Fraternizing with the Enemy

14 // Goodnight, Mr. Gosling

MOST of me was rationalizing that if a murderer was to come to my house late in the night and slit my throat, throwing pebbles at my window was probably the worst way to do that.  Therefore, I was probably not going to get stabbed in the face.

Unless it was a really bad murderer, and then that could be a possibility, but my logic was betting on a little ghost girl with long dark hair and holes for eyes that wanted to eat my soul doing the pebble throwing.

That was much more probable.

And so I pulled the covers closer to my chest and eyed the offending window with a frown. As if the window itself was the cause of all my problems, and not whatever cursed entity outside, but whatever. I was shooting the messenger. I was going to die, probably.

A couple seconds passed and I kept a keen eye on the window with bated breath, hoping that maybe it was just a strange concoction of darkness and an overactive imagination. I was probably overreacting.

And then another pebble hit.

It was not a scream that followed, but it was not very dignified either.

Swallowing my fear, I slowly slipped off the bed, clutching the comforter to my body in feeble protection against any dark forces that lurked outside my window. I'd already checked my phone and neither Eva nor Savannah had texted me, so that possibility had been shot, not that they would ever resort to pebble throwing at midnight anyway. We all knew I watched too many scary movies for my own good, and so I had already accepted that this was going to be my death. May they say nice things at my funeral.

When I finally garnered the courage to peek outside, instead of death, I encountered something much, much worse. A groan began to climb up my throat, propelled by a thick annoyance I was growing all too familiar with.

Dropping the comforter, I pulled open the window and glared down to the sheepish grin that greeted me. I'd already lost any shame to my bare face and polar bear pajamas since our early morning squabbles, so it was more irritation than embarrassment that welled up inside me.

"What the hell, Powers? What is this? What made you think that in any universe, at any time, this was any kind of okay?" I harshly whispered to the boy below me, the terror quickly being replaced by burning exasperation.

Reese crossed his arms, mouth gaping as if he were shocked by my accusations. "I texted you! There was texting, and you didn't reply! I needed to come get your attention!"

I fixed him with a deadpan look. "That's because I was ignoring you. Because it is 12:30 at night and people do not expect replies in the middle of the fucking night!"

His determination refused to surrender. "I texted you at 10."

Rolling my eyes, I reminded myself that flinging my body outside the window to attack him was probably not what I should do. Probably. "Whatever, leave, I'm trying to sleep. That's what normal people, you know, do at this hour. Sleep. You should try it, I highly recommend it."

Reese did not seem very impressed by my excellently executed sarcasm. "We need to talk. Let me come up there, or you come down here, but talking will be had, Sandoval. I will throw pebbles at your window all night, and don't think I won't! I have no plans! My entire night is free! Just try me!" His arms were gesturing wildly, and it could have been due to the fact I had barely responded to anything he'd said in the past couple of days.

But this was just crossing lines and I was entirely (mostly) justified.

Thinking of Reese meant thinking of Tyler which meant thinking of the fact that we'd barely spoken since I may have essentially punched him in his penis. I clearly could not be blamed, my following actions were perfectly reasonable.