Charlie's Web

Charlie

My trembling body was buried underneath a large black sherpa blanket, my legs curled up to my chest protectively. I couldn't get that guy out of my head. Ryan. That was his name. I couldn't remember ever meeting anyone named Ryan. Freckles spattered across his face, resembling a Jackson Pollock painting. Dark, thin-rimmed glasses sat on the bridge of his upturned nose, emphasizing his wide, murky eyes. His gray sweater had hung loosely off of his thin, lanky frame. There was something about him that was just...off. It had piqued my curiosity, he was especially hard to miss as his familiar eyes seemed to follow my movements like a haunted painting.

Maybe he had one of those faces people see in their dreams. Or perhaps I had passed by him in the halls at school before he had graduated. Whatever it was, it seemed oddly important.

I'd called Jesse to talk about it as soon as I'd made it to my room. He thought I was a total lunatic, and he was probably right. There had been no justifiable reason for me to go up to him, but something inside of me compelled my legs to lead me over to that bench. As soon as my ass hit the splintering wooden seat, a wave of nausea hit me. Something in my stomach seemed to gurgle and bubble, like a boiling cauldron. Which could be chalked up to the unfortunate fact that I had basically destroyed all of my vital organs the night prior, but it felt different, like an instinct. The same way a child doesn't have to be told to be afraid of snakes or large spiders and bugs, they just sort of, know.

He'd given me that same eerie feeling, that light sensation that creeps down your spine when you see a spider disappear into a crack. I could still feel his large hand on my wrist, he'd gripped me with such swift intensity, his slender fingers decorating my skin with bright red marks. His eyes had held such a look of desperation, I assumed I'd caught his eye and was on a quick path to becoming his next murder victim.

The whole ordeal had put somewhat of a damper on the fun afternoon I'd had with Jesse. Both Ben and C knew I wasn't really into guys, and frankly, most of the time they bored me. They always thought they could manipulate me, tell me how special I am, how I'm not like any other girl they've ever met, that I'm the one. It was all just a pathetic attempt to get in my pants, and it was generally an extremely easy tactic to see through. Jesse didn't seem like that, though. Granted, this was the first time we'd hung out, but he still seemed nothing like those other pervy douche bags.

It wasn't like I really wanted a relationship either, it was just nice to talk to him. And if it turned into something more, it would have to happen naturally, and over a long period of time. I'd always been untrusting of most men, they just never seemed to have good intentions, and the thought of constantly falling for different guys and getting screwed over sounded like hell. C was always going through it with guys, and experiencing it by proxy was already extremely exhausting. The one thing I prided myself on was not being a sucker, most men would take one look at me and assume I was some naive little girl that they could exploit and play with. I would make sure that never happened.