What Happened After

Chapter 11

"Don't act like you don't appreciate Mickey and the Gang as much as anyone else." 

Chapter 11.

          “You’re going where with who?”

          “Anna, he’s fine. I’ll be okay, he’s just taking me up there a few days early. I’ll have somebody else drive me back before classed start again.”

          “You’re gonna let him drive you? How has that worked out for you in the past?”

         “He’s a good driver!”

          “Be sure to tell that to your two best friends when you go to visit them. At the cemetery!”

          There was absolutely no reasoning with Anna. She had it set in her mind that Ruesso was going to kill me—whether that be purposefully or accidentally—and wasn’t going to let up anytime soon. With Taryn, it had been easy. After the initial shock had worn off, he had relented and told me he couldn’t stop me from doing what I wanted, and to have a safe trip. I couldn’t help but notice the emphasis on the word ‘safe.’

          As I began packing my belongings for the trip, Anna was pacing back and forth across our room, worrying her head off. I didn’t know what she expected, but I had to reassure her several times that I was not going to die. Now, I stood staring at her after her outburst, and she backed down slightly. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “That was completely out of line. You know how sorry I am about what happened to your friends. It’s just that—I can’t help but think something like that will happen to you too, you know? You might be able to trust him, but all I know about him is that it’s his fault those people are dead, and it’s actually kind of a miracle that he isn’t, as well.”

          “What happened wasn’t his fault,” I said now. “You know that. There was a semi truck that came out of nowhere and he couldn’t do anything to stop it. If it makes you feel any better, he was severely injured by the whole accident, in case you’re worried about whether or not ‘justice was served.’”

          Anna scoffed, and went back to the crossword puzzle she had been working on when I first entered the room. We stayed that way all day, only breaking to eat lunch together in the Student Union. It was at about six pm that I received a call from Ruesso, telling me that he was downstairs, outside my building, and asking if he could come up. I had him on speaker, and as he said this I turned to Anna to see what she thought. She shrugged, albeit uneasily, and waved her hand in dismissal.

          I quickly went downstairs to get him, and was surprised to see that he had changed his clothes. He was now wearing Mickey and Friends pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt. I decided to ask him about those later. “Hey,” he began. “You might want to change, it’s gonna be a long drive and you’ll be too beat to change your clothes once we get home, probably.” He nodded at my current clothes: jeans, a sweater, my black peacoat, and a scarf. It had unusually cold in Berkeley for the past couple days.

          “Oh, yeah. I was going to…”

          He smirked. “No you weren’t.”

          “You’re right. You wanted to come up?”

         “Yeah, if that’s alright. I got here crazy early and I don’t have anything else to do. I didn’t want to walk around your campus because I figured people would probably think I was crazy, what with me being in my PJ’s at 6pm.”

          “Yeah, probably. Alright, come on up then.” He followed me to the front desk where I had him checked in, then we climbed the stairs to my floor together. We passed Matt, my RA, on the way to my room, and he stopped us.