Jesse's Girl

Chapter 29

I was a second away from cursing out the animated girl with her singing backpack and annoying map, when the phone rang. Since I found it tiring to remember each and every person's number, I answered timidly, preparing to hang up if it was someone I didn't know. "Hello?"

"Carson?"

"Yeah...?"

"Hi."

I smiled. "What do you want, Katrina?"

"Nothing, just wanted to say hi since I'm dead bored. What are you doing?"

My expression fell once I looked up to find that the girl and her magic backpack started singing again. "Watching what parents are torturing their kids with."

"You're watching parents give their kids purple medicine?"

"No." I couldn't help but let out a small laugh at her surprising tone.  "That wacky channel on TV where they only show pre-school stuff."

"Oh." She had paused, but something about my situation amused her. With a snicker, she continued with, "Blue's Clues or Barney?"

The urge to fling the remote at the screen became overwhelming. "Dora the Explorer is pissing me off."

Katrina let out another chuckle. "Then why are you watching it?"

"Because my Dad left in his car to meet my mom at my grandma's house while I was at school. They won't get back in an hour, and my Dad set the parental controls to not show anything over G. Dora was the only thing I actually recognized out of the entire guide."

  She laughed again. It was obvious my Dad's paranoia entertained her, as it did me. But watching a non-stop marathon of something I've grown out of so many years ago didn't necessarily motivate me to finish any homework sitting on my lap. If anything it made me draw more horrifying stick figures in the corners, and that was bad. For my health, I mean.

I pulled away from the phone, hearing something clatter on the other end. "Katrina—"

Startled to find that the noise had been on my end, I quickly turned my head to the window, barely catching sight of a couple of birds flying past. Their movement made the leaves from the tree next to Daren's old room hit the window.

"Carson?"

I narrowed my eyes, pushing my books off my lap and climbing off the bed. "Hang on a minute, the sky is falling."

As I approached the window, I let my hand drop to my side along with the phone. The late afternoon sun peeked over the neighbor's house, still giving light to the house as if it were still one rather than five in the afternoon.

I raised the phone back to my ear, lifting my other hand to turn the knob to lock the window. "Never mind, the damn birds—Jesus Christ!"

All while jumping away from the window, the phone flew from my hand, landing on the floor with a disorienting sound. My eyes darted straight at the window, and my history of near heart attacks seemed to remind me exactly why I jumped away.

Across the window was not a bird, no, but a vile creature that possessed blue eyes, and had a vicious tendency to drive any person insane. If it weren't for the look on my face, Jesse would have smiled at me from the other side of the window, I just knew it.

With a scowl that lasted a long minute at the detection of déjà vu, I unhitched the lock and flung open the window. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see you," he grunted, taking advantage – didn't he always? –by throwing himself through the window before I slammed it on him.

I would have swallowed what I felt at the moment and helped him up, but the maddening girl on TV sang the backpack song again. As he stood up, he didn't mutter a word, and only gave off a look that seemed to match one of amusement and confusion.