Super proud of this, so be happy because I lost my spoon in the process *flips over matress* Where are you?
Comment
Vote
Fan
_____________________________________________________________________________
CHAPTER THREE
I was ready by eight. I had on a small black dress and was wearing a pair of two inch heels. Not much, but I didn’t want to be that tall. I had managed to control my curls and had pulled them back with a black ribbon, the end of my pony tail was huge. I had even managed to get on some eyeliner and mascara to make my big blue eyes really pop. I finished it off with a little bit of lip gloss, all the while wondering if this is what Payne did every morning, if this what he was doing right now. I shivered. Gross, men, except Dee Snider, should not wear makeup.
Vanessa had left about an hour earlier to go get something from one of her ‘girl friends’. That was okay with me. It was almost eight thirty when I left my building. All of the halls were empty, everyone must have been at the party I assumed. Once I got outside I shivered, it was chilly out here. I wrapped my arms around myself and started to rub my hands up and down. Gooseflesh was starting to creep up my arms. I went passed the duck pond and stopped for a bit to watch them. It was fall so there were no baby ducks, but they were still adorable. After I felt I had absorbed enough duck for the moment I headed down to the gym. I could already see the lights pouring out from the building. The heavy bass lines were carrying through the night air.
I came up to the main doors and entered. There were no teachers anywhere; did they just let stuff like this go on all of the time? I warmed up quickly as I wound around the large hallway and passed several groups of people. According to the origin of the music, the dance was in the main gym. I figured that I was correct once I turned around the corner and was nearly stepped on by the flood of people trying to wedge themselves into the gym. There was no way I was going to find Luke in this. I elbowed my way through the crowd of people. Many of the girls were in short and poofy dresses while others were in jeans and tanks. The guys were in street cloths, some were wearing collared shirts with wacky ties. Ah, neck ties.
After standing outside of the gym for about ten minutes, I decided that I wasn’t going to find anyone and this night was pointless. I turned around to leave and was shocked at the sight before me. Rose was busy eating the face off of the guy that had embraced with Luke at lunch. She was short, so his lack of height was okay.
“Rose,” I squeaked. She pulled away from him to look at me. He continued to kiss her neck and she giggled as she pushed him away.
“Hi Renee,” she came up to me, smiling a little too widely. You have been caught girl. “What are you doing here?”
“Luke invited me.” Rose broke out into a fit of giggles.
“Luke…invited…you!”
“Yes,” I raised an eyebrow. What was so funny, was it that unbelievable? I guess not because she was making out with what seemed to be his best friend.
“Sorry,” her fit started to tame down a bit, “he just doesn’t come to these much.” Rose’s ‘boyfriend’ came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his head on her shoulder.
“Oh, uh, have you seen Scarlet or Lilly?”
“I left Lilly in the girls’ locker room, Scarlet is probably in the guys.”
“What?!” Did I just hear her right? Scarlet didn’t seem to be that low.
“Yeah, they play games in there.”
“Games?”
“Uh ha,” The boy nodded on Rose’s shoulder. “Beer pong and stuff. The main gym is for dancing, boys’ locker room is where the drinking games are, and the wrestling room is where all of the random stuff happens.”
“Random stuff?”
“This is Darren by the way.” Rose introduced us. Darren smiled and I nodded. At that moment Vanessa rounded the corner.
“Roomie!” She screamed as her hands flew into the air. “I’ve been looking all over for you.” She came up behind me and wrapped her arms around my neck. “Oh, hi Darren.”
“Hi Vanessa,” he sounded dazed.
“Rose.” Vanessa said coldly.
“Bitch.”
“Uh…” this was just a tad uncomfortable.
“Come on Renee, we don’t need that loser bringing us down. Join me in the wrestling room.” She let go of me and started to walk away. She didn’t get five steps before she turned to me and held out a hand, “Aren’t you coming?”
“Sure, see you later Rose, Darren.” Vanessa turned and started to go down the hall again. I chased after her.
“So, what are we going to do?”
“You will see when we get there.” Um, okay. We went down the hall and entered the wrestling room. There were two large blue mats with a circle in the middle of each. One circle had girls around it, the other had guys. The weight room that was behind the wrestling room had its door open. When we entered all of the chatter stopped, only the music from the other room could be heard. I checked out the circles. Luke, some blonde kid from my calc class named Mathew, and, dare I say it, Payne, were the only guys that I recognized. In the girls circle there was Lilly, Scarlet, a cute Asian girl named Jenna, and soon to be me and Vanessa.
“Vanessa,” I whispered as she led me to the girls’ circle. “What are we doing?” She threw back her head and laughed.
“Playing spin the bottle meets seven minutes in heaven. Duh, what did you think?” I gulped. This was no way to end a first day at a new school. We arrived at the circle and I took a spot in between Lilly and Scarlet. After I was seated the chatter that had once been recommenced.
“So, how are we going to do this?”
“You have never done this before?” Scarlet asked, I shook my head no. Lilly started to giggle.
“You are going to love it! Eep, I remember my first time.” She looked off into the distance.
“Yeah, you were with Bryant or something right?” And I thought I was going to get through a whole conversation without Scarlet saying that. Clearly I thought wrong. “Well, what happens is the ref, which would be Rachel,” she gestured to a rather short natural red head wearing a black and white striped shirt. “Will spin that,” the plastic Coke bottle sitting in the middle of the circle, “And it will point to someone. That person then gets a number. If it landed on me first, I would be one, if it landed on me second, I would be two.”
“And we play up to number thirty in each circle.”
“Yup, up to thirty or something. After all thirty numbers have been passed out for both circles, you line up based on your first number first. Then you go in there,” she pointed to the weight room, “There are ten different storage closets, and you and your lucky number matcher have to stay in there for seven minutes.”
“Wait, there are only twenty people in the circle, and thirty numbers?”
“Yup, you can get two numbers.”
“Vanessa once got seven!” Lilly squeaked. Vanessa must have heard us because she turned our way and smiled. I bet those were some happy guys.
“Okay! Quiet!” Rachel yelled. She had a voice that reminded me of the screaming mothers on reality TV, I was pretty lucky that I never had a mother to do that to me. The whole room fell silent, the only noise was the steady bass line from the music in the main gym. The whole floor seemed to be vibrating with it. “Now, let the games begin!” Everyone cheered as Rachel came over to our circle. She spun the bottle and it landed on a small freshman. Her mouth fell open in shock. Rachel went over and spun the first bottle for the guys too, it landed on a heavily muscled junior. The freshman girl immediately started to blush as the junior started to scream bloody murder. All of the guys around him were hooting and cheering. This was going to be a fun night. After the first person was chosen by the bottle, they would spin it, the next person chosen would then spin, and so on and so forth.
They were at eight now. Scarlet had just been picked and you could no longer tell what number the guys were on. She spun it and it flew crazily around the circle. All of us girls were laughing and having a grand time, until the bottle stopped. It was pointed at me. I was number eight. I gulped. Scarlet turned to me with a large grin slapped across her face.
“Ha!” She screamed, “You have to do it!”
“Or something like that?” Lilly questioned sarcastically from the other side of me. We broke out laughing as I reached for the bottle and spun it again, it landed on a senior. I was number eight. Hmm, I thought this game was interesting, but it had just stepped up a notch. The girl spun it and Vanessa was chosen. What was this, the third time in one game? That bottle was possessed.
Nearly an hour later we had finally reached the late twenties. I had still only gotten it once, Scarlet four times now, and Lilly zero. That lucky little girl.
“Spin number twenty-seven,” said the girl who had the bottle. She twisted her wrist and let it fly. The guys group had already reached thirty, so they were scattered out behind our circle, eagerly trying to get a peek at some of the action that they might be getting later. All except Payne of course, he had eyes only for me. I gulped and pulled my dress both down and up at the same time. I don’t know why but whenever that boy was looking at me it made me feel exposed. The game finished with the bottle spinning on me. Great…me. That made me number eight and number thirty.
“Okay, girls turn around, guys get in your room.” All of us girls turned to face the wall when the boys that had the first ten numbers disappeared into the rooms. This was so we wouldn’t know who was in the room with us. After the guys were in the room, they would put on a blindfold, then we would go to the door for our room, put on our own blindfolds, and enter. Rachel would be timing us and a buzzer would go off after seven minutes. This was such a childish game.
“Girls, go to your doors.”
“Here we go,” Scarlet said to me as we went to our doors. I was number eight, and she was seven. Vanessa came up behind me.
“Good luck roomy.” Man, I would need it. I looked over to the guys that weren’t in the rooms. I realized that Luke was gone, but so was Payne. Why would a guy like that even want to play one of these games? I felt sorry for whoever had him, and I prayed that it wasn’t me.
“Put on your blindfolds.” I took the bandana that Rachel had handed me earlier and tied it around my face. My heart was racing and I feared that it would pop out of my chest. What if the guy I was with heard it? We weren’t supposed to talk during this, which was the point of the ‘game’. You were not supposed to know who you kissed. That got me thinking, did Luke and Vanessa ever get together? Sick, if that were me I would hope that someone would stop me before I kissed my sibling. I wonder if there has ever been a girl in the guys circle…
“You may now enter.” I heard a bunch of girls giggling as the doors were opened. I grabbed the handle to my room and turned it. I could feel my hands clamming up which made it that much harder to do this. I slid into the room and closed the door behind me. How was this supposed to work when you had no clue where the other person was?
“Hello?” I whispered as I put my hands in front of me and attempted to feel my way around the small room. Silence. Yes, that was helpful. I huffed and blew a piece of hair that had fallen out of my bow. That was the down side to wearing ribbon instead of pony tails, your hair always fell out.
“Hello, anybody there?” I turned and ran into something. The door handle jabbed into my stomach and I fell to the ground. “Stupid door.”
“Still having issues with those?” I froze, I knew that voice.
“La-Luke?” He laughed a bit. I listened as he came across the room. He grabbed me by my waist and hoisted me up to my feet. His hands then found their way to my face and pulled off my bandana.
“Hey,” I was about to protest until he spun me around to face him. He was smiling softly, man, dimples. “Hi,” I said shyly as I pulled my eyes away from his.
“Hello.”
“So, are we supposed to…uh,” how do I put this? “You know…kiss?” Luke just laughed harder.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” But I do, I really really do. Of course, I couldn’t say that or he would probably think that I was some perverted love child.
“Okay,” I squeezed past him and went to the other side of the room. I pulled out a stool and sat on it, I gestured to a bucket and he sat on that. “We can talk then.” Yes, because talking was all I wanted to do at this moment.
“Uh, how do you like the school?”
“It’s good…it has ducks.” I looked up at him hopefully and he laughed. His hand came back and he rubbed his neck again. “Um…tell me a bit about yourself. I mean, I have talked to you how many times today and I still only know your first name.”
“Okay, well, my last name is Young. I am a senior, I have a pain in the butt little sister named Vanessa…I am the captain of the swim team.” I gulped. Water. “I uh, I like ducks. I don’t have a roommate…um. Your turn?”
“Okay…let me think. My name is Renee Andrews.” Lie, “I am an only child,” truth, “I love ducks,” he laughed at that, “I am not in any sports,” another lie. “I…have a roommate who just so happens to be your pain in the butt little sister. I am obsessed with eighties music, Whitesnake is my favorite band even though Nikki Sixx is my favorite bassist, and it is a tie between Randy Rhoads and Steve Vai.”
“No way.”
“What?”
“I listen to Motley Crue all of the time.”
“Really?”
“See, we have something in common.” We both laughed a bit.
“Hey!” Rachel banged on our door. “No talking.” We fell silent.
‘How much time do we have?’ I mouthed, he shrugged.
“Two minutes!” Rachel hollered at that moment. I almost laughed again, but managed to hold it in.
“Okay,” I got up and my foot hooked onto the leg of my stool. The stool fell forward and hit me in the back of the knee, I toppled forward and landed on Luke. My arms found his neck to keep me from falling even further, as he grabbed my waist. I looked up at him in shock. I tried to stand back up, but I couldn’t, I was too busy looking into his eyes. He had such pretty eyes. God Charlene, snap out of it. He leaned forward a bit, and I pulled myself up to him. My eyes found his lips, I got even closer.
“Times up!” Rachel shouted. I snapped out of my trance and got back to my feet. I straitened up my dress and Luke helped me tie my bandana back on. I left the room and removed my blindfold once I was out. I looked over to Scarlet, she looked dazed.
“Scarlet,” I whispered as we started to walk into the main wrestling room. “Are you okay?”
“I could hear you two the whole time.”
“Oh, we were that loud? Sorry, we were talking about ducks.” Scarlet giggled. “So, who was in your room?” She shrugged. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
“That’s the point of the game stupid, you aren’t supposed to know, that is what the blindfold is for.”
“Oh, right, sorry. You don’t even have a clue?”
“Well…”
“Group two, guys get into the rooms.”
“I’m in group two, and three…” Scarlet said. She was in group two twice, so she had to trade with a person in group three. Hopefully she traded the right one.
“Okay, good luck.” I encouraged as she turned to go to her room, she stuck her tongue out at me. I went over to the bleachers and sat down by myself. Luke was in a room, and so was Vanessa. Lilly came over to me.
“Hi girlie.”
“Hi Lilly.” She sat down next to me. “Lilly, have you ever played this before?”
“Yup,” she answered.
“Oh, isn’t this kind of, I don’t know, weird?”
“Or something?” I laughed. “Yeah, kind of awkward too. Supposedly Rachel’s oldest sister invented it. That has to say something about the family.”
“Lilly!”
“What?” I sighed and looked away. Payne was standing by himself on the opposite side of the gym. Luckily, his attention wasn’t directed on me this time. His eyes were closed and I assumed that he was thinking to himself.
“Creepy huh. Payne, Scarlet had to go in the same room as him once.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, scariest moment of my life. I was just glad that he hadn’t raped her.”
“Once again, Lilly! How can you say that?” She shrugged. I could see where she was coming from, but still that was a little much.
“He usually doesn’t come to these.” I must be lucky that he is here tonight, the one time that I am ever going to come. Rachel went around and emptied the rooms, it was now time for the last round.
“Good luck,” Lilly wished me as I started down the bleachers. Good luck at what? I grabbed a new bandana and went up to the last room. I tied it in the back and on Rachel’s cue I entered. I closed the door behind me and was greeted by silence. The funny thing was that this wasn’t the silence that I was used to. This was dead, no buzzing and no breathing, I thought another person was supposed to be in here, but I didn’t hear anything. Yup, no noise here. I guess that is the way that it was supposed to be, Luke and I kind of cheated the other time.
I decided to stay with my back to the door, I didn’t want to run into anything this time. A warm breath started to caress my face lightly. I reached forward and my hands found the silent boy’s waist. I moved my hands up in an attempt to find his shoulders. All the way up I could feel his ribs through his shirt, didn’t this boy know about food? I found his shoulders and gripped them lightly. Okay Charlene, you can do this, you are just supposed to kiss him, you will never know who he is so no big deal. Right? Wrong, I was freaking out, the room was silent now but I wouldn’t be surprised if the boy could hear my heart beating against my chest. The annoying thump was making my head pulse, I was so nervous.
The boy reached around me and placed his hands on my hips, I jumped a bit and let out a nervous laugh. He stayed silent. Here goes nothing. Based on where his shoulders were, he was only about two or three inches taller than me. I took one last unsteady breath before I slowly started to lean in. He must have noticed my movement because he met me halfway.
At first my lips were cold against his, slowly he started to move his mouth, and mine started to follow. I had never kissed anyone before, was I a bad kisser? I guess not because his hands, which were once on my hips, traced up to my waist and pulled me closer. Our lips were still moving in sync as our bodies started to press up against each other. My own hands left the stiff position on his shoulders and found his head. I buried my hands into his hair. It was soft, but I assumed it was spiked up due to the way that it poked through my fingers. Our kiss deepened as I pulled our faces closer, our bodies fitting together perfectly. I had no clue what a first kiss was supposed to be like, but this was better than I had ever imagined.
My bottom lip trailed down over his and I froze. There was something cold and hard under his lip. He continued to kiss me even in my still state. I felt the small ball rub against my lip again and it all clicked. I grabbed onto the boy’s chest and pushed him off while furiously trying to take off my blindfold. I was still struggling with my bandana when he crashed into the floor and knocked over a large amount of weights. I threw off my bandana. Busted.
I stood, frozen by shock and the memory of what I had just done, with him.
“Payne,” I squeaked. He was untying his blindfold. When he finished taking off his bandana, his eyes reflected the fear in mine. It was quickly replaced by the creepy blank stare that seemed to eat through my defenses. Why didn’t he stop me from kissing him, heck, why didn’t I stop me? Payne pulled his eyes away from mine and looked down at his arm, I did too. There was a large cut in the sleeve of his red shirt, deep crimson blood was already starting to soak through. I looked over to the weight rack that I had pushed him into; he must have cut himself on the open end of the bar that the weights were propped between. I fidgeted with the door handle behind me, my eyes still focused on Payne who was looking at his arm curiously. Crap, the door was locked. I turned around to face it and started to bang on the door with the palm of my hand.
“I want out!” I screamed. I could hear Payne rising to his feet behind me. I didn’t want to die, I started to pound on the door harder. “Open the door!” I screamed. He was probably headed towards me with the knife he had killed his mother with. I looked over my shoulder to see him approaching me, at that moment the door opened and I came sprawling out onto the floor. I pushed myself back to my feet and ran out of the closet and across the wrestling room. Fresh tears were starting to blur my vision. I wiped at them furiously. I had never been more embarrassed in my life. I heard someone call my name, but I ignored it. My name was not Renee, it was Charlene.
After my escape from the closet, I had ran all of the way back to my dorm, and didn’t look back. What next? I was now sitting in the corner between my bed and the wall, bawling my eyes out. How had I let that happen, how had I been so stupid? I pulled my knees into my chest and cried harder. My chest was still hitching with sobs, but tears were no longer coming. I needed a friend. I grabbed Pangaea off of my bed and hugged him tightly, burying my face into his brown fur, probably not the smartest idea, but I needed him now.
I cried for nearly an hour before my sobs subsided and were replaced by a severe case of the hiccups. I changed into a pair of slacks and a large shirt and tucked Pangaea under my arm. I went over to the mini fridge and grabbed a bottle of water. I opened it and slowly started to take sip after sip. Within the next five minutes, I passed out on my bed.
My room phone started ringing and I answered it.
“Young and Andrews room, Renee speaking.” I yawned and covered my mouth, I could be one great receptionist some day.
“Charlene?” My eyes flew awake.
“Jaxon?” He sounded tired, had he been crying too?
“Charlene, it-it’s Heather. They got Heather.”
“What do you mean ‘they got Heather’?” I moved into a sitting position and took another sip of my water. I was parched, self loathing could do that to a person.
“The anti government group.” I could hear Jaxon’s voice crack. “They must have came just before I arrived. She was killed and branded Charlene. Heather is, Heather she-” Jaxon broke off crying. I dropped my water and it spilled onto the floor. No, this couldn’t be happening.
“Oh my god Jaxon, I can be there in ten.”
“No,” he choked, “don’t, that is just what they want, they are probably still here even. I need you to stay exactly where you are, and don’t leave campus. Our apartment is only five miles away, they could be there already. I feel it is not safe for you there anymore.”
“What do I do?”
“I don’t know Charlene, I honestly don’t know. You will have to figure out something to drop off of the record for the school. If you can do that I would be greatly impressed.” I nodded, I knew what he meant. Renee had to go away for a while and I had to completely change. No more blue eyes and blond hair. “Charlene? You still there?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, just try and stay under the radar, for your father’s sake. For your own sake.” I nodded. “I have to go Charlene, I will try and reach you later on a secure line.” I nodded again as he hung up. I dropped the phone and went over to the mirror in my room. I grabbed my hair, about to tie it up with another ribbon, and stopped. In this lighting it almost looked short. I went back to my bed and grabbed my long furred teddy bear. I pulled my hair back again and placed him on top of my head. The terrorist group may be looking for Charlene, but they would never find her. They would be looking for a girl, and she was not going to be a girl. She would be a guy. I smiled to myself, no one would know, not even Jaxon and my father.
______________________________________________________________________________
Author's Note
Bring on the Payne! Eeep...I love his character so, if you haven't guessed, there is going to be a lot more of him popping around. Do any of you guys got a favorite character? Teddy bears count too. *hugs my own Pangaea*