked down and said, “I’m sorry.”