Becoming Miss Visible

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Today was the first day of Dalton and Mason pretending to be gay. I was going to have fun with this. They walked in together, saw me, looked at each other, and fumbled for each other's hand, much to my amusement. Everyone was staring and I had to make myself try and look sad. It was hard.

People were looking at me funny, and I didn't know why. Maybe it was pity, I wasn't sure. They looked very uncomfortable and I walked away to save them some embarrassment.

I walked in my first class and the populars stopped talking to look at me.

"How did you manage to turn Dalton gay. I've always had my doubts about Mason, but Dalton, I didn't see that one coming." Kelly said looking me over. I rolled my eyes. How can you turn someone gay? Well I guess Kelly is blond for a reason.

"I didn't either. It was a shock for me also." I said walking away. I didn't want to talk to them. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I watched Mason come in, try to sit with the populars and then get rejected by them. He turned to me and gave me a sympathetic look and then went to sit with some of his other friends.

The day passed slowly and I was excited to be going home. I changed my mind. I didn't like Dalton pretending to be gay. They were having fun with it I could tell and I was stuck being miserable. This wasn't fun. I grew bored with this little joke way too fast. The next time I saw Dalton outside of school I would tell him to drop it. I was making him lie to everyone and it was making me sick.

By the time I got to the day care, he had already picked up Peter and they had left. I grabbed Bailey and we were on our way.

Home was nicer now that Mr. Freeloader was out of the house. Mom was now back to partying with her friends and coming back at all hours of the night, going to work in the day, and generally avoiding her parental responsibilities. Well everything was back to normal I guess.

I made dinner and put Bailey to bed. I was doing homework when my phone rang. It was Dalton.

"Hello."

"Hey Callie. Did you enjoy my punishment today?"

"At first yes, but after people asking me how I turned you gay it got very old, very fast." He burst out laughing and I had the urge to bang my head against the wall.

"That's great Callie. I enjoyed all of the attention today though." I could hear the smirk in his voice and wanted to go smack it off of his pretty little face.

"I'm glad to hear it." I said, hearing the annoyance in my voice and not really caring.

"Oh is someone jealous of the attention?" Dalton asked with laughter in his voice. Oh, how this boy could annoy me. Secretly I loved it, and I'm pretty sure he knew that too.

"Oh yeah, because I'm such an attention hog." Sarcasm dripping from my voice.  

"Oh, of course you are. So we can drop the act and tell everyone that we lost a bet?" The tone in his voice made me laugh.

"Sure thing. Are we gonna hang out again at school again or something now that it's all over." I asked hopefully. His silence on the other end scared me.

"Come on Dalton are we or are we not going to spend time together again?" I asked, growing impatient. If he was gonna be a jerk than I needed to know now before my heart got more involved than it already was. Still more silence.

"Dalton?" Silence.

"Dalton!" If I was not listening very carefully than I would not have heard his whispered cry.

"Help!" He whispered and then the line went dead.

I ran downstairs and seeing as my mom had just arrived home I left shouting that I'd be back as soon as I could. I was scared out of my mind. What had happened? Why was he asking for help. I wanted to call the police, but if it was a false alarm, I didn't want them to come out here for nothing. I turned on his streets and what lies in front of me looks like a scene from a nightmare.

His house was not standing anymore. It was burned to the ground, well burning to be more exact. I pulled my car to a stop and ran to where the police had marked off the house.

The ambulance had two people on a stretcher and there was one in a body bag. I couldn't take my eyes off of it. The ambulances were loaded and rushing to the hospital before I had a look at who was who. What if hewas dying? What if he was already dead? How would I live with myself? How could this be happening? Why Dalton and his family? They were all such good people. I heard a high pitched screaming and it took me a second to realize that the person screaming was me.

"Ma'am are you alright?" One of the officers that had just arrived asked.

"My.... My.... Boyfriend and his family live here... What... What happened?" I managed to choke out between the tears.

"One armed robber came in and when he saw that people were in the house he burned it down. I know that two people got out with very severe injuries. One is dead. I'm sorry, that's all I can tell you." The officer looked at me with a sympathetic gaze. This was killing me and it looked like he knew that. I tried to calm myself down for the drive to the hospital, but I couldn't. I tried and finally managed to make it back to my car and it took a couple of minutes to compose myself enough to drive, a sense of dread coming over me.

~I really hope that no one was offended by the gay thing. If you were I am sorry that was not my intention. ~