BESIDE YOU

Chapter 23

DEMI

I am friends with Haydon Flynn. Go on, be surprised. But believe it or not, I am friends with Haydon - goody goody- Flynn.

And I am going to dinner with him and his girlfriend. I wanted to bring Sam too, but he was busy with a family event.

It's been more than two weeks since Sam asked me out and I said yes. Because more than anything else, I felt safe with him and I needed him.

Being with Sam gave me hope that things could go back to the way it was before. I knew that my sister was never coming back, but maybe I could move on.

So life was, if not great , atleast ok. It was not heading to the south pole the way it had for more than 5 months. I had a friend and even though I don't want to tell him how freaky I am, maybe I could try sharing a little when things get too hard for me.

Well, atleast he knew my sister. Even though it doesn't look like he's grieving or something even close to that, maybe he could understand me a 0.5 percent.

You know what? Make that 0.00005 percent.

I take out the clothes I'm going to wear. A sweater, oversized sweatshirt to go on top of it and baggy jeans. I wonder what the girl is going to wear. I really hope that she wears something dressy so that she draws all the attention and nobody notices me.

I'm suddenly nervous about going to a public place, that too for dinner. Yeah sure, I've done that plenty of times before, but times have changed. I don't remember what I did when I went out for a dinner. Like why would people go out to watch other people eat?

I immediately call Haydon and as soon as he picks up I ask,

"Remind me why people go out for  dinner again?"

"To eat obviously", he says

" We could do that at home"

"But dinner from a restaurant would mean like tastier food "

"We could just order food and ask them to bring it home"

"But that would mean no dressing up, no sophistication"

"Don't care, don't care again. So basically we are going out to watch each other eat food"

"If you put it that way", he sighs.

"By the way make sure that your girlfriend doesn't try to shake hands with me or something. Like no touching", I stress.

"Yeah, I know", he says.

"Okay then"

"Bye"

I then put on my clothes. The sleeves of the sweatshirt covered almost the entire of my palms. It was obvious that I'd have to push them up while eating.

I push them up a little to see if the scars on my wrist are showing. And then a thousand crazy possibilities enter my mind. What if she sees them ? What if she tells someone who would then force me to go to a shrink?

So I quickly take off my sweatshirt, get some plaster and cover all my scars with it. Once I was done, I look at myself. I could be sold as a rag doll. I was just some bones covered by unhealthy pale skin and my dark hair was a shocking contrast to my skin. I could pass on as a vampire.

I put on the sweatshirt again. Now I think about the possibilities of how the evening will go. Maybe I could just greet her by waving at her. There was a slight possibility that maybe, maybe  I won't mess this up as well.
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