CHAPTER 33
DESIREE
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That evening, when mom and dad came home, I brushed past them outside, informing them that I was going to Elec's home. Elec had just come home, too, and she called me from her window. As I brushed past my mom and dad, I realized both of them hadn't said a word to me. They didn't even nod their heads. So this was how it was going to be. That's a great progress -I thought to myself, swinging my raincoat over my shoulder. Her room door was open. I saw her untangling her hair with her hairbrush, which seemed to have stuck in her tawny locks.
"Need any help?"
"No, I got it" and she yanked the hairbrush, it came off in a sudden jerk and fell. She groaned all exhausted.
I took it and brushed her hair. "Sit straight," I commanded. It was too tangled that I couldn't untangle with the hairbrush straight away. "I'm going to use my fingers to untangle first and then we could use the hairbrush."
She nodded. "But slowly...
"What did you do to get your hair in knots?"
"Rolled in the ocean. You'd love the beach house."
"Beach house?"
"Oh! that's where Sean is getting married."
"Your uncle?"
"Yep," she said, flinching in pain as I took a knot out of her hair.
"Did you ask Irsia to come over?" I asked, trying to untangle as delicately as possible.
"I called her on the way home. She said she would come over when she goes for her run, which should be any minute now." She tried to keep her head steady in place as I was tugging the knots free.
"She shouldn't be running alone. It's getting scary."
"She can run fast unlike somebody."
"Still scary, given her curiosity at things and her strive to be miss congeniality."
Elec gave a short laughter. "There... It's done. Let's brush it now." I took the brush. "Did something happen while you were away?" I didn't want to mention Miles' name.
"He didn't call." Her voice was wry.
We were silent until I finished untangling her hair and I plaited it. I knew her hair problems. She and I basically had the same type of hair. Wavy. It was Irsia's that was straight and smooth. The one that would be easier to untangle even if she pruned in the water for hours.
"Anyone here?" came Irsia's voice from downstairs.
"Yep," Elec and I responded.
As she stomped up the stairs in her running clothes, all gleaming in sweat and puffing, Elec gestured her to a chair by the computer table. "Don't sweat on my furniture."
Irsia ignored that. "So? What's the surprise?"
Elec opened her dashing red briefcase and took out a deep sapphire-blue dress and then another one, but green. My jaw dropped at the sight of that beautiful dress.
"You did not," I said, gawking.
"But I did it, Walker." Elec was practically dancing with both dresses in her hands.
"I wish I wasn't sweaty." Irsia cried as she was head-over-heels for the dress. "I can't try it on now," she squealed.
Elec placed both the dresses on her bed. There lied the dress with a sweet-heart neck and it had sparkly embellishments from neck until waist and it looked my size. The emerald green one was definitely for Irsia because she loved that color. Both the dresses were such a sight to look at.
"Do you want to try it on?" Elec steered the question at me.
"I would love to," I managed to say, without tearing my eyes off the dress. "Thank you so much, Elec."
"You don't have to thank me. You just have to come with me to the wedding this weekend." She paused. "I'm trying to bribe you both." She opened her hands, as if we were going to say no.
"Sold," Irsia chirped while I took the dress in my hand.
"A slight problem." I cleared my throat.
"What?" Elec knew exactly what I was talking about.
"You both need to get out if I have to try it on." I gave the dress a delicate hug.
"No..." Both of them were acutely annoyed.
"Come on..." I dragged. "Fine. I'll go change in your mom's room." And I rushed out.
I hated changing with others around me. I struggled to change during PE, too. I made things awkward for others as well. Elec and Irsia knew I was shy that way and they just wouldn't shut up when I dressed up in front of them. It was such an agony for me. But then there were these thoughts of Aiden, how he took off my blouse and tossed it away and how he dressed me up in his t-shirt and that woodsy smell of his. I couldn't help but blush and look stupid again. Thank God I was alone. I shimmied into the dress and looked at the mirror in her mom's room.
Her mom's room had the same features as Elec's room expect for the window placement. Elec's room had a window to the right side of the bed, her mom's room had a window at the head of the bed. A closet opposite to the wide bed with a mirror on its door, a tube chair near the window and a couch adjacent to that and a shaded lamp over the bedside table with a laptop. Elec's bedside table had makeup in its drawer and her mom's had makeup and a gun. Although I couldn't come up with why she needed a gun, it seemed like a good option with everything that had been going on. I remembered Elec going with her dad to a rifle shooting club two summers ago because she thought it was the only place fit to be around her dad. Her dad tried so hard to be around her, but she used him only when she wanted something from him. It still baffled me how someone could cheat over someone like her mom.
The dress looked perfect. I loved the embellishments. My mom would never allow me to wear the sweat-heart neckline. The dress hugged all my curves, making me look good in a way that I had never looked before. I walked out the room lifting one corner of the dress and I found Elec's mom standing outside.
"Mrs. Withers!" I exclaimed.
She flicked her hand daintily. "Call me, Cherie. Mrs. Withers was my mom." She shook her head in assurance at the dress. "Look at you, Margo. Nice color on you." She nodded approvingly.
"I have never worn a sweet-heart neckline before," I admitted, nervously.
Elec and Irsia came out of the room to get a look at me and both of them exclaimed, "Oh my God!" And I laughed at it and gave a playful twirl. Irsia took a quick snap of me.
"So, are you coming?" Elec asked all chirpy.
"Do you think I would say no?"
Next day at school, as soon as I saw Aiden, I couldn't prevent that smile forming in my face. I was the one who said to him to act normal, but I couldn't stop the blushing and he smiled, but I preferred his throaty chuckle more. Not that I don't like his smile, but that throaty chuckle of his was so personal to me. I wouldn't want anyone to hear his chuckles. It was mine to savor. It was so hard to sit next to him and act like nothing had been going on between us. The irony was, I couldn't talk to him like I used to as friends. All I saw when I saw him was the Aiden who wrote and recited something for me and the Aiden who had been crushing on me and the Aiden who just slid me into his t-shirt. God! I needed to get my thoughts inside a container before it overflowed over my face, making me look ludicrous. Until evening, I kept peeking at Aiden and he did too. As Elec's place was behind me in class, I had to be careful. After working at the library, I walked home. I asked Elec to go home. I couldn't keep her waiting all the time for me. The weather was dark and grey again. I walked, carrying my raincoat. I called Aiden and he picked up in one ring.
"Done being the library police?"
"Yeah," I said, a little louder as it was too windy.
"Walking home?"
"Uh-huh..." I said, stepping out of the school premises. The road seemed empty as the weather turned gloomy and other kids were long gone now.
"Can I have the honors of dropping you home?" I sensed his smile. I whipped around and I saw him on the other side of the road. So characteristically leaning back against his black crossover with one arm crossed across his chest.
"How would your mom get home?" I asked, still looking at him from the other end of the road.
"It would just take ten minutes to drop you home. Besides I'm sure she would be talking to my dad now."
"Shut up. You don't have to do this."
I hung up and took a step forward, still looking at him. I took another step and I saw his smile vanish. I thought I put my foot in a muddy pool or something and I turned swift to look at my feet. It was fine. I hadn't put my feet in a hole or stumbled. Why did he look so serious? I looked up and I blinked the image a few times to make sure I saw it right. My eyes were speckled with white, spiral-like dots as I blinked so hard and I couldn't believe what I saw. I saw Desiree. I fell back down on the ground seeing her and the wind didn't favor me.
"Margo," she said my name. weakly.
She looked so pale, thin and her skin was dry and her hair even more dry and all tangled. She didn't have any shoes on her feet. It was blistered and even bleeding. Her dress was a shade of mud and shabby, to the point that it looked like she was a character in a movie who had just buried a body in the woods. How could she even wear that dress in this kind of weather? Her wobbly legs made her look like she hadn't eaten anything in days. Maybe she really hadn't eaten anything in days. Her feet were dragging her toward me, but she looked lifeless and her feet were bleeding like she had been walking endlessly over thorns and pinnacles. My tear ducts swelled up with water seeing her like that. She was such a sweet girl. I got up and rushed toward her, forgetting that she could infect me. Something snagged. My feet were forcibly avulsed from under me. I was dragged by my waist and he had his other elbow hooked under my armpit. It was Aiden.
"She could infect you," he bellowed, holding me tighter in his grip. The heel of my shoes scraped against the gravelly road.
I kept wriggling and I couldn't get out of his grip. I was so scared that she would run away again. Something kept telling me to go and hold her tight or that she would disappear.
"Let me go," I screamed at Aiden.
For each step Desiree took toward us, Aiden dragged me back two fold. I tried and failed to yank away from his grip. She walked toward me with soulless eyes, like a zombie and that was what scared me and not CONMISDUM. She mumbled something. I had to keep my eyes glued to her mouth amid the struggle I was in. Her mumble dissolved in the air a few times before I could make out what she said. She mumbled a name. 'Lauren Shine.' The wind made it hard to listen to what she said and added my brawl to get out of Aiden's grip. From what I made out from, what she said was 'find Lauren Shine and Belladonna'. She repeated with her dry mouth again 'Lauren Shine and Belladonna'.
Aiden hauled me across the empty road and succeeded in loading me into his car and he locked the doors, too, all the while, I was kicking and screaming. When I turned my blurry eyes to see where she was, I saw her running in a very unnatural way to the middle of the road in such a speed and she ran into a crossroad straight across us. Aiden's car roared to life and he took a sharp turn at the crossroad while I wiped my tears off. I looked around, but I couldn't find her.
"Where did she go?" he asked, too terse for the moment.
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