Deadly Ava

Friends or...

***
I got home and met Ava once again on our porch. She didn't look as collected as she was in the morning. She tucked out and her tie was loosened. Her hair wasn't packed as well. She sat swinging her legs with her hands clinging together. She hadn't noticed me. I loosened my tie also before I walked up to her.

"Hey."

"Hi." she replied.

"If you're wondering what I'm doing on your porch again... My guardians are not home yet. And they forgot to drop the keys.", Ava said softly. Her voice came out so innocent and yet with an aura of hidden motives. It was something too nuts for me to understand. Innocent and yet guilty.

"So they're really not your parents.", I said as I took a seat beside her.

"Not in a thousand years."

Her reply was unexpected. I chose to ignore it. Although it mattered. "What happened to your parents?"

"They died.", Ava said without seeming to feel anything concerning it. "In an accident."

She was straight faced. It gave me the chills.

"I'm sorry."

"You don't need to be..", she said staring into space.

"Fo you feel sympathy? Or remorse. Or empathy?", I had to ask. Almost like I needed to know desperately.

"Why do you ask?"

I saw her half-smile got the very first time. It was inspiring.

"You seem cold."

She chuckled and then hit me on the arm. "I'm scary aren't I?"

I didn't know she could be playful too. Her punch had some weight though. "I'm not sure."

"I'm like that sometimes, I'm used to it.", Ava explained like she had made a mistake from the beginning. "But I'm not good like you said."

She said it almost like she hated what I said.

"Yeah... I guess you're hot.", I said looking in the opposite direction.

"Aren't you a funny one?", Ava's tone was more soothing. More friendly.

Jacob still hadn't showed up. Mum and dad were not at home I seized the opportunity.

"I Umm... I could show you around the neighborhood."

She thought about it for s second.

"Okay."

I told her I was going to be back and went to our garage. I came back with two bicycles. One was mine and the other was Jacob's. He had to bundle it all the way from Port Harcourt.

"We're going on those?", Ava asked looking strangely at me and the bicycles.

"Yep. My specialty."

"I can't...ride bicycles."

"Wow." "I could teach you

"No thanks."

Just then a familiar car showed up and drove into their compound. Through the front window I could see her uncle.

"See you later Toby."

I watched her stroll farther away till she entered their compound. A lot of weird things I was discovering about her. But I seemed to know very less.

***
Jacob was a great cook. One couldn't tell by his looks or attitude. Surprisingly he enjoyed it. That evening it was both of us in the kitchen while my parents were in the living room. It was blissful.

"What'd you do to the kid?"

I chuckled. He was enough to call Chris a kid in the real sense. It was only funny. Chris and Jacob were in the same class but Jacob cared less. He was sentenced boxer by nature.

"Stuck a gum to his seat."

"Ahh.. I see.", Jacob said opening up a cube of Maggi.

To me it didn't really matter. It wasn't like I could face Christopher one on one.

"Probably got two new pairs of trousers already.", I said feeling relieved and bothered at the same time. Sometimes my empathy got the best of me.

"Back in the days. You'd buy him 4 new pairs in an instant.", Jacob said switching the conversation.

"I know right.", I said indifferently.

"From your own money. Not even your parents.", Jacob continued. Then he paused to look at me in a weird manner. I shrugged.

"Dad said his new business is booming.", I said backing him up. Then I stopped to wash effervescence off my hands in the sink.

"You know it really doesn't matter. Because when we were loaded, it seemed all they cared about."

I thought about it as I talked. It was the truth, "And now that we're not. It's still what they care about."

"Well...what goes around comes around.", Jacob said out of the blue.

I dropped the plate in my hands.

"What?"

"What?", he asked acting deaf.

"Is that meant to cheer me up?"

"I don't know, I'm just saying..."

"...nonsense.", I said pointing a finger at him.

"Agreed."

Jacob really was a reckless person, never bothered about anything. Never concerned. Except it was in his face exhaling hot air on him. He seemed so...carefree. I liked it. He mostly talked about football, and girls too. But football, in s different way. Like deep down he knew what he wanted and would never give up.

Later that night...while Jacob and my parents watched TV in the living room. I hid in my room and had a book in front of me...