You'll Just Know

Chapter 15

More than anything else, it was just so nice to be back in my bed, safe and warm. Occasionally, brief, disturbing flashes of the night’s events would make me toss or turn, but for the most part, my sleep was deep and undisturbed. It was the kind of sleep I had been needing for weeks. When I drifted up towards the surface of consciousness, I could feel my head buried deeply in one of my pillows, with the other pillow wrapped warmly around my chest. I probably could’ve slept like that for days (and perhaps would have), but when the phone rang suddenly from somewhere very nearby, it shattered the blissful silence like an explosion. It was then that all Hell broke loose.

What probably startled me completely awake was not the phone ringing, but the way the pillow in my arms suddenly jumped alive. My eyes snapped open and I found myself in bed beside Wendy.

Say what?

My head reeled from disorientation. What is Wendy doing in my room? How did...

Then I saw that the lighting was all wrong for my bedroom. Sunlight was streaming in from a place where a window shouldn’t be...

Then the events of the previous night came crashing down upon me. Wendy and I must’ve fallen asleep in her bed. The sunlight, it was...

The phone rang again, and this time Wendy made a dive for it across my chest to snatch it from her nightstand, cutting it off in mid-ring.

“Hello?” her voice was completely alert. She listened, hesitated for a moment, glanced at me, the said “Yeah... ok. Hold on.” She handed the phone to me.

My mouth gaped.

It was for me?

Too stunned to object, I took the phone. “Hello?”

“Casey, are you absolutely and entirely out of your mind?” Sandra’s voice came at me sharply.

“Sandra? What...”

“Listen, you might as well kiss your adolescent life goodbye if you can’t make it back here within the next fifteen minutes.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you recall having something called a curfew? Sometime around... oh... ten hours ago?”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yeah. Believe it or not, I managed to cover for you so far by locking your bedroom door and telling them that you’re sleeping in. Mom is wanting to take you to the mall to buy school clothes, though, and she said that if you aren’t out of your room in fifteen minutes that she’s coming in to wake you up!”

“I’m on my way.”

“I can’t distract her forever...”

“I’m leaving now.”

“Hurry!”

I handed the phone back to Wendy and jumped out of bed. I found that I was still fully dressed in my clothes from last night. Wendy, in her summer nightshirt, was sitting up in bed.

And the thought just came to me: I had been sleeping with my arm around her. I tried for an instant to recapture the warm, soft sensation...

“Are you in trouble?” Wendy asked.

“Not yet. I need to get home quick, though.”

Wendy nodded. “I think we can chance running you downstairs. My parents don’t usually get up on Sunday until after noon.”

“If you think it’s safe.” I said, picking up my shoes and following her as she got up and walked towards the closed bedroom door.

Quietly, she pulled the chair away that she had placed under the knob. She reached for the door handle, and in that moment we heard a floorboard in the hallway creak loudly. Wendy had just enough time to push me against the wall behind her door and sprint to her bed before her door burst open suddenly. It swung wide and pinned me soundly to the wall behind it as Mr. Cameron rumbled into he room.