Dance With the Devil

For the first time in a long time, my head was pretty clear. I knew exactly where I was going, and what I was doing. If all Nick needed was a little time to himself, a little guy time, then I could give it to him. I could be that girlfriend. I suppose he and I had been spending a lot of time together recently, and I guess I could understand him wanted to hang with the guys a bit. Nick was one of the most important people in my life, and one of the only I could confide in with all the stuff with my family going on. I couldn’t lose him; I couldn’t bear to be without him. I thought that I should just call him and tell him that I was sorry for snapping, but I wanted to be more mature than that and say it to his face.

Even quicker than I left his house, I zoomed back to it, nearly speeding. Once on his road, I sloppily pulled into his driveway and got out of the car without even turning it off. I trotted up to his front door and knocked, not quietly but not too loudly either. I hoped that he hadn’t left yet.

After waiting a bit, no one came to the door. I looked around his house. One of the upstairs lights was on, and a car was parked out front. Someone had to be home. I knocked again, a little louder this time. Finally, I heard footsteps walking around inside, and the door opened. But it wasn’t Nick, and that made my heart drop a little.

“Oh, hi Mrs. Foster.” Nick’s mother stood limply in front of me, but tossed me a small smile. His mother was in the process of getting over having cervical cancer. She was still going through chemotherapy, and she was very tired all the time. I felt bad now for being impatient and knocking twice. I imagine that she was lying down and then scurried to find her wig when she heard the knock. I looked at her with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry if I disturbed you.” She smiled sweetly at me. For a lady who was going through what she was, she was still one of the happiest people I knew.

“Oh Karlee, it’s no trouble. But I’m quite sorry, Nick isn’t here right now. He left to go to Axel’s a little bit ago. You just missed him.” Damn. I thought I could catch him before he left. I looked away from her to my car. I ran my fingers through my hair and sighed. I then looked back at her.

“Do you know how long ago he left?” She looked up as if she was thinking.

“Hm, I’m not too sure. He wasn’t here when I got home, and that was about ten minutes ago.” I looked over at my car again, still running, then back at her.

“Well then I guess I’ll just try Axel’s house. Thank you though. Oh and I hope you feel better.” I grinned at her as a I began to walk away, and she smiled like someone just put the sun back into the sky.

“Oh thank you Karlee. Good luck finding him.” I walked over to my car and got in. I sat there for a moment with my hands on the steering wheel. I looked out the window and up at the sky. It was cloudy, not one speck of sunshine to be seen. Recently all the days had been like this, gloomy. The sky looked like it could downpour at any moment. Well, then again that’s not really a surprise if you live in Colorado. I didn’t mind the weather here much though, I enjoyed the cold.

I took my mind off of the damn weather and put my car into reverse, and backed out of Nick’s driveway for the second time today.

I didn’t know exactly where Axel lived, but I knew the neighborhood he lived in. If I wanted to find Nick, I figured that I would just cruise around and try to spot Axel’s unmistakable black Mazda. I only hoped that no one else in the neighborhood had the same model as him.

I drove around the neighborhood for about a good fifteen minutes creeping on cars and houses, and I swore I was driving in circles. However, I finally came across a slick black Mazda. I parallel parked myself on the side of the road across from the house where the car was parked. I rolled down my window so I would be able to hear any loud talking. I stared at the house for a good few minutes, trying to see if I could imagine Axel living there. The house itself was extremely big, very elegant and looked roomy, which didn’t match his personality whatsoever. It looked like a rich person should live there. I sighed and looked ahead as small little droplets of rain began to cover my windshield. I thought that maybe I should just drive away, and talk to Nick later. I had my foot on the gas pedal when I heard a huge crash come from the exact same house I was spying on. I looked back over to the house, and saw that all the lights had going out simultaneously. I then heard a scream, followed by laughter. The lights then flickered back on. The tiniest of smiles curved on my lips as I shook my head slowly and put my car into park. “Yep, that’s Axel’s house.”

I turned my car off, got out and locked it. It was raining, but only gently. I walked across the street to his house and stood under the little awning on his front step to get out of the rain. I suddenly felt very awkward; what if this wasn’t Axel’s house? What if I just looked like some creepy girl who had just been staring at a stranger’s house for 20 minutes? I swallowed my pride and knocked on the door. My stomach was swirling. I just hoped this was his house.

A girl answered the door. She looked a lot younger than me, about 14 or 15. I tried to glance inside before I said anything to her, just to see if I spotted Nick or Axel. I didn’t.

I looked down at her. She looked strangely familiar to someone I know. “Uhm, is Axel here?” I asked her. She seemed to give me a little glare for a second, before she turned around and screamed Axel’s name. At least I got the house right.

After about 30 intense seconds, Axel appeared at the door. He looked at me surprised first, and then his sly smile appeared on his face. He leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed.

“Oh hey Karlee. It’s about time you realized you wanted me.” I squinted my eyes at him and gave him a mock smile.

“Sorry Axel, I haven’t gone insane yet.”

“Yet.” He winked at me. I put my hands over my eyes for a second and took a deep breath. Axel was a lot to deal with when you weren’t in the mood.

“Look, is Nick here?” Axel rolled his eyes and stood himself up correctly, arms still crossed.

“Yeah, come in.” He moved out of the way momentarily so I could walk in. Axel closed the door behind me and motioned for me to follow him. I looked around. I was so surprised, his house was so beautiful. It was big and elegant, just like it looked on the outside. As I followed him, I could hear that Of Mice & Men was blasting from the speakers, and that I could smell the faint hint of weed. He lead me to the kitchen, where he stopped to look in his refrigerator. He pointed to a doorway on the other side of the kitchen. “Living room is through there. Nick’s there.” I thought about saying thank you, but voted against it.

I walked through and doorway and looked around first. The living room was huge, however the boys had completely messed it up. There was food all over the floor, video game cases and discs everywhere, and like I said, it smelled like weed. I looked around and saw Nick on the couch.

And my heart dropped.

Nick was indeed there, however he wasn’t alone. He was sitting on the couch with some other girl on his lap. But I couldn’t see the girl’s face. Her face was too busy on Nick’s. All I could see was her long blonde hair down her back. Neither one of them had a shirt on; the girl was only in her little bra. Nick’s hands were firmly placed on her ass, while her fingers ran through his hair. I felt like crumbling to the ground.

I heard Axel walk up behind me, and upon stumbling onto the same scene I had, he froze as well, but not as long as I had.

“Nick!” Axel yelled over the music. Nick heard him, but he lifted his hand and waved him off. He obviously didn’t know I was here. Axel ran over to the stereo and killed the sound instantly. “Nick!” Axel screamed again. Nick removed his lips from the whore’s but then she started to kiss his neck, while his eyes remained shut.

“What man? I’m busy.” Nick pulled the girl closer to him, and I couldn’t handle the scene anymore. I could feel the tiniest little tears pricking at my eyes.

“Too busy for your girlfriend?” I said, trying not to cry. Nick’s eyes shot open, and scanned the room until he saw me. He instantly tried to push the girl off of him. She fell back onto the couch and stared at me extremely embarrassed. Nick said nothing, Axel said nothing, and the girl said nothing. They all just stared at me. Perhaps they were anticipating me screaming at Nick, but I didn’t have the power to even talk right now, much less scream.

I quickly turned around and ran out of the room, and then out of the house. The rain now turned into a downpour, and the thunder and lightning ranged on viciously. This was one of those times when the weather matched my emotions.

With my car in sight, I ran, with tears slowly rolling down my face, when I heard Nick behind me calling my name. I thought to stop, but I didn’t want to. However he caught up to me and grabbed my wrist and pulled me closer to him.

“Karlee please wait!” I couldn’t even look at him. “Karlee, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, I was high! I didn’t know what I was doing; you know that you’re the one that I love! I was so stupid! Please just look at me!” I didn’t know if he was yelling because he was upset or because he was trying to talk over the storm.

“Let me go, Nick.” I said a lot calmer than I felt. I was getting drenched standing out here, and all I wanted to do was just go get in my car and drive away. Surprisingly, he did let go, but even more surprisingly I didn’t run right away.

“Karlee I want to talk about this. Please.”

“I can’t talk to you right now.” I turned and ran away to my car, and he chased after me again. I quickly unlocked my car and got in, then quickly locked it again. I put my key in the ignition as he banged on my window, begging for me to talk to him. I couldn’t even look at him. I simply stepped on the gas and tried to concentrate on the road with tears in my eyes.