With No Warning (Romance/Inspirational)(Complete)

CHAPTER 20: Fight Night Fright Night

CHAPTER 20: Fight Night Fright Night

Shadows converged one against the other. Black against gray. Gray on Black. They closed around her heart. They closed around Evan as he walked.  Away.  Straining her eyes, Dakota watched until she could no longer make him out. Sometimes, she thought she saw him, briefly illuminated in the halogen glow of a campus light.  But the game was beginning to let out, people were slowly trickling across the campus, and she couldn’t be sure of one person from another. A minute or so later, a pair of headlights made for the exit, a pair she was familiar with.

Knowing he was completely gone caused her other senses to become more cognate. A hand rose in surprise to the wetness on her cheeks, and when she heard voices advancing on her, she scooted up a couple of steps, shrinking into the shadows of the portico.

Hadn’t she sworn off relationships, and men, just a few short months ago, at the grill with Kelli and Lora?! Now without even being in a relationship, she had gotten hurt. Trying to do what was right, she had gotten hurt, just as she had with Brian, just as she had with the school board fiasco. Like dominoes, one thought pushed into the other, and she grew angrier and angrier, with herself, with life, then with God. The tears stopped. The angriness seemed to grow with a loud life of its own, until, feebly, she became aware that it was alive. And that it wasn’t her anger.

Gazing at the group of students that had most recently passed, she knew they were out of her hearing distance. The argument that she was listening to was getting closer, and now she could discern that the voices were coming from the vicinity behind her, out of her vision.

“...you know you dissed me!”

A female murmur.

“You knew he was hitting on you...all chatting him up..texting him!!!”

“...tired of you talking all your smack!” The females reply.

“I’m tired of you period!”

Great. That’s all she needed.  She was in no condition to witness another breakup tonight. Casting her eyes at the sky, she wondered if it was a full moon, or maybe Mercury was not lined up with Jupiter. The argument continued as they advanced on her hiding space, and sitting as she was, beneath the shadowy overhang, with her back against the brick, she would hopefully go unnoticed as before. Mentally, to keep her mind from her own problems, she was trying to translate what she had heard, but was doing a poor job of it. Somewhere in all of this, right before the couple emerged in her vision, she placed the voices, and sat up straighter. Curt and Lana.

The argument took a twist, and they began quarreling about Lana’s ponytail, which Curt did not like. They had passed, and the silhouette of their backs was to her. She had a clear view when Curt reached for Lana’s ponytail, yanking at the band. From this, a skirmish ensued, during which Lana began to run away, and Curt pulled at her mane of hair to stop her.  Once her forward progress had been hindered, he maintained the grip, dragging her the couple of feet to him.

Bounding down the steps, Dakota lunged at him, without thinking. To her he was a kid, but physically, he had almost a hundred pounds on her. Completely caught by surprise at her apparition from seemingly nowhere, Curt fell back. But when Dakota stepped between him and Lana, and told him coldly that he had just made a large mistake, he sneered circling around her back to Lana’s side.

“No. YOU are the one all up in the kool-aid. Step off Ms. D.”

“I don’t think so."  Already rattled, she willed her voice to be firm.  "Lana, go on to the dorm.”

“Lana is staying put.”

“She’s going.” Dakota glowered, impatiently, at the girl, who might as well have been a statue. “Now!”