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. Things that happened to people around here needed to come naturally. Letting her read the book meant things could get worse.

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 seriously, people needed to chill. Seriously. And that wasn't even the worst of his problems!

When he was ten years old, his father had gotten killed in... let's say an accident of a sort. His mom, the most awesome person ever, had been forced to move into a ramshackle apartment complex where she worked for various little companies which she refused to name. Celeste Ramirez was too good for that. She deserved so much more. Oh, and to top it all off, his sister was a sex addict.

Every other day, she 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 heavy metal music to keep his mind clean- well, not exactly clean, but you get the point.

And tonight, she was bringing over fboy #1, which meant Wilder needed to have his headphone music up to the highest sound level. Eesh, things were not looking good.

He peered at the retreating figure of the dark haired girl. It was kind of mesmerizing how it swished behind her as she walked. And yes, that was how Wilder Ramirez, fboy #2, ended up absolutely forgetting about his mission. The book was gone, the fake receptionist at the counter hadn't noticed a thing. Yeah, the boss was going to be pretty mad.

These depressing thoughts circled his head, making him sweat and dampening his flawless natural hair. Quit it, sweat, he thought with a scowl. His brain responding by playing "bill nye the science guy." Which was the last thing he needed in life. And so, that was how Wilder also decided to do whatever he did whenever there was something terrible in store.

He put on his baseball cap, opened his backpack full of random clothes he needed to return to his drama teacher, and made his way to the nearest restroom.

His number one inspiration was the Call me Maybe parody, which meant he would be wearing a skirt, a tank top, and be facing the other way until the cliche weirdass male made his way over to flirt, only to be scarred for life.

You might call him weird, but the thing was that he was trying to avoid getting home until fboy #1 left.

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

Alright fine, the real reason was that he was bored.

He really was a stalker.

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 kind of stiffened, eyes widening. She turned around, scanning the ground, the sky, her surroundings, and finally her eyes 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."

She continued staring.

Then, he made his best move yet. He took off his baseball cap.

Her face immediately flushed. Either she thought he was super hot, or super embarrassing, or maybe she realized he was one of the popular kids. Either way, she finally responded. "I'm Kalyani. I just moved in. This might sound super weird, but did you by any chance hop on the back of my bicycle?"

Now it was Wilder's turn to gape.

She looked away. "Sorry, I figured you might think I was crazy."

Damn, she looked even prettier when she was embarrassed. But it wasn't Wilder's place to think things like that. "Well, I don't, actually. Things like that are pretty normal around here- I meAN, your eyes are pretty..." her face flushed again "...normal."

Shit. WHY did he say that?

He was supposed to be the most awesome, smooth person ever. But here he was, almost about to get a new friend who would maybe- just maybe- be real and he'd gone and ruined it with one very un-smooth word.

Kalyani observed him appraisingly for a few moments. Then, she nodded coldly. "Right. I sure hope I don't see you at school."

He winced. He'd barely known her for five seconds and it already hurt to hear the words from her. Wilder tugged at his hair embarrassedly as Kalyani boarded her bicycle and sped off with the bookbag hanging off the handles.

Great. Now he didn't even have anything to excuse himself from getting home. The walk back led through the graveyard, which would end up being Kalyani's biggest problem if she opened the book on Roxanne Wesner. Frustrated, he threw the 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 was wearing it.

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 either. With a slight whistle, it floated away.

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

"Hey!" he yelled. "Give me back my hat!" He snatched at the blue thing in the air, but it fell back down like nothing had ever been there. He caught a bypasser glancing 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 bitch of a sister. "What the hell do you want?"

"Griff is all out of-"

"Sorry, I'm not getting things for your disgusting work just because your boyfriend of the day is irresponsible."

"Puh-lease. You never do any work for me. Anyone would think you'd care about your sister after dad-"

"Don't you dare bring dad into this! We all know you never cared! Have fun depressing mom."

"Mom doesn't even know!"

"Just because she doesn't doesn't mean I might tell her."

"You're not halfway brave to do things like that. It would lead to a conversation on how you knew that much about sex."

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

"Oh are you? Sorry I didn't know," she deadpanned. "Whatever. Have fun living your loser life!"

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 iPhone down a crack on the sidewalk. It would do it good justice for having the saved contact of something too disgusting to walk on this planet. 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 force himself to listen to heavy metal as his mom left for her night shift and hell with Malia broke loose again.

Outside, he was Wilder Ramirez, fboy #2, second to only Griff Kennedy.

But inside, his life was falling apart.