As the day rushes past quickly I heard a scratching on my door. I don’t reply because I’m scared of who it is, or what it is. My mum calls for me so I slowly stand up, making no more noise than a mouse. I stay still. There it is again, what is that? I shuffle towards the door knob. As I twist it I hear a yelp. Not from an animal… But a person. I hear quick short breaths, I freeze as I open the door.
A smile takes over my frown as I look up not only to find Dylan, but Dylan with Christine and Gemma. Christine grabs my arms and hugs me, Gemma copies. But, Dylan? He doesn’t even look at me. We pile onto my humungous double bed, I sprawl my arms across Dylan’s lap hoping he’d react. But he didn’t show any kind of emotion. What was he hiding? Christine and Gemma looked normal, maybe they were discreetly hiding their emotions and Dylan just can’t act… Not even for his own girlfriend. Christine and Gemma both agree that they need to go to the toilet, they disappear down the stairs, I was going to join them but a force was holding me back, Dylan’s hand was gripping tightly around my wrist.
‘Ow, Dylan you’re hurting me’ I shriek.
‘Oh, sorry’ Dylan says with no sympathy and no emotion.
‘What’s wrong?’ I demand
‘What? Me? Oh, nothing?’ Dylan carelessly throw words to my face not a single care in the world.
I sit up and slowly smile, he eventually smiles back.
‘They’ve been gone a while, I’m just gonna check to see if they’re alright.’
But yet again, Dylan hold me back. I whisper ‘Why are you doing this?’ I ask.
‘Do what? Oh holding your arm? Because I don’t want to be left alone.’
I grimace as if to say Well come with me then. He recognises what I was trying to make out, but before I could move or say anything, he jolts forwards, supporting my neck, he kisses me as he lets me lie down on the bed, we both move in sync but got interrupted by two high-pitched giggles coming from the door way.
‘At least I have a boyfriend!’ I remark throwing a pillow at the pair of them.
‘Well go on then! Stop gawking at us and get a boyfriend’ Dylan laughs.
Both of them shrug helplessly as if to say ‘Do I give a ****!’ We all fall about laughing uncontrollably as I get flung off of the bed.
The next day I walked to the park with Dylan, hand-in-hand, somehow and I don’t know why Dylan suddenly takes me to his house and purposely avoids his ‘mates’. As we reach his house, he unlocks the door with his blue and red house key, the door flipped right open as we waltz in the kitchen and immediately start to prepare dinner. It felt as if we were a married couple.
‘Get the spuds and the peeler please?’ I call impatiently.
‘Here you go ’ as Dylan hands me the equipment I needed.
I clasp his hand as I pull him towards me; we just stop for approximately thirty seconds and gaze into each other’s eyes, taking in the smell of cooking, we kiss for a brief moment before turning away and blushing, carrying on with dinner. I light the candles on the glass dining table, we sit down and eat, we both sit back bellies full, he walked me home before the rest of his family came home from a barbeque.
The next morning I woke up to find a figure in the corner of my eye. I pay attention and look closely to the window. It was someone who I’d only ever seen once when we moved here. It was quite abnormal, he looked up at me in a funny way, I squinted and saw him observing my room. I step back, and cup my mouth, feeling the desperation for air I dart out the room and into my mums, I cover myself in her duvet as she turns over rubbing her green eyes, I move her brown hair out of her face.
‘Wha-wha-what are you d-do-doing Sally?’ She mumbles.
‘Mum. I just saw that creepy old guy look into my room. He proper stared into my eyes. Mum that neighbour freaks me out!’ I gasp.
‘Oh, Sally don’t be so mean he’s stared at me like that many times before, he lost his wife and lives alone, he obviously feels sad and lonely, maybe we should have a chat to him?’ She surprisingly replied.
‘What? Are you crazy woman!’ I raise my voice in panic.
‘Just, calm down hunnie.’
‘Calm down? How can I 'calm down' when there’s a pedo staring at me through my window when he’s in his garden moving forward to get a better glimpse of me?’ I stagger.
Mum groans and tells me to go away. I slam the door shut behind me and run to my bedroom, I go straight to my window – frightened of what I might see. But what I saw next was just… Beyond weird…
A young lady walked past, pushing her pram with a baby (not much older than 3 months old), the guy called Mr. Herrit glances at the baby, then stares at the lady, taking in the sight of her chest. The lady looked at him in disgust as he smiles creepily at her. She starts upping her pace and ended up running through the streets. He sees me and stares hard into my eyes until he turns away and goes inside his house – but what he didn’t know was that I could still see him in his bedroom window opposite mine, he glared into my room taking in my chest now, my heart starts to beat and I begin to get all red and hot. At long last my mother came to her senses and comes in just as he starts to pull off his clothes and get into an old-fashioned dressing gown, still gawking at me. He notices my mum and looks away, slowly turning he rushed away, closes his curtains behind him.
‘Sally. Stay away from Mr. Herrit okay? You hear me now? I’m being serious. I don’t want you to get hurt hunnie..’ Mum threatens.
‘Mum I told you so! And ew… Don’t even think about me and Mr. Herrit and anyway even if I was, I have Dylan so don’t worry mum’ I chuckle.
‘Hahah okay then Sally.’ Mum said in relief.
However, that night… I saw Mr. Herrit with his hand on his hips, curtains open, staring at me again, I wonder if he will ever leave me alone? I climb into bed and close my eyes try to relax, but my mind just won’t stop worrying, I a bead of sweat trickles down the side of my face, I throw the duvet off of me and run to the bathroom and have a shower. When I come out in a towel I notice that Mr. Herrit was at my window again, it was just starting to get dark now though, I could only make out a scrawny, old, frail man, who positioned his chair facing in my direction, he look up from his book and smiles. He balances the book carefully on his right leg, puts the book on the table, and moves towards the window, as he turns around, I gasp with shock, and close my curtains. I stare at my bookcase, wondering if I should spend half an hour to get lost in a book, I decide that I should – at least it’d distract me from the negative side of things at the moment. I stand up and quietly stretch my legs, running my soft fingers along the rough, sharp spines of the books; I pick the book which I had never seen before it was called: The Girl with the Fortune Cookies.
Immediately I thought it was a great book, I turn the front page over and start to read. An hour passes and I am half-way through the book. Oh c’mon Sally just the other half won’t hurt. Another hour passes as I finally finish the book. Well once I have devoured the first few pages of a good book, I just can’t let go!
I put the book back in its place and slip into bed, hoping that the next day would come sooner and better, I suppose that could only be a fantasy in my world…
