Almost Alive (13 page)

             
Something about what she said made Julian look like a complete psycho, almost like he was ready to leap across the table and strangle her.  Then he slammed his hands into the table and began getting up.  “I can’t do this.”

             
“Do what?” Maria asked confused.

             
“Pretend like I like you!”

             
My mouth dropped.  “Julian!”

             
“I’ll see you at the fight later.”  Then he seriously left after that.  I didn’t have any more classes with Julian and he hadn’t even confronted me about the fib I told earlier.  I didn’t even tell him that I had a piece of my soul missing, but he probably already knew that.  He just hated his sister more than he cared about helping me.

             
Maria blinked a few times to combat her tears.  She was a good fighter and remained calm and composed.  She even pretended like it didn’t sting her at all.  “You’re still fighting Victoria?”

             
I shrugged.  “Maybe I’ll win.”

             
Maria shook her head slowly.  “She’s gonna grind your bones to make her bread.  The only way to beat someone like her is by a miracle.”

             
I did need a miracle.  Was it too much to suspect, that after all I had been through, God was going to send an angel from heaven to fight on my behalf?  “Do you believe in miracles?”

             
She shook her head again, pouting sadly this time.  “I believe the only kinds of miracles you receive are the kind you make for yourself.”

             
“That’s good advice…”  It was stupid to depend on a miracle to get me out of fighting Victoria.  I had to think of something crafty or maybe I could possibly talk her down.  The only supernatural being who offered to help me out was someone I couldn’t afford to ever trust. 

             
I somehow survived the rest of my school day with all of the gossip and the anticipation of facing a second death and I somehow managed to do it alone.  I would have patted myself on the back if I weren’t sweating bullets and consumed with the thought of running away.  I think I looked at the clock every three minutes, and when the school bell finally rang, I gulped.  I had to wait twenty minutes for my inevitable doom, probably so all the buses would be gone.  Victoria very well couldn’t have one of the drivers report my murder.

             
I stood by the doors of the cafeteria, staring out at the parking lot.  There were a lot of kids running out excited, and they glanced at me and then started talking to their friends about how I was gonna die.  Some of them even laughed.  Actually, a lot of them laughed.  I don’t know why I deserved to be looked at so horribly.  I couldn’t literally be the worst person in school.

             
I felt a hand touch my shoulder, and I jumped and whimpered at the same time.  “Are you ready?”  It was only Julian, which didn’t make me feel any better.  I didn’t even have a response mechanism to punch someone in case I was actually in danger.  If my brain didn’t want to automatically protect me, then who was I kidding?

             
“I’m so screwed.”

             
“It’ll be okay.  I’ll be right there beside you.”  He smiled to offer some comfort.  He looked cute and everything, but that wasn’t enough.  I was really upset that he was gonna let me get beat up.

             
I wondered where the demon had gone.  It hadn’t popped up since I was informed that it ate part of my soul.  It should have been trying to convince me to give into its powers.  After all, I was in my most desperate state at that moment.  Why wouldn’t it want to cut a deal?  I think I was kind of considering it. 

             
“Be strong.”

             
“But I’m terrified.”

             
Then something totally unexpected happened that I wasn’t really entirely ready for.  Julian wrapped his arms around me and surprisingly, he had a very nice feel to him.  I mean, he wasn’t a big, buff guy like Michael.  He was lean, but I could tell he was pretty cut.  His biceps bulged in just the right way, and his chest was firm.  He was trying to be a supportive gentleman, but all I did was begin to wonder about what his body looked like without his black and white striped shirt.

             
I wrapped my arms around him and pressed into his physique.
  Doesn’t that feel good?
It certainly did.  Then he smelled really good.  I think it was his hairspray, but that didn’t really matter.  What mattered was how he had completely captivated me in that moment.  I wondered what he was thinking about while having my body pressed into his.  If he had never thought about us being together, I was going to make him.

             
He pulled away from me and he totally had this awkward grin on his face.  I knew I was making him uncomfortable. 
Hopefully in a good way.
  Hopefully, indeed.  “Are you okay…Besides the whole fight thing?”

             
“Oh!”  I realized I was biting my lip and staring at him lustfully.  I felt so stupid!  “I’m fine. I’m gonna be perfect…Besides the broken bones.”  My face felt so hot that I knew he must have known I was into him.

             
“At least you’re facing this with dignity.”  He had really shifty eyes.  To make things even more awkward, he reached out to pat me on the back, but drew his hand away.  He didn’t even want to touch me anymore.  “We should probably get out there.”

             
“Of course we should.”  He probably wanted Victoria to knock some sense into me.  That would have been nice, but I didn’t see how that was going to be possible with all the coma sleeping.

             
I took a deep breath and attempted to shake my jitters out.  They weren’t going anywhere.  I went through the double doors and started walking down the cement walkway with Julian trailing behind.  I kept walking forward, but I knew I was gonna fail.  It really sucked to know that, but what else could I do?  Julian was right about what would happen if he interfered and about what would happen if I ran away.  I needed to stand up and take all that I had dished out.

             
There was already a big crowd of kids waiting.  I could see them as soon as I came outside.  There must have been thirty kids out there chanting and ready for a fight.  How did I make so many enemies?  I had only been to school for three days.

             
“Just breathe,” Julian said while massaging my shoulders.  “It’ll be okay.”

             
Victoria was standing in the middle of the ring of students.  Her sister was nearby with a cocky smirk and her arms folded as if she were actually the one who was going to do something.  I hated that I was about to get pulverized for her sake.  She couldn’t even fight me herself, and I would have stood a much better chance against her.  Victoria was dancing on her toes and punching forward like we were about to have a sparring match.

             
As soon as I was spotted, I received boos and insults.  I was hit with a wad of notebook paper right in the face, but the most it did was startle me.  I hoped that would be the hardest hit in my face.  Victoria really did intimidate me while she moved like a genuine boxer.  It made me question if she were really experienced. 

             
She smirked and raised her fists.  “Are you ready for this?”

             
“Please!”  I knew talking her out of it was a long shot, but I figured it would be different if I begged.  “We don’t have to fight!”

             
Then I really got a lot of boos after that.  They were all bloodthirsty, little, bloodsucking vampires willing to lick up my remains on the pavement.  The only person who didn’t want to see me fall was Julian and Maria—who was just staring at me blankly.  It kind of gave me the super creeps.

             
“What you did to my sister was unforgivable!”

             
“What about Michael?”  He wasn’t watching the fight.  It would have been pretty messed up if he did.  “Does he get a free pass in all this?”

             
“We’re not together anymore!” Liz yelled.  “I deserve better than that loser.”

             
I gulped.  I really was alone and there was no talking down the angry pack.  I raised my fists to cover my face.  I did not want her to make me ugly.  Maybe if I raised my arms for the entire fight, I wouldn’t end up terribly deformed.  I wasn’t even thinking about fighting back.  I just wanted to protect myself!

             
“You’re so pathetic!” she mocked.  “This is gonna be too easy.”

             
I had to try begging one more time.  “Please—”

             
There was a flash of light, and I was on my hands and knees.  My face was hot, and my ears were ringing.  My lips were wet.  It took a few seconds to realize that I tasted blood and my bottom lip stung very much.  She had knocked the tears right out of my sockets faster than I thought they could form.  It did hurt, and she had barely touched me and we hadn’t even been fighting for thirty seconds. 

             
I was going to die.

             
“Do you want my help now?” 

             
I raised my head up and saw the demon among the crowd.  She was standing right next to Julian, who looked so incredibly worried for me.  I think it was difficult for him to watch me suffer, but I knew he wasn’t going to do anything.  God wasn’t going to do anything either.  I had to find a way to survive.

             
“Say the word,” it sang to me. 

             
I knew Julian wouldn’t want me to do it, but I couldn’t watch him watch me fail.  It was unbearable.  “Yes.”

             
The next punch from Victoria fell right into the palm of my hand, and it stunned her.  The look on her face was pretty priceless, along with all the gasps from the crowd of observers.  “What?  You didn’t think I could produce with my threats?”

             
“Why you—” Victoria tried to pull her hand away, but I was too powerful.  “Let go of me!”

             
I smirked.  I don’t know how much of my behavior was being affected by the demon, but it felt pretty amazing to have someone so much bigger and stronger than me suddenly terrified.  I proceeded to squeeze her hand and watched her struggle not to moan or flinch, but she did both and the crowd of cheerers began to quiet down until they were completely silent. 

             
Then I became angry.  I was angry that she would dare try to touch me.  So what if she was the big sister trying to be protective?  Her nobility disgusted me.  She was wrong thinking she was the hero, and I was gladly going to beat her into place. 

             
I let go of her hand, and while she tried to hold it to recover, I acted quickly and punched her in the face even much harder than she had hit me.  She stumbled backward, but I persisted with a head-butt that knocked her flat on her gigantic butt.

             
The crowd was still silent.  I got a good look at Liz.  She was so surprised that her sister was failing, and guilt-ridden that she had gotten her into such a mess.  I bet she even requested to Victoria that she “handled” me.  She was terrified for her sister as she cradled her fat head.  Everyone was a little terrified of me!  I felt wicked as I smiled, reveling in my complete victory.  So that’s what it felt like to be a winner?  It was invigorating.

             
“Get up!” Liz cheered to her sister.  Several of her friends began to chant it as well.  Why did that big oaf have all those friends?  She was a bully.  I was the brave hero who was slaying a giant.  Perhaps they would cheer when I had finished the job.

             
“Stop it!”

             
I couldn’t.  I was so angry at Victoria, and I couldn’t stop kicking her.  I hadn’t been in any fights, but I knew kicking her while she was down was dirty.  It shouldn’t have mattered though.  I was fighting for my life, wasn’t I?  She deserved to die!

             
“Stop it!”  Then poor little Liz exploded from the crowd and charged me to save her sister—the fool.

             
I barely moved and dodged her piss poor attempt at a punch and grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back.  I didn’t even know how to do what I was doing, but I took her screams and tears as a sign that I was doing it right.  “If you wanted to fight me, you shouldn’t have gotten your big sister involved in the first place.”

             
“Just stop!”  Her voice was already hoarse.  It was pretty funny how her veins were popping out of her forehead.  “You can have Michael!  Just let us go!”

             
“You think I need your permission?” 

             
She sobbed harder.  She truly was so pathetic, yet her sister loved her enough to fight for her.  How come they had people in their lives that cared about them?  The observing students might have all been frozen in fear and or amazement of me, but they were still there to show their support of Victoria and Liz.  Even Julian thought I deserved to get beaten up.  How could they have so much love in their lives and I had no one?  How come I was so alone?

             
Well, they needed to suffer, and I was going to start by breaking Liz’s arm!

             
“That’s enough.”  Julian interfered and quickly pushed me, which surprised me enough to let go of Liz.  I wanted to rip those girls into pieces for thinking so small of me, but I couldn’t finish the job when he stared at me with his intense eyes and spoke with so much authority.  I wasn’t afraid of him, but he had something special inside of him that I couldn’t explain. 

             
“Just end it and walk away.” 

             
“Fine.”  I walked by him, making sure to brush by his arm on purpose.  The circle of students let me pass without a remark.  I had quite the strut while I pretended the parking lot was my own personal catwalk.  It didn’t matter what those ants thought of me.  I could be their monster as long as their fear gave me power.

             
I heard Julian coming up from behind.  I rolled my eyes and prepped myself for another dragging conversation on how I should take his terrible advice.  “Follow me.”

             
“I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to, Julian, and I don’t wanna go with you.”

             
“I’m not giving you a choice.”  He grabbed my arm rather rough.  He didn’t have to act like such a brute! 

             
He doesn’t own you.
He didn’t own me. 
You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.
  He couldn’t force me to do anything I didn’t want to. 
Stop walking.
  I pulled my arm from him and pushed him away.  “You’re acting like a lunatic!”

             
For someone who liked to make me look stupid, he sure did prove me right when he slammed me straight into a van.  “Are you insane?”  I had seen him angry, but certainly not that upset.  “I told you not to cooperate with the demon!”

             
“You didn’t give me much of a choice.”

             
“If you accept the demon, then it will never leave you alone.  The day will come when you never question it.  You’ll forget that your body is a timeshare.  You’ll practically be one.  It’s sickening, and you’re falling for it!”

             
He’s just a little uptight.
“I think you’re just a little uptight.”  He had been trying to be a good boy for far too long.  I wrapped my arms around his neck and began to lean into him.  “I think I know what might release all of that tension.”

             
“Hello!” He pushed me back and shook me.  “I know you’re in there.  Fight this!”

             
He was completely tripping me out.  Did he really not want to be with me?  Even if I gave myself up freely, I would be denied?  It hurt, and I don’t think that had anything to do with the demon.  “Maybe this is just how I feel.”

             
“No.”  He was completely unwavering.  “We’re hardly even friends.  We can’t be together.”

             
The cloud in my thoughts dissipated, and I was left with a terrible feeling in my gut.  I didn’t feel broken up about the fight, even though I was wrong on all accounts.  I just couldn’t think about feeling guilty when I was so heartbroken.  “I’m sorry.  I don’t know what got into me.”  I tried to smile to mask my pain, but I had once again been utterly rejected and that knowledge quivered my lips into a pathetic frown.  It was more than him rejecting my flirtation because he was scared of sinning.  He just didn’t want me.  Period. 

             
I didn’t know if it was safe for me to even drive.  I didn’t know what the demon was gonna try to convince me to do, and I didn’t even know how things were gonna be with my parents.  “Can you take me home?”

             
“I think it’s best for you to be alone right now.” 

             
“You’re probably right.  I’ll just go…Be alone.”  I tried to smile and laugh it off, but it was hard with tears trying to sneak out of my eyes.  I really screwed up, and Julian probably hated me for it.  It was bad enough he only saw me as the screw up.  I thought deep down that he might have actually liked me.

             
It was rough driving home, but I somehow managed.  I thought for sure that the demon would be whispering in my ear and suggesting that I drive into a divider or on the wrong side of the freeway, but I didn’t hear a peep.  Maybe the demon knew the anticipation of seeing my parents was enough torture.

             
I was sort of expecting that dad would have been at work and then decided to stay at his girlfriend’s house.  But then I remembered the yelling match he had with mom.  Mom could have run away to blow off some steam in the Bahamas, but she would have stayed in the house just to be vindictive and cause tension and Dad would stay just so she wouldn’t win.  It was just my terrible luck that when I pulled up, all the cars were accounted for.

              “Here we go…”  I slowly came through the garage and eased carefully toward the kitchen.  I heard my parents talking, but it ceased when I walked inside.  The silence felt terrible, but at least it was better than yelling. 

             
“We need to talk,” Dad said.

             
I sneaked inside and rested my body in the doorway.  “Only talk?”

             
“Only talk,” Mom said.

             
It was weird watching them.  I could feel tension for sure, but I was surprised they could bother sitting across from each other at their precious granite countertop island.  Wanting to keep their money was the only thing I knew they could agree on.  “I assumed I had said enough.”

             
“As painful as it was to hear all of what your father and I have done to each other, it needed to come out.”  I saw Mom’s hand reach across the table and grab Dad’s and he didn’t pull away.

             
“Do you really mean it?” I asked Dad.

             
“We’re going to work this out.”  He was even smiling, and I didn’t get the impression that he was faking.

             
I still had to be sure.  “You two are really going to work on your marriage after finding out you’ve been cheating on each other?  You’re getting professional help?”

             
“Not exactly.”  She smiled nervously, and her voice was shaky.  “I love your father—”

             
“And I love your mother—”

             
“But we have certain needs that…We can’t fulfill.”

             
I didn’t get it.  They had somehow talked through their problems to the point where they were smiling and holding hands.  If they sucked at sex, they wouldn’t be having it so much with other people.  What couldn’t they work through?  “So you are getting a divorce?”

             
They both looked at each other, and I knew they were debating in their head about what to tell me.  I waited impatiently while they wrestled with what to say until Dad finally blurted it out.  “We want to have an open marriage.”

             
I was stunned.  “An open marriage?”  I don’t know why, but I was.  “You mean you wanna keep doing what you’ve been doing?”

             
“It’s the lies that’s ruined us and scarred you,” Mom retorted idiotically.  They had some nerve telling me what scarred me!  “If we do this then—”

             
“Then you’ll still be disgracing your wedding vows and making this family look like a joke!  You can’t possibly be serious about this.”

             
“We are,” Dad said.

             
“It’s already started to help.  We spent the day together and…Everything is good.”  Mom held Dad’s hand, and they both smiled in a way I hadn’t seen in a very long time—if I could remember it at all.  How could they be so sure that the solution of how to stay together was to see other people?  “Emotionally and physically, things are better than they’ve been in a long time.”

             
I was so angry that I didn’t know what to say.  I waited for the demon to start poking holes into my brain, but that was not necessary.  I was upset enough all on my own.  Didn’t I have the right to be?  They were screwed up people, but they were my parents.  I wanted them to be happy, but with each other and only each other.  Jenny and Mom’s instructor weren’t my parents.  Frankly, they were too young to be.  What business did they have in my parents’ marriage?  They weren’t allowed to try and sneak their way into our family, and I didn’t want them to be invited either! 

             
And the worst thing about it was that my parents were just going to naively accept each other’s infidelities just so they could sleep around with other people and they still somehow expected that their marriage was going to survive.  It was probably the dumbest thing I had ever heard in my entire life!

             
“If you need to talk to anybody—”

             
“I don’t want to talk about this with either of you.”  If I would have talked, I would have started yelling and then I would have started to cry.  “I just want this to go away.”

             
They consoled each other with a look again, and Mom decided to take her turn at being insensitive.  “We meant with a therapist.”

             
The nerve of them!  “I need a therapist, and you two spent the afternoon screwing your brains out with each other and everything is fine?” It was apparent that I was twisted and completely messed up, but they were far from perfect.  The only difference between us was that I chose to end my problems, and they tried to completely ignore theirs.  They didn’t think they were sick at all?  Not even a little bit?