Crooked Smile (WINNER of the MJFA'S 2017)

Chapter 15 - Among the Stars, Part 1

Marilyn knew it wasn't her heart. She knew it was just the feeling of her blood dropping in her body, and that what she has experiencing was mild shock. But shock isn't something you imagine. It's something real, and so knowing what's happening doesn't do much to help it. Marilyn felt lightheaded and something that could be best described as a faint sickness. As if some strange hand had reached right into her body and had taken a good grip of some of her vital organs, and now she was standing very still in fear the hand might decide to rip them out.

"The man that we saw Josie... with... last week..." Michael wet his lips. "I'm not like him!"

It was a firm statement. As if he were putting his foot down on the matter. His face was serious, and he was looking straight at Marilyn.

She found herself shaking her head desperately. "Of course not! I know that!" Was he worried that she would expect him to do with her what the waiter had done with Josie? "I know that! We are just friends."
"Yes," he said, "we are friends."
She nodded, and his expression softened, but there was still a tightness in his jaw.
He wet his lips again.
"Do you trust me?" His voice was soft - there was worry in it and maybe even a bit of hope.

Trust wasn't Marilyn's strongest suit. Every teenager had trust issues, but she had the feeling her problems with trust were on an entirely different level. She had promised herself that she wouldn't trust anybody ever again. Because she had had too many bad experiences. But surely that was what every teenager promised themselves somewhere along the line. And she wanted to trust Michael. She wished so much that she could trust him...
"Yes, of course! Of course I trust you." She wasn't sure it was entirely true, but she said it still.
"You do?"
She nodded again.
"Because I wanted to show you something. Some place. It's nothing spectacular; it's just a place I like to go. I'd like to go there with you. But we can't walk; it's too far. I'd like to take you," he indicated the pick-up with his head. "Not now. Maybe tomorrow." He looked down at the keys between his long fingers, and his voice became lower. "But it's a lonely place. Most places I go are lonely. So maybe it's inappropriate to take a girl there. And I'm sure your parents wouldn't approve - You know? - just us going alone. But I'm not like that! I'm not like that..."
"Parents don't always approve." Marilyn was sure her parents wouldn't approve of her arrangement with Michael as it was. What with her being up half of the night on school days. Not to mention her being out with him alone after dark.
"Yeah... So... tomorrow?"
"I'd love to," Marilyn nodded some more. "I'm curious."
"It's nothing spectacular," he said again. "Maybe you won't like it."
But Marilyn was determined to like it. Because Michael liked it. Whatever it was.

From the opposite side of the street, she watched him start the engine. When he turned to check that the street behind him was clear, he saw her standing there and smiled. She smiled back. He made a fist and with a grin held his smiling smiley ring against the window, then, with a wave, he pulled out into the street and drove off. Marilyn watched the car leave, then turned towards her house. Between her fingers in her pocket, wrapped in her handkerchief, she could feel her share of what had remained of Michael's purchase of fizzballs. And one of them, she knew, was raspberry-flavoured. She remembered his breath smelling of it.
Tomorrow.

But before she would see Michael again, there was school. Her ankle hadn't developed into a problem, and so she had to go. Her mother expected her to be excited and happy about it, and Marilyn was both, though neither had anything to do with school.

"What in Heaven's name happened to your book?" Ms. Richards' voice gained a handful of unpleasantly sharp overtones at once. Marilyn had wanted to answer the question quietly, but wasn't given a chance. The teacher had snatched the book from Marilyn's desk and started to parade it through the classroom. Marilyn put her pen down. It wasn't like she hadn't seen this one coming.