by Wilde, Ora
“It’s too short,” he remarked as his eyes narrowed, carefully scrutinizing the number of inches above my knees to where the skirt ended.
“It’s not like I’m wearing a thong underneath,” I told him.
“So, what are you wearing underneath?” he asked, curiously and incredulously.
“Nothing,” I kidded him.
“What?!” he screamed. His eyes widened like they were going to pop.
“I’m just joking, Dad,” I said. “I’m wearing tights. You know... like shorts, only... tighter.”
He heaved a sigh of relief.
“I never understood the need for cheerleaders,” he shared. “Cheering for the team... isn’t that the audience’s function?”
I kept quiet. I agreed with him. I always believed that cheerleading was such a superfluous concept. But in the hierarchy of High School life, being a cheerleader wasn’t just service for the alma mater. It was a social symbol, a mark, a status of belonging.
I questioned that, too. But Finn talked me into it. Just try it, he said, you might grow to love it. Besides, it’ll be a chance to spend more time together.
He was right. Most of his free time were usually spent for basketball practice. By joining the cheerleading squad, I had a reason to be with him as our practice almost always coincided with theirs, in the same gymnasium at that.
Dad and I sat on our respective seats. Aunt Susan came out of the kitchen carrying a pot of the dish she has prepared.
“Yey! Beef stew!” I animatedly exclaimed.
“Pot roast, actually,” she corrected me.
“Doesn’t matter. Both are delish!” I replied.
Instinctively, I snatched the serving spoon and I was about to dip it into the pot when my father interrupted me yet again.
“Andrea... you know what we should do first,” he menacingly reminded me.
As soon as Aunt Susan sat on her chair, we started to say grace. Dad led the prayer. He thanked the Lord for all the blessings we have received and for the sumptuous meal that was laid on the table for us to enjoy. Usually, his prayers stop there. But at that moment, he added a few more lines.
“And Lord, please guide my daughter Andrea at this crucial time in her life,” he recited, “when temptations are many and the will is not yet strong. Please, let her remember that the choices she will make at this point of her existence will define her future. Please guide her in making the right decisions.”
“Amen,” I uttered prematurely.
He gave me a dagger look.
“And please help her through this stage of rebellion...”
What?! Me? In a stage of rebellion? If I was such a rebel, then why do I always feel super guilty whenever I accidentally flush my sanitary napkins down the toilet?
“Please give her the patience she so desperately needs to overcome the trials and tribulations that will come her way. These we ask, in Your Name, Amen.”
“Amen!” I repeated, with a hint of jubilation in my voice, happy that I could already eat my dinner.
As I was munching on Aunt Sarah’s superbly delicious pot roast, she took that opportunity to ask about Nash.
“Have you seen your stepbrother lately?” There was concern in her tone.
I wanted to tell her the truth, that Nash was at my school a few hours ago. But that would beget another question: what was he doing there? To which, if I were to be honest, I’d answer: well, he’s spying on the cheerleaders with their short skirts and shapely legs. That wouldn’t help anyone.
“No, I haven’t seen him today,” I lied.
“I’m getting a little worried about him,” she continued. “I haven’t seen him since last week, and that was just for a few minutes. He just went up to his room and hurriedly left. He didn’t even stop to say hi to me.”
Nash has been quite busy - though I don’t think that’s the appropriate word for it - as of late. Sure, he didn’t join us for dinner, but at least, he was home most of the time... either holed up in his room playing his video games with the volume turned to max, or smoking - stick after stick after stick - in the garden while he’s lost in this thoughts. The past two weeks, however, he was rarely at home.
Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him at home... at all.
The only times I saw him were during the past three days, up there in the stands, watching us practice our cheerleading routines.
The past three days.
Was it a coincidence that he started stalking the girls the moment I began practicing with them?
“Have you tried reaching his number?” I suggested by way of a question.
“Yes,” Aunt Susan answered. “But he doesn’t reply to my texts. And when I try to call him, it’s either he doesn’t pick up or his phone’s off.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about him, Hon,” my dad tried to reassure her. “He’s practically a grown-up, and an able-bodied man at that. He can handle his business.”
Able-bodied, indeed.
I felt a tinge of shame for that simple thought.
“Yes, that’s true,” Aunt Susan agreed. “But I’m more concerned about the things he has been up to. What if he’s preoccupied with something dangerous? What if he has befriended some bad company?”
“Trust,” my father said. “You will just have to trust him to make the right decisions.”
Uhm... shouldn’t I be deserving of the same kind of trust too? I mean, Nash was the one who has been acting suspiciously, yet I was the one who had to be the subject of his prayers.
“I guess you’re right,” she told him. “Let’s just... let’s just hope for the best for him.”
“We will,” he confirmed.
I was so full after finishing my dinner, but somehow, I felt even more tired than when I arrived from school. I excused myself from the table and proceeded to my room upstairs.
My cheerleading uniform was still damp with sweat. It has been a physically taxing day, and I dreaded having to go through the same come tomorrow.
I removed my uniform and threw it on the floor. I reminded myself to wash it later. It was my only set as the school’s tailor hasn’t finished the rest.
Garbed in only my bra and my tights, I approached the full body mirror at the side of my bed. I looked at myself and tried to admire my form... my petite frame, my average-sized breasts, my flat tummy, the smoothness of my skin however pale it might be, my long, light brown hair which would look good in a pony tail when I perform our routines...
I was, by no means, perfect. Physically, I had a lot of flaws... a birthmark just below my left hip, the mark of a scar below my knee which served as a constant reminder of a bicycle accident I had when I was ten, my legs which - though slender - weren’t exactly attractively curvaceous...
But Finn never complained about them.
One time, when I shared my insecurities to him, he just told me that I was nitpicking.
You’re perfect the way you are, he said with sincerity and conviction... and I believed him.
How could I not?
I loved him so much that I dared not doubt him.
I removed my undergarments, slipped on my nightgown and prepared the bed for my rest. I lied down, closed my eyes and started thinking of happy thoughts. I tried to sleep so that I could recharge my weary body.
I tried.
I twisted and turned and curled for what seemed like hours. But slumber eluded me.
Then I remembered an old belief that my mom once told me when I was little: if you can’t sleep, it could only mean that someone was thinking of you.
Of course, I’m too old to actually believe that now. But it gave me some comfort when I imagined it to be true.
Who could be thinking of me at that moment, I wondered?
Finn.
It could only be Finn.
I grabbed my phone and speed dialed his number.
3
Stranger In The Night
I was expecting his sweet voice, raspy and sleepy, to greet me.
But his phone kept ringing and ringing until an automated response told me that his number was currently unattended. I tried again, only to be met with the same response.
He was asleep... deeply it seemed. I have tried to call him in an ungodly hour a couple of times before, and he picked it up. He was too groggy to come up with a coherent reply, but he still answered his phone. That gave me the confidence to call him that night, even if it was in the wee hours of the morning, but his mobile just kept ringing.
I can’t blame him though. How could I? He was supposed to be resting. He had a tiring day as well. I was the one who wanted a favor - to hear a voice so familiar to my heart.
Yet, it was still disappointing, but I could live with it.
I lied down in bed once more and tried, again, to get some sleep. It escaped me at first, but eventually, I dozed off... and I started to dream...
About getting my UCLA acceptance letter, one which I have been waiting for the past three weeks or so...
About going to the same college as Finn and doing everything together...
About preparing for a life we will share...
About our love which would only grow with time....
About making love to him, his sturdily built body pressed against mine... rubbing... caressing each other... locked in a tight embrace... impassioned kisses that expressed how much we meant to each other... his manhood... my dampness... the consummation of our desires...
Then I heard a creak and I woke up, bringing my unconscious reverie to an abrupt end.
It was the main door downstairs. Someone opened it, quite carefully judging from how soft and slow the grating sound was. A small thud followed, then footsteps going up the stairs.
I gulped as I started to panic. Was it a burglar? Has someone intruded our house while everyone was asleep?
I should wake up my folks.
I got up from bed and tiptoed towards my door. Before I could open it, I heard a soft knock.
The intruder was already outside my room!
I wanted to scream, to alert my folks in the other room so that they’d know what was happening and we would have a better chance at thwarting whatever nefarious plan the trespasser had. Strength in numbers. And my dad had a baseball bat right beside his bed.
But something was stopping me from crying for help.
What if it wasn’t an intruder.
What if he finally decided to come home?
A soft whisper from the other side of the door confirmed my thoughts.
“Andrea,” the voice muttered agonizingly, as if he was in so much pain.
“Nash?” I asked, though I already recognized his voice.
“I need your help,” he continued, pleading.
Nashville Walters? Begging for help? He never ever asked for any kind of aid before. Not from me, nor from our parents.
He must be in serious trouble.
I hurriedly unlocked and opened the door, and there he was, barely able to stand, his left arm rested on the wall for support, his right hand clutching his ribs. He was still wearing the navy blue hoodie from yesterday afternoon. But there was something different about it. The color was dingy, as expected, but somehow... it was much so much darker.
And it was wet.
Then I turned to look at him and a lump formed in my throat. There were so many bruises on his face. There was a large gash forming a vertical line just below his left eye. His lips were swollen and bloody. A slight tear can be seen on his left ear as well.
“Oh my God, Nash,” I almost screamed, “what happened to you?”
“Please... don’t yell,” he requested, still struggling to stay standing. “Can I come in?”
He has never been in my room. Never. He knew how much I valued my privacy. But at that moment, my quirk didn’t even enter my mind. I grabbed his arm and placed it around my shoulder. I led him towards my bed, where he sat... his body almost collapsing into a ball over his knees.
“Did you get into a fight?” I asked, as I opened my drawers to get some towels.
He didn’t answer. He just curled up and winced in pain, gripping his ribs.
His ribs.
That was the wettest area of his sweater.
I dropped the towels beside him and started to pull up his top. He tried to ward off my hands, but I was insistent and he was too weak to stop me. Horror struck me as soon as his shirt was raised to his chest. He was bleeding profusely. A laceration, seemingly deep, polluted the area just above the left side of his waist. Blood was dripping effusively to the rim of his loose jeans.
It looked like a stab wound.
“Nash... what have you gotten yourself into?” I questioned in shock as I covered up the tear with a towel, blood quickly formed a pool of red on the white linen.
“Nothing... just a little squabble, s’all,” he answered while flinching.
“This wound... it’s very deep,” I said anxiously. “Oh my God, Nash. We have to wake them up. We have to bring you to the hospital...”
“No, no,” he stopped me. “Don’t. Just... don’t.”
“Why?” I asked him, as I cleaned the edges of his wound with the tip of a new towel dipped in alcohol.
“You don’t have to bother them with this,” he answered. “This is nothing...”
“Nothing?! Nash, you’re bleeding! Heavily!”
“I’ve been through worse.”
“Really? What could be worse than this?”
“You know, sticks and stones... painful words... etcetera...” he said with a chuckle, only to grimace once more when laughing proved to be painful.
Once the fringes of the laceration were cleaned, I realized that the wound wasn’t as deep as I feared it to be. It was deep, but it was more of a cut rather than a puncture. The rest of his body, though, was filled with patches of black and blue and violet... contusions that may have been caused by punches or kicks or blunt objects, or all of those things combined.
I removed his sweater completely, his naked torso exposed to my care. I wiped the blood that have splattered all over his body. Then I proceeded to his face. Mud was all over his profile, making him appear worse than how he really was. I cleaned it up, and though the lesions remained, he looked a little less harrowing.
“Okay, I won’t tell them about this,” I started to say, “but you will have to tell me what happened. I need to know, Nash. You’re killing me with worry here.”
He tried not to respond, but I was persistent.
“It was just a small rumpus,” he said.
“A small rumpus?” I repeated in disbelief. “You look like you came out of a prison riot.”
“Some of my friends got into a fight,” he explained. “I had to help them out.”
He has friends?
“It must’ve been one hell of a fight,” I reacted.
Then he held my hand and caressed my fingers.
His touch was warm.
Was it because of the adrenaline in his blood? Was his circulation running fast, causing his skin to heat up? Was it the cold dry weather outside, and his body had to adjust correspondingly?
Or was it because it was the first time he touched me... ever... and I was never familiar with the feel of his hand?
Regardless, his touch was strangely tepid... it was both reassuring and terrifying... affectionate and apprehensive... a promise of peculiar sensations and of something bewitchingly dangerous... an invitation to something dark and mystifying and enchanting...
“How have you been?” he asked. There was a different kind of gentleness in his voice... serene... content... vulnerable...
It took me a few seconds to process his question. Why was he asking me how I was doing when he was the one who has been through hell?
“Everything’s okay,” I replied.
I withdrew my hand from his touch... only to realize afterwards how reluctant I was to do so.
But why was I so disinclined to pull out from his grasp?
He bowed his hea
d once more, wincing still, the pain has yet to fully subside. It won’t disappear anytime soon, judging from how badly damaged his body and his face were. It will take a few days before he can fully recover.