Taken

Chapter Twenty--DENNY

I awoke to the wind whistling through my window.  I got up and slid it shut, but before I could even lay back down, I knew I was wide awake.  I sunk into the mattress anyways, listening as rain started to splatter on the glass.  I hated rainy days.  They made me want to do nothing but watch a sad movie and cry my eyes out, but unfortunately I couldn’t do that.  Heck, my life could be a sad movie.

          ORPHAN GIRL ALSO LOSES HER BOYFRIEND, the headlines would scream and I would be the only one around to write the screenplay.  I sighed.  My life really did suck.

          I stayed in bed and closed my eyes until I heard a soft knock on my door and Haven came in.  She snuggled into the covers next to me and when I pushed into a semi sitting position, she laid her head in the crook of my shoulder. Her hair was a tangled mop of mousy brown hair and I ran my fingers through it automatically.  It was habit.

          “Denny?”

          “Hm?”

          “I think Grady likes you.”  She looked up at me and giggled and I smiled at her.

          “You silly little thing, we are just good friends.  He doesn’t like me.”

          “I think he does.” She was suddenly dead serious and it made me laugh.  No way would Grady, of all people, like me.  Besides, I had Jeremiah.  I didn’t need to worry about Grady too.  Our ‘just friends’ status was good enough for me.  Sure, he was cute and had a good personality, but so did Jeremiah.

          The thought of Jeremiah not coming back loomed in my mind like a bad cold.  I couldn’t get rid of it no matter how hard I tried.  Every time I looked in the mirror, it reminded me of him because I saw the little dolphin around my neck.  I never took it off. I wouldn’t even if the world was coming to an end.  So to speak, lately I’ve been avoiding mirrors entirely.

          Suddenly Grady was in the doorway, wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt.  The way he was standing—leaning against the frame with his arms crossed and eyes staring down at the floor—I felt like I needed to look away.  I didn’t know why, it was just that when I saw him I felt a tug at my heart.  What was my problem?

          I quickly looked out the window and he came over to sit at the end of the bed.  He was inches away from my legs and it seemed like electricity buzzed between them.  I drew them in closer to me and Grady didn’t even notice.  I doubt he thought I was moving away from him.

          I felt like sending him out, because he was causing me too much confusion, but I knew I couldn’t do that.  He was still my friend, and I pushed what Haven had said about him to the back of my mind.  “Do you need something?” I asked. I tried not to sound strange, but my words were clipped as if I was aggravated.

          His eyes searched mine and then dropped.  “Just wanted to join the party.”

          I gave him a weird look even though he was staring out the window at the rain.  It was really coming down now, sheets that blurred my view of the trees and streaked down the window.  “It isn’t really much of a party.”

          “Oh well.  Haven, why don’t you go get that block of wood and sit on the porch and I’ll teach you how to whittle.”

          “Okay!” I could hear her little footsteps as they went down the hall.

          I was suddenly uncomfortable because I felt like he was trying to get rid of her and this was staged.  I got off the bed and went to sit in the chair facing the window.  He got up and followed me.  “Denny?”

          I waited for a few moments before I reluctantly answered, “Yeah?”

          “Do you believe Jeremiah will come back?”

          I swiveled to give him a look.  “Of course, don’t you?”

          “Maybe,” he said, but he sounded hesitant.  It made me furious.  How could he not have any faith that Jeremiah would make it back? Why would he ask me that? Of course I think Jeremiah will come back, I want him to come back.  I love him.

          “Why would you think he wouldn’t?” I glared at him.

          He took a step back from me and raised his arms.  “It’s been a while Denny,” he said defensively.

          “Two months tops,” I fired back, because I didn’t know exactly how long it’d been.  “Why don’t you have faith in him?”

          “I do have faith in him,” he said defensively.  “But I don’t know… when he came to see me at the mall… he just acted different.”

          “Because you and your cult or whatever cornered him and locked him in a dressing room with his hands and feet tied!”  My blood was boiling as I stood up and faced him full on.  I was beyond furious.

          “There was no we about it,” he countered, his voice not raising any higher even though mine was.  “I had no say in the matter, if I would have tried to stop it I would have gotten killed.”

          I thought about this for a second, but it still wasn’t acceptable.  “So you let them beat up your best friend just so your butt was safe?” 

          His face fell and I knew I had struck the wrong chord.  I immediately felt bad, and the tears spilled over even before I could stop them.  I was acting so unlike myself and my thoughts were muddled with confusion. 

          Even if it wasn’t true, I decided to blame my weird behavior on Grady.  He was why I was screaming when I never screamed at anyone.  He was why I was crying, when I hated to cry in front of people.  And he was why my thoughts and feelings for both Jeremiah and him were getting so messed up. 

          I hated myself for thinking of it like that, but I didn’t know what else to make of it.  I didn’t know how else to explain the way when he was close to me, I pulled away like I had been electrocuted.  Before this morning when Haven brought to my attention that he may possibly like me, I hadn’t even been bothered by being close to him. At all.

          Now, though, I felt like I was doing something wrong.  Like being this close to him was bad, like I was cheating on Jeremiah.  Cheating.  I shuddered as the thought permeated my mind and I swiped at my tears.  I did not want to be a cheater.

          “I’m sorry,” I mumbled, drying my face with my sleeve. 

          He put a hand on my shoulder and when I looked into his eyes, I saw regret and pain.  “No, I’m sorry,” he said.  “I should have stopped them.”

          “No, you would have been killed.  It’s fine, we all are alive and well.”    

          The last part I wanted to believe.  I wanted to believe we truly were.  But I could feel Grady’s warm touch through my sleeve and it pulsed like an electric current.  And I knew as soon as I felt his lips on mine, before I could even stop it, that we weren’t well at all.  Grady was falling for his best friend’s girlfriend, Jeremiah was God knows where, and I was falling for the both of them.  Our parents were gone. We were orphans, with hardly any traces of our past lives but ourselves and each other.  My world was like a snow globe, turned upside down, only now the scene inside was so snowy nothing was clear.