by M.L. Wiekel
Everyone knows, that any number ending with twelve, whether in the lower section of the building or upper sections, boy's or girl's dorm building, if your number ends with twelve it means you’re stuck with a huge window that faces the eerie woods.
Jesus, why am so freaked out about the woods, they've done nothing to to me but offer a good night of listening to music and getting drunk on some O'doul's? I blame the rumors. Yep, must be the rumors.
There's this folk tale, going back to when the school first opened up again in the 1950's. Apparently, if you belong to any of the twelve bedrooms that end in the number twelve, that some dreary creature of the woods, pays you a visit in the middle of the night.
I know, stupid. But I tip the scale when it comes to being paranoid. Let's just say, I'm probably going to be staring out that windows, like 24/7.
And, there goes my comfortable night’s sleep. I though.
At that very moments, a sensation on the back my neck, starts to slowly make its way down my spine, to the small of my back and then up again. I tried shaking it off but my paranoia has a best friend and it name is, curious. I turned around and gave a quick parameter check. Nothing.
Relieved, I turn back, getting ready to face my stretch of bad luck, when I notice something move from the corner of my eye, I turning so fast, it took my line of sight a good second to catch up, but when it did...OMG
Standing between two massively obese tree trunks, that reached the length of the girl's building, on the edge of the woods, I noticed a tall boy around my age facing my direction. The first thing I noticed were his eyes. They were so intense, I could see the mixture of soft kiwi green embedded between the penetrating forces of his blue sapphire eyes. Pretty impressive, since he was standing a good fifty feet away. His dark raven hair, faded in with the darkness of the woods behind him.
I swallowed back the sense of awe I was feeling. He was gorgeous. Almost unrealistically beautiful, fairly light skin, masculine lips with a hit of a silky pink layer. His body was covered in a vintage grey shirt, black casual jacket, and dark wash denim, but I could still see the outlines of a perfectly detailed, sculpted body.
My eyes drifted back to his lips, and I couldn't have sworn I saw the corners ever so slightly rise.
Unconsciously, I bit the corner of my button lip, and wonder how they would feel like, and how they would taste. Would they be sweet, bitter, tangy, or just heavenly...
I snapped to attention, and noticed he was staring back at me, so I lowered my eyes, pretended to be reading something off the paper in my hand, I graveled to the gods above that my cheeks weren't noticeably red. When I looked back, he wasn’t there.
My eyes scavenge the outer length of the woods, desperate to catch another glimpse of his paralyzing eyes, or tasty lips. Nothing.
I finally made into the building and as I climbed up the stairs to the second floor, I wondered if I hadn't conjured him up somehow. One thing's for sure, real or not, he was intense.
Chapter Three
I still had a whole week before classes started, and no one actually got here until they've exhausted every possible day away from Crescent View. Some might even show up late, like a week after the chiming bells and welcoming orientations.
It wasn't like Crescent View was this dungeon of torture, it was rather nice if you ask me. It had this Victorian era look to it, with thick wooden doors, long and tall hallways, and gold-leaf trimmings on every door knob, 3D windows forming a semi-circle that pops out of every corner of building, and birthday hat rooftops that made it look like a castle. Actually, I think that was the whole architectural merits behind it.
What I like the most were the carvings on every archway in the buildings. They’re rich with details of wars I've never heard about. Soldiers manning horses, holding bows and arrows, and spikes and fire balls in their hands. In every one of those battles there is an exact replica of Crescent View shadowing or fading into the back.
Some, and the ones I like the most, had fire shooting out of people’s hands and horse-tripping winds blowing out of their mouths. Mr. Winshawl the school's Dean, told us once, that the battled were actually real battles fought in the seventeen hundredth, but I seriously doubt people fought wars with laser beam shooting out of their eyes, please, XMen didn't even exist back then. (Nor do they now!)
I stored away all the clothes in my suitcase, and went as far as swapping my cherry oak dresser with my full size bed just so I could fall asleep, looking at the creepy woods outside my window. (Best friends, paranoia and curious, remember)
I stared out into the black gaps surrounding the trees for hours, wondering who the guy was. If he was real or not. But, my ADD kicked in and I started remembering the times I've spent sitting around a bomb fire with Morgan, Mandy and all our friends in the middle of the woods.
"Damn it" I scowled. "Get a grip, Nicole."
I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my iPhone. It's been three months since I've held it in my hands, and it kind of felt alien to me.
Ever since that night, I had given it to my father, and made him promise me not to give it to me, no matter how hard I begged, pleaded, or screamed to get it back.
I was afraid of all the messages waiting for me. Mostly I was scared that, this strength I held onto, thou small and weak, might crumble to ashes or burst into flames, if I read any of Morgan's messages.
I punched in my code, and reminded myself to change it from Morgan’s D.O.B into something much more meaning full to me now, like the day I met Mandy, my best friend.
Twenty-eight missed calls, thirty-two text messages, and fifteen Facebook comments, had managed to go through before my phone ran out of battery.
I had a good idea who they were from, and it wavered my determination a bit. "Mandy" I said scrolling down to all the text messages with her picture next to them, ignoring the rest, for now.
Message 1: Nicole, what the hell. Where the hell are you?
Message 5: Pick up, pick up, pick up!!!
Message 6: WTF! Call me.
Message 10: My mom won't take me to go look for you. I'm on the plain, heading to P.F. I called your house, your dad said you got there last night. God I'm so relieved.
Message 22: Bad reception, called you last night, you didn't pick up. Please call me collect to my mom's number. This phone is garbage.
Message 31: Fuck! Nicole. I'm going to keep calling you till you pick up.
"Shit!" I howled.
Tears blurred my sight, the ache of not being able to talk to my best friend for so long surfaced. A part of me knew I had done the right thing in giving my dad my phone, but another part of me thought I was stupid for not memorizing Mandy's number, and felt pissed that my dad wouldn't connect my phone the charger long enough for him to give me her number.
My hands trembled as I searched for Mandy's number, and they were practically on auto pilot when I called her.
She didn't pick up the first time.
Fear crept up my spine.
I paced back and forth, and all these -developments and outcomes- thoughts kept bouncing off the walls inside my head.
What if she's pissed?-Of course she’s pissed. What if she thinks I'm too much to deal with? -You are too much to deal with. What if she never picks up any of my calls?- She isn’t picking up any of your calls.
Oh my god! I ran a hand over my long red hair, before I tried her number again, nothing.
And then again, still nothing.
There was this little chime sound off in the distance, but I couldn't focus on that right now. I feverishly struggle with my phone, until I was finally able to send her a text message.
Message: I'm so sorry, Mandy. Please pick up.
Nothing.
Closer now, a little ding echoed from across the hall, what the hell? I brushed it off. If I hadn't been so freaked, I might have put two and two together, but I didn't, instead i continued to pace back and forth until I noticed my door wasn't closed all the way, I m
ove towards it, while typing out another text message, which looked more like morse code. I push my door but it wouldn't budge, something was blocking it from the other side. I pushed with a little more force.
"What the fuck, Nicole!" Mandy's voice echoed throughout the empty hallways until finally piercing my thick skull. And for second I thought, it was my desperation of wanting to see her that was playing trickeries inside my head.
Then a pair of silvery grey eyes, peeks out from the other side of the door.
"Mandy!" I shouted, throwing my arms around her petite body. I pull myself away for a second, and just stare at her. I notice her pixie hair cut seemed slightly over grown, and her face was much narrow than I remember, but it was her and she was here.
“Geez, Nicole. What the Hell.”
"I was calling you, and you wouldn't pick up..." I declared but sounded more like was accusing her.
I felt the damper on my cheeks and wiped it away with the back of my hand. "Sorry.” I muttered.
"For what! Using my shirt as a Kleenex or for going MIA on me for three months?"
"Both," I wailed.
Mandy rolled her eyes, and I noticed she had a tear rolling down the side of her sun kissed cheeks, probably escaped her, since Mandy never was too keen on public form of expression.
I could see that she was hurt. And I knew, this was one thing I couldn’t’t blame on Morgan, this was all me. I noted to myself that I was going to make it up to her, I had to.
"God. Ya’think we haven't seen each other for years." I sniffled out.
"Yeah, or that we'd been locked up in some Taiwan prison for smuggling drugs, like that girl from My So Called Life." She retorted.
“I missed you like crazy.”
“Ditto” she retorted.
Chapter Two
As it turns out, my dad had called Mandy a few days ago, letting her know that I was going to be staying here as of today. He asked if she could come join me, even offered to talks to her mom, and have her fly in first class if she did. She jumped on the first plane she could get on and has been waiting for me, in her room, which happens to be next to mine (thank god), since yesterday.
"I just don't get." Mandy said, wrapping herself in my Rainbow Bright comforter, she snuggles up next to me.
We decided to have a week long sleep over, of course it would add flames to the fire Tiffany started about Mandy and me being romantically involved if anyone found out, but I didn't care. I had my best friend back....
"What don't you get? Morgan cheated on me, with Tiffany none the less. Did you know he absolutely hated her, right up to the last minute of the last day of school, or at least he told me he did when we saw her walking into the woods with Lily earlier that day?" I turned to facing Mandy, her grey eye, searched my face.
I pouted my lips, and jumped off the bed. I felt myself getting worked up, which was obviously not a good thing to do at two in the morning. I pulled out a bottled water from the mini fridge my dad bought me and filled to the max with sodas, water bottles, and chocolate bars. I wondered when he took the time to come here and set it up. I never once remember him leaving the house. Yet again I did spend most of my time crying in my room.
"That's what I don't get." Mandy said, unable to let it drop. She kicked the comforter off her body, and stood up faster than I could unscrew the cap off my Dasani bottle. “Follow along genius...” she straitens her posture. “ Before Morgan there was Jason, and Jason absolutely hated Tiffany, like every decent person should and then they start dating. Like right out of the blue."
"Yeah, I remember. It was so weird because he had just asked Stacy, that nice sophomore that would go hang at the clearing with us, out on a date."
"I know, and Eric, didn't even know who Bridget was..."
"Wait! Who's Bridget?”
"For fuck sake, Nicole. Bridget, as in Lindsay Lohan wanna be, you know, the skinny one with puffy lips and stained teeth."
"Oh. Yeah-h."
"Anyways. Like you said, Morgan hated Tiffany, but then he, well. Ditches his gorgeous and loving girlfriend” She smiles. “To hook up with numero uno slut bag. Then Tony, well he flirts with everybody, but does he ever follow through. No. And that night, at his party. Guess who he hooked up with…Freakin’ Lily, that’s who. So gross."
My eyes jerked up from my bottle cap, which I have yet to open, and studied Mandy's face. My hand was ups up to my faces, hiding the shock from my lips.
She couldn't possibly be serious. Tony, big buff Tony, with a face like an angel Tony. No way. Yeah, Tony's a hound dog, constantly in flirt mode, but that's all he does, howls at girls, never actually gets off his ass to chase after them, like seriously chase after them. Besides, he was so into Mandy and vice versa. I was sure of it.
Taking away the fact that when they see each other, there's a lot of kicking and screaming, mostly Mandy kicking Tony and him screaming his ass off, and on occasions, there might be blood. But, that never stopped either of them from looking at each other the way they did. Soft stares, gentle smiles, and long glance. Once, Mandy tripped on empty space-huh-uh, and landed smacked up against Tony’s back, the way he closed his eyes, savoring Mandy’s warm body up against his and how she wrapped her arms around his waist and let them stay there link sap on bark . Disturbing, but cute.
“Are you even listening to me?” Mandy waved her hand across my face, I took note to borrow the aqua blue nail polish on her nails.
“Yeah, I just…Tony and Lily? That’s like, surreal.”
“After, you know…” Mandy said, lowering her eyes, and staring down at the velvety red carpet that covered the floor in my room. “Anyways. After that, I was pissed. I bitched them out, and slapped the shit out of Morgan. Greatest feeling in the world, you should try it sometime. Well, Jason pulled me away right before I reached for Tiffany’s wigged out hair, and dragged me into another room on the other side of the hallway.
After, I don’t know, ten minutes, or so. I tell Jason to fuck off and I’m out the door. That's when I run into Tony, who must have dropped his gum inside Lily's mouth, and was having a hell of a time fishing it out. Then he closes the door and well…the rest is history, I guess.”
I deflated back onto my bed, and disgustingly enough, images of Tony with Lily popped in, again, what's up with these images, their so vivid.
I watched as Mandy paced back and forth, her hand pinching her flushed button lips.
“I think we should just hit the sack, it’s…” I turned to look at my alarm clock. “-It’s three in the morning. We’ll figure things out later. And if we can’t, we can always go to that witch in town. You know Madame Crystal, or whatever… I heard Jessica Kingly say she's the real deal” I said before dozing off.
“I guess…” she replied, or at least I think she did.
Thank you for taking the time to read this book. This was actually a series of blog post, which I had deleted and was asked to repost or submit as an eBook. So here you go. I hope you guys like it and feel free to criticize as much as possible. I like to learn from my mistakes and you will be doing me a great service if you provide me with your honest and constructive reviews. Thank You.
I have several chapters to go along with this story, but I will need to get a hold of my editor before I can submit them. So if you like it please look for me on facebook, or follow me on twitter @mlwiekel