Subject #013 | ✓

Chapter 29

Jess lets out a short laugh. "There's a curb there, silly."

"I noticed." I say, running a hand through my hair.

"Did you? Is that how you tripped?"

I say nothing in response, but I can feel her watching me, amused.

"Where do you come from?" She asks.

"Los Angeles."

"A city boy." She says to herself, almost incredulous. "We don't get many of those down here." I finally look back up at her to see that she's biting her lip, taking a strange interest in the lines of the sidewalk. I wonder what she's thinking about.

"Where are you going?" I build up the courage to ask. My brain seems to have finally picked up on the fact that I'm still walking with her, though I have not even the slightest clue as to where we're going.

"The library." She says simply.

"Oh, um... it's close to here?" I inquire. Jess stops walking, places her hands on her hips, and stares at me straight on.

"There's some things you should know about Silverton. One, it's so small that everything's within walking distance." She says. "Unless you're lazy. Two, this city seems resistant to change. Don't say anything out of line, don't do anything out of line, don't think anything out of line..." That's what I do anyway, I want to say, but I hold my tongue and merely nod. "Three, don't go out in the city at night... you'll get pick-pocketed for sure." I furrow my brows as I listen to her talk. I look up when she's finished.

"Is that it?"

"Oh, no. There's one more thing." She shakes her head once, before meeting my eyes. Her lips curl up into a smile. "Be careful who you flirt with." Then, she's gone, walking at that same clipped pace away from me. Watching her leave made my decision for me. I am going to get to know this girl.

Jess has been a part of my life for about three years now, and though that may not seem like the longest of times, it's been enough for us. The first year was rough, I'll admit. It was hard to get someone as fired up as Jess to notice a guy like me. She finally let me in in the summer before our sophomore year, leading to our strong friendship. I built up the courage to ask her out after seven months of being best friends. When I asked her, I didn't expect her to say yes. The Jess I knew would say something smart-alecky like, 'is this what you call flirting?' or 'oh really, where's the ring?'

But she said yes.

And that's all that had mattered to me. She seemed happy with me, and me with her, we never fought, and we never lost interest. I should have known better than to think that our story would play out like a normal fairytale romance would.

I should have known better.

I stalk out my front porch and down the steps, stomping mercilessly through the snow towards the unmistakable flashing lights of a police vehicle. It turns out to be a bad idea to wear only sneakers in feet of snow.

                  

Her house comes up in front of my vision faster than my heart wants it to. But it doesn't matter what my heart wants anymore, because whenever I listen to my heart, things go terribly, terribly wrong.

A police officer immediately sees me, but that doesn't cause me to slow down my pace. If anything, I speed up.

"Hey, kid, what are you doing?" A muscular police officer with a dark mustache says. He was leaning against his truck, but he has pushed himself off of it in my presence.