Fly Me Away

“Maggie!” Kelly exclaimed, rushing up and hugging me. She was only there for a few seconds before she reeled back and gasped, “Are you still sick?!”

I laughed and shook my head. Kelly pulled me along and sat me in the living room, “Before I start spieling, I need to tell you that I’m crazy sorry. I realize how much of a dork I was being and I feel horrible about it.”

“You weren’t being a dork Kelly,” I assured her.

“Yeah I was. Great, now that the cheese is out of the way...” she dismissed me, then rushed into another topic of conversation “You know Nathan right?”

“Umm....”

“That new guy in our year,” she dead-panned.

“Oh right, yeah I think I do.”

The one Pip and Kelly used to talk about?

“Me and him where going out for a bit.”

What? How long had we been away from each other for? “Okay....”

“But then,” she latched onto a one of the cushion beside her, “he cheated on me with that witch Allison Fitzgerald! God, I should have known.... but I learned the error of my ways. Karma came back to bite me a guess.”

-----

We sat in the living room and talked for a long time. Mom made it her duty to bring out food and beverages every five minutes. She had deducted that we weren’t friends before, and now she was just so please Kelly was back over.

To my displeasure, in the middle of discussing Kelly’s new bunch of friends, the papillon waltzed in through the door. I foolishly assumed that the new and improved Minotaur was going to behave, but as soon as he saw Kelly, he started howling and snaring at her. He raced around the furniture angrily and started nipping at things. I was dying to call Jackson to calm him down, but couldn’t think of how to do it.

Mom rushed in and started chasing the dog, trying to usher him outside, but he was a lot fast then she was. I was getting embarrassed, even though it was only Kelly witnessing it, and she had seen it many times before.

“I wish someone would just shut him up,” I said, louder than necessary.

Then Minotaur was quiet. He stood there, tilting his head from side to side, before trotting out into the back yard and sitting patiently beside the door. Mom was so bewildered – she followed him out.

“Weird...” Kelly murmured, following them both with her eyes.

That was when I understood why Jackson didn’t help out to begin with; Minotaur barking at Kelly was the norm, he had seen that, and he didn’t want to disrupt it. He didn’t want to make things seem ...different. I muttered a quiet “thanks,”knowing he would hear it from wherever he was.

“Yeah,” I laughed nervously. Kelly was well and truly creeped out by what had just happened, I could tell. Her eyebrows furrowed as she stared at the door distractedly.

“so anyway Kelly,” I muttered, trying desperately to think of something to say, “ I was wondering ....if you wanted to hang out some time?”

Everything was so strange with just me and Pip. I was feeling ambitious; I was going to try and hit two birds with one stone and get Kelly and Pip to be friends again too.

“Of course! I’ve missed you like crazy!” she nearly shouted, waving her hands above her head.

“I’m going to Pip’s place tomorrow, probably, you should come too. It would be just like old times! I need someone there to save me from Bronco,” I laughed nonchalantly, trying not to make it seem like a big deal.

She turned to look at me in disbelief, “she fights with me every day Maggie, has she not told you about that?”

My jaw dropped. She certainly had not.

“No...”

“It’s horrible. Sometimes I see her in the mornings, and during a few of our classes.... I’m tired of it you know? I try to fix it but she doesn’t want me to be friends with you two anymore.”

I glanced back down at my fidgety hands. How could I have missed that? Pip has always been headstrong, but to completely shut Kelly out like that was so not like her. I felt bad. I felt like I had been too consumed in my own problems to help out.

Stupid demons.

“I had no idea Kelly....let me talk to her by myself then. That’s not like her at all.”

“Pip’s changed. Maggie, I would love to start doing things with you again, because I miss ya,” she winked, “but if it’s too much trouble to hang with both me and Pip separately—”

“No Kelly of course I want to, don’t be silly.”

“Good,” she laughed, “Because I made us a reservation at the Waterline restaurant for tonight.”

“What?”

She just shrugged and started laughing manically.

-----

Dinner with Kelly was good. In our time apart, I had forgotten how fun she was. She was a pro at chatting up the waiters, which meant big discounts for me. About 20 minutes in, however, I noticed that Jackson hadn’t shown his face once. This worried me ever so slightly. I may have been good at hiding it, but the demon situation really had me freaked, even out in public; I needed the safety blanket.

After a whole hour of no Jackson, I became panicky. I tried my hardest to stay calm, but every now and then something would surprise me and send my heart racing. I was so happy that Kelly had come to see me and that we were friends again, but my survival instincts weren’t behaving. The longer I went without seeing him, the more scared I became. It started getting to the point where even somebody laughing at another table would make me jump.

“...so yeah, they just dropped the pizza and broke his cell phone,” Kelly said, twirling a hunk of spaghetti around her fork. She was completely oblivious to how jittery I’d become in the past hour.

Then a light flashed in my head.

“I’ll be back in a minute okay? I just need to use the ladies room,” I hurriedly lied to Kelly and leapt out of my seat. She just nodded and put the whirl of spaghetti in her mouth.

I slipped straight past the bathroom and out the door. As I had predicted, there were at least twenty people loitering around outside smoking or waiting for someone to collect them. I flipped open my cellphone and held it to my ear.

“Jackson where are you?!” I asked irritably into the receiver. A few people looked up from what they were doing, but looked away again when they saw the phone in my hand. They must have thought I was a angry girl who’s date just stood her up.

I felt a huge wave of relief when Jackson appeared in front of me. He was wearing new clothes, and his hair was the messiest I had ever seen it. He started casually trying to pat it back down.

“I’ve been here the whole time, up on the roof,” he explained, giving up on fixing his hair, “I only left for a moment.”

It must have been very windy up there. I was trying to be mad at him, but the way his hair was sticking up at odd angels was just making me giggle, “The roof? You’re supposed to be watching me you know?”

A few more people looked up and started at stare, but I ignored them.

“I didn’t want to bother you,” he muttered quietly, adjusting his new shirt. It was just a plain black t-shirt now, and he had traded his old jeans for a darker pair. I snuggled into my overcoat at the thought of how cold he must have been.

I sighed and looked away, “I just get scared when I don’t know where you are...”

There was a long silence as I waited for him to respond.

“....Kelly’s coming, we’ll talk about this later.”

“Don’t leave!” I whispered harshly, reaching out to grab hold of him. Then he vanished again, and I dropped my phone in a clumsy attempt to stop him from leaving.

At that very moment, Kelly walked out into the foyer and stood beside me. I quickly gathered up my, now clearly broken mobile, and stood up straight.

“I saw you walk out here and thought I’d see what’s up...Who were you talking to?” she inquired, flicking her eyes between and my broken phone.

“Just...my Mom.”

“Okay....” She clearly didn’t believe me, as she had probably caught the end of the conversation. The people who were still loitering around outside all gave incredulous looks. Maybe they should just mind their own business...

“Oh don’t worry,” I flicked a hand at her, “Let’s just go and pay okay? I need to get started on that English assignment, I’m already behind.”

She looked hesitant and a bit suspicious, but eventually shrugged, “That’s fair enough...no desert then?”

I rolled my eyes and walked back inside.