Dancing With The Devil

I brought my sports uniform up to my forehead and wiped off the sweat that cascaded down my face. My whole body was sore from the basketball try-outs that my school recently held, which was the reason behind the fatigue that ran through my body. I went into my locker and whipped on my deodorant, in an attempt to mask the odour that flamed out of my sweltering body. I had about 5 minutes to get ready before lunch ended, so I went inside the girls change rooms and exchanged my fetid basketball clothes for my school clothes. Once I changed, I packed everything up and gave myself another quick spray of deodorant before I headed off.

The bell had rung, which signalled the start of fifth period; maths. I put my bag away, and lightly shut my locker door to go to class. I started heading off, when through the corner of my eye, I saw Philip staring at me.

Philip had just came to the school about a month ago, but since he came I assumed he's been having a creepy obsession with me. Everywhere I went, everywhere I looked, I could always feel his disdainful eyes staring back at me. Most of the time I tried shrugging it off and pretended to remain oblivious, but this little staring game had gone on for too long. I knew I had to confront him about it sooner or later.

I scurried off to maths class, in an attempt to look like I was merely running late, rather than being freaked by his disturbing presence.

As I got to my maths, I took my accustomed seat and sat down. It felt almost euphoric to be seated on a cold plastic chair against my scorching skin. Ms. Andrews, my maths teacher, gave us a lecture about sin, cos and tan. I tried hard to concentrate, but after just finishing basketball try-outs, it was rather hard. Within the first five minutes I found that I was smoothly drifting of into a fantasy of me winning a basketball game in the state championships.

My little fantasy continued until a piece of paper was slammed down on my desk, which snapped me back down to reality. It was homework that was assigned for what we had just learned, and I felt panic start to settle in.

I was thinking up quick ways to cheat off someone, when a brief knock on the door was heard.

"That's weird..." I thought to myself.

We usually only get people knocking on our door when they're moving up from their maths class or moving down. And as far as everyone's concerned, nobody in my grade is worthy of moving up nor down. Just then I realised who the person at the other end of the door most be.

"Oh brother" I murmured.

"Why hellooo Philip!" Ms. Andrews bellowed.

I saw Philip hand her a note which presumably stated why he was visiting... Or moving, I should say, to our class.

I felt my cheeks burned up with fury, and I managed to suppress the burning urge to spew as many profanities towards Philip and the teachers as I could.

I saw Philips peering green eyes, as he carefully scanned across the classroom, landing his gaze on me. Just then I felt a wave of hostility overcome me.

Maybe the only reason he really left his classroom was so he could spend the whole hour staring intently at me. I felt my stomach churning at the though and quickly shovelled it out of my mind.

Everyone's eyes followed Ms. Andrews hand as she gestured towards an empty seat behind me.

"You can take a seat just there."

He served her a grateful smile while heading off to the seat behind me.

Are you for real.

The day dragged on even slower than before. Not only was I now excruciatingly bored, but I grew more and more self-conscious by the minute with that creep indefinitely staring at me. It's times like these where I wish I had a boyfriend that I could pash in front of Philip as a polite way of saying "fuck off."

I had his typical facial expression etched into the back of my mind, which, defying the laws of everything, made me hate maths class even more.

The teacher droned on for what seemed like another hour before the gracious sound of the bell chimed into my ears. I got up and hastily made an exit from the school. I knew Philip was somewhere behind following me, but I didn't bother to look back. The faster I walked, the sooner I could leave this God-forsaken prison.

I stood out the front of the school, searching for my Aunt's flashy red car. My eyes were soon greeted by the vibrant coating and I was quick to hop in.

"Hello!" I greeted cheerfully.

"Hi Pauline, how was basketball?"

"It went quite well, actually." I explained how well I did, which made me a lot more proud of myself than I was before.

My aunt expressed her applause with a summary of all my good traits and then went on about how I knew I would make her extremely proud one day. The typical mum speech.

When I was 12, my mother and sister were murdered, so my aunt took the place of my mother.

We pulled up into our flat and walked inside.

"I'm going to bake your favourite cookies to mark the proudest day of my life!"

"Oh aunt, stop it" I couldn't help but laugh at the poor joke she made.

"Pass me the flour please."

"Then will I be able to go back to my room? Today is your proudest moment, remember to cut me some slack."

"Alright then, leave me to do all the hard work."

I wasn't sure what that meant exactly, but shortly her lips curled into sincere smile, which meant she didn't mind.

Smiling back, I murmured "Thank you."

I put the flour on the bench and made my way to my room.

I was scrolling through songs on my iPod, which I got for my sixteenth birthday and sprawled my legs over my bed. It took a few songs to get through, but eventually I remembered to light my candle.

On my bedside table, I had a picture of my mum and sister hugging each other tightly. This was before my mum started smoking, and her skin back then looked immaculate. I had a white candle shaped as a love heart which I tried lighting every time I was in my room, even if I was just going to be in there for a minute.

I gaped at the candle intently. The glowing wick resembled my everlasting love for my cherished mother and sister. The actual fire defined my burning hatred towards whoever killed them. For years I had been plotting my revenge on them, if only I could put those plans into action. I had hoped that day would come for four years, and it was only now that my lasting hope was beginning to burn out.

I had already listened to thirty minutes of songs, and I decided to do something else. As I was putting away my iPod, I remembered his face. I remembered Philip's face. Suddenly I felt something that triggered the familiarity that I had seen him somewhere. Anywhere. The image of his face just flashed into my mind. His green eyes masked with that 'I'm better than you' facade. His rich tousled hair... Everything about him seemed oddly familiar. I felt like peeling my face off, if I couldn't place my finger on who or what it was, I would feel like eating myself alive.

Come on...

I know I've seen him before...

And then it hit me.

It was first period; English, but I couldn't concentrate. Not until I got to the bottom of this. I was having a circular argument with myself. Should I confront Philip about his excessive staring issues, or should I ask him if he had ever murdered someone? I ceased the idea of him being a murderer. The thought of it was preposterous on every level. I've always been paranoid as to who might have been the culprit, so it didn't faze me that I thought it was him.

So it was settled, before second period I was going to interrogate him for answers.

The bell had rung, and accompanied by that was the loud roar of students that eagerly left the room. I made my way to my locker, to find Philip fixated on me. As our eyes greeted, I seized the opportunity to approach him before missing my chance.

I gathered my intimidation-game voice and asked,

"What's your problem?"

"What do you mean?" Surprisingly, Philip kept his composure and continued to stare down at me with his 'I'm too cool for you' facade. I wasn't expecting him to be this calm, so I had to come up with a
quick retort.

"Well, you've been staring at me non-stop and... You've changed your maths class because of me and... you're just so creepy!" I knew the last few sentences sounded utterly narcissistic on my part, but I didn't let myself care. I knew I would be cringing at myself after this conversation was over anyway.

"I can stop if you like." His voice still remained nonchalant, which made me want to slam his face against a brick wall.

"Yes, of course I would want you to stop." He continued to look down at me, his disdainful expression still etched over his face.

"Then it's settled."

I couldn't take it anymore. Nobody ever acts that calm during a confrontation. Nobody! The thought of him was hair-tearingly agonising, and I couldn't help but storm off for next period.

A few days had passed. It was blatant that he was refraining from staring at me, well, at least while I was looking at him. I was also doing well on my part to refrain from having another outburst. All in all, he was noticeably being a lot less creepy and annoying, and he started to slip out of my mind.

Today it was first period; PE, my favourite subject. I had begged Mr. Howard to let us play basketball, and half the class was with me on that one. He finally agreed to let us play for this session, which made me jolt with happiness and practically prance my way to school.

The class was split into four teams. Two teams would be picked to vs. each other for 10 minutes while the other two teams watched. Just my luck, I had to be on the team watching for 10 minutes before I could finally play. Something to note was that Philip had just moved into my PE class today, but I thought nothing of it. Now that he knows my true feelings towards him, he hopefully won't feel interested anymore. It's more likely his move was a mere coincident and nothing more. He just recently moved to this school, anyway.

It was 5 minutes until I could finally shoot some hoops. I loved the exhilaration I got merely by watching other people play. I, undeniably, was the best basketball player in the class. But I still felt ecstatic watching the amateur players trying to master my talent. Oh, how I love basketball.

"I did it."

I turned around to see Philip right next to me, just above my shoulder. At first I didn't know if he was talking to me or not, but he was unacceptably close, so I took that as I yes.

"What?"

"I killed your mother and sister."