Rujita calls me that night. I put on my lying voice and tell her I was at the doctors that morning. She is the innocent sweet type so she buys it. She is Indian, the country, so she has the most beautiful brown skin I've ever seen with straight black hair that tumbles around her like a curtain of precious darkness. She's not in my grade though, she's a junior, so the only classes we have together are art and psychology, the electives, 4nd and 6th period. Charity is in Art with us as well as my two other best friends, Valentyna and Sirri. Charity is in 3 of my other classes, Valentyna's in one of my other classes, and Sirri's in one other as well.
We talk for a while about trivial stuff, nothing related to sickness, pain, or Aiden, even though I wish we could. While I don't want to hide him away, I still don't believe he's real, so I don't want to gush about him just yet. Besides, there's nothing I can say about him just yet that doesn't seem part of a personal secret, one I hold and one that Aiden and I share.
I only get off the phone when my door (well, at the moment one of the two guest rooms, but mine in a week) swings open, to reveal Sirri. He stands there with his, as of today, purple hair blown upwards in the front and just plain messy in the back. He's busy texting even though he's just burst through my door. The he shoves the Sidekick into his pocket. All of my friends had Sidekicks; we had bought them to match, each one a different color. Mine is metallic blue, Sirri's some exotic pinky-purple color, Charity's chrome, Valyntina's lime green, and Rujita's a bloody maroon she likes to call Sangria.
He smiles and walks over and hugs me. "Why the sad face?" he asks and pinches my cheek.
"Ahh. I'm a little sick. That's all," I say, demeaning my condition.
He crosses his fingers and backs up a little. "Hey. If you're sick then stay away. I can't get sick. I'm going to Portland this weekend with Nathan." Nathan's his boyfriend.
"Okay. Four feet," I say and hold my hands up in surrender. He laughs and then grabs my laptop, opens up the webcam, and starts taking pictures of himself.
Sirri leaves around seven when my aunt, Alanna, comes home. She's tall, five foot eight, with waist length, curly blonde hair, has deep blue eyes, and skin so white you'd think she never left the house, but whenever a good weathered Saturday comes around she's sunning herself on the lakeside. She works in a law office; apparently she's a lawyer. She has no children and hasn't had a serious boyfriend since her husband died. My father's much younger sister, she's 29, and has more money than God. Not really, but her husband had been in his fifties and owned an oil company. She sold it about three years after he died.
"Deidre," she says and holds me. I don't cry. I'm kinda warm inside right now.
At last she asks me if I ate and I lie and say that me and Sirri had pizza. So then she leaves me alone. I fall asleep around 8:30 after trying to do the homework I got from the few classes I went to but I wake up at 11:47.
I find myself sitting on the edge of the dock about ten minutes later in red plaid flannel lounge pants, a brown longsleeve shirt, and slippers, holding binoculars. There, by the light of the nearly full moon, I push all of my sadness back and put the binoculars to my eyes and search the far shore for Aiden's house. The dock he said is his is slightly illuminated by the lights coming from the house behind the trees. Someone's sitting there. I look harder and try to tell who it is, but the lightings wrong.
"U on the dock?" I text.
"Yes." He texts back.
"I can see u." I actually smile as I send it.
"As I can see u. I told u it wasnt far."
"Its more shockin 1st hand."
"Lol. You seem talkativ."
