A Deal With Death

I went to my last class that day even though Caleb wasn’t and we were hanging out after school.

As of yet my friends hadn’t asked me of any reason why I no longer hung out with them at lunch.

“So Airlea saw you hanging out with some guy outside school at lunch”

Jess whispered to me as we sat listening or trying, to the teacher.

“Saw you walked around the east side of the building too” I replied,

I knew she would think that I was going out with Caleb but we were just friends, for now…

I really liked him.

“We both have other interests of the opposite sex stealing our time,” she said as we scribbled down notes.

“Yours in a different way to mine” my voice lower than a whisper,

“Didn’t look like it, you two were pretty cosy” she was teasing me.

She knew that I had never had a boyfriend before.

With my mother having cancer I only concentrated on her and school, that’s all that was important.

“It’s not like that, we’re friends” I replied, it was the defence of every girl who wanted more from their ‘friend’.

“Why not?” Jess said before the conversation ended.

I went to my locker before leaving the school.

When I got outside Caleb was sitting by our tree with his eyes closed.

As I got closer his eyes didn’t open, it looked like he was asleep.

I got to his feet and crouched in front of him, “Caleb” I whispered.

For a moment he didn’t move and then suddenly his eyes shot open “boo”

I fell over onto my back and he started laughing, I wasn’t amused.

“Ass” I mumbled as I stood up and brushed myself off.

He was still on the ground laughing and holding his side, I stood waiting for him to stop.

“Fine if you’re just going to laugh…” I turned and started walking away.

“Airlea wait up” he called behind me still laughing; I kept walking.

“Hey where you going?” most of his laughing had ceased.

“Away” I replied simply still not looking at him, “This way” he grabbed my hand and started leading me.

This time my heart didn’t skip a beat it started beating faster until I took my hand back.

He didn’t look at me when I did this nor did he seem offended.

“So where are we going?” I asked after a few minutes of just following his lead.

“My house,” he shrugged his shoulders and kept going.

It was weird that I knew exactly where he lived, but of course I pretended I didn’t.

“Nice house” I commented as we walked down the path to the front door.

“It’s somewhere to live” he replied indifferently.

We got inside and he didn’t say a word to me he just ran up the stairs to his room.

I didn’t know what to do so I stayed downstairs and went about looking at the photos on the walls.

There were big family pictures.

Mother, father, two brothers, one sister and a baby in the mother’s arms.

Neither of the boys looked like Caleb in anyway, so I guessed he was the baby.

As my eyes scanned the photos on the walls I noticed many individual picture of his siblings but none of him.

There were so many of them but none of him.

“Airlea?” his voice questioned from the top of the stairs.

“Down here” I called still looking at the pictures.

I heard footsteps coming down the stairs and then stop next to me.

“Where are all the pictures of you?” I asked moving down the timeline of pictures.

“There are none” his voice was heavy and solemn,

“Why not?” I turned and asked him curious now.

“I’m not their kid” he responded and then walked away from me and into another room.

I was very curious now, not once had he mentioned his parents.

I followed him into the kitchen where he had gotten out two sodas.

“You don’t want to talk about it,” I read from his facials as I took the soda he was handing me.

“Not really” he shrugged his shoulders and closed the fridge.

“Okay, now what are we going to do?” I tried to make myself sound happy and it seemed to work.

For the rest of the day we hung out together, talking, laughing, and messing around.

By 5 we decided to watch a movie.

We ended up watching X-men and then arguing how much it resembled the comics.

It seemed that he and I both read comics and had similar taste.

He and I both loved marvel and DC comics and I also had a fascination with Josh Wheddon’s comics and I loved Manga as well.

It was a pretty fun night but I had to leave by 8 so that I could get to bed and go to work, there was no way I would be seeing him tonight.