Guardian Demon

One Question

"Hey, Felix."

I smiled a little at Kenzie in greeting, "Hey."

Her friends Gracie and Nick came over a second after her.

I looked at them, confused, "What's up?"

Gracie smiled sweetly at me, "Felix, we know you don't really have any friends other than..." she paused awkwardly, "anyway, we were wondering if you wanted to hang with us?"

I studied them for a minute. They didn't seem genuine at all. In fact, they seemed to want to say something else entirely.

"What did you really want to tell me?"

Nick rolled his eyes, "Told you he wouldn't buy it."

The girls glared at him but then smiled at me, "We were just concerned... earlier we saw you talk to King."

"Ok?"

"If you're trying to make friends, you really should try... somewhere else."

I shook my head, "It wasn't that, I just needed to tell him something."

"Well, still. It's best you don't talk to King... you know what he's like, Felix."

"Um, thanks for the concern. Can I get back to reading now, please?"

They nodded and said goodbye in overly sweet voices, except for Nick.

I sighed after they left.

Everyone was treating me like glass. Yeah, I knew I was unstable but being overly sweet with me was almost worse than flat out saying my best friend was dead. And I knew I shouldn't get involved with King. They didn't need to tell me that.

**

I knew I really shouldn't get involved with him... I knew that. Along with Kenzie and Gracie, many people approached me yesterday. Warning me to stay away from King. And I knew they were right. But I couldn't help but be drawn in by him... and I had so many questions for him.

How did he know where I was that night? Why did he save me? How did he know Mattie didn't want me to die? Okay, I mean that last one was a stupid question-- he was my best friend, of course, he wouldn't want me to die. But he said it as if Mattie told him that. I just had to ask him so many questions.

I didn't have any classes with him, and asking him those things in the hallway wouldn't be good. Because everyone would try to listen to what we were talking about. I did have the same lunch that he had though... I sat at a table with a group of Juniors that pitied me. I was sitting alone after Mattie passed. But then they asked if they could sit with me and they'd been doing that every day. King sat alone in the corner of the cafeteria. The tables beside his were always empty even if everywhere else was full-- no one would sit there. I was thinking about being dumb and breaking every 'rule' of the school and sitting with him.

**

I took a deep breath and walked over to his table. I felt a lot of eyes on me but I ignored them. I passed the empty table barrier around King and sat down in the seat across from him.

He looked up at me from his food but then continued eating. I mentally decided to follow suit and ask questions after.

While I was eating I kept thinking of all sorts of questions to ask him, what order I should have asked him, and how I should have asked him.

Although I never even got the chance to ask one question because once he finished eating he gruffly said, "You don't owe me anything, Felix."

And then he left.

I sighed and mumbled to myself, "He didn't give me a chance to say anything..."

**

I sat with him for the next three days and each day he didn't say anything to me while he ate. And then he left immediately after he finished his lunch. But I figured sitting there continuously would show him I wanted to talk to him and maybe he'd actually talk to me. Though, knowing King, my hopes weren't that high. I really wanted to be able to ask him questions but I knew the reality of the situation, that he rarely talked to people and he definitely wouldn't answer my questions if he didn't want to.

One day, though, I sat down and I got a surprise.

"Do you think Mattie would want you talking to me?"

I thought for a moment, "He never tried to control who I talked to, just made sure I knew what I was doing beforehand."

He looked at me, "And do you know what you're doing?"

I nodded, "I wanted to ask you some things."

He looked at me for a few seconds before going back to his food, "You can ask me one question."

"B-but I have more than one."

"One per day," he said before taking a drink from his Pepsi.

"Okay..."

What question should I ask first?

"How did you know where I was that night?"

"I followed you."

I furrowed my eyebrows, "Why did you follow me?"

"You already asked your question for the day."

I sighed, "How is this fair? When I ask questions I'll probably think of more so this will take forever."

He stood up and shrugged, "Not my problem."

Then he was gone.

Damn it.

**

I sat in my room, music playing quietly in the background, and tried to think of a way to get King to answer more of my questions. 

I doubted I could play to his emotions because it seemed the only emotion he had or ever showed was when he saved me. And I wasn't going to try to trick him into answering my questions by faking a suicide attempt. He probably would have pushed me off of the edge himself if I did that.

I was too scared to try to annoy the answers out of him because of his reputation. Whenever he got into arguments with other students in the past, the other person ended up with an injury. Also, I had seen him angry a few times before, not at me but I was around when he got mad, and his eyes seemed to turn red the angrier he got. I did not want to be at the end of that anger. 

I sighed and laid down on my bed. It was going to take a long time to be able to get all of my questions answered...