Helium

chapter two: he was not pedophilic

After arguing with my mother over the fact that I had been unaware that our party entertainer may be male, I ate my dinner that consisted of Special K 'chocolatey' cereal and a can of off-brand Coke, and then brushed my teeth and went straight to bed. I was used to staying up until the early hours of the morning due to the fact that it was summer and I rarely did anything, but since I had to wake up relatively early the day before and had gotten about 6 hours of sleep at most, I was still pretty exhausted. The last time I had checked the clock before falling asleep, it had read 9:03 p.m., which wasn't too early for most people, but was pretty odd for me.

When I woke up the next morning, I sadly didn't wake up looking like I was a beautiful girl out of some movie, having gotten my 'beauty rest'. No, I woke up with my hair tangled in the millions of knots that were not being exaggerated, and the eyeliner that I had forgotten to take off smeared all over my face. When I looked in the mirror, I almost startled myself, which answered why Quinn had given me a horrified look that morning.

I scrubbed my face with soap and a washcloth until I was almost certain that I had taken off a layer of skin (hopefully the layer with the makeup caked into it). After that I made the futile attempt to yank my brush through the mass of knots that I was calling a head and was only satisfied when I'd pulled out at least a hundred strands. That one was an exaggeration, I actually managed to get the knots out after a few minutes. But, blonde strands fell over the counter nonetheless. My mom was sure that I was shedding, or something. She actually asked if I was doing drugs at one point, because some can apparently make you lose your hair, but I am 100% positive that I haven't been doing drugs.

I reapplied my makeup, which consisted of just eyeliner and mascara, and then brushed my teeth once more.

I, Ivy Harper, am not the prettiest girl. I don't have long, flowing blonde hair and a thin body. But, I am certainly not horrendously ugly. My hair, which was naturally a whitish colour, had faded to a blonde and dyed over in places with blue and green dyes, and had been cut just above my shoulders. My eyes had a way of changing from greyish to blue in different light, and I wasn't the thinnest of people, not overweight though, but I liked myself, and plenty of other people liked me, too.

In the mornings, though, it was as if a troll had crawled out from under their bridge and possessed my body, giving me its attributes as well. I looked decent after fixing myself up, but had to straighten my hair even though I was just going to put it up in order to appear human.

When I walked out of the bathroom, Quinn greeted me in the hallway. Surprised, I stopped and looked down at her. Not that I was much taller than she.

"Is the guy going to be in his bear suit?" She asked curiously.

I shrugged. "Let's hope so. That'd be pretty cool."

She smiled and bounced off, leaving me with the always burning question of 'how in the hell is that girl so cheerful all of the time?' And I always come to the conclusion that it's because she's seven years old.

It was already 11:27, which meant that I'd slept longer than I'd meant to and also that I needed to let Turtle, my dog, outside.

"Turtle!" I called as I walked down the hallway to our back door, and pushed it open as my border collie came barreling down the hallway. He ran straight outside and into our oversized yard. I sat on the small ledge that was the bottom part of the doorframe and watched him as he sniffed around in the grass, before turning my attention to a bird that sat in the middle of everything. Before I knew it, Turtle was trampling over me in an effort to get back inside, startling me and making me shout.

Mom peered over the corner just as Turtle raced by, raising an eyebrow at me. "You okay out there?" She called.

"Yeah," I mumbled, "my dog's a freak is all."

"That's very true," she answered, and disappeared into what I'm assuming was her bedroom. I stood up, shut the door, and walked back to my bedroom, passing by Turtle scarfing down a bowl full of dry dog food.

"You're going to choke," I warned him, as if he could comprehend what I was saying. I shut my bedroom door behind me and scoured my room for clothes. I ended up coming out wearing a pair of black no-show socks, ripped up black skinny jeans that were a size too big on me, and a tie-dyed 'Walk the Moon' t-shirt.

I stopped walking in the middle of the hallway and sighed. Today was bound to be boring, just as every other day had been this summer. That kind of sucked to think about, but I shook my head and continued walking straight into the living room, picking an Xbox controller up off the coffee table and sitting criss-cross in front of the television.

Apparently I had been playing Dead Island Riptide for literally two hours without knowing, because in the middle of me shrieking out of fear from a zombie that pounced on me out of the blue, the doorbell rang. Quinn raced (probably the fastest I'd ever seen) out of her room to the front door, throwing it open to reveal a very tall, pink bear.

I was too busy slaughtering the dead to notice it at first, but caught myself by pausing the game before screaming once more. Mom came out of her room and looked at the pink bear in the doorway with a smile. I sat there for a moment, one of those '?????' looks on my face. The bear reached up and pulled its head off, and as scary as that sentence sounds, I was not horrified in the least.

There, in my doorway, stood a very angelical being with probably one of the most attractive faces I'd seen in a long time.

"Hi, Ms Harper, right?" With a light, British accent, he offered mom an award-winning smile and held out his hand. She smiled right back and shook his hand, stepping aside and motioning him in.

He stepped inside, looking up and down and all around, literally avoiding looking at me. I, being the cool kid that I was, also pretended as though he didn't exist, walking to the kitchen behind them to grab myself a bottle of water.

"This is a lovely home," he said kindly.

"Why thank you Mr..?" Mom asked.

"Just call me Dominic, ma'am."

"Well, Dominic, how old are you? This is just stuff that I'd like to know prior to my daughter's party."

"I just turned 19 a couple of months ago."

"How long have you been in this kind of business?"

"Two years." Dominic practically beamed at the mention. Getting an entire look of him, it was very strange to be seeing this guy with gifted attributes standing in an entire costume of pink fluff.

"Well, that's not bad. Can I get you anything to drink? Water, or tea?"

"Can I have some water actually, please?"

"Yes, absolutely! Ivy," mom called to me, and I froze.

"Yeah?" I answered.

"Can you get Dominic a bottle of water, please?"

I put down my own bottle and, without answering, opened the fridge to grab another. I walked around the corner to them and handed him the cold bottle, watching him smile as he received it.

"Hello, love," he said as he held out his empty hand to me. I took it, but rather than shake my hand like I assumed he would do, he kissed the back of it and lightly set it down.

I made my best effort to pretend that that didn't happen, settling for just smiling slightly in return, before going back off to the couch in the living room to let them finish talking. I turned the game back on and picked up my controller, going back to slaying once again.

"Ivy, don't be rude, turn that off!" Mom called, and just before I was about to press pause once more, embarrassed, Dominic added, "no, that's quite alright. It looks like Riptide, trust me I'd tune out other people in order to play that game."

"Yeah, it's pretty great," I called back. "I can't get past this damn part, though."

"If you want, I'll help you when me and your mum are done. If that's alright with her, of course."

I looked back to see him looking at Mom in question, and she just shrugged, "sure, I don't mind."