Casters

CHAPTER TWO

News

“So what did you need to tell me so urgently?” Erin asked me as we sat in the little coffee shop we always went to. Nearly every teenager in Beethoven would go to Mo’s Coffee Shop after school or at the weekend to shoot pool and just hang out. The staff at Mo’s were really friendly and always greeted Erin and me with smiles and prepared our regular drinks. It wasn’t like other coffee shops in town where it felt more like a diner. Mo’s had various dark green sofas and tables with different styles of chairs around them. The walls were wooden and the lighting was low so the shop always felt intimate and cosy. Plus, most of the staff were students at our school whose boss was the original owner Mo’s, grandson who mustn’t have been more than five or six years older than us.

As I told Erin the whole story about mine and Roberto’s meeting in the woods and earlier today, I explained how I get a strange feeling when he’s around me like he’s dangerous. And I didn’t know the kid, but I definitely didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. Erin was obviously concerned about what had happened, her face said it all as it usually did. Erin was strikingly beautiful with blonde curls that fell to the lower of her back, her eyes the colour of blue sapphires, and her rather short body was always covered in long cardigans on a daily basis matched with her chunky boots she adored. Erin Hastings, the mayor’s daughter and my best friend.

We weren’t very popular in our school because nobody really liked us, partly because they felt strange around us because we were the girls whose friend died last summer. We were still trying to get other the loss of our best friend. It seemed like only yesterday when Paige was hit by that car. Every time I closed my eyes I replayed that night over and over again. It haunted me like an unwelcomed spirit with a cruel revenge scheme.

The car came out of nowhere, it all happened so fast, Paige was standing on the outer side of the pavement as we all walked home from a late night party at the lake and that’s when the car hit her. After it all Erin and I went to get help but when we got back with a stranger who had been driving along a street close to where it happened, she was gone. The police were still searching for her. In a small town like Beethoven it was highly unlikely for us to have any major crimes. Other than a drunken citizen causing a disturbance or a missing animal, the police as far as we knew had nothing to worry about. But the driver was never found, we just know it must have been a hit and run. I knew with all my heart she was dead, I just hated the thought of her body still out there rotting in ditch somewhere or some crazy guy’s basement that flooded my mind.

Erin was talking about what I should do when I snapped back into reality and out of my daydream of that awful night. Her advice was to avoid Roberto as much as I could which sounded easier than it actually was. The boy just kept turning up out of the blue with that smile, that gorgeous little smirk that played on his faint lips. The times I thought about Roberto he would miraculously turn up. Some girls wouldn’t mind a heart-stopping, handsome European guy following them around but it just made me feel a mixture of panic and excitement. Yet, that’s was what worried me the most about Roberto. The excitement shouldn’t have been something I felt when I saw him, I knew it wasn’t healthy for me to feel that way but I did even though I really didn’t want to.

 It was half-four in the afternoon when we had finished our second round of coffees and I knew I had to be home soon before Martin would go mad and ground me for another week or whatever he felt was a fitting punishment. I reluctantly said goodbye to Erin as we frantically got into our cars, desperate not to get soaked from the cold rain that had just started to fall, waving as we pulled out of the almost full car park at the back of the shop.

I played my favourite album by an indie band I doubted anyone else my age listened to and put my foot down on the gas pedal as my Jeep roared its self awake, barging its way along the road through the heavy rain that shot down from the grey clouds above and seemed to be getting stronger with every second that passed. I loved the band that was playing and struggled not to get too caught up in the lyrics as I drove with squinted eyes as I was tried my best to see through the ruthless rain.