Till Death Do Us Part

Chapter 11: Who's There?

“When was the last time you went out?” David asked suddenly when we got into the car.

“Excuse me?” I asked, confused.

“When was the last time you went out? Like to a mall or the movies with friends?” he asked, putting the key in the ignition and twisting it.

I glared at him.

He winced, “Oh yeah,” he said apologetically, “Sorry I forgot.”

I huffed and turned to look out my window while he reversed out of the school parking lot.

“I was wondering…would you be opposed to going to the movies Friday night?” he asked, looking briefly at me before looking back at the road.

Go out? With David?

He must have seen my stricken expression because he hurriedly added, “Just as friends.”

I relaxed slightly, but was still slightly…uneasy about the idea.

“We’ll see,” I said slowly before turning to look back out the window.

The drive home was slightly awkward…at least it was for me anyways. He dropped me off with a cheery goodbye while I only grunted in response and slouched up to my house. I went inside the empty house and up to my room.

I turned on the stereo, blasting Stella by All Time Low just as Penn popped up. Since I needed to burn off some extra energy, and I was happy Penn was there, we both just started dancing and singing loudly and off-key with every song that played on my stereo. If a song played that we didn’t quite know the words too then we’d either mumble along with the beat or make up our own words.

“S-E-X me, someone hump me, it’s not healthy for me to feel this way are you making this hard?” Penn and I sang loudly to Rihanna’s SOS, changing the words around to our dirty version of the song.

“FAYTH!” someone shouted.

Penn and I froze for a moment before I sprinted to my stereo, stopping the music.

“Yes?” I called, heart in my throat.

“Keep it down will you?” My dad called, “And get your butt down here; dinner’s in a few minutes.”

“Okay!” I shouted back.

“Buzz kill,” Penn muttered and I grinned, touching his ghostly cheek carefully with my hand.

“See you later,” I said.

He smiled warmly, “Later alligator,” he said, disappearing.

I shook my head, rolling my eyes before I wandered downstairs, dragging my feet.

I stopped short when I saw another person in the kitchen. A woman with platinum blonde hair that was straightened so much it was like a ruler, and on closer inspection I could see her hair was kind of fried looking. She had a bit too much make up on her face, but she looked like if she nixed the major makeup she would be pretty.

“Well, who’s this pretty little thing?” she cooed, rushing at me.

Frightened, I leapt away from her, wide eyed.

She frowned as my dad walked around her to stand beside me. He put a hand on the small of my back and I shrank against his side. He knew of my fear of people and being touched. 

“This is my daughter, Fayth,” he said, looking down at me with a warm, genuine smile.

As glad as I was to see my dad happy and sober I was too nervous to smile back.