2|| Whispers in the Wind

6|| once upon a stalker

Wilder

Life was not going so hot for Wilder Ramirez. He'd been given one simple task, and he'd screwed it up big time. The simple instruction was: do NOT let the new girl read that book about Roxanne Wesner. Hauntings needed to come naturally. Letting her read the book meant things could get worse, things getting worse meant Jacob was going to have to work a lot harder, and Jacob working a lot harder meant he was going to be a lot unhappy.

To get things straight, it was definitely not Wilder's business whether she lasted or not. But, it was his job. And around here, jobs were taken very seriously. Too seriously. Like, people needed to find their chill. And that wasn't even the worst of his problems!

When he was ten years old, his father had gotten killed in an accident. His mom, the most awesome person ever, had been forced to move into a ramshackle apartment complex where she worked for various little companies she refused to name. Sara Ramirez was too good for that. She deserved so much more. Oh, and to top it all off, his sister was constantly sleeping with someone. He wouldn't mind it if she wasn't so loud, and plus she never talked to him or their mother anymore.

Every other day, Malia brought some random guy over and all Wilder had to save himself was the pair of headphones his dad had left him. It took some pretty loud music to keep his mind clean- he secretly resorted to TWICE and other girly pop bands. About a year ago, one of his guitar strings had snapped, and his mother didn't have enough money for a new one. So, she'd saved up for months to get him a pair of headphones. Now, the only remnants of his musical days were old recordings on his even older phone.

Tonight, she was bringing over Griff Kennedy, which meant Wilder needed to have his headphone music up to the highest sound level and risk severe hearing damage. Eesh, things were not looking good.

He peered at the retreating figure of the dark haired girl. Her hair rippled down her back, creating a nice pattern in the sunlight. And yes, that was why Wilder Ramirez ended up absolutely forgetting his mission and spent the hour staring at the girl. The book was gone and the fake receptionist at the counter hadn't noticed a thing. Yeah, boss baby was going to be pretty mad. 

These depressing thoughts circled his head, only getting worse as something wet trickled down his neck. Quit it, sweat, he thought with a scowl. His brain responding by playing "Bill Nye the Science Guy."

Wilder had fucked up and he needed to own it, but he was not going home to call Jacob while Griff Kennedy was in his sister's bed. A distraction would be wonderful just about now. 

Oh well- if there's no distraction, be the distraction.

He put on his baseball cap and scanned his backpack full of random clothes from the drama classroom. Wandering the streets in costume attracted weird stares, but he was honestly more open to negative attention than positive.

OR he could opt for normal clothes and follow the pretty new girl to see where she went.

So, that's how Wilder crept out of the library, cap over his face, and just about caught up with the girl as she hopped on her bike. The weirdest part was that the second she seated herself, she stiffened, eyes widening. Her gaze roved over the the ground, the sky, and finally landed on him.

"Who are you?" she asked warily.

Wilder had the most annoying urge to say, "Bond. James Bond." But he caught himself at the last moment and sputtered out, "Wilder."

Her stare was inscrutable. "Do you usually follow random girls around?"

He wished the ground would open up and swallow him whole. "I swear I don't?"

"You don't sound very sure. Um. This may sound weird, but did you see anyone else on my bike just now?"

Wilder's lips twitched. "Nope, just you. Was that an invitation?"

He expected a laugh, even a smile at least, but she looked terrified. Why was she so wound up? He decided to backtrack. "I'm really sorry, I promise I wasn't trying to be a creep. What's your name?" he pressed.

Her expression softened. "Kalyani. I'm sorry too, for being so rude. I guess I'm just on edge right now. Weird things keep happening to me- I hope you don't think I'm crazy."

She sounded so earnest that Wilder took some pity on her. He took off his cap, studying it in his hands. "I don't think you're crazy. Things like that are pretty gir- pretty normal around here," he stuttered out.

He was supposed to be the most awesome, smooth person ever. But here he was acting like an absolute fool. To top it all off, Kalyani looked embarrassed.

"I see... well, I'll see you at school, maybe?" she asked.

He nodded, cursing himself. He'd barely known her for five minutes and she already thought he was some sick freak. Wilder tugged at his hair as she boarded her bicycle and sped off with her sixty pound bookbag.

Great. Now he didn't have an excuse to not go home. The walk back led through the graveyard past the lake, which would end up being Kalyani's biggest problem if she opened the book on Roxanne Wesner. Curse you, boss baby. You could have sent anyone else. Frustrated, he threw his cap down on the sidewalk, only to have it blow straight back up. It settled right in front of him, as if someone slightly shorter had slipped it on.

A singsongy voice greeted him. "You shouldn't go around hurling perfectly good things like that. I didn't have the privilege of doing so back in my day." 

With a slight whistle, it floated away, hat included.

Wilder was having none of it. If some annoying spirit was going to bother him, it would NOT get away with stealing his favorite headwear.

"Hey!" he yelled. "Give that back!" He snatched at the air, and it fell back down like nothing had ever happened to it. He caught a bypasser gazing at him sympathetically. Obviously she'd been through something similar. As he'd told Kalyani, things like that were normal here.

Sighing, Wilder jammed it into his hoodie. 

His phone rang. Joy, it was his sister. "What the hell do you want?"

"Griff is all out of con-"

"Nope! It's not my job to deal with the irresponsibility of your boyfriends," he snapped.

"Don't be lazy, you never do anything for me! And you'd think you would care about your sister after dad-"

"Don't you dare bring dad into this! You've forgotten all about us since he died. Imagine how sad mom's gonna be when she finds out."

"Mom doesn't even know!"

"That doesn't mean I won't tell her."

"You don't have the balls to do that. Plus, it'll lead to a conversation about how babies are made, and I'm sure you don't want that, do you?"

"I'm sixteen! Sixteen! Or did you forget?"

"Oh really? Sorry, I forgot my own brother's age," she deadpanned. "Whatever. I'll deal with it."

Wilder hung up abruptly, seething. This was a normal conversation between him and Malia, but it didn't mean it upset him any less. He took a deep breath, wanting to shove his smartphone down a sewer and never see it again. It would do it good justice for having that bitch's contact saved. He wished his mom didn't have that stupid "let's be friends kids" thing going on.

At the end of the day, he would go back to his cracked up shack of an apartment, hug his clueless exhausted mother, do his homework, and turn on What is Love?  for the sixtieth time as his mom left for her night shift and hell with Malia broke loose again.

Outside, he was Wilder Ramirez, charmer, jock, second to only Griff Kennedy.

But inside, he was falling apart.