Dance With the Devil

Nick’s house was about eight minutes away from where I lived, meaning that I had some time to myself. This wasn’t always a good thing; I had the tendency to actually think while I was alone. And my thoughts normally tracked back to one person – my mother.

I remember when I was little, how my relationship with my mother used to be amazing. I still remember when my mom was my best friend and I could tell her anything and everything. All that changed when my dad started fooling around. Before the affair was actually out in the open, my mom knew that my dad was doing something behind her back. My mom wasn’t stupid; the late night shifts, the sudden out of town business meetings, the protectiveness over his phone. They were all clear-cut signs. But, my mom being like every other hopeless romantic out there, wanted to believe that the man she had been married to for 18 years, the man she had a child with, and the man that she had loved for 25 years still loved her.

But he didn’t.

Whenever I think about the divorce in that perspective, I want to feel sorry for my mom. I know it hurts her, and I know that I'm all she has left. But I feel like all the responsibility has been pushed onto me now. I feel like I’m the one that needs to be taking care of her. I’m only 18; I didn’t want that burden yet.

I turned off onto Nick’s street and slowly crept up on his tall white house. I pulled into the driveway and honked my horn; I was too lazy to get up and go to the door. Moments later, I saw the door swing open and Nick walked through. He sprinted over to my car and climbed into the passenger seat.

“Hey.” He said to me, sounding very dull.

“Hey, you okay?” He wouldn’t exactly look me in the eyes. I began to pull out of the driveway.

“I’m fine. I just don’t feel well.” From out of the corner of my eye I saw him put his hand on his head.

“You still want me to come over today?” He removed his hand and I saw the slightest sign of a smile.

“Kar, you’re the only thing that makes me feel better. So yeah, please do.” I tried, but I couldn’t stop myself from slipping out a small smile of my own. Nick lived ungodly close to the school, so we were almost there.

“Heh, well thanks. I guess I’ll just drive you home too then.”

“Okay.” I turned into the school parking lot.

“So, Eli called me this morning. Guess whose back in the school?” I saw Nick look over at me, though I couldn’t exactly read his face.

“Amber Enderman and Austin Puttorit.” I pulled into my designated parking spot and put my car into park. I looked over at Nick, whose face had dropped and mouth was hanging wide open. “Lovely, isn’t it?”

“Are you serious?”

“Sadly.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah, it’s no treat for me either. She’s going to be in one of my classes.” Nick hated Amber and Austin just about as much as I did. Last year, Amber tried to pull this cute little trick to try and get me and Nick to break up. And not just that, but the fact that they just love to walk around pretending that they’re the greatest couple in the world when they’re actually one of the ugliest is just humorous to both of us. I opened my car door as Nick did the same. We shut the doors and I hit the little button on my key ring to lock my car. We began walking towards the school in the brisk morning coldness. I kept forgetting how cold it was starting to get.

“Man, I didn’t think they let animals go to this school.” He held the door open for me as I stepped into the nice warm building.

“I know. I guess rats are allowed to go here now.”

“I guess so.” We were walking down the hallway, my locker wasn’t far, but Nick’s was. He carefully grabbed my hand, something he hadn’t done in a while. I looked over at him. He was wearing that cute half smile I loved. He pulled me by my hand closer to him until he wrapped his arms around me and hugged me. We were quite early, so practically no other students were around. I laced my arms around the back of his neck and he leaned in and kissed me gently, not for long but longer than just a regular peck on the lips. When he let go, I could see that he had been smiling during the kiss. He looked right at me with his pretty blue eyes as his grip on me slowly loosened. He slinked his arms down my arms and held both of my hands. “I will see you later, okay?”

“Okay.” He kissed me quickly and lightly once more.

“I love you.” He said as he released my hands.

“I love you too.” He smiled and then began walking down the hall to his locker.

After that, I couldn’t get my stupid smile off my face.

In a little more than a daze from the scene with Nick, I had completely forgotten about Amber for the time being, that is until I saw her walk past me. I had been standing at my locker when I saw her out of the corner of my eye. She didn’t see me, I knew that. Though from where I was standing at my locker I followed her with my eyes. She didn’t stop to talk to anyone, nor did anyone make an effort to get her attention. Though, remembering what Eli had said I cautiously looked around for Austin, who I couldn’t find anywhere. Since I couldn’t find him, I attempted to push him out of my head and just focus on my problem.

Amber was in my biology class, which I had first period. I looked at the clock. Time was getting away from me and I had no choice but to go to class. I sighed, closed my locker and headed for my demise.

When I walked through the door, she was the first thing I saw. I analyzed her when I saw her. She was wearing skin tight skinny jeans, some stupid shirt, and a baggy ass hoodie, most likely Austin’s. Her hair was a frizzy mess, like it had always been but she dyed it dark red over the summer. She had the hoodie sleeve pulled over her hand, and her hand was over her mouth; a signature Amber pose. She looked like the homeless trashy version of the Little Mermaid. I snickered to myself and sat in my seat.

I began doing whatever work was on the board when my teacher, Mr. Lee came over and kneeled beside my desk. I liked Mr. Lee; he was your classic funny teacher who really cared about his students. I looked over at him and his slowly balding head. I smiled. “Oh hi.”

“Hey, uh can I ask a favor of you Karlee?” I nodded.

“Sure.”

“You know the new girl Amber?” I gave a quick glace over at her, only because I worried that she heard her name. She didn’t. I’m sure it was the mound of hair that was draped over her ears that acted like headphones. I looked back over at Mr. Lee.

“A little too well.”

“Well you’re one of my better students. I was hoping that maybe you could catch her up on what we’re learning about.” I really wasn’t the type of student to complain about extra work, or about helping another person out, but I needed to make an exception for Medusa over there. I gave him an apologetic look.

“Normally I wouldn’t care, but I have quite the history with her. And it’s not the best. So I think it would be better if she and I really didn’t interact while she’s in this class.” Mr. Lee stood up next to my desk, and put his hands on his hips. He sighed slightly.

“Well, I guess I can respect that. Alright, well thanks anyway.” He tossed a small smile then walked back up to the front desk. Innocently looking around the room, I saw her, though this time I saw her eyes. She was looking at me. Maybe she had heard the conversation Mr. Lee and I had after all. Not wanted to make this anymore awkward than it already was, I looked away. Though I’m pretty sure that I could feel the side of my head burning from where her eyes were.

--

“I seriously thought that a piece of my skull was about to melt away from the intense staring she was doing.” I said to Nick. We were in my car on our way to his house. Nick thought it was more humorous than I did.

“Why do you care so much?” He said with teasing in his voice. I looked over at him when we were stopped at a red light.

“It wouldn’t creep you out if someone you hadn’t talked to in forever, let alone hated, stared at you for basically an hour straight?”

“Yeah it’d be creepy as hell. But don’t dwell on it.” I looked ahead, the light was green. I slowly added pressure to the gas pedal.

“I’m not dwelling on it. It’s just weird.”

“That girl is as weird as weird gets.” I nodded, more to myself than anything.

“True. Hey does your mom know I’m coming over?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nick start to smile.

“My parents won’t be home.” I smiled, though I didn’t exactly know what I was feeling. I didn’t know what Nick had in mind to do alone.

“Oh really? So, we’ll have the house to ourselves…?” Nick chuckled.

“Correct.” I turned off onto Nick’s street, suddenly making me quite nervous.

“And what would we do in this house all alone?” He shrugged.

“I don’t know. Anything you want.” I pulled into Nick’s driveway, though I was hesitant to take the keys out of the ignition. Nick and I had been dating for a long time, about a year or so. I really hope he didn’t expect more than I was willing to give yet.

“Well then I guess we’ll just see what happens.” I smiled at him, though I didn’t want to give him mixed signals. He gave me his irresistible half smile and got out of the car. I sighed to myself and pulled the keys out of the ignition and followed him inside the house.

I had been to Nick’s house thousands of times, but this time when I walked inside it felt like unknown territory.

“Want anything to eat?” Suddenly feeling a little more comfortable, I walked into his kitchen where he was and leaned over the island.

“Nah. Not really that hungry.”

“Thirsty?” I shook my head.

“Suit yourself.” He said as he pulled out a bottle of Yoo-Hoo. Once I saw that, I was thirsty. I smiled bigger than I thought I would.

“You have Yoo-Hoo? I haven’t had that stuff in ages. I take it back, I’m thirsty, I’m parched, I’m dying of thirst, just give me one!” He laughed at me as he pulled out a bottle for me. I took the cap off and gulped down a nice amount of it in one sip.

“I take it you like Yoo-Hoo.” He said sarcastically. I put the cap back on and looked at him.

“This is like my childhood in a bottle.” He laughed. “I’m serious. This used to be all I would drink when I was like seven,” I paused for a moment thinking back to that time, it was so much simpler and I was so much happier. “Wow, that was ten years ago.” He began walking, and waved for me to follow him. We sat down on his couch in the living room; he put his arm around me.

“Yeah. Well, seven was kind of a bad age for me.”

“Why?”

“That was the year that all you did was give me wedgies.” I smiled and giggled to myself.

“Ah yes, the year of the wedgie.” He nudged me with his hand that was wrapped around my shoulder. Nick and I had known each other since we were young. We always used to tease each other and we would claim that we hated one another. We didn’t start actually getting close until high school.

“You know, I think you should really make up for all those wedgies you gave me.” I looked at him, trying to somewhat read his eyes, though Nick was completely unreadable sometimes.

“How should I do that?” And just like that, not another word was spoken. Nick leaned in and kissed me, gentle at first then slowly getting a little more passionate. I turned towards him, as opposed to sitting next to him, and he slinked his arms around to the small of my back. I ran my fingers slowly though his hair as he kissed me. Carefully, he started to push me down so I was lying on my back and he was on top of me. I was alright with this, but I didn’t want to go any further.

Or so I thought until my emotions started getting a hold of me.

I started to want him a little more. I kissed him a little harder, and I wrapped my legs around his. I really started to get into it, and I thought I started to feel his hands explore themselves a little lower than my back, when I heard a phone start to ring. At first I wanted to think it was just a figment of my imagination, but then Nick stopped and heard it too. Still being on top of me, he looked down at me with a little bit of an apologetic face and got up off of me. I sat up too and somewhat fixed my now messy hair. Nick ran over to his cell phone, which was still on the kitchen counter. I could hear him talking in the other room.

“Hello? Yeah what’s up bro. What? Dude, are you serious? That’s insane!” There was a long pause. Whoever he was talking to was saying quite a mouthful. When he did start talking again, it was quieter this time. “I can’t, Karlee’s here. Well yeah…yeah I guess you’re right. Okay dude, I’ll be there soon. Later.”

I wasn’t impressed with what I heard.

Nick came walking back into the living room with his phone in his hand. “That was Axel.” I was even more unimpressed.

“What did he want?” I asked unamused.

“He’s got his hands on a new video game. He’ll only have it for today, it’s a rental.” His voice grew quieter as he talked.

“And?” I thought I knew where he was going with this, but I wanted to know if he had enough balls to actually say it to me.

“And he wants me to go over and play it with him. Do you mind?” He sounded like a little kid asking mommy’s permission. I didn’t like that.

“Do you think I’d mind?” By this point, he knew I was pissed. I couldn’t believe that he was actually going to ditch me for Axel again. He came over and sat next to me and grabbed my hand in both of his.

“Come on Kar, it’s only for today.” I pulled my hand away.

“So let me get this straight, you’d rather play a stupid game with your dumbass friend than make out with your girlfriend? Well, alright if you insist.” I got up from the couch and started walking towards the door. Nick got up and followed behind me.

“Karlee don’t be mad, please.” He sounded like he was begging, but I hinted sarcasm in his voice. I stopped and turned around to look at him.

“No, I think I have every right to be mad. This is now the second time that you’ve picked Axel over me. Look I understand he’s your best friend, but you saw him all day today and now I want some time with you and I can’t even have that. No, Nick I’m getting sick and tired of this. If you’d rather be with him, then fine. Why don’t you go make out with him instead.” I turned back around and pulled open the door and walked out, slamming it behind me. I heard the door open again when I got to my car.

As I got into the driver’s seat and started the ignition, he came over to my car. My window was cracked a small bit so I could hear him.

“So what, are you breaking up with me?” He yelled, though I couldn’t make out if he was angry or scared of losing me. I looked straight at him.

“I don’t know.” I pulled out of the driveway and drove as fast as I could away from him.