Unhinged (4 page)

David’s inner dialogue is interrupted by a
sudden luminescence from above. He crouches further into the
darkness forged by the tree, down into the blessed shadows full of
gloom and promise. The light is his enemy; the light reveals. The
darkness is where he keeps his secrets. It’s the one place where he
can create his own reality and take comfort in its emptiness. It is
his warm blanket, the only place he feels safe and in control.
Through the gentle flowing arms of the willow tree, David sees his
victim rummage around the room, completely oblivious to what lurks
just below the window. David smiles and hugs his knees as he
crouches at the very bottom of the willow tree, his back leaning
against its strong trunk. Anticipation grows in his belly as he
thinks of the pain and suffering he is about to bestow on his
completely ignorant victim.

Like a wave of fire, an invisible hand slams
David to the ground. He holds his head in agony, fighting off the
impending wave of desolation, willing his mind to hold together for
just a few minutes more. He must act soon, lest he begins to lose
himself. He removes the three-inch knife stowed in his boot and
mentally prepares himself for Plan B. The urgency of the situation
is not lost on him. But he is prepared. This scenario already
worked over in his mind and any alternate ending formulated days
ago.

As David crawls from beneath his hideaway and
slowly makes his way toward the house, he smiles through the pain
and fog that has overtaken his brain. Nothing can stop him, for he
is the Master of Destiny.

Chapter
Five

~ Outbreak ~

No amount of makeup up in this world could
help me look human this morning. The dark circles underneath my
eyes shine like a beacon when I put on my normal wardrobe of all
black. Despite my growing comfort with this thing called life, I
can’t give up my wardrobe. I still feel like I need some protection
from the awful secrets lurking beneath the skin of others. So long
sleeves and gloves will never leave my side. But for Logan, who
prefers me in V-necks, I have given up my normal turtle necks. One
day, I might even try a different color... One never knows when
hell might actually freeze over.

After applying my third coat of concealer, I
give up on looking good. The night I spent tossing and turning,
dreaming of lunatics scraping against my window, has taken its
toll. Never mind the waking up every hour on the hour to go into
Mary’s room and make sure she was okay, watching her breathe and
praying to any god that would hear me to please take care of
her.

I finish dressing in black skinny jeans and a
thin long-sleeved t-shirt that shows my rather pathetic attempt at
cleavage before heading down to the kitchen to get something to eat
before leaving for school.

Mary has already left for the University so
the house was quiet. I pack up my stuff into my book bag, put it by
the front door, and slip through the revolving door to my kitchen
to scrape up some breakfast. While I wait for my Eggo to heat up, I
hear a soft knock on the back door. I smile as I move to answer the
door because I know who is waiting behind it.

I open the door and lean against it, giving
myself a minute to take in all that is my boyfriend. Logan stands
there dressed in his usual get up of a fitted t-shirt with some
logo on it and raggedy jeans with pristine Nike shoes. Today his
shirt says
My blood, my sweat, your tears.
He’s twirling his
keys on his right finger and smiling that lopsided smile at me—the
one that makes my knees weak. Thank you door for holding me up.

“Hey beautiful,” he says, his voice exuding
sexiness even at seven in the morning. His hazel eyes look on me
warmly as he moves into the kitchen and pulls me into a hug. His
cheek touches mine and I am suddenly flooded with his most recent
memories. The way I look to him as I opened the door a few seconds
ago, the basketball practice he had the night before, and the
shower he took in the locker room afterwards.

Wait! Immediately I force the memory down,
wish it away to any other part of my brain but the one connected to
my eyes. For the first time ever, a memory listens to me. Funny,
I’ve never been able to do that before. I guess the key to
suppressing a memory is acute embarrassment. Or perhaps it was
sheer willingness not to faint in front of my boyfriend from seeing
his perfect butt naked. It is painfully obvious that I’m innocent
in the ways of boys, but I’d at least like to keep some surprises
in store, just in case I ever make it to second base.

“What did you see?” asks Logan, curious as
ever about my curse. He knew I absorbed his memories. They all
know. The people I touch can feel their memories come off them in
waves; like a harmless download. It doesn’t hurt them, but they
always know.

I look up at Logan from beneath his cloud of
memories and see this mischievous look on his face. It’s almost as
if he planned this, hoped I would see a memory of him without a
stitch of clothing. I punch him playfully in the stomach. It
doesn’t even phase his rock hard abs.

“You ass,” I declare, a bit miffed at him for
knowingly sending me memories that would be embarrassing. But deep
inside, I’m just grateful that they aren’t of blood, murder, rape,
or betrayal. I’ve seen enough of those to last me a lifetime.

I tell Logan to wait by the door as I go and
grab my book bag. I shove the Eggo into my mouth, throw on my
gloves, and walk with Logan to his car. As we round the corner and
make our way to my front driveway, I see Logan’s red Nissan Rogue
parked smack dab in the middle of it. Like most guys, he loves his
car and only allows two stickers to adorn it:
Go Hawks!
after our school mascot and
Mean People Suck
for his life
motto.

Always a gentleman, Logan follows me around
to my side of the car and opens the door for me. I slide in and
watch as he closes the door behind me. As he makes his way back to
his side of the car, his movements are manly but graceful, most
likely from years of playing sports. In the past, when I’ve heard
girls talk about guys they liked, they would mention how much they
loved their legs or butt, or how beautiful their eyes were. Not me.
My favorite part of Logan is his hands. Strong hands, capable of
swinging a bat hard enough to hit a home run, or dunk a basketball
for the winning shot.

Or, like I saw firsthand months ago, hands
that were sturdy enough to beat down a serial killer and save our
lives. But none of that is why I like them so much. It is his
gentleness, the way he uses his hands to tuck my hair behind my
ear, or how his hand just seems to fit into mine. His hands are
what mesmerize me, what remind me with every touch that he is
mine.

Logan deftly takes his seat behind the wheel
and revs up the car. As we drive to school, I finish my Eggo,
trying not to get too many crumbs on his seat. Keenly aware of his
neat freak tendencies, I scoop what I can from my lap and throw
them out the already cracked window. From the corner of my eye, I
see Logan laugh at my pathetic attempt at making order from
chaos.

“You know you probably just sent half of
those crumbs to my back seat,” he points out smirking.

I look behind me and see that Logan had
cracked the back windows as well as the front. It was the perfect
temperature this morning: not too hot or too cold. Dammit, I hadn’t
even noticed.

“Sorry,” I mumble, embarrassed.

“It’s okay,” he says as he strokes my knee.
“You can dirty my car anytime, babe. Just as long as it’s you in
the seat beside me, I don’t really care.”

Blushing, I look at his perfect hand resting
on my knee. I place my gloved hand over his and give it a squeeze.
I look up into his face, see his lopsided smile as he watches the
road, and wonder yet again at how lucky I am to have him in my
life.

Sadly, that feeling doesn’t last long.
Suddenly, like a freight train crashing into my heart, an
overwhelming feeling of dread consumes me. Confused, I jerk my hand
away from Logan’s like it’s on fire. I should be happy right now,
sitting next to the most wonderful boy in the world, but I can’t
seem to shake this fear that has a death grip on my heart.

Before I could go into full panic attack
mode, we arrive at school. Logan pulls into his assigned parking
space adjacent to the stadium. I grab my book bag, jump out of the
car, and run to the staircase that leads to the school. Logan
catches up to me, breathless, confusion written all over his face.
I simply stare at him, unwilling to explain my unusual behavior and
thankfully, he doesn’t ask.

Dejana is waiting for us in her usual spot by
the side entrance doors. As we approach, I see that she is talking
to a few of her friends as she leans against the railing waiting
for us, acting like she has all the time in the world.

“Sorry we’re late again, Dejana,” says Logan
reproachfully as we approach the group of girls. He doesn’t need to
interrupt the discussion because all talking has already ceased.
Whenever Logan walks into a room, the girls notice instantly, and
the focus is automatically turned to him. He takes it in stride
though and despite his good looks, Logan doesn’t have an ego about
it. The girls instantly pull him into the conversation by asking
him about the next baseball game. A girl named Emily even went so
far as to put her arm through his, pulling him closer to their
circle of conversation and further away from me.

As usual, I am invisible, but that’s how I
like it. Logan is purposefully ignoring me; I know this because I
asked him to. He knows I am not comfortable around people still and
he respects me enough not to pull me into a conversation where I
would only feel awkward and unwanted. Besides, he’s popular and
this kind of thing is just what popular people do. Not that I would
know anyway.

I watch Logan and Dejana as they deftly make
light conversation with her friends. They're talking about things I
would never understand or want to be a part of. I hang back a bit
and wait for the conversation to end so we can go to first period.
Dejana and the others laugh at a comment Logan makes, and I watch
with no little amount of annoyance as Emily leans further into
Logan, using every opportunity she can to touch him. Her perfectly
manicured hand touches his face and I want to lunge and tackle her
to the ground. Heat floods my cheeks as I try to contain my anger
and annoyance. I see other girls flirt with Logan all the time, but
Emily is taking it to a new level. I know it shouldn’t bother me
that she can touch him with her bare hands, but it does. It’s a
completely normal human response to touch when engaged with other
people talking and laughing. Up until now, I haven’t cared. I was
happy being invisible. But things have changed. I may still be
invisible, but dammit, that doesn’t mean I don’t feel.

Dejana’s laugh thankfully distracts me from
Emily’s blatant displays of voyeurism. Another wave of jealousy
hits me, but thankfully less than with Logan. Despite the fact that
Dejana is my one and only friend, I’ve never expected her to
reciprocate that. But I would be lying to myself if I didn’t
acknowledge that it hurt sometimes. I would never want more
friends; more people around me that I would have to avoid, thanks
to my curse. But watching Dejana being so free with other friends,
I am hit with a stab of jealousy; not of
her
so much as of
her
life
. A life I wish I could have, a life I never even
knew I wanted until lately.

Seeing Dejana and Logan moving toward me
snaps me out of my melancholy thoughts. I was so engrossed in my
thoughts, I had no idea the conversation had even ended. The girls
they were talking to have gone in the opposite direction, never
even acknowledging that I was there. That happens a lot around me
and I am used to it. In my other life, I welcomed being ignored.
But this isn’t my other life anymore.

Dejana pushes her book bag back up onto her
shoulder as she and Logan make their way toward me. “Well, we now
only have two minutes to get to first period. Anyone up for some
running?” she asks me, not even apologizing for excluding me from
the conversation. “Or would you rather lag behind like you prefer
to do, and not make any more friends?” she asks as if she was
reading my mind.

I don’t take the bait because honestly, I'm
not sure if I do in fact want more friends other than Dejana. She
knows I prefer to live my life alone, but like a true popular
person, she doesn’t understand why a person wouldn’t want friends.
But I don’t see people as friends; all I see are walking time bombs
of secrets.

“If we run, we can make it,” I suggest,
trying to gauge whether or not Dejana is mad that I am avoiding,
once again, the talk of making friends. Why can’t she just leave
well enough alone?

“Well, then lose the hunk and let’s go,” she
yells as she starts off at a jog towards the four outer doors that
lead to the school.

I turn and say goodbye to Logan quickly
before taking off after Dejana.

The halls are filled with kids rushing to get
to class, and considering our school contains about 3,500 students,
that’s saying something. We meander our way through the crowds and
upstairs to Mrs. Primm’s French class. No one ever wants to be late
for Primm’s class; she is a no-nonsense teacher when it comes to
rules. For her, discipline is an art form and she is an artist. The
class begins immediately at the bell and no one moves an inch or
interrupts her until we hear that bell again 52 minutes later.
She’s an awesome teacher and so much fun, but you don’t want to
cross her or you’ll feel the wrath of the whole French nation come
down upon you.

We reach the door just as the tardy bell
rings and fly through the portal and into our seats at the front of
the class, hoping Primm won’t notice. What first hits us is the
strange atmosphere of the class: everywhere kids are in groups
chatting about what happened with the kid in the cafeteria
yesterday, and even more remarkable, no one is in their seat. I
look around just to make sure we dove into the right room. I see
the usual French grammar posters adorning the walls, the oversized
model of the Eiffel tower still sits awkwardly in the corner, and
the board up front shows that our French test is tomorrow.
Everything is in its place, but something isn’t right. And then, it
dawns on me what’s missing: the French icon herself.