A Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

My vision was darkening; my head spinning; my face probably turning a shade of violet, or blue, or whatever color you would imagine a person’s face turning when their oxygen is being cut off. I’m think my eyes were about as wide as silver dollars in surprise, ‘cause I’m pretty sure they weren’t as big as dinner plates. That would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it? People would look like cartoon characters if they could make their eyes as big as dinner plates. Then again, silver dollars are a bit big for eye size too. Anyway, to get back on track, I was being choked. Like I said a few pages back, it may have been unknowingly since it was the collar of my shirt being pulled up around my neck, but still. I could just barely scrape the floor with the tips of my shoes.

Hunter shook me again, making my brain rattle as the back of my head made contact with the wall. Thank goodness for the bit of cushioning my wig provided.

For a while I tried to determine whether or not he knew I was a girl. I wanted to go with no. Honestly, tell me what kind of guy chokes a girl. Not the good kind. So, perhaps he thought I was a girly looking guy pretending to be Alex for some unknown reason.

“Let me go,” I managed to choked out.

“Not until you tell me who you are,” hissed Hunter.

My voice came out in a whisper. “I...will...”

“Tell me.”

Wincing as he pulled my shirt tighter across my neck, I raised my left hand with some effort and groped blindly for the ends of my wig. I curled my fingers around the hair. 

“Tell me!”

I yanked the wig off my head, letting my real hair spill around my shoulders. The long dark strands tickled as they descended. Hunter’s eyes widened in surprise. He loosened his grip instantly, backing away, but without him there to hold me up, my legs collapsed under me. Gasping like a ridiculously large (in the long sense) fish out of water, I managed to get to my knees and lean myself against the wall. One look at the other side of the hall, and I could see that Hunter was slumped against it, hands cradling his head bowed between his legs, looking both shocked and regretful.

“You’re a...” He ran his fingers through his hair, tousling it; his eyes were wider than my own had been not moments before.

“A girl?” I croaked.

Hunter nodded, then swallowed and shook his head. “I’m...sorry.”

“About me being a girl?”

“No, about...um...” He motioned to his neck. “It’s probably going to bruise.”

I blinked. “Oh. Right. No, it’s alright. It was a perfectly normal reaction to knowing someone’s not who they say they are. Happens on a weekly basis for me.”

“Pretending to be someone you’re not?”

“Getting bruises. This week, you’ve given me two. Or one, and a second pending.”

“Sorry.” The boy - err...young man - ducked his head sheepishly. It got so quiet that the sound of bowling could be heard again.

“It’s okay,” I nearly ‘awww’ed at his sudden change. “Please don’t tell anyone that I’m not Alex, though. I’ll explain it all to you.”

“I wont. But why?”

“Why did I dress up like him?”

Hunter shook his head ‘yes’.

I opened my mouth to speak, but another voice from down the hall interrupted me. There were approaching footsteps to accompany the voice. “Alex? Hunter? What’s taking you so long?”

Hunter raised his brows in question, but I just stared back. 

“Um...I’ll tell you later,” I whispered.

It goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway: I booked it.

Now hold on just a hot second to imagine for this one paragraph that I am speaking like a relatively older person, say, about the age of ninety. Ready? Okay, start now. For you young’ns who don’t know what ‘booking it’ means, I will now reveal to you the wondrous secret of old. It means.... To run. So, in other words, I ran out of the creepy little hallway as fast as my boy-jeans clad legs could carry me. By the way, you can stop imagining me speaking in the elderly voice. If you haven’t by now... Well... You know what? Think of my voice however you want it. I certainly do.

Out of the bowling alley, into the pouring rain. My feet just kept on moving as if they had minds of their own. I ran for, who knows how long. Despite the fact that the rain was freezing; that my energy supply was diminishing; that my toes were bleeding and falling off (well not exactly), I kept running until I reached the park in my neighborhood. That’s where I spotted the familiar figure sitting on one of the swings.

Wordlessly, I walked up to Alex and sat in the swing next to him. The chilling rain poured down on our heads and clouded my vision. Each droplet could be felt dampening the fabric of my clothes. Little dark spots appeared on my jeans where the raindrops hit them. I shivered as small streams of icy water tricked down my neck and between my shoulder blades. Alex, I could tell, was already soaked through. His blonde hair looked brown because of how damp it was, and it stuck to his forehead.

“Lillian dumped me. And to top that off, Kip locked me out of the house for calling him Dana,” He explained, pulling the soaked hood of his jacket over his head. I opened my mouth to speak, but found I had nothing to say; I didn’t know how to console him. I am super bad at the whole comforting thing. Reaching out, I patted his knee awkwardly.

With a sigh, my best friend looked up at me. “What happened to your wig?”

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Being super busy has not helped my writers' block. :/ But hey! I got this chapter done. sort of... wish i could've made it longer, i will some other time maybe. :)