Slowtown

15

Thoughts of the graveyard distract my mind while my legs keep walking. Blank rocks stuck in the ground. Does that mean no one is buried under there? Dig six feet down and you'd find a body of just rocks and worms?

My mind tends to wander into weird allies, but for my self respect, I hope this doesn't lead to me defiling a grave, even if it's empty.

Nearing the end of this block, and he's slowing down.

"Would you like to meet my friend?" he asks loudly, as if I hadn't guessed that's where we're going. Hey, context clues, isn't that what they called it in school?

"Okay." Nothing else to do. Knowing a few people with the potential and tendencies to show up and bug me just might convince me to not become a total recluse. Or... on second thought, maybe not, because that description fits my parents and siblings awfully well. Yeah, they didn't help much.

So we show up to a house like all the others. Josh freely steps onto the middle of the lawn and looks up, leaning to the side a little; I think he's looking for something.

"Jenna!" he shouts. And we wait. Just for a moment.

Silhouetted hands pull open the upstairs window and retreat, but no voice calls out.

"Okay, we can go in," he quickly goes around the house, and I meander behind him. He waves me forward and clutches the handle to the back door, but even when he jiggles it, it's locked.

I'll state the obvious: "Why don't we use the front door?"

He lets go of the handle and raps on the door while talking, which annoys the hell out of me. God, I'm petty. "The front door doesn't work. It's the weirdest thing, Ty." Now hold on just a damn second when did I ever give you permission to call me- "We've tried picking, shoving, breaking– nothing works, the knob doesn't even shake. And it's been like that since she first showed up. I remember seeing her run up in the middle of the night, wild-eyed and barreling into that door, cursing that door."

Well that's quite a picture, and I'm sure he's about to say more, but this door swings open finally.

I can barely hear Josh say "hey," and I've stopped breathing. My eyes stay on her while I shuffle by, Josh needing to take my hand and help me in. But just as soon, he abandons me to stand in the middle of the floor, while they walk a distance to the kitchen table ahead of me. I don't move. I feel overly awkward, but I kinda don't mind because this house is warm.

I see Josh whip out two small, flat packages and slide them over to her. "Here's your fix, you junkie." It's just the gum he pocketed from the store.

"At least I don't stuff my mouth with actual drugs like someone I know," she sneers. Her eyes shift towards me, staring me up and down while dragging the gum off the edge of the table.

Josh is so salty I can taste it, but as he steps forward, it dissolves. "Tyler, this is Jenna."

"Hello," she says, the bitterness wiped off her face and replaced with a nice smile.

"Hello," I squeak. My eyes flit to Josh for a second, silently asking if I look intimidated, because I truly suck at reading my own emotions. But he doesn't spare me that second, favoring to plop himself down on a nearby couch as comfortably as if he's in his own home. "It's story time," he announces, smiling grandly. I find it doesn't take long at all to get used to that smile.

She lifts her chin, "Now wait a minute, let's acquaint ourselves with..." she looks and points at me expectantly.

"Tyler."

" -Tyler before we fill his head with our terrible histories," she finishes enthusiastically enough that I believe she's looking forward to messing up my head.

She moves to sit in the middle of the floor and pulls on Josh's leg, getting him to slither down, and I sit too. I feel freakishly out of place around these people I don't know. She laces her hands together in her lap and begins by saying, "I hope you're not scared."