Another Teen Love Story

Chapter 18: The Beginning

After Ryan's death, waking up on a cold sweat became a normality. The dreams were vivid and the lady in black often made an appearance, but in never hindered my memory of Ryan.

I had risen from bed at 7am and it was a Monday morning, which meant it was time for class. I had taken a strong interest in writing, and I guess High School English played a role in me realising my true passion for writing. So, first class was Language Convention. Class usually started at 10, but since it was right after the weekend, the lecturer would expect everyone to only start strolling in at 10.15 or so.

"Wakey wakey princess." I was now shaking Lucas. His class time wasn't so forgiving, pursuing law, the classes were as serious as the court room.
"What time it?" he asked while grumbling, "It's 10!" I lied. Just so that he would get up a little faster.

He jumped up, and quickly paced to the shower, Lucas wasn't really a morning person unless it was the weekend. "Lucas! I'm kidding, it's only seven.... ten right now." He crossed his arms and glared at me. The advantages of being a man is that you didn't need the extra time to get your makeup on.

"Coffee?" I asked, as he sat on the end of the bed nodding back to sleep. "Sure." I boiled some water and emptied 2 sachets of 3-in-1 coffee into two mugs and walked over to Lucas.

Since it was freezing outside, I put on a pair of black jeans, tucked in a shirt with little cats printed it, laced up my boots, grabbed my favourite jacket and headed to my Ford ZX2. It was such an old car, and in this weather, the engine froze up as well. But it was better than sitting on the bus next to an old man that smell like pissed.

"Call me later?" I nodded. It felt as if the caffeine from the coffee had failed me.

On the way to class I grabbed a cream cheese bagel from the bakery on campus, where I also worked, “Aye baker boy, bagel please." Shane, my colleague, knew this was ritual, so he'd always made sure there was a bagel left for me. "See you here later?" I cocked up my head with my bagel in my mouth and said,"yup." and waved.

"Alright settle down, settle down. First off, I'd like to welcome everyone to Language Convention. You may think that you already know everything about spelling, grammar and punctuation, but this is not High School English, so there are obviously some things you do not know. You can call me...." the sound of fresh chalk clicking on the board, “Mister Fergus. Not dude. Or bro. Sir will do as well!"

"Get a load of this guy." Scoffing from next to me. "I'm Milo." Holding out his hand, “Ana."

"Nice to see classmates getting acquainted, please introduce yourselves." Milo stood up, “HI I'm Milo." he started descending, “Full name, young man."

"Oh um, Milo Thomson." Mr Fergus nodded in my direction, “Hi.... Anastasia Roxanne." I sat down quickly, avoiding looks as the rest of the class proceeded to introduce themselves.

The first lesson was light, nothing that made me regret not joining Daddy John's Strip Club, yet. I walked towards Cindy's Cafe and changed to my work shirt in the backroom before the start of my shift.

"Glad to see you join this torturous responsibility called work." Shane always worked long hours, even on his days off, he came from a well off family so I never understood why. "Ugh don't remind me, only four more hours till the sweet embrace of my one true love." he looked at me as I start day dreaming,"Lucas?" I grinned at him,"No, my bed."

"It started to get dark outside, a wash of dark blue and lilac covered the sky. "I want coffee." An old tired voice coming from the direction on the POS machine," Oh, what kind of coffee Sir?" This man smelt of stagnant water and spoilt fish, what was he doing out here?
"Black."
"Sugar?" I asked. He waved his hand at me so I assumed that meant no. The entire time I prepared his coffee he was glaring at me. “Here you go, long black.” And the angry stare didn’t end there. He left the café and I thought that would be the end of it, but instead, he stood in front of the window and continued to watch me. “Shane do you see that?” Whispering, “Yeah, looks like you got an admirer. The man never did anything so I put my guard down just a tad. Once the café was going to close, I looked out the window again and the man was no longer there.

I left the Café and drove home, nothing exciting there, but I did manage to drive buy a local Mexican restaurant to pick up some delicious taquitos. I got home, and dialled Lucas, “Hey, I just got home.” And waited for a response. Static. “Baby?” More static. I hung up and decided to give it a second try after a couple of minutes. “Hello? Hellooo? Stupid phone.” I put it on loudspeaker, if at any point the electronic device would decide to start working. Still nothing.

More focused on getting the grime off me, I decided to leave it till I got settled me and hopped into the shower.

“…and on this episode of Dexter.”

*Ding*
[New Message😏
Lucas: Where are you?
7.28pm

My Reply: Home??? I called you like a hundred times why didn’t you answer.
7.29pm

*Ding*
Lucas: Busy.
7.33pm

That’s strange, he never usually texts so abruptly and quite frankly, rudely. I was typing out my reply, to give him two cents of my mind until he texted again.

Lucas: Can you come over?
7.45pm

Half a taquito in my mouth and having taken off my bra already.

My Reply: Can you drive over pleeeaaase?
7.47pm

*Ding*
Lucas: I need to show you something. Come.
7.55pm

“Let me in god damn it, it’s cold out here!” Knocking on his door profusely. Suddenly hit with a sharp pain in my left ear, I hadn’t paid attention to Lucas opening the door. “Oh my god, what took you so long?” No answer. “Lucas, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go deaf and dumb on me right now, I want to tell you about this creepy man that came by the café today.” He was stabbing something on the table with a pencil. I walked up to him to see what could occupy every but of his attention.

“What the fuck are you doing! Stop!” He was stabbing the centre of his palm. “Hello my precious gem.” The Last time I checked, Lucas was not having a sore throat, but there seem to be a symphony of voices coming out of his mouth, with lips that weren’t even moving. He drew a line under each eye with the blood, “Ryan says hi.” That voice, “He’s become everyone’s favourite bitch, he helps me get off sometimes too….. at least until…..” He stares at my chest, and I know he wasn’t concerned I was breathing to hard.

“Let him go, fucking hell!” I started walking towards my boyfriend, who really wasn’t my boyfriend and slapped him. I’ve never seen 154 pounds drop so quickly. In this moment I realised, everything was definitely happening again.