“Like… you got injured tonight for me, and I just want to know that you’re okay.” That might be the only information I’d get, and it had to be enough for me to settle with that.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Jack smiled at me. We had stopped in front of my building, but I was reluctant to get out.
“Ugh, this is so unfair,” I groaned, opening the car door to get out.
“You know what you’re problem might be?” Jack asked, giving me an odd look. “You worry too much.”
“Yeah. That’s my problem,” I grumbled getting out of the car.
Jack was still laughing when he pulled away, and I stood on the curb for a minute, trying to put everything into perspective. Sure, he had killed a rabid dog and then magically healed from the attack, but at least he saved my life. Again.
Chapter 5
There isn’t a single sound in the world that’s worse than an alarm going off.
After Jack had dropped me off last night, it had been all but impossible to fall asleep. There was still the lingering adrenaline from the near-death experience, and there were Jack’s increasingly cryptic responses and bizarre behavior. Once the warm water of the morning shower splashed my face, it all seemed even more ridiculous. I lived in Minneapolis, not Gotham City, or whatever other bogus city where there were supernatural forces at work. Here, in the real world, there were no super powers or werewolves or unicorns. Everything in life had an explanation, and Jack’s probably had more to do with cocaine or mescaline than it did with anything else. People addicted to speed were known to exhibit superhuman strength, and combine that with some kind of chemical imbalance that made him smell irresistible to women, and there it was. Problem solved. And he was just kind of a jackass and didn’t want to let on that he had a drug problem.
Naturally, I spent too much time in the shower, and I almost missed the bus to school. Milo sat next to me, but he didn’t seem to be in a talking mood, so I put in my ear buds and decided to pass the time listening to Ryan Adams on my iPod. Resting my forehead against the glass of the window, I watched my breath frost it up. Milo kept giving me the cold shoulder even though I hadn’t done anything wrong, and this guy that I barely knew but really liked had fought off a rabid dog last night. What exactly had happened to my life over Spring Break?
School passed more slowly than it ever had before. Everything was excruciating because I felt so unprepared for it all. I slept all through my second hour, but I managed to sneak my iPod into my third hour, so I kept awake for that. I just stared out the window, at the chilly rain falling down, and tried not to think about Jack. By the end of fifth hour, I had completely exhausted myself not thinking about him.
When I stopped at my locker between classes, I somehow managed to drop my History book on the ground. I bent down to pick it up, and when I stood back up, Milo was standing right next to me, scaring the crap out of me. He admired the clutter that occupied my locker, including the obligatory collage mess of magazine cut outs lining the inside of the door.
“God, you scared me,” I grumbled, shoving my History book into my book bag.
“So are you gonna be at home tonight or not?” He had one of his hands on my locker door, and he started moving it back and forth, just enough to make it squeak.
“Of course I’m gonna be there. I live there.” I continued fiddling around with something in my bag, but mostly I was trying to look busy. In turn, he was staring off at some point behind me so he wouldn’t have to look directly at me.
“I meant, are you gonna hang out with Jack?” His tone was icy, and I didn’t understand what he found so offensive about me being with Jack. Even if he was having some kind of jealousy, shouldn’t he be trying to cover it up better?
“Yeah, probably,” I shrugged. We hadn’t actually talked yet, but Jack had said that he would see me today, and I didn’t have any reason to doubt him.
Well, except for the fact that he was hiding something major.
“So are you guys like dating or what?” Milo asked, dripping with a angry sarcasm.
“No. It’s not like that.” I slung my bag over my shoulder, and he just narrowed his eyes at me.
Suddenly, it pissed me off that I had to explain myself to him. We weren’t dating, but it shouldn’t matter to him anyway. It wasn’t my fault that Jack’s abnormal attractiveness had made his sexual orientation even more confusing.
If he had told me he was having issues with it, I probably wouldn’t have brought Jack around.
“Whatever,” Milo muttered incredulously.
“What exactly are you accusing me of?” I asked, slamming my locker door shut. He let his hands fall to the sides, looking startled. “Even if I am dating Jack, so what? I can do that. There’s nothing wrong with being friends with him or dating him or whatever it is I decide to do with him. He’s a nice guy and it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do.”
“Whatever you say,” Milo said, but he wasn’t as confident or angry. In fact, he was a little taken back.
“Milo, this is stupid.” I readjusted the strap over my shoulder and looked at him softly. “I get it, okay? I saw the way that you looked at Jack.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He flushed and averted his eyes, shifting uncomfortably. Outing him in the middle of the hall at school probably wasn’t the best idea, but I just couldn’t take his indifference to me anymore. He normally told me everything, and it looked like he wasn’t going to talk to me about this unless I got the ball rolling.
“It’s okay.” I lowered my voice so other people wouldn’t overhear. “If you’re gay. It’s okay. I understand.”
“You don’t understand anything!” Milo shouted. When he looked up at me, his eyes were filled with tears, and I realized that I had made a terrible mistake.
I couldn’t force him to come to terms with anything, and if he wasn’t ready to talk about it with me, I should’ve respected that.
“Milo-” I started to say something, but I didn’t really have anything to follow it up with. He didn’t wait around for it anyway. He just turned and stormed off down the hall, leaving me alone to think about what an ass I was.
When I got on the bus after school, he made sure to sit on the opposite side. On the way to our house from the bus stop, he jogged on ahead of me. I tried to hurry and catch up, but by the time I made it inside, he’d already slammed the door to his bedroom. He must’ve been really upset if he risked the wrath of our mother just to show me how angry he was. I sighed and flopped on the couch, wondering how he had managed to put up with me for so long.
I had made it through two full episodes of Judge Judy while laying sprawled out on the couch without any word from Jack or Milo, and I was starting to think that maybe the whole world had ostracized me. The only time that Jane had talked to me all day was during lunch, and then it was just a list of how much she drank and who she had sex with over the break. I just wanted to curl up on the couch and completely give up on life, but then I heard the familiar ring of “Time Warp” and I quickly snatched up my phone.
Are you done with school yet? Jack text messaged, making me wonder how long it had been since he went to school.
Yeah. I’ve been done for like two hours. Why? I replied.
Good. Ready to hang out? He hadn’t really answered my question, but hey, what’s new?
Yeah. Sure. What did you have in mind? I messaged him.
I’ll pick you up in 15.
And that was that. My clothes from school were fine (I’d gone with jeans, a long shirt, and a cute little black vest), but most of my make up had worn off, so I rushed to the bathroom to reapply and run a brush through my hair. I started heading towards the front door, but decided against it. Exhaling nervously, I knocked on Milo’s door.
“Milo?” I said cautiously. He didn’t respond, but I continued anyway. “I know you’re mad at me, and I don’t blame you. I did a stupid, stupid thing. But um…” I sighed, and tried to figure out what I wanted to say. “You can
