Authors: Janice Hadden
Apparently
things have progressed rather quickly. Al seemed nice, charming even.
He had that boyish look that made him seem like a decent guy. Once
again, I tried aiming cautiously at my target, squinting my eyes to
get a better focus. I shot the weapon again and again. Then, I
assessed my progress.
“
Better,”
Rob said. “Who are you planning to kill?”
“
Oh,
you know, jerks here and there,” I smiled. Rob made a pass at
me once after I broke up with Cash. Everybody was rooting for us but
I never had any interest for
him.
It didn’t take long until he started dating Michella. They were
better suited. She enjoyed things with him.
They
were a bit surprised when I initiated coming here. Shooting was never
an
interest
of mine, but I knew a little about guns, since Steve used to take me
when I was little. Adam shot a Remington 700, he was way better at
this than I am since this had been their favorite past time. They
went with Mr. Rupert, Rob’s uncle, every month. The girls
tagged along, usually bored, except for Michella who enjoyed it as
much as Rob. I have never gone until now. Steve seemed to have
enjoyed coming. He took out his Mossberg 500 and gave it a go.
I
settled for a pepper spray. I had one a while back, but for some
reason I had misplaced it. I didn’t even think about replacing
it until now. I unhooked my charger from my cell phone and put it in
my purse next to my pepper spray. Coming out of the house, I was
extremely cautious—looking behind all the way into the bushes
and the street corner. I got in my car and headed for work. I had
become paranoid. I didn’t blame myself too much. After what I’d
been through, anybody would be paranoid too—I looked behind
every chance I get, making sure no one was following me. Practically
sprinting from my car to the door, I quickly headed to the ladies
room, still checking behind my shoulder like a lunatic.
Grazing
at the mirror, I looked like a ghost. I was pale. The dark circles
around my eyes didn’t help, either. I tried to steady my
quivering lips and shaky hands by breathing in and out.
Okay,
Katheryna,
get
it together. I unzipped my purse and pulled out my
pink
n posh
lipstick
and attempted to add color and erase the white layer of paleness on
my lips. After I looked almost pulled together, I came out to a
crowded room. With my emotions still scattered, I attempted to mask
everything with a fake smile.
“
Another
busy night,” Lonnie said.
“
Great
job on your first week.”
“
Thanks,”
I said. If she only new, I spilled a drink on someone my second
night. Though, I didn’t think that was necessarily a cause for
termination.
I
skimmed through the restaurant and assessed for anything unusual; a
couple seemed to be having an intense conversation in a booth—nothing
unusual about that. Another, were a group of students giggling in the
west side corner. They all seemed safe enough. I sighed—relieved.
Then, I noticed Tristan who seemed to have been too busy with work to
realize my presence. I haven’t started my shift yet. As I
headed to put my purse away, my phone rang and I picked it up. I
headed to the employee lounge.
“
Hello!”
“
Hey
Katheryna, it’s Josh from the restaurant…and from the
library.” He paused briefly, waiting for some response of
recognition. He sounded enthusiastic.
“
Oh
hi!” I said, matching his enthusiasm. For some strange reason,
I felt a thin layer of calm spread over me…feeling a little
relaxed…I guess from the sudden distraction.
“
Well,
I was wondering if you want to go to
Roller
Mountain
next
weekend?”
“
Oh...Roller
Mountain!” I feel awful turning him down. He’s really
sweet. But I don’t want to go out, especially not right now
when there‘s so much going on in my head.
“
Well,
I really can‘t. I’m sorry, that’s going to take the
whole day, I’ve got other things…”
“
No
it doesn’t have to be the whole day,” he interrupted. “It
could be two hours if you like. It’s just that I’ve got
these tickets and I didn’t want it to go to waste. If you're
worried, I have two other tickets if you want to bring other friends.
That’s fine.” I‘ve thought it for a moment. I
suddenly changed my mind. Definitely not only polite but considerate.
“
Um…okay…actually,
let me ask my friend Becca first…hold on a sec.” I
whisked myself to the main dining room where Becca just came back
with a tray of unwanted food on her hands, looking a little
irritated. But Becca is a sucker for anything free and I’d bet
this would make her day. My guess was dead on. She was ecstatic. She
texted Jeremy in a sprint. It was—a—
go
,
for her and Jeremy, except, they insisted Josh drove, too. I guess
trying to save on gas as well. I pressed the phone against my ear.
“Okay, Becca and her boyfriend Jeremy will be joining us. They
can come to my house.”
“OK
,
that’s really great. I’ll pick you up and we can
carpool.”
“
I’ll
text or call you later my address. I’m at work right now.”
“
Okay,
I won’t keep you…I‘m looking forward to seeing you
Saturday, then.”
“
Sounds
great!” I said, sounding relieved after deciding, I didn’t
want this dark cloud to take anything from me. I was determined that
whatever it was, I was going to find out sooner or later. I looked up
and saw Tristan glaring at me again. He seemed really furious. He
looked away when I gestured, flipping both my hands up, silently
saying
What?—
in
response to the look he was giving me. I have decided that I have had
enough of the way he was treating me and I refused to feel the
intimidation I feel whenever he was around. I focused on work before
my head could drown in irritation.
A
couple of days passed and I haven’t had any strange things
happen to me. I could think clearly now. A voice of reason resonated
in my thoughts—a sobering explanation perhaps. I began to think
that maybe what I saw wasn’t what I thought. Maybe it wasn’t
some monster that I had concocted in my mind. I had been subjected to
numerous strange nightmares that might have easily explained why I
associated my attack with something else. It must have been a real
attacker.
I
suddenly regretted my decision not to involve the police. What if
somebody else gets attacked and I didn’t report what had
happened to me. A nervous feeling settled in my stomach. But at this
point, I wasn’t solid on going to the cops. I wasn’t sure
how I was going to explain everything that I have seen and the
reasons I waited this long.
“
A
nother
half an hour.” I gasped in exhaustion as I wiped my head with a
towel, I continued to run in the treadmill next to Sam, Airi and
Avril at the gym. It
was
hard fitting in exercise in my weekly schedule, especially now, but
the four of us
had
made a decision to hold each other accountable.
The
minutes seem to run slower and slower. My stomach started growling. I
turned up the volume of my I-pod to briefly forget my hunger. It was
only ten, but the oatmeal I ate for breakfast seemed to have
disappeared rather quickly from my system.
As
we were approaching the last five minutes of our work out, I noticed
a group of guys that were staring in our direction from across the
room. They seemed to be done working out and were waiting for us for
whatever reason. As soon as I turned off the timer from my watch and
got off the treadmill, they made their way over.
“
Hi,”
The tallest, rather bulky guy handed us a flyer. Sam took it eagerly.
“We’re having a party tomorrow night and we would love
it, if you girls came…I’m Rick, this
is
Mark and Gary,” he pointed to the guys next to him. One with
dark, shoulder length hair, who looked like a surfer and the other
with blonde, a bit wavy hair. They all looked naturally tanned, as if
they all just got back from the beach—though, I
haven’t
really seen the sun lately.
“
Hi,
I’m Sam. This is Kat, Avril and Airi.” We shook their
hands.
“
We
can’t promise we’ll make it…but we’ll try.
Is this exclusively a girls invite?” I could see the
disappointment in their faces as soon as Sam brought up the question.
“It’s not, but we’d be extremely disappointed if
all of you have boyfriends already,” Rick said.
“
Well,
I sort of do…but like I said, we’ll try to make it.”
Sam knew enough not to announce Airi and my social status as being
single. She’d also erased setting me up out of her agenda
temporarily. We quickly grabbed our gym bags and headed to the
pool—my favorite part of the work out. We changed into our
suits and dipped in. “How’s Al?” I asked.
“
I’m
meeting his parents this weekend. I’m a little nervous, but you
know, it’s not really a big deal…I mean we barely
started dating.”
“
I
really like Al…you guys look good together.” From what I
have seen, Al seemed like a really nice guy.” I was glad that
Sam’s dating him. She looked really happy.
“
He
got me this necklace, yesterday.” Sam pulled a silver locket
and showed me and Airi. Outside was an engraved rose. “Oops, I
better take it off.” She unclasped and opened it.
“
It’s
still empty. I haven’t gotten a picture yet.” We all
admired it briefly before she placed it inside the locker. We stayed
for another hour.
The
following day, Sam had given me an earful of fun details about the
party that I missed. I couldn’t make it because I needed to
work on a future Charity event and had to shop for supplies.
T
he
whole week had been a blur. When I got outside the house, a thick
layer of brilliant white dusted the top of my cooper. White powder
blanketed the grounds while chunky flakes continued falling in
clusters all over my hair and my thick blue jacket. I quickly brushed
them off, not wanting my head looking like a large clump of cotton
candy. I looked to see the snow that now looked like large cotton
balls that
have
canopied themselves on the tree trunks. I curled my lip in excitement
and left
it
there for a while. I haven’t seen snow in like—
forever.
The
sun felt undecided. I saw a ray of light that had managed to peek for
a brief second and quickly disappeared into the thin cluster of
clouds. As I drove out, the streets had already been cleared and I
was more than glad, I didn’t need a snow chain. I drove slower
than usual as I merged unto traffic that seemed to have the same flow
as a bottled ketchup. The slick road made many people drive with
extreme caution.
Snow
wasn’t a typical winter weather here and not many were used to
driving in the so called
extremely-rare
conditions.
I
enjoyed the scenic route, taking in all the beauty of the puffs of
white that covered the ground and all the trees that lined both sides
of the road. It took double time to get to the school parking lot.
As
I geared in park and came out of my car, I felt my soft cushioned
boots, warm my feet as it dug through a foot of snow. I slowly walked
to class so that I could enjoy the wintry path. When noon came, I
headed to the cafeteria to meet Sue, Charlie and the rest of the
group that I now usually sit with during lunch. They were already
there. I was surprised to see the remnant of white linger. Many
students had been out of the buildings and took advantage of the
weather, making snowmen, large snowballs and noticed the numerous
snow fights that erupted. We all decided to stay outdoors. The rest
of the afternoon was rather fast. The air was freezing. I bundled
myself in an extra layer of scarf and gloves.
Thursdays
were our Study nights at Andrews. Sam was already there when Brody
and I got to the library. I sat down, shrugged my coat off and hung
it behind my chair. Barely five minutes passed and without even the
slightest hint of warning, my eyes automatically followed an
instinct. Tristan came in along with a blast of chilly wind that
seemed to have followed him and found its way in my direction.
He
wore a gray, half collared jacket with several button snaps and
zippers, dark denim and aviator sunglasses. Not a usual look for him,
I thought and certainly strange that anyone would wear sunglasses on
a gloomy day. I certainly didn’t know and seen enough of him
yet besides our black polo uniforms, to get a clear wardrobe
assessment. Though, personality wise, I was pretty sure I was dead
on…he was definitely trouble, and trouble, certainly, I could
do without.