Continuous Misfortune

Cigarettes

        Jerome stood outside the door with his gift basket, he almost rang the bell fifteen times now, but he kept pulling his hand away. The neighbors probably thought he was crazy. He debated just going home, he didn't even know Kelly all that well. Well, that was a lie, he knew Kelly quite a bit, it was Kelly who didn't know him. Yeah, they had gone to high school together two years back, he had been in almost every one of her classes. He had almost talked to her a few times, but almost talking to someone won't cut it, and neither would almost ringing a doorbell. See Kelly Taylor had been in a car accident a few days ago, he was still fuzzy on how exactly it happened, he was sure someone at the hospital had said something about a rouge vacum cleaner, but that didn't make any sense. That was besides the point though, Kelly had gotten a concusion and a broken leg from the crash, Jerome had gone to the hospital to see her, he had almost gone in to her room to talk to her. But as it has been said before; almost just doesn't cut it. So Jerome figured since he had screwed that up he would just give her a get well gift, she only lived a few houses away, it would seem simply neighborly and nothing more. Well, maybe not neighborly, see Jerome didn't have a lot of money, not nearly enough for a gift basket of any kind. What he did have was an old easter basket, some questionable, unlabled soup cans and some lucky charms cereal. It wasn't the best gift in the history of ever but everyone always says that it's the thought that really counts. Jerome took a deep breath, standing here on her porch thinking was getting him no where, he needed to be impulsive, ring that doorbell, which at that moment he quickly did. As soon as his finger pressed down on the button he looked frantically around the yard, he had a sudden urge to run and hide, to leave the basket and head for the hills. He couldn't hand this to her, she didn't even know if there was any soup in those cans, it could've been canned beets for all he knew and nobody likes canned beets. As he paniced, worried what Kelly would think when she saw him with this basket of garbadge, someone answered the door. It wasn't Kelly, definately not Kelly, this girl was taller, with black hair instead of the honey color Kelly's was, it took him a minute to identify her as Kelly's sister Gwen. This would not have been a bad thing to anyone else, if that didn;t know Gwen. Gwen was, how to put this lightly, a total and complete psychopath famous for entrapping men with her looks and personality then driving them insane with her clingyness and jealousy.

        "Oh, well hello Jerome, what a surprise seeing you here. Oh, look, you brought me a gift basket, how sweet of you!" Gwen said taking the basket from him and going into the house. Jerome followed cautiously.

        "Actually that is for Kelly," He said awkwardly, Gwen groaned and set it on the counter staring at it in disgust.

        "Oh Kelly!" Gwen yelled out, "you have another visitor!"

        "Who is it?" He heard Kelly yell back. Even when she was yelling her voice sounded like the songs of angels.

        "Jerome Turner!"

        "Who?"

        "Jerome Turner!"

        "Do I know him?" Jerome's heart fell, did she know him? Of course she knew him, he had said hello to her every morning at school. He had gotten her a teddy bear for gift exchange in fifth grade. She had to know him.

        "Maybe I should go." Jerome sighed.

        "Nonsense," Gwen scoffed, then continued to yell to Kelly. "You guys went to highschool together!"

        "Did we?!" Kelly yelled back.

        "That's what I just said!"

        "Oh gosh," Jerome groaned. He had been a moron for coming. Why would he think that Kelly actually knew him. She was completely clueless about him. He wished Gwen would stop yelling already it was only making things worse. He grabbed a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and grabbed a single one from the box holding it in between his fingers.

        "Hey! What do you think your doing!?" Gwen grabbed the pack and emptied the contents into the trash then grabbed the unlit one from his hand then filled the empty carton with a handful of m&m's from a dish on the counter and handed it back to him.

        "What the---" Jerome looked bewildered at Gwen.

        "What? Cigarettes will kill you,  m&ms won't." Gwen shrugged.

        "What do you care?"

        "You seem like a nice guy and I don't want you to die of lung cancer,"

        "Well you're the only one who would care, even my best friend wouldn't care."

        "I'm sure he would."

        "He's a goldfish, he forgets who I am every five seconds." Jerome threw the m&m filled cigarette carton into the trash.

        "Guess it's just me then."

        "Guess so."