Wicked Road Page 6

  I faked a smile so he’d think I was okay. Ronnie apologizing to me felt good, but I preferred him to not need to. It made me feel bad, but it showed me he cared how I felt at some point. I stared at his eyes.

  “It's not you Ronnie,” I replied, relaxing. I stared into his eyes. All of a sudden, my heart was fluttering like a hummingbird's wings.

  Our shared look was really intense. I couldn't speak a word. It felt like my eyes were saying words I’d never mentioned before. I don't know what my eyes told him, or were telling him.

  Why did it look like he was leaning in? Was he leaning in? Or was it because he was leaning back and forth and it just looked like he was leaning in? And why was I closing my eyes when he was getting closer to my face? Why am I even bothering with this crap?!

  My cheeks were getting really hot by the second. Suddenly, he backed away quickly, like he’d just realized he was just inches from my face. This was all the response I got.

  I almost felt as if I’d been slapped. Inside my emotions were ablaze and my mind in disarray. I couldn’t complete a thought. Pain ripped through me as he stepped away, leaving me confused by my own feelings.

  “I, uh, I gotta get to work,” he said, clearing his throat. Tearing away from my gaze, he scratched the back of his head, and turned on his heel to walk away without looking back.

  I stood in utter silence in the same spot where he’d left me. My heart nearly stopped as I watched him walk away, leaving me standing there in utter shock.

  Oh my god! My driveway, the driveway! The driveway that belongs to Todd. Oh, I hope no one saw what just happened! I thought in panic.

  I ran back inside the house replaying the whole scene over and over again. I contemplated what I might have done differently. Why was my heart still pounding like a hammer and my head screaming at me? Everything was changing!

  As I went back through it all, a million times, I noticed the way he stared at me. Not just today, but always. It was nothing like the way he stared at other girls. ‘That’ stare was nothing compared to ‘this’ stare. This stare was something, had something behind it. I might’ve called it the 'Donnie' stare while the other one the 'girls' stare... Why was I even talking about this?! I was such a complete fool...

  “There we go, all cleaned up,” Todd said to Candy-Cane, getting my attention.

  I looked at Mia as she whined. I could tell she was confused. Mia had always been a friend to my Candy-Cane.

  “It’s okay, Mia. I'm pretty sure Candy-Cane forgives you just as I do. Right Candy-Cane?”

  Purring under my touch, she meowed, the shock nearly forgotten now. I kissed her head.

  Todd was asking us why Mia went berserk all of a sudden on my cat. We told him all the possible reasons.

  But deep inside my head I had a feeling that this was not a coincidence, but something else. Maybe control! It might sound a bit crazy, but what other possible way could it have been? Or perhaps it triggered something within Mia's head.

  Ugh man, I thought to myself, dragging out the word man in frustration. Since when did I become superstitious?

  Matt took Mia to his room, leaving me alone with Todd and my thoughts.

  Todd sighed while he leaned against the kitchen counter with a glass of water between his hands. He obviously had something on his mind. “So, pumpkin, you still didn't change your mind about that dance?”

  I stretched my lips into one huge smile. “I am very proud of my answer.”

  “I'd say you didn't. Well, okay,” he sighed sounding somewhat defeated. I had no idea why. Something else for me to contemplate.

  He was going back into his office until I asked, “Todd, I never asked you this but since Mathew and I don't have any other family, what happened to your parents? I'm interested in knowing your past.”

  I never brought this question up to him for one reason. It was too personal. Plus, I felt that all the times I did have a chance to ask him, it’d been too soon to ask. But I was really curious right now and it felt like the right time. I felt positive he would share it with me. I wanted to know some of his past too since he was a part of Matts' and mine.

  He stopped walking, keeping his back towards me. Not the reaction I expected, but oh well, the question was asked. There was no turning back now.

  He lowered his head down, and sighed deep. He turned around as he pinched his nose bridge between his fingers. He walked to me with closed eyes and sat down at the table across from me.

  I petted Candy-Cane's fur all the while. She settled my nerves. He took his glasses off and set them on the table. He rubbed his dark blue eyes from...exhaustion? Not really sure, but he did look older than his age of thirty-eight.

  Todd was getting old and I cringed, realizing it. I didn't want to lose him yet, not ever. He's the best father in the world.

  He leaned back against his chair looking off in the distance as if the memories were coming back to him. “My family was really poor,” he started.

  His voice even sounded old. “The jobs my dad used to take didn't pay enough. It was as if he just went with whatever work came to him so he could afford to buy his liquor and cigarettes. If we spent any money on foolish things besides food or necessities, my dad would beat us, especially my mom. She always stood up for me. She took the most beatings every time she could. If she couldn’t then it would be me he'd hit.

  “My dad left me and my mother three months before I turned nine. We had no idea where he went. No explanation for why he left or used to beat us whenever he felt like it. Now, as an adult, I’m better for not knowing I guess. I don't want to know.

  “We were all on our own now and she didn’t have a job, so I started working anything just to support us two. When I began making money, she started drinking a lot. She became addicted to alcohol to the point where she beat me for the money I made. Life was a wreck for me back then.

  “Then, just one week after my eleventh birthday my mom died from alcohol poisoning. It's one of the reasons why no one sees me drinking or smoking.

  “After the funeral, I was sent off to live with my mom’s sister. She was a sweet hippy, and a little weird. Although I gave her the hardest times, she was always kind to me. I turned out to be a grumpy teenager. I wasn't proud of the things I did, and what I involved myself in. But now, after all those years of torment here I am. I’m a single, successful, thirty-eight year old doctor and lawyer who’s the adopted father of two very special kids. That's all.”

  “So, you're dad left you, and your mom died from alcohol poisoning?”

  He nodded affirmatively. I saw the tears he held at bay. He kept calm though, not wanting to show his vulnerable side.

  I kept quiet and didn’t console him. Silence was best at this moment.

  I looked down at Candy-Cane. She was asleep, purring underneath my hand that kept petting her.

  “Such a sad story,” I told him in the end. My watering eyes showed how sad I thought it was.

  He shot up out of his seat and picked up his glasses. “Yep, don't we all have sad stories in the past?! Anyway, it was nice to share this with you. I'm glad you wanted to know. I got to get back to work pumpkin.”

  I smiled up at him. “Alright, laters.”

  He gave me a nod and left.

  I went to my room and got on the computer to check my email and surf the net.

  It must have been really hard for Todd to share that. I don't think he's ever told anyone outside the family. I'm sure he's told Mathew and Angela.

  Poor Todd has been through a lot. It must have been hard to trust people. I tried imagining being in his place. I couldn't. I wouldn't have been able to survive. But I know that what he went through in his past really did pay off to make him become who he was today.

  Ronnie on the other hand, oh God. Where do I even start with him? What was happening with us two anyway? I'm so confused. Was he actually leaning in or was it my imagination?

  I really need to stop asking myself, or even day-dreaming about this, because i
t didn't make any sense to me. In the back of my mind, I’d finally understood that part of me wanted him to like me but then I wished at the same time he didn’t.

  It would make my life simpler if we were just friends and nothing more. All of those intense, chaotic feelings churning within me were only hormones. Yes, just hormones. I loved him, yes, as a best friend, but I didn't like him in a romantic way.

  So then, why is it that every time he looks at me it's like he's seeing a lost, broken angel for the first time in his life? My theories are so off. They don't make sense at all, just like I don't. Maybe I'm just not understanding the mixed signals he sends me.

  Chapter

  Four

  Halloween was finally here.

  Ever since Mia and Candy-Cane's feud, everyone had been bugging me to go to the stupid Mask Night Dance, which was tonight. I do not even know how to dance for starters.

  I was hanging out in my room and on the computer since there was nothing else to do at the moment. I was listening to music and singing along while I played an online game. It consisted of a girl baking cakes, frosting them with colored icing, decorating them, and giving them to customers as they payed her.

  Someone knocked on my door, startling me. “Come in,” I said not taking my eyes off the screen.

  Matt strolled in, looking around.

  “Here's a little something we bought for you. Of course Angela was the huge help on the big part since she's a woman, and keeps herself updated in modern fashion styles...and costumes,” Mathew threw those words at me.

  He wore a smile, I was sure, from the sound of his uplifted voice. I turned to look at him as he placed down on my bed a rectangular black box with a blue ribbon on top of the lid.

  I closed my eyes in devastation, scoffed, and said, “Matt, please tell me you all did not buy me a costume?”

  I wondered what type of costume was in there?! Hopefully a zombie queen or something like that, I thought.

  He scrutinized his face, “It's...something like that. We figured you might,” he scratched his head, and completed, “change your mind, and come to the dance.”

  That was why Todd was acting weird the other day when he asked me!

  “I will not.”

  I wanted to be firm in my decision before I saw the costume… which they’d bought thinking they’d left me no choice. Which of course would leave me feeling guilty if I didn’t go.

  “Come on, Donnie. Don't be such a pain,” he teased. He placed a ticket on my bedside table.

  “I am not,” I scoffed, looking anywhere but at that ticket which looked at me with such pity. It was as if it cried ‘Pick me up!’

  I didn't know what he’d decided to wear at the dance. I had nothing in mind of what or who he would like to dress up as. This though, had never crossed my mind. “Do not tell me that you are dressed up as the Phantom of Opera?!”

  He smiled, and looked at himself in my long view mirror. “Do you like it?” he asked me looking at himself sideways, basically checking himself out.

  I snorted, “What made you want to wear that?”

  “I thought I might look handsome and take girls breaths away at the dance. I mean, don't I look breathtaking?” he asked me, turning to look at me with an innocent smile.

  “You look like someone desperate using the oldest romantic cliché.”

  His face fell, he looked defeated, and I had to giggle at it.

  “Okay, you know I was joking, Matty. Besides, you do look handsome.”

  His face lit up in a genuine grin, from ear to ear, and I giggled again because his face reminded me of when he was a little boy with the lisp.

  Out in the distance, a car honked on Todd's driveway.

  “Well, I better get going or Spike may set my cape on fire if I’m not in that car in thirty seconds! See you at the dance,” he boomed, walking out of my room with a smile.

  “I'm not going,” I shouted from behind him, chuckling. I got up, and walk to my bed where the ominous box awaited me. It stared at me, daring me to open it.

  “You are, and you will,” Matt’s deep-toned voice echoed from atop the stairs.

  I shook my head, smiling.

  I took the lid off and moved aside a white sheet that sounded so annoying and loud. Crackle! Kee!

  In front of my eyes laid a soft, blue satin fabric. I pulled it out of the box. It was a long… dress? Dresses aren't a costume! I put it against me and looked in the front mirror. Who in their right mind...?

  IT WAS GORGEOUS! It was a black and blue ball gown featuring a sweetheart neckline, a fitted bodice with intricate detailing dropped to the waistline, and a full skirt with contrasting layers of tulle. Also it was strapless.

  Okay so it wasn't a costume. But why did they buy me a dress? I guess it could have been turned into a costume at some point. I imagined how I would look in it. I had no idea. The dress was too beautiful.

  I took a deep breath and decided, unbelievably, to go to the dance after all. I decided not to waste such a chance, especially with a dress this stunning. I'd never been to a dance before anyway, so this was my first time.

  All the plans I had made for tonight were canceled. Well, my only plan was to watch horror movies with the pets. Plus, I was all alone in the house. Todd wasn't going to be here. He had a lot on his plate, and Angela was at her house. So, I went to work on myself.

  I gave myself a quick look in the mirror and groaned. Not enough time to go all out.

  I put my makeup on first and then took a long look at my hair. I decided to keep the naturally wavy curls and add just a bit of mousse to keep it in place, to keep its beauty. I put on the new ballerina black flats, with a bow in the middle of each. I held the eye mask in my hands. It was jade blue with sequins, jewels, and braids all around it. I tied it around on my head and looked at myself in the mirror.

  Now this is a costume, I thought. I figured not so bad for a first timer. I think I might have to thank Mathew and everyone else who participated into getting me this beautiful dress and eye mask.

  Grabbing the ticket off my bedside table I headed out of my room taking my wallet, phone, and car keys. Climbing into my car nervously, my mind ran away with itself. How bad could it be anyway? It couldn't be too bad, could it?

  Oh, it was bad alright, for me. I didn't even have anyone with me to escort me to the door. That's one thing I forgot all about.

  Now this is where tension rises, where a sad, lonely dark girl shows up at a mask dance all alone. How typical! I sighed.

  Oh, what the hell, I thought. I got out of my car, and went through the gym doors. It looked like I didn’t need to give anyone my ticket.

  I couldn't control the butterflies in my stomach. Ugh. I just wanted to punch my stomach to get those annoying butterflies out of me. Honestly, they were pointless. I shouldn’t be so nervous about anything.

  Music blasted through the walls. It was dark like a disco party with a touch of horror. The DJ was by the far end of the gym on the other side from the front doors I just came in from.

  White ghost-looking sheets, witches, funny-looking goblins, grim reapers, bats, spiders, and decapitated zombie heads hung from the ceilings. Fog came from somewhere in the gym and filled the whole room. Fake cotton cobwebs covered the whole ceiling of the gym – I wonder how they managed such a thing.The theme color was black and orange. I’d say they did a perfect job with this.

  Everyone came in costumes. I couldn't figure out most people's faces since they’d hid them behind masks.

  People couldn’t stop staring as I headed towards the refreshment table. It was instantly obvious I was the only person wearing a dress, which made me stand out.

  I was surprised no one kicked me out because of it, yet.

  I ignored the stares all around me because I was used to it and the criticism.

  I must’ve worn the wrong kind of costume.

  I was suddenly stopped by Tina who stood in my way. Behind her mask, she didn't have a pleased face when she asked, �
�Who are you?”

  I glared hatefully at her and was happy that she didn't know it was actually me. “I'm no one. Just came to check out this dance!”

  “Are you from here?” she asked confused.

  “No,” I told her in a rude voice.

  She gasped. “Whatever. This isn't a formal dance loser. This is a Halloween dance. Who invited you anyway?”

  “None of your business,” I told her with a little attitude.

  You don't want to get messy with a newbie, I thought, even though I was not really a new student. Wearing this mask made me realize I could say or do anything and it would hold no repercussions when I took it off. I’d just go back to being me.

  She stood right in front of my face. “Listen girl, whoever you are, how about you stop being rude.”

  “How about you stop interfering in my business and just leave me alone.”

  She gasped again, lips pouty. No one ever stood up to her like I was. She shoved past me, hitting my shoulder on purpose, walking away.

  I sighed deeply, not wanting to start anything when I’d just gotten here. I was immensely glad that was over. There could have been a brawl. But for some reason I was happy to at least be rude to her while being unknown. I felt my confidence rise up a bit at last.

  Finally, reaching the refreshment's table, I grabbed a dark chocolate chip cookie. There were no chairs around, so I had to stand, and I did not mind.

  My eyes wandered around searching for any familiar faces. I spotted Mathew with his Phantom of Opera costume. Jade and Spike were with him. Jade dressed up in what looked like a vampire warlock. Spike dressed as well, his self, a punk. I wonder where Ronnie was lurking...

  “Hey,” a girl greeted in a nice, friendly tone. I assumed she was greeting somebody else. If I didn’t speak to people they ignored me. But I turned to look at her anyway since she had gotten my attention. And, to my surprise, she was staring at me.

  “Oh, uh, hey,” I greeted her shyly.