Memoirs of a Girl Wolf (11 page)

Reign. Reign. Reign. Golden hair, a sweet molasses voice, and a bright smile that offset his dark eyes. That’s all I thought about the rest of the day.

Then seventh period my thoughts turned into actuality when I was graced with presence, well actually I was graced with the presence of the entire English class taught by Ms. Stewart, who had to go home because her basement was flooding. They couldn’t find an emergency sub so our principle merged the English classes for the last class period of the day.

I sat by the window in the back row and with my head supported by my hand as I studied the water pour down from the grey sky because this was more interesting than listening to Mr. Arnold lecture about
Jane Eyre
.

When I heard Kristen’s high pitch laughter, I turned abruptly from the window and my thoughts, and saw twenty-three students file into the room with Kristen in the lead. Her hair was straightened and highlighted blonde. That was new. Her eyebrows were darker, her cheekbones highlighted, her eyelashes longer, her lips plumper. She scratched her upper arm with painted pink fingernails and whispered something in Sydney’s ear who stood close by to her. Their arms almost linked. They both wore their blue and white cheerleading uniforms. Sydney’s hair was done in pigtails decorated with a blue ribbon tied around the left pig tail and a white ribbon around the right. My heart dropped a little seeing them together. Mainly seeing Kristen so close, yet so far from me. I didn’t even know her anymore. She was “Kristy” now.

Mr. Arnold told everyone to find an empty seat or sit on the cold, tile floor which caused Kristen and Sydney to yell “ew” at the thought of having to sit on the wet, dirty floor. Two guys from my class offered up their seats for the two girls and Kristen beamed. She loved every minute of the attention.

The last one to enter the room was Reign. He walked in with his hands in his pocket and shuffling his big toed, brown boots slowly. He no longer had the grey cap warming his head. Once he started looking around the room for a place to sit, I lifted my hand and waved him over to sit in the corner next to me.

He ignored me at first, but when Mr. Arnold told everyone to hurry up and sit so that he could return to the madwoman in the attic. Reign hung his golden head, hunched his shoulders, and walked to the back of the room where he sat on the floor resting his arms on his knees and his back against the wall under the window.

Reaching into my bag, I pulled out his gloves that he let me borrow at lunch and I tossed them at him. They slapped against his face as his attention was on the front. He blinked a little in surprise and picked them up off the floor beside him where they fell then waved his hand at me in a thank you mannerism. This wasn’t enough for me. There were so many kids packed in the room that Mr. Arnold couldn’t pay attention to all of us so I figured talking to him would go unnoticed.

I handed him the black and white photo that I was still holding in my hand. It was creased funny from the amount of times I had folded and unfolded it. I felt bad about returning the stolen photo in a less than perfect state.

“I think this belongs to you,” I said.

He didn’t object. He took the photo from in between my fingers. His hand touched mine and sent a shot of electricity tingling through my body. I caught my breath in my throat and my heart raced as I waited for him to speak.

“Thanks,” he mumbled. He examined the photo in his hand.

I smiled when his lips parted into a grin. “What was it doing in that house?” I asked, my curiosity got the best of me and made me impatient I wanted to know as soon as he had told me the photo was his mother. I couldn’t contain myself any longer even if we were stuck in the back of a stuffy room during seventh period listening to Mr. Arnold drag on in his boring nasally voice.

“Mickey?”

Mr. Arnold stood at the front of the room in a long sleeve white collared shirt underneath a checkered sweater vest. He rubbed his hands together as he waited for my response. His eyebrows were so high they almost disappeared into his hair line. He raised his chin as he watched me, waiting. The entire class turned their heads to look at me as an uncomfortable silence settled under the fluorescent lights.

“Sorry?” I said, burning red.

“What are your thoughts on the woman in the attic?” he picked up his old copy of
Jane Eyre
from the desk at the front of the room and shook the book for me to see.

Thankfully, I was saved by Sydney, surprisingly, who raised her hand and without waiting to be called on said, “I think she’s crazy.”

“Mickey would know about that,” Kristen said, coughing, but everyone heard including me all the way in the back of the room. I became so upset not at what was said, but because of who said it, so while the class roared with laughter I raised my hand and excused myself to the bathroom not bothering to receive permission. I just picked up my books, my bag, and left the room.

I stayed in the dark bathroom stall until the bell rang. As soon as I heard the bathroom door swing open and girls, loudly filter inside and stop in front of the smudged mirrors to fix their makeup or gossip, I left the security of the stall and the bathroom. I walked, slowly, with my arms crossed and my bag thumping against the back of my legs to my locker.

Reign was soon beside me.

He glanced back and forth at me and the lock in his hand as his fingers danced around the black dial of his combination lock. I stared solemnly into my locker. I had sometime before Mom would pick me up in front of the school. She had a meeting this afternoon with a client. How insufferable, to have to spend another second within this building, when all I desperately wanted to do was return home and hide under my covers, maybe eat a pin of Ben & Jerry’s.

“My mom and dad lived in that house,” Reign said.

I looked over at him, suspiciously.

“After my mom died, my dad and I moved and now we’re back,” he continued.

“Oh,” I said.

He closed his locker and waited for me as I closed mine and slipped on my wool pea coat. We started walking together down the hall, but I came to a stop once I got a text message from Mom. She was going to be even later.

“Shoot,” I mumbled. I looked out the front glass doors of the school it was still raining and the only place to wait on a late ride was the courtyard.

                            “What?” he asked.

                            “My ride got delayed,” I said, shaking my phone back and forth.

                            “I’ll give you a ride,” he said. “I’m headed that way anyway.”

              I hesitated and he noticed. He smiled and said, “Come on. Aren’t we friends now?”

              Nodding, a smile crept onto my face. It was nice to have a friend again.

Once we walked through the doors of the school, I popped open my umbrella to walk under while Reign shoved his grey cap over his messy hair and pink ears. His cheeks turned a rosy tint as we were hit with a chilly breeze. He jogged a little ahead of me to the parking lot until he came to a stop in front of a red Ford pickup truck. It was old, a little rusty, dented, it only had front seats and it smelled like him, like wood smoke.

On the back window was a state flag that I didn’t recognize. He turned the heat on high and waited a minute for us to warm up before reversing out of the crowded school parking lot. As soon as the truck had turned on so did the voice of Johnny Cash. I didn’t want to spend the whole twenty minute ride listening to his music though, so I turned the volume down and pointed behind me to the sticker of the flag.

“Where’s that flag from,” I asked.

“Arkansas,” he said with a smile.

“That’s why you talk funny.”

He laughed. “I don’t talk funny. You Yankees talk funny.”

“Yankees? I don’t like baseball.”

He laughed.

“So you moved to Arkansas from here?” I asked.

“We moved around a lot for my dad’s job, but we lived in Arkansas for the last seven years and now that my dad is retired he said I got to choose where we move to and I wanted to move up here.”

“Why?” I asked. I was seriously confused what the appeal of Petoskey, Michigan could be. Besides a hot summer spot because of the lake and a great gelato café, we didn’t have much to offer.

He stared forward, concentrating on the back of a black Civic Honda. His mouth from side to side. I realized I had maybe asked something too personal because of how quickly his demeanor changed toward me not aggressive, but withdrawn.

“I wanted to know the place better,” he said, finally and then he warmed up again and turned toward, adding, “And Hemingway wrote a lot about here.”

I rolled my eyes. The English teachers at school always assigned Hemingway reading for this very reason.

“If you like Hemingway, there’s a bar in town where he used to eat at,” I said.

“Cool, we’ll go sometime,” he said.

We’ll
?

The palms of my hands started sweating and my throat itched, dry. The warm air from the vents went from comforting to suffocating. I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so immediately I started overthinking. Do I show excitement but not too much excitement or should I ignore he said anything? My tongue felt swollen and verbalizing words impossible, so I leaned forward and turned up Johnny Cash instead.

12.

After dinner and my evening cup of tea, I fell asleep on the couch in the attic watching Eric and Josh play video games.

When I woke up, it was late morning and I was in bed, but still in my clothes from the night before. I felt groggy and hot. I called to Mom, but looking at the clock beside my bed I realized she was probably at work and I became a little worried because school had started hours before.

I was slow to get out of bed. Stretching, and groaning a little, I raised myself into a sitting position and rubbed my eyes. I felt sore all over, but finally I found the motivation to get out of my comfortable bed. I walked barefoot out of my room and down the hall until I came to a stop in front of the twin’s room. The door was wide open, but the room was dark and empty. Their beds were carelessly made and their radio hummed softly.

The rest of the house was bright made so by the natural light beaming through tall windows. I squinted my eyes a little as I adjusted to the light and walked down the stair case to the living room which was just as empty as the upstairs. Once in the kitchen, I expected to find some type of note from Mom explaining why I was not woken up this morning for school, but all I found was the coffee pot, still on, but the coffee was burnt which I discovered after pouring myself a cup in a cracked novelty mug.

I jumped, nearly dropping the mug, when I heard a rustling echoing from Mom’s room down the hall. The hair on the back of my neck rose. Taking a butcher knife with me, I silently, slowly walked down the hall and pressed open Mom’s bedroom door to find Mom asleep in her bed. She must have heard me open the door because she sat right up, looked at me, and then fell back onto the bed. She placed her hands over her face and groaned a little.

“I don’t want to get up,” she said.

I set the knife on top of the dresser by the door and jumped onto her bed.

“Why are we home?” I asked, concerned.

She slid her hands down her face and looked at me. “I thought you were sick.”

“I’m not,” I said.

“Oh, good.” She lifted the white goose feather comforter for me to get under.

“How did I get to bed last night?” I asked as I tried to remember my night but nothing came to mind.

“I carried you,” Mom said, yawning.

“Oh,” I said, still slightly confused, but this confusion was becoming normal for me. The headaches, the fatigue the confusing lapses in time. Mom said it was normal and just growing pains but Web MD said I had a brain tumor. I wanted to bring this up with her but I couldn’t at the moment because she turned on her side away from me and went back to sleep.

I pushed the comforter off of me and left the room. After placing the knife back in its drawer in the kitchen, I made myself a fresh pot of coffee and I thought only of how disappointed I was to not be at school and with Reign.

It was a bright, sunny, warm afternoon. Mom was not feeling well and stayed in bed all day except to pick my brothers up from school so once they returned I took them out of the house so that mom could be alone.

We decided to fish off of our dock. I didn’t want to fish so I brought my book with me and sat at the end of the dock with my bare feet hanging over the cold water while my brothers stood behind me casting their fishing poles into the water.

“Mickey!”

I looked up from the black print of my book and there he was standing across the water from me, waving.

Once I waved back, he jumped a little into the water as if he was going to swim over to me, but as soon as he jumped in he jumped back out surprised by how cold the water was despite it being a semi warm day.

I laughed.