Did You Get What You Deserve?

I tucked my hair behind my ears and looked around me. Great, I thought, first day here and already I’m lost.

We had just arrived in Stroud. I had decided to go for a walk, and now I was well and truly lost. I wandered around for a minute before spotting a girl sitting alone on a park bench, eating her lunch. I walked over to her. She shaded her eyes and looked up at me.

“Can I help you?”

I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling incredibly embarrassed.

“Um... I’m lost.”

She grinned.

“No worries. Where do you need to be?”

I told her the hotel we were staying at and she offered to take me there. After a moment she looked at me sideways.

“You’re not from England, are you?”

I shook my head.

“America.”

She grinned.

“Thought so. I’m Cari, by the way.”

“Alec.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirteen.”

“Same.”

We walked on in silence for a moment. Then a group of girls walked past. They were, quite obviously, the Laura type of girl.

“Hey Cari!” they called. Cari turned around.

“Shut up!”

I blinked. As far as I could tell, the girls had done nothing wrong. Cari smiled apologetically at me, but offered no explanation. After a moment more of silence, I remarked,

“I quite like Stroud. It’s a lot nicer than London.”

Cari laughed.

“You have to like Stroud. It’s just so... bling! Except for the chavs...”

I giggled. Then Cari stopped walking.

“This is your destination.”

I recognized the building in front of us as our hotel. Cari sighed.

“Well, goodbye. You certainly brought a spark to my otherwise boring day.”

She smiled and turned to leave, but I stopped her.

“Hey, uh, you wanna come up and hang out for a while? I mean, unless there’s somewhere you need to be...”

She laughed.

“I reckon I could take a moment out of my otherwise busy, completely packed schedule. Yeah, that’s fine.”

I grinned and walked into the hotel. Then I remembered I couldn’t remember my room or floor number. I walked over to the reception desk and smiled at the lady sitting there.

“Um, hi. I feel like a real idiot, but I’ve forgotten my room number.”

She laughed.

“Don’t worry, it happens all the time. Reservation name?”

“Uh, Iero.”

She keyed it into the computer.

“I...e...r...o... Floor three, rooms 104, 105, 106 and 107.”

“Okay, thanks.”

I joined Cari by the elevator.

“Third floor.”

We got into the elevator and I pressed the number three button. On the way up, I looked more closely at the buttons.

“Hey Cari...”

“Mhm?”

“What’s the ‘G’ button for?”

“What do you mean?”

“That button, with a ‘G’ on it.”

“That’s the Ground Floor button. You know, ground, first, second, third and so on.”

“Really? Weird. In America, it just goes first, second, third. There’s no ground floor.”

She laughed.

“Really?”

I nodded. The doors opened, and we stepped out into the hall. I found number 106 and knocked on the door. After a moment it opened and there stood James.

“Hello Alec. You’re back. Avoid your father for a while, see if he gets any more worried. I want to see if it really does make him sick.”

I grinned and pushed past him.

“Come on in, Cari.”

Cari sidled past James, smiling self-consciously. James looked at me quizzically.

“Did you pick up a random hobo?”

“Wha- no! This is Cari. I was lost and she showed me the way back. Cari, this is James.”

Cari smiled.

“Hi James.”

“Hi Cari.”

“So, are you Alec’s brother, friend...?”

“Boyfriend.”

She nodded.

“Cool.”

At that moment the door opened and Dani came in.

“Hey James, I’m back.”

I snuck up behind her and was about to scare her when she said,

“Don’t even try it, Alec.”

Cari gave me a quizzical look, obviously wondering why I thought Dani wouldn’t notice me. Dani heard the movement of Cari’s shoes on the carpet and stuck out an arm, hitting Cari on the shoulder.

“Who’s this?”

“Um... my name’s Cari.”

Dani caught Cari by the shoulders and brought her face so close to Cari’s their noses were almost touching. Cari leaned away.

“Uh, what are you doing?”

Dani sighed impatiently.

“I’m not a lesbian. I’m almost blind, so this is the only way I can see anything. Now come here so I can look at your face, I want to see what you look like.”

“Oh, right.” Cari brought her face back to Dani’s. After a moment Dani nodded and stepped back.

“Right. What I can see is you have blue eyes, brown hair and white skin.”

Cari nodded. Then she remembered that Dani couldn’t see it and said, “Uh, yeah.”

Dani grinned.

“You nodded, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Everybody does that. I’m Danielle, by the way. You can call me Dani.”

There was a knock on the door. James yelled, “Come in!” and the door opened.

“Hey Dad.”

He looked at me.

“Oh, thank God, you’re back. I was wondering whether you had gotten lost.”

“I did. Cari brought me back.”

“Cari?”

I pointed to Cari.

“Dad, this is Cari. Cari, this is my dad, Frank.”

Dad nodded.

“Nice to meet you.”

I looked at Cari, but she was just staring at Dad open-mouthed.

“F-Frank? Oh my god. Are you- You’re not. Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Okay, I’m going to feel really stupid if you’re not, but... are you Frank Iero?”