Status: In progress. Updates when I get the chance.
Cross My Heart
Shenanigans
Turns out, I had every class but PE with Josh. I was glad I didn’t have PE with him, He wouldn’t have been able to concentrate, he’d be laughing too hard at the many time I got him the face with various objects, including a shoe, however that happened.
“You wanna hang out with me and my friends for a bit?” Josh asked as we walked out the door.
“Uh, no…my new foster parents want me home, like, now.” I said as I looked at my watch. When I looked down at my wrist though, my glasses fell off my head. “Shit.” I said as the world became a blur that could not be identified as anything but a two year olds finger painting.
“I can’t see anything.” I said. Nothing happened. “Josh, pick them up!” I yelled at him.
“Oh…okay…” I felt something in my hand and put my glasses back on.
“Have you never watched Scooby-doo? I would have been crawling around on the floor.”
“Sorry, didn’t know.”
“Understandable. I have known you for less than a day. You shouldn’t know that unless you have been stalking me for a bit without my knowledge.”
“Nope, I haven’t.”
“Thank god, anyways, I gotta get home.” I said and started walking off, he kept walking beside me. After walking a block for the school, I turned on him. “And now you are stalking me?”
“No, I live down this way. Decided I would go home to.”
“Okay…” I kept walking.
“You play any instruments?”
“Oh, that wasn’t random at all.”
Josh shrugged. “Just wanted to know. I have a feeling you will be staying. I want to get to know you.”
“Okay…understandable. But, like I said, I know I’m leaving. A family never sticks.” I said and looked down at my feet. Sudden memories of those families I had left before.
It always went like this: for the first bit, I got spoiled, they said they were ‘making me feel welcome’. Then I got treated normally. Then, I would leave. Weather I got kicked out or I ran away, it always happened.
“So, do you?” Josh asked me again.
“What!? Where!? Who!? Why!?” I shot my head up and started looking around. I was caught up in my own memories and I seemed to have forgotten where I was. “Oh…yeah. Guitar and bass. Never felt like learning anything else. Doubt I’ll get far on that.”
“Hey, anything is possible.”
“You, sir, have obviously never tried slamming a revolving door.”
“I will sometime, prove to you it is!” Josh said and stuck his fist out superman style. I laughed for the first time in months.
“Do you play any instruments? You asked me, there had to be a reason.”
“Yeah…8 or 9…I don’t feel like going into that. It will take too long.”
“Understandable.”
We walked in silence for a bit before I decided to break it. (Author in* sorry, I just had to point out the use of MT song title XP that was completely unplanned, btw. I will underline all uses of song names from now on, just koz I feel like it :P) “Why haven’t you branched off yet? I think you might be stalking me.”
“No, I still go this way home.”
“Stalker.” He slapped his forehead. I laughed again.
“Hey, when’s your birthday?”
“Again with the random questions?”
“I’m curious, is that a crime?”
“In ways, yes.”
“You have a sick mind.”
“Thank you.” I smiled innocently.
“So, when’s your birthday? Huh? Huh, so when is it?” He said and jumped around me annoyingly.
“September 28th, now down, hyper ten year old.” I scolded him.
“Haha I’m older than you!”
“Haha you’ll die first!”
“Haha not if I run you over!” (Author* Credit goes to some random Facebook ‘like’ for that last…what, I thought it was funny.)
“Oh, you really wanna go there?”
“I have a feeling it’s a bad idea…”
“Smart boy.” I said and patted his head.
“You really came out of your shell.”
I shrugged. “I guess I’ll try making friends. But it’s your fault if I end up heartbroken and alone in Wisconsin!” Josh laughed.
“Okay, now I branch off.” He said. I looked at where we were. I looked over at the house, 1712 Acadia rd.
“Dammit, you are a stalker. My new house is right there.” I pointed to the house next to the one we just stopped at.
“I’ve been here longer, so, technically, you’re stalking me.”
“Technically, I don’t care.” I said jokingly.
“See you tomorrow, I guess.” He said and started walking up the path to his house.
“Yeah, see ya then.”
*
“Okay, so we set up some of your stuff. The bag you said you wanted to keep private is under your bead. Oh, and we got you a lap top, its under your bed to. And here is a cell phone, just so we can call you if we need to, and you can keep in touch with friends.” My new foster mom, Lisa, explained to me and passed me a cell phone with a clear-ish blue case over it. Well, at least it was a good color.
“Thanks.” I said and opened the phone, turning it on. I was going to start personalizing right away.
“Well, I’ll leave you to get settled then.” Lisa said and backed out of the room closing the door behind her.
I immediately reached under my bed and pulled out my ratty old black bag. I opened it and started pulling things out.
On the top of the pile in the bag, a stuffed dog that I had had since I was 2, her name was Slushy and I held her so close to my heart. My father had given her to me.
Second, a picture of my cousin 17 year old cousin, Derek, holding me upside down over a pool. My mother and older brother laughing in the back ground as I half laughed, half screamed. My aunt-Derek’s mom-had taken the picture. Derek had died a month after the picture was taken, which was when I was 8. He would have been 25 last month, I realized. Derek had always been like an older brother to me, opposed to a cousin.
Third, a ‘dairy’, pad locked shut. The key I held around my neck at all times. I felt the chain around my neck to be sure it was still there. In that ‘dairy’ I wrote poetry, drew pictures, you name it, it was in that book. And when I had an especially good or bad day, I would always write about it. I had even written a few songs in it. In those odd houses where there was a guitar that I could practice on and get back into music.
The bag then gave way to a collection of CDs. That then reminded me I had a box of posters. Lisa had said something about a box of posters that they hadn’t put up. She said they were in the…closet!
I got off the bed and opened the closet. My clothes hung on hangers, along with some new ones, like I said spoiled stage. In the back corner was the box that I had packed all my posters into.
I opened it and laid them all out. The posters were all band posters, Green Day, Michael Jackson, MxPx, Blink-182, Pezz, and The Beatles.
I spent the next hour or so putting them on the wall so that they were off center, yet still on. I had other small ones somewhere, but I didn’t feel like looking for them.
“Phoenix! Dinner!” I heard Lisa call. I hurried up the stairs from my new basement bedroom. The warm sent of chicken filling my nose. I realized I was starving.
“So, how do you like your room?” Lisa asked as I starting helping to set the table. Adam, Lisa’s husband and my new foster dad, apparently didn’t get home until late, so we ate now, and he ate whatever was left when he got home from work.
“I love it.” I really did have a good feeling about this family I had just joined, and about the city.
“Good. Did you make any friends today?” She said as she placed a bowl of chicken wings on the table, along with veggies and all that.
“Yeah, one. He lives right next door.”
“Good. He’s a nice kid.”
“Yeah, he was nice to me today. Hope that doesn’t change.” I said and took some veggies and chicken. We ate in silence for a bit.
“So, I was thinking, for your curfew, home by 11? Does that sound fair?”
“Yeah. Plus, I don’t have many friends or know the city, what am I supposed to do, right?”
*
I counted the tiles on my bedroom roof. A Green Day song stuck in my head so badly it was the only thing on my mind.
This happened to me a lot, the sleeping thing. Either there was something I was worrying about, there was song stuck in my head, or my head just decided it didn’t need sleep. It always changed its mind in the morning though.
I finally gave up and flicked on the little blue lava lamp placed beside my desk. I looked around the room for my iPod. The way Lisa and Adam had furnished the room and painted it was awesome. It had a sort of 70’s 80’s theme. I guess they got that from what I had told them about myself.
The room slowly filled with a blue-ish glow as the ‘lava’ started bubbling around. I saw my iPod perched on a dresser across the room. I dove for it ninja style but ended up falling off the bad.
“Ow.” I said as I got up and grabbed it. I put in my head phones and turned it on. Green Day…Insomniac …Brain Stew. Okay, happy.
“I’m having trouble tryin’ to sleep.” I heard the song start playing and curled up in my bed with my iPod.
After the song was finished, I was still wide awake and hyper. I looked around the room again, seeing my bad still filled with CDs, I dove for it, managing not to hurt myself this time. I reached under my bad for my new lap top.
I began putting my many CDs on iTunes.
“Hurry up!” It was officially two in the morning, according to my lap top. I had been at this since midnight. I was attempting to rip an old Green Day CD I had abused into the point that it only played one or two songs clearly.
“What the fuck.” I screamed at the top of my lungs when I heard a noise outside my window. I looked over to see Josh crouched against the ground looking in. My heart slowly slowed its pace.
“God Josh.” I said and walked over to the window.
“I heard voices and decided to check it out.” He said and I opened the window more. “Sorry.”
“Why are you out anyway?”
“Couldn’t sleep. Decided to go for a walk. Care to join?” Josh asked me. I thought about it for a second, was I really going to sneak out on my first day at a new home? Wearing a lose tank top and boxer shorts when it was freezing out?
“Sure, why not?” I said and grabbed the hand Josh had offered to help me out the window.
“So, where we walkin’ to?” I asked him once I was firmly on the ground.
“Never land. Third star to the right and straight on till morning!” He said and ran off with his arms out like Peter Pan. I laughed and joined in.
Once he slowed down I looked at him. “Are you high, by any chance?”
“No. Just hyper.” He said and started dancing around me, kicking higher than I had ever seen a guy kick.
“I can see that.” I said through laughter. “No, seriously, where are you taking me?”
“Nowhere. It’s two in the morning. I was gonna walk to the end of the block and come back. Maybe terrorize somebody.”
“Oh, terrorizing sounds good. Who?” I said. That may have been one of the reasons I never stayed in a home for very long, I was usually a bit of a trouble maker. And I wasn’t afraid who I showed my attitude to, if I had a snappy come back for it, it got used.
“Uh, Brett, maybe. Or Andrew…Chris would kill me slowly…” He started going though names.
“Pick one before I choose Chris and abandon you there.” I had never met any of the people he was naming. Well, I might have, since I sat with him at lunch, but I had never talked to any of them. Matt was the only one of Josh’s friends that said anything to me. And still, all he said was ‘hi’.
“Okay, than I pick Brett. BOOK IT!” He suddenly screamed and ran across the street at top speed, holding his flannel PJ pants up.
I ran after him. “Shhhhhhhhh.” He said and slowly crept to a gate leading to the back of a house. He signaled me to the gate. I stood in front of him and looked at him, trying to put ’its locked, smart one’ in my gaze.
I held back a scream as I was suddenly lifted off the ground. It only took a second for me to realize Josh was helping me over the fence. I scrambled over. I felt something against my bare foot and guessed I had accidently kicked his face, I snorted in the effort not the laugh. I fell over the fence and landed flat on my back.
“Smooth.” I looked up to see Josh poking his head over the fence. I scrambled d up so he could hop over, his landing was about as smooth as mine.
“Speak for yourself.” I helped him off the ground and he ran behind the house. I followed behind him.
“You wanna climb first or should I?” He said. He was looking up the side of the house; it didn’t seem hard to climb.
“You go fisrt, I don’t know which window is his.” I whispered to Josh.
“’Kay.” He gripped onto the side of the house and climbed steadily up to where a window jutted out of the house, its own little roof and everything.
I started climbing the house once Josh was firmly planted on the window’s roof.
I was only one step away from grabbing onto the roof and swinging myself up beside Josh when I felt my foot slip on the wet siding.
“Shit on a stick!” I gasped and tried to regain my footing before I lost my hold to. I was suddenly tugged up beside Josh.
“Thanks.” I gasped.
“You seem klutzy.”
“Don’t push it Ramsay.”
Josh leaned down so he could look into the window, I followed. The lights were off, but I could make out the shadow of a guy sleeping in a bed on the other side of the room. Josh chuckled.
“So venerable.”
“How do we terrorize him?”
“Like this.” Josh pulled his head back up and knocked on the window. I quickly pulled my head back up incase Brett woke up, giving myself a head rush.
Josh slowly stuck his head back down. “He hasn’t moved yet. You try.”
“Okay…” I said, unsure. Was this legal? I reached down and knocked twice on the window. A light glowed. Josh started trying to hodl back laughter. The window opened.
“Josh you bastard!” Brett screamed. I started laughing, still trying to be quite. Josh had turned pale as a ghost. “I hear you!” Brett screamed. Josh smiled as color returned to his face.
“Hello!” he stuck his head down from the roof. Brett screamed like a little girl and I heard a thumb, which I guessed was him falling backwards.
I started laughing louder. “Who’s with you?” I heard Brett say.
“Hi Brett!” I screamed and stuck my head down. Brett screamed like a girl again.
Realizing my glasses were still on my head I quickly reached for them before they fell off. Too late. I felt them slip from my face. “Shit on a shitty fucking stick.” I said. Once again, the world was blurry.
“This can’t be good.” I heard Josh say.
“This is your karma for hanging out with him.” I heard Brett say.
“I’ll go get them and bring them back up.” I heard Josh say and he made his way around me on the little roof. I sat up and waited patiently, only seeing dark blurs.
“Here ya go.” I heard Josh say and the world returned to normality. Josh’s face was inches from mine. I looked straight into his amazingly blue eyes. No, not again. Friends are okay, don’t start falling for someone, Phoenix, it will just hurt more when you leave.
I pulled farther away and started trying to climb down the house. When I was about three feet off the ground, I fell.
I hit the ground with a thud then laughed.
“See, you are klutzy! Stop denying it!” I looked up to see Josh sticking his head over the roof.
“You’re both annoying. I want sleep. Please leave.” Brett said.
“Don’t be such a party pooper, Brett!”
“Yeah, Brett, don’t be a party pooper!” I said, putting a lisp on my words, as if to add to something.
‘Fine. But, if I come with you, we go after Chris next.”
“No…you stay, you need your beauty sleep…” Josh said as if he was scared to death of this ‘Chris.’ I didn’t think I had met him.
“I figured that would get you to leave me alone.” Brett said and slammed his window.
Josh climbed down the side of the house. When he reached the ground, I yawned loudly.
“I feel the same way.” He said and we walked back towards our houses.
“You wanna hang out with me and my friends for a bit?” Josh asked as we walked out the door.
“Uh, no…my new foster parents want me home, like, now.” I said as I looked at my watch. When I looked down at my wrist though, my glasses fell off my head. “Shit.” I said as the world became a blur that could not be identified as anything but a two year olds finger painting.
“I can’t see anything.” I said. Nothing happened. “Josh, pick them up!” I yelled at him.
“Oh…okay…” I felt something in my hand and put my glasses back on.
“Have you never watched Scooby-doo? I would have been crawling around on the floor.”
“Sorry, didn’t know.”
“Understandable. I have known you for less than a day. You shouldn’t know that unless you have been stalking me for a bit without my knowledge.”
“Nope, I haven’t.”
“Thank god, anyways, I gotta get home.” I said and started walking off, he kept walking beside me. After walking a block for the school, I turned on him. “And now you are stalking me?”
“No, I live down this way. Decided I would go home to.”
“Okay…” I kept walking.
“You play any instruments?”
“Oh, that wasn’t random at all.”
Josh shrugged. “Just wanted to know. I have a feeling you will be staying. I want to get to know you.”
“Okay…understandable. But, like I said, I know I’m leaving. A family never sticks.” I said and looked down at my feet. Sudden memories of those families I had left before.
It always went like this: for the first bit, I got spoiled, they said they were ‘making me feel welcome’. Then I got treated normally. Then, I would leave. Weather I got kicked out or I ran away, it always happened.
“So, do you?” Josh asked me again.
“What!? Where!? Who!? Why!?” I shot my head up and started looking around. I was caught up in my own memories and I seemed to have forgotten where I was. “Oh…yeah. Guitar and bass. Never felt like learning anything else. Doubt I’ll get far on that.”
“Hey, anything is possible.”
“You, sir, have obviously never tried slamming a revolving door.”
“I will sometime, prove to you it is!” Josh said and stuck his fist out superman style. I laughed for the first time in months.
“Do you play any instruments? You asked me, there had to be a reason.”
“Yeah…8 or 9…I don’t feel like going into that. It will take too long.”
“Understandable.”
We walked in silence for a bit before I decided to break it. (Author in* sorry, I just had to point out the use of MT song title XP that was completely unplanned, btw. I will underline all uses of song names from now on, just koz I feel like it :P) “Why haven’t you branched off yet? I think you might be stalking me.”
“No, I still go this way home.”
“Stalker.” He slapped his forehead. I laughed again.
“Hey, when’s your birthday?”
“Again with the random questions?”
“I’m curious, is that a crime?”
“In ways, yes.”
“You have a sick mind.”
“Thank you.” I smiled innocently.
“So, when’s your birthday? Huh? Huh, so when is it?” He said and jumped around me annoyingly.
“September 28th, now down, hyper ten year old.” I scolded him.
“Haha I’m older than you!”
“Haha you’ll die first!”
“Haha not if I run you over!” (Author* Credit goes to some random Facebook ‘like’ for that last…what, I thought it was funny.)
“Oh, you really wanna go there?”
“I have a feeling it’s a bad idea…”
“Smart boy.” I said and patted his head.
“You really came out of your shell.”
I shrugged. “I guess I’ll try making friends. But it’s your fault if I end up heartbroken and alone in Wisconsin!” Josh laughed.
“Okay, now I branch off.” He said. I looked at where we were. I looked over at the house, 1712 Acadia rd.
“Dammit, you are a stalker. My new house is right there.” I pointed to the house next to the one we just stopped at.
“I’ve been here longer, so, technically, you’re stalking me.”
“Technically, I don’t care.” I said jokingly.
“See you tomorrow, I guess.” He said and started walking up the path to his house.
“Yeah, see ya then.”
*
“Okay, so we set up some of your stuff. The bag you said you wanted to keep private is under your bead. Oh, and we got you a lap top, its under your bed to. And here is a cell phone, just so we can call you if we need to, and you can keep in touch with friends.” My new foster mom, Lisa, explained to me and passed me a cell phone with a clear-ish blue case over it. Well, at least it was a good color.
“Thanks.” I said and opened the phone, turning it on. I was going to start personalizing right away.
“Well, I’ll leave you to get settled then.” Lisa said and backed out of the room closing the door behind her.
I immediately reached under my bed and pulled out my ratty old black bag. I opened it and started pulling things out.
On the top of the pile in the bag, a stuffed dog that I had had since I was 2, her name was Slushy and I held her so close to my heart. My father had given her to me.
Second, a picture of my cousin 17 year old cousin, Derek, holding me upside down over a pool. My mother and older brother laughing in the back ground as I half laughed, half screamed. My aunt-Derek’s mom-had taken the picture. Derek had died a month after the picture was taken, which was when I was 8. He would have been 25 last month, I realized. Derek had always been like an older brother to me, opposed to a cousin.
Third, a ‘dairy’, pad locked shut. The key I held around my neck at all times. I felt the chain around my neck to be sure it was still there. In that ‘dairy’ I wrote poetry, drew pictures, you name it, it was in that book. And when I had an especially good or bad day, I would always write about it. I had even written a few songs in it. In those odd houses where there was a guitar that I could practice on and get back into music.
The bag then gave way to a collection of CDs. That then reminded me I had a box of posters. Lisa had said something about a box of posters that they hadn’t put up. She said they were in the…closet!
I got off the bed and opened the closet. My clothes hung on hangers, along with some new ones, like I said spoiled stage. In the back corner was the box that I had packed all my posters into.
I opened it and laid them all out. The posters were all band posters, Green Day, Michael Jackson, MxPx, Blink-182, Pezz, and The Beatles.
I spent the next hour or so putting them on the wall so that they were off center, yet still on. I had other small ones somewhere, but I didn’t feel like looking for them.
“Phoenix! Dinner!” I heard Lisa call. I hurried up the stairs from my new basement bedroom. The warm sent of chicken filling my nose. I realized I was starving.
“So, how do you like your room?” Lisa asked as I starting helping to set the table. Adam, Lisa’s husband and my new foster dad, apparently didn’t get home until late, so we ate now, and he ate whatever was left when he got home from work.
“I love it.” I really did have a good feeling about this family I had just joined, and about the city.
“Good. Did you make any friends today?” She said as she placed a bowl of chicken wings on the table, along with veggies and all that.
“Yeah, one. He lives right next door.”
“Good. He’s a nice kid.”
“Yeah, he was nice to me today. Hope that doesn’t change.” I said and took some veggies and chicken. We ate in silence for a bit.
“So, I was thinking, for your curfew, home by 11? Does that sound fair?”
“Yeah. Plus, I don’t have many friends or know the city, what am I supposed to do, right?”
*
I counted the tiles on my bedroom roof. A Green Day song stuck in my head so badly it was the only thing on my mind.
This happened to me a lot, the sleeping thing. Either there was something I was worrying about, there was song stuck in my head, or my head just decided it didn’t need sleep. It always changed its mind in the morning though.
I finally gave up and flicked on the little blue lava lamp placed beside my desk. I looked around the room for my iPod. The way Lisa and Adam had furnished the room and painted it was awesome. It had a sort of 70’s 80’s theme. I guess they got that from what I had told them about myself.
The room slowly filled with a blue-ish glow as the ‘lava’ started bubbling around. I saw my iPod perched on a dresser across the room. I dove for it ninja style but ended up falling off the bad.
“Ow.” I said as I got up and grabbed it. I put in my head phones and turned it on. Green Day…Insomniac …Brain Stew. Okay, happy.
“I’m having trouble tryin’ to sleep.” I heard the song start playing and curled up in my bed with my iPod.
After the song was finished, I was still wide awake and hyper. I looked around the room again, seeing my bad still filled with CDs, I dove for it, managing not to hurt myself this time. I reached under my bad for my new lap top.
I began putting my many CDs on iTunes.
“Hurry up!” It was officially two in the morning, according to my lap top. I had been at this since midnight. I was attempting to rip an old Green Day CD I had abused into the point that it only played one or two songs clearly.
“What the fuck.” I screamed at the top of my lungs when I heard a noise outside my window. I looked over to see Josh crouched against the ground looking in. My heart slowly slowed its pace.
“God Josh.” I said and walked over to the window.
“I heard voices and decided to check it out.” He said and I opened the window more. “Sorry.”
“Why are you out anyway?”
“Couldn’t sleep. Decided to go for a walk. Care to join?” Josh asked me. I thought about it for a second, was I really going to sneak out on my first day at a new home? Wearing a lose tank top and boxer shorts when it was freezing out?
“Sure, why not?” I said and grabbed the hand Josh had offered to help me out the window.
“So, where we walkin’ to?” I asked him once I was firmly on the ground.
“Never land. Third star to the right and straight on till morning!” He said and ran off with his arms out like Peter Pan. I laughed and joined in.
Once he slowed down I looked at him. “Are you high, by any chance?”
“No. Just hyper.” He said and started dancing around me, kicking higher than I had ever seen a guy kick.
“I can see that.” I said through laughter. “No, seriously, where are you taking me?”
“Nowhere. It’s two in the morning. I was gonna walk to the end of the block and come back. Maybe terrorize somebody.”
“Oh, terrorizing sounds good. Who?” I said. That may have been one of the reasons I never stayed in a home for very long, I was usually a bit of a trouble maker. And I wasn’t afraid who I showed my attitude to, if I had a snappy come back for it, it got used.
“Uh, Brett, maybe. Or Andrew…Chris would kill me slowly…” He started going though names.
“Pick one before I choose Chris and abandon you there.” I had never met any of the people he was naming. Well, I might have, since I sat with him at lunch, but I had never talked to any of them. Matt was the only one of Josh’s friends that said anything to me. And still, all he said was ‘hi’.
“Okay, than I pick Brett. BOOK IT!” He suddenly screamed and ran across the street at top speed, holding his flannel PJ pants up.
I ran after him. “Shhhhhhhhh.” He said and slowly crept to a gate leading to the back of a house. He signaled me to the gate. I stood in front of him and looked at him, trying to put ’its locked, smart one’ in my gaze.
I held back a scream as I was suddenly lifted off the ground. It only took a second for me to realize Josh was helping me over the fence. I scrambled over. I felt something against my bare foot and guessed I had accidently kicked his face, I snorted in the effort not the laugh. I fell over the fence and landed flat on my back.
“Smooth.” I looked up to see Josh poking his head over the fence. I scrambled d up so he could hop over, his landing was about as smooth as mine.
“Speak for yourself.” I helped him off the ground and he ran behind the house. I followed behind him.
“You wanna climb first or should I?” He said. He was looking up the side of the house; it didn’t seem hard to climb.
“You go fisrt, I don’t know which window is his.” I whispered to Josh.
“’Kay.” He gripped onto the side of the house and climbed steadily up to where a window jutted out of the house, its own little roof and everything.
I started climbing the house once Josh was firmly planted on the window’s roof.
I was only one step away from grabbing onto the roof and swinging myself up beside Josh when I felt my foot slip on the wet siding.
“Shit on a stick!” I gasped and tried to regain my footing before I lost my hold to. I was suddenly tugged up beside Josh.
“Thanks.” I gasped.
“You seem klutzy.”
“Don’t push it Ramsay.”
Josh leaned down so he could look into the window, I followed. The lights were off, but I could make out the shadow of a guy sleeping in a bed on the other side of the room. Josh chuckled.
“So venerable.”
“How do we terrorize him?”
“Like this.” Josh pulled his head back up and knocked on the window. I quickly pulled my head back up incase Brett woke up, giving myself a head rush.
Josh slowly stuck his head back down. “He hasn’t moved yet. You try.”
“Okay…” I said, unsure. Was this legal? I reached down and knocked twice on the window. A light glowed. Josh started trying to hodl back laughter. The window opened.
“Josh you bastard!” Brett screamed. I started laughing, still trying to be quite. Josh had turned pale as a ghost. “I hear you!” Brett screamed. Josh smiled as color returned to his face.
“Hello!” he stuck his head down from the roof. Brett screamed like a little girl and I heard a thumb, which I guessed was him falling backwards.
I started laughing louder. “Who’s with you?” I heard Brett say.
“Hi Brett!” I screamed and stuck my head down. Brett screamed like a girl again.
Realizing my glasses were still on my head I quickly reached for them before they fell off. Too late. I felt them slip from my face. “Shit on a shitty fucking stick.” I said. Once again, the world was blurry.
“This can’t be good.” I heard Josh say.
“This is your karma for hanging out with him.” I heard Brett say.
“I’ll go get them and bring them back up.” I heard Josh say and he made his way around me on the little roof. I sat up and waited patiently, only seeing dark blurs.
“Here ya go.” I heard Josh say and the world returned to normality. Josh’s face was inches from mine. I looked straight into his amazingly blue eyes. No, not again. Friends are okay, don’t start falling for someone, Phoenix, it will just hurt more when you leave.
I pulled farther away and started trying to climb down the house. When I was about three feet off the ground, I fell.
I hit the ground with a thud then laughed.
“See, you are klutzy! Stop denying it!” I looked up to see Josh sticking his head over the roof.
“You’re both annoying. I want sleep. Please leave.” Brett said.
“Don’t be such a party pooper, Brett!”
“Yeah, Brett, don’t be a party pooper!” I said, putting a lisp on my words, as if to add to something.
‘Fine. But, if I come with you, we go after Chris next.”
“No…you stay, you need your beauty sleep…” Josh said as if he was scared to death of this ‘Chris.’ I didn’t think I had met him.
“I figured that would get you to leave me alone.” Brett said and slammed his window.
Josh climbed down the side of the house. When he reached the ground, I yawned loudly.
“I feel the same way.” He said and we walked back towards our houses.