bluebird WRATH

Chapter 17 : Mark of Mea

"I've been dying for a girl's night! Right?"

"Yeah" I mumble as Abby goes to buy the ticket for the movie, 'Zombies are Foes 2'.

I should be ecstatic that I was with her. It's been long. With Maverick out of town and graduation in three days, I might not have any more time left with her.

"Hey, what's bothering you?" she asks me. "Nothing. Just feeling a little under the weather." "Alex, you know you can't lie to me right?" she says as we go to the Candy Counter. "I guess I'm feeling sad that my parents won't be here to actually see my graduation..." "I thought your parents were coming home tomorrow?" she says.

Shit! Bad lie.

"Alex, seriously. Girl's night. Truth time. What's up with you?" she asks me again and I don't know what to tell her. She pays the young boy in the counter for the popcorn before we enter the cinema. We sit right at the back in the almost empty theatre. This was our thing--we'd go to a boring movie and talk as much as we want at the back.

"Come on, spill..." she was dying of curiosity now.

"Ok. It's Caivanial. It's driving me crazy..." I start.

"Caivanial just wasn't right for me since the beginning and I shouldn't have ever trusted him." "What did he tell you?" Abby asks. "That he was part of the mob." I lie.

"No way. Is there even a mob in Quilfren?" she asks. "I don't want to know. He was all good guy and good manners the other time but he's killed Abby. I even saw him attacking Mayor Rodfon." "What? When?" she asks.

"At the party. That's when I forced him to 'fess up."

"Wow. Caivanial's from the mob and my boyfriend's a nerd on the football team. I'd like a trade Alex." "You'd prefer Maverick to be a mobster? You have it too good Abby."

"Hey, you don't know me...well you know me, but...arghh, nevermind." she says and eats more popcorn. "How are your parents by the way. I haven't seen them for a long time. They didn't even come for Family Day or the After Party."

"Work still. They're still in Iraq. I thought they'd be home before finals." she says.

Abby's parents were doctors in the army.

They were sent off and on during Abby's childhood and that's when we began to click. "What about your aunt?" "Aunt Zachariah is sleeping, all the time. I can't help it Alex. She's old. I don't know how much time I'll have left with her." Abby says and trails off.

"Do you think zombies are real?" she suddenly asks me.

"Why? Are you afraid of them?"

"Hell no. I just wanted to see if I could grab the chance to maybe kill one of them. See what they look like on the inside."

"Abby, we've been friends for twelve years now and I still don't know why you're so violent and obstructive." "Guess I was programmed, but you love me anyway." she says and throws popcorn at me.

The both of us laugh and continue to talk about other things, like Mr. McKenedy when he was appointed principal after the other one died, about the car wash which ended in a failure and about the public library librarian, Mr Agastya.

"Yeah that guy really gives me the creeps. Maybe he's like a cult leader like that." I say, "Probably. It would explain Harish a lot. That poor feller. He probably just wants to join the rest of this shitty world."

Before I met Caivanial or Damien, I would've told Abby that the world wasn't that shitty, but it probably was now. As the movie ended and the credits rolled, we leave the empty theatre to walk back out into the busy street. The lines are longer now, since it was the premiere of some Ryan Reynolds film.