Runaway Man

Chapter 2: Strange

Chapter Two: Strange

Diana was staring at me with her hands pressed against her face with her elbows leaning on the typical blue canteen table. Her make-up had been slapped on a lot more sloppily than usual and her hair was scrunched into a messy bun.

"What did he look like again?" She had deep rings under her eyes and I was surprised that she actually came into school because her hangover looked terrible, "I didn't even know who half the guests were... or what happened."

"You did some crazy stuff yesterday and I told you, he was: tall, friendly, tanned and wearing a light blue shirt and denim," I growled like a grizzly bear. I had repeated myself at least three times already but judging by her expression, there must have been a pounding sensation in her head. Her fingers gently rubbed her temples and her brown eyes squinted like she was scanning her brain for any recognition of the wonder man.

"I honestly have no clue," She declared after a minute of two. I let out a sigh, "Better looking guys will turn up, silly" I glared at her. It was all her fault, after all. If her crack head hadn't snatched me away from him, I would have found out more about him. Like his name. Or his number if I were to get lucky. I didn't want to tell her that she was the reason I lost him though as it had been her party and she still was my best friend no matter what.

I leaned across the table and muttered to her. "It looks like I'll never find out who he is." 

"You know, maybe someone uploaded pictures onto the internet and like he could be in the background of them," Diana had a smug look on her face whilst she watched my crystal coloured eyes light up. Maybe she was onto something there! Her party was the talk of the school alone so if anyone hadn't bothered to take any pictures and upload them onto the internet, there would be something seriously wrong.

So as soon as I got home from school, I dug up my laptop, which had been buried for almost a year, from under my bed. The reason why I hadn't bothered to use it in ages was because it was ridiculously slow and I rarely used computers anyway.  I blew the thick layer of dust away from it and the particles floated onto the floor. By the looks of it, it must have been fifty updates overdue and the cooling fan sounded really unhealthy as it booted up.

I opened up Internet Explorer, considering that I didn't actually have any decent internet browsers installed and I found myself browsing through Facebook (which was rare in itself). Diana was right to say that there were a couple of photos from the party uploaded but they were obviously posted before everyone became as drunk as Haymitch from The Hunger Games. The fact that they all looked perfect before coming into contact with alcohol was amusing.

Despite every photo I looked at, squinted and zoomed in on, there were no traces of him. Not even his sweaty t-shirt or his stupid grin. Something wasn't right. I even saw my own grumpy face in the occasional photo... and I hadn't realised how out of place I was. Maybe he had invited himself in halfway through the party or something when everyone was too lazy to take any snaps or check who was coming in at the door?

But that didn't mean I gave up so easily.

After ages of looking, the corners of my mouth curled into a smile. It wasn't what I had been hoping for but it was something. I discovered a photo that showed half of his short sleeved top but not his entire face. I almost melted when I saw that his abs were tensed in the photo. I was able to stare at them to my heart's content without the fear of being judged for it. I felt like a creepy fangirl but hey - girls will be girls.

I downloaded it and texted it to Diana. Unlike most of my friends, Diana wasn't attached to her phone so I knew that she wouldn't see the message for at least a couple of hours, which was quite disappointing to be frank. At least it boosted up the levels of anticipation a bit.

And unlike most of my female mutals, I wouldn't go through the effort to: paint my nails, curl my hair, take loads of selfies and read magazines when it came to waiting so I found myself agonizingly frustrated as well as bored. An utterly horrible combination. I twiddled with my thumbs for too long because they started to throb a bright red and it wasn't until I had brushed my teeth at bedtime when Diana answered with a phone call.

"You didn't need to phone, you know," I faked a laugh. She seriously didn't, a simple text message would have been better for the both of us.

"Well, I did," I heard her giggle, "I couldn't help it because I showed all of our girlfriends the picture and apparently he goes to one of those posh schools." Despite cringing at the word 'girlfriends', I was thankful for her efforts because scavenging around for something like that wasn't exactly the easiest and most entertaining thing.

"What else did you find out?"

"I'm getting onto that bit now," she whined slightly with another giggle, "Well it turns out that Jessica knows exactly where he lives but not his name-" Her words were becoming too bubbly and quick for my liking so I lost her.

"Slow down..." I almost felt poison seeping out of my mouth as I spat out the words.

"Well like, why don't we knock on his door and ask him to hang out?"

"You can't just do that! What if he doesn't recognize us? I doubt he even knows who you even are." I was waving my hands around aimlessly like a crazy cat woman.

Then there was a painfully long silence. Probably because she was desperately thinking of something to say without sounding daft.

"Well he happily invited himself into my house. If you actually want to get to know him and stuff then you need to have faith in me for once, okay?" Her words stabbed me in the chest too painfully whilst the truth pumped injected into my veins then into my head. He had invited himself into her house, her party when he didn't even know her. Could he whinge if we turned up at his own place? The idea of it made me feel like a stalker though... as if someone would see a good looking guy at a party and then try find out all there is to know the next day.

It wasn't logical. Diana wasn't logical. I wasn't logical.

Angrily, I pinched myself in the arm. I wasn't a novice when it came to things like this but I wasn't exactly an expert. This would probably be the case for most people too, especially my own age. But the whole dilema with that meant that if I needed advice, there wasn't exactly anyone else to fall back onto because we would be sailing the same boat together. Yes there would be some ahead, some far far behind but either way, an adult's opinion would easily land higher up in the hierarchy.

"Are you okay? Why did you go all quiet?" Diana's voice sounded concerned now. It made me smile because I was glad to be reminded that she cared about me.

"I'm fine."

"We can go to his house when Halloween hits or something. It's only like twenty days away so we can plan everything out." Diana continued with her schemes. It was simply amazing how the emotion in her voice could change so quickly. Her idea did seem amazing at first glance and already ideas were forming in my mind.

"I need to sleep so next time, just text me." My voice probably sounded really grouchy but when school had kicked in properly, every minute of sleep was precious. Furthermore, Diana had the tendency to drag her phone calls and my parents were never all that pleased when they could hear me pouring out my heart into the phone to her, which was one of the main reasons why I favoured SMS over any other type of communication. Besides, I wanted to think about our plan by myself first.

So by the time I had rinsed my mouth with mouthwash and applied spot cream (curtsy of female hormones making me an acne freak), my eyes were sagging. Every step I took made me feel like Diana must have at her party because at most, half my brain was working at a low capacity. I thought about our upcoming event and started pulling bits and pieces together in my head. It relaxed my thoughts but at the same time made me feel as if I had drunk a high dosage of caffeine.

Either way, it blocked out anything else I was trying to think about. Both bad and good. It would go just like the saying: "Trick of treat?"