The Storms Of August

Chapter Seven: Maybe Together We Can Get Somewhere

Demi and I left her monster of a house around an hour after Nick and Joe did, half an hour before game time. As we rolled smoothly onto the road from her driveway I took note of my environment. The slick black vehicle was pure in its color aside from the two red stripes down the middle that rightfully declared the Camero a sports car. The engine purred softly and contently under the hood, only letting out a healthy sounding growl when Demi accelerated. Inside and surrounded by rich red pleather seats, she sat in silence with one hand on the wheel and the other hanging out the window as we rolled along. The blank look was fossilized in her face while looking at the road ahead without so much as a blink. She was funny the way she was so aware of what she was and what she wanted to be that she never drove her car anywhere. Demi always showed up to school beside Nick and Joe as they walked from on of the boys cars. She always went where she wanted to go in the dead of night by skateboard under the streetlights that had never been acquainted with her pride and shame. All the lights knew was the girl in the shadows, never the girl in the light.

To say that Demi was a better driver than Joe was an understatement. It was like life to death, a tearful free fall to sleeping in a casket. I'm afraid of both options, but it's not so different for what I'm comparing anyway. Demi turned on the radio once she hit her first red light and looked at me as if she was seeing me for the first time. She just stared, not for long, but for a solid ten seconds I could have sworn it was just us in the world and we had the entire globe to conquer and claim as our own. That moment ended and the normal mindset was returned once the light turned green, though. It was like the light poured through the windshield and she was gone to reluctantly continue the drive, totally waving any other thought. Houses waved by the window I slowly leaned on as the final glimmers of light touched the sky and Demi switched on her headlights. Night was arriving, and unlike the other dusks I was not sure if I should be excited or not. I had learned to expect Demi at my house once tomorrow had begun and she had changed her demeanor. However, the moon was getting high in the sky while she drove with the same aura of daylight. I shook the heavy thoughts out of my head, this was minor, nothing could be wrong with Demi. Look at her, look at her life, squint to see the light it emits and tan yourself in its presence. Oh how the thin line between seeing and not seeing betrays us.

Once order in my head had been reached, I could hear the soft hum beside me as Demi sang along to the barely audible radio under her breath. Naturally, as I always did, all I heard was her. The sound of her voice was the safety in the storm. Maybe if I told her that the sound of her voice and the rasp of her whispers are what kept me from growing hungry she wouldn't have stopped. Demi could have hurt an entire nation and not blink twice if she could justify her actions, but not me. She could answer the phone roughly thinking it was someone else and she would apologize for a week. But I never said anything, so she never knew and now I'm starving. I have a passion for long words that mean simple things but even I couldn't speak up. Even the supposed experts of the English language succumb to the limitations of their own vocabularies. I wasn't even sure what the lyrics were, but knowing how the vibrations of her throat sounded was enough for me so I listened contently the rest of the short ride to the field.

We sat high on the bleachers around midfield with two hot dogs and a soda can each. The clock on the scoreboard was down to two minutes until the game began and the excitement and tension was brewing in the stands. The stomping of high school spectators left my body on constant vibration through the cold metal bench as I tried to warm myself up with microwaved mystery meat and happy thoughts. "Did you go to football games in Minnesota?" Demi yelled over the riled up crowed.

"Nope," I shouted in return, "I'm not really into sports".

Curious eyes met mine as she held the bond between her lips and the Coke can. "Then why did you come with me?". The thin slice of hurt reflected in her eyes scratched at my skin like Poison Ivy and bubbled across my body. I knew the pain was microscopic to Demi. She was a rock, an emotionless, cold, stone sitting in the dirt just waiting to be kicked so she could go on an adventure. Yet it got onto my skin and under my fingernails like the purity of the sorrow permanently distorted her precious features.