"Smooth move," Melinda chided, as I was in the process of cleaning the top of my shirt off with my sleeve. She'd heard my noise of outrage as my hot chocolate had spilled down my chin and down to my chest. Wiping my mouth next I sneered at her in response. It was the last period of the day, I could do this. Not too much longer until I could go home.
"...and our last presenters for this project will be Melinda and Caroline," the teacher announced from her desk. Melinda immediately stood with all her papers and requirements, while I was still trying to get sticky brown chocolate off of my face. I wring my sleeve out and gathered my mess of papers from my desk, joining my friend in the front of the room.
She handed me the poster which I unrolled and held up, almost dropping my papers in the process. This was not my day.
"For our project we decided to tackle the issue of the school dress code and their unreasonable restrictions towards the youth population here," Melinda began without looking at her paper. "I'll start regarding the fingertip rule..."
Trying not to get caught in an awkward eye contact with any of the students, I focused on the posters on the walls, something the teacher of course noticed and decided that she didn't like. I saw her out of the corner of my eye staring me down. Shit.
"Caroline," she interrupted Melinda, and I could feel cold ice set into my fingers. I wasn't shaking yet thank god. "What do you have to say about this? You must have a contribution to Melinda's argument."
I adjusted my grip on the poster and nodded. "Yeah, um...as she was saying...the uh...fingertip rule. It's..." Melinda's eyes were on me, and she gave a slight nod to tell me to keep going. I swallowed. "Extremely inaccurate...because...it uh..."
Oh god my legs felt weak. I can do this. Just don't look at the students, don't- oh god they're all looking at me is one of them snickering what are they saying about me oh god.
My mouth felt dry. "Not all body types are...you know, the same, so...the rule isn't fair to uh, girls with longer arms and...yeah."
Why are the lights so bright I can't see my feet someone's laughing-
"Exactly," Melinda added enthusiastically, smiling at the students to regain the attention on her. "This is all we have on the issue. If anyone wants to learn more don't hesitate to talk to us after class. Thank you for your time."
The clapping rang in my ears and it was hazy on the way back to my desk, as I fumbled in my bag for the bottle, as I stuck it in my pocket and dropped the bathroom pass the first time I reached for it. When the classroom door closed behind me I bolted down the hall to the restroom and thanked god that no one else was in it. I went to the usual far wall and leaned back against the cold tiled wall, folding my arms and keeping my legs pulled up to my chest.
My heavy breathing echoed in the room and was only interrupted when I took out my bottle of pills and popped the lid off. Shaky hands holding onto the bottle I shut my eyes against the blinding fluorescent lights and listened to the pills rattling around in my grip. Breathe in, and out. In through the nose, out through the mouth and try not to choke on the faint smell of bleach. Think of Melinda's cat. Its long soft orange fur, the way it chirps its meows when its hungry, or yowls when it just wants attention.
Her name is Priscilla. She loves string, hates round objects. Bells scare her. She has a white patch on one of her paws and has long legs.
The door creaked open and Melinda walked in, holding a water bottle. She went over and put it in my hand, making sure I held it and wouldn't drop it. I thanked her and took a few sips and of course spilled it but I didn't care.
"You did it, you know," she said, sitting next to me. "You made it through the presentation."
I nodded. I was starting to breathe normally again.
She eyed the lid on the floor. "Did you take any of them?"
Carefully I picked up the lid and pressed it back onto the bottle. I turned it in my hand so that I could read the label. "No. I don't need to." She still stared at me. "I have it only in case I really need it, remember?. I've been fine so far."
"I'm glad. Your anxiety meds make you a little loopy, don't they? I remember like, one time in all the years I've known you that you actually had to take them. You acted like you were tipsy."
"I remember that too." I smiled a bit, putting the pills back into my jacket pocket. I could see that my hands still trembled visibly but I could deal with that.
"Mrs. Nuberg needs to just get off your case. I mean really, is it necessary to do that to you? I was handling it just fine."
"She doesn't know. Besides, I have to do it for a good grade."
She pursed her lips and furrowed her brow, her classic thinking face. I reached up and tapped her cheek with the back of my hand and she turned to try and bite me. Next I ruffled her hair and she swatted at me in retaliation. "Girl I will beat your ass right here right now don't you be touchin my 'do!"
"Yeah, yeah. You've been saying that for six years and I'm still waiting."
"Hush yo mouth."
"You would not believe your eyes!"
"If ten million fireflies..."
"Lit up the world as I fell asleep!"
Liliana continued to yell-sing the rest of the song without me, skipping in her pink shoes on the pavement. She went ahead of me and was out of breath by the time we reached our destination, the elementary school music building. I helped her pull open the heavy door and the rest of the children were already in their little circle around the teacher.
"Hi!" Liliana shouted, interrupting the circle to greet the teacher and take her place in the formation. I laughed to myself, sitting down by the piano in the corner of the room. The class was usually only an hour or two.
The teacher was an interesting man. He took time out of his own day to offer children an afterschool music program, in which he taught singing, small instrument use, and writing songs. He also let them have drawing time and hung all of their drawings on his walls afterwards. His name was Jonathan. He always told the kids to call him Jon, though.
Jonathan was an older man with a slightly worn face, but bright excited eyes. Not much was known about him, besides of course the mystery that happened ten years ago involving his daughter. It was all people could talk about for the longest time.
His daughter had gone missing only about a year after he'd gotten to meet her. The case was kept secret by the police but information got leaked anyway of course. She had lost her mind, people said. Some said it was the Slenderman. Or alien abduction.
Then people claimed to see her in the forest, said she looked like a ghost, had pure white eyes. She started to become something of a scary story much like the Slenderman.
I remembered not too long ago when Melinda had invited me on a road trip to see the house we had been told about in the rumors. I'd started to think that I just imagined seeing that girl in the living room. It's not possible for her to be real. Things like that don't actually happen in real life.
I mean yes, there had been an increase in abductions in the county, but no one has any solid proof that it's the Slenderman. No one has seen him and lived to tell the tale. For all we know he's just another scary story. There's got to be a real person doing all the abductions. There always is.
Despite all of this, the mysterious case surrounding his daughter, Jonathan never looked anything less than happy. It made me wonder how he could possibly function every day not knowing what really happened to his daughter. The events must have been devastating.
After the class ended and the children filtered out of the room to go to their parents, Jonathan was talking to Liliana about how well she could sing and told her she should join the choir when she gets older. I got up and went over to put her backpack on her once more, giving Jonathan a friendly smile.
"How are you doing, Caroline?" he asked, returning the gesture.
"Good, thanks."
"And your Father?"
I rolled my eyes. "Still working. And working. And working. As per usual."
He gave a knowing nod. "I figured. He's gotta support his wonderful young ladies, you know. Well, I'll see you two in a few days. Remember to practice, Liliana."
"I will!" she agreed, grinning toothily at him.
"Have a good day you two."
Liliana went to push the door open for me and on my way out I glanced back, and Jonathan was dutifully picking up the papers that the children had left on the floor. At least he still had his wife, I thought as Liliana tugged me outside telling me she wanted mac and cheese when we got home.
On the way back to our house I made sure to stop by Melinda's house and knock on her door. She came out after a minute with her backpack and said hello to Liliana.
"Bout time. You had music class today huh?"
"Yep. He told Lily that she should be a singer and join choir when she's older."
Melinda watched Lily walk ahead of us on the sidewalk like she was leading us. "She's definitely confident enough, I'll tell you that. Where does she get it from?"
"Definitely not our Dad."
Liliana began singing some Disney song at the top of her lungs and I would tell her to keep it down if we had been in any other neighborhood but ours. Everyone knew us and thankfully we never got any complaints. The neighbors were nice enough. I did yard work occasionally for some of them and got paid for it, which was always good. I'd take anything that would help my Dad pay the bills.
He worked 8 hour shifts, but he had overtime mostly, which always brought him home late and exhausted. Then he'd wake the whole house by cooking in the kitchen, insisting that he had to make us dinner even though we'd already had food. He's a powerhouse, except when he crashes of course. Sometimes he can't even make it to his room and sleeps on the couch.
"Thanks for letting me spend the night," Melinda told my dad when he finally came home around 10 pm.
He nodded and said anytime, then went to the kitchen after putting his jacket on the coat rack. I tried to yell after him to tell him he didn't have to cook anything, but he said he insisted especially since we had a guest.
Melinda sighed and ushered me back into my room so she could continue painting my nails. We had finished our homework and she said she had a new thing she wanted to try on my nails. She's always inventing her own styles for nail painting based off of professional designs she sees. She could very easily be a nail art designer, maybe even have her own salon.
"Anyway, she was like 'move your chair, bitch,' and I got up, told her to buzz off, and she was so damn scared she fell into the recycling bin," Melinda said, continuing her story of her almost fight at school. "I was like damn right you snob, thinkin you can be tellin me what to do. Get your humiliated ass outta here."
Her hands never faltered as she talked, sponging on more nail polish to my toenails. I'd been confused at first as to what she was doing but now I could see it. She was making a galaxy. I didn't think that was a thing you could actually do with nail polish. Leave it to Melinda to come up with this.
"It was Sabrina, wasn't it?" I asked her.
"Who else? Her lil clique wouldn't dare make a move without her say so. I'm waitin for the day she actually tries to fight me. Imma knock those drawn-on eyebrows off her face."
At this I laughed. Melinda had only gotten into a fight once in her life, an occasion she deemed important, and ironically it was how we became friends. A girl at our school was trying to tease me for I don't even remember what and Melinda took her down with some kind of martial art move that involved almost a kind of tripping her.
Melinda inevitably got in trouble but she managed to slap the girl quite a bit. She told me she would be my body guard and that it made us best friends. I agreed on the basis that I thought she'd bodyslam me if I refused.
Nonetheless, it was an investment I've never regretted. I told her about my anxiety later and how I never wanted to use my meds unless I needed them and she agreed to help me take care of my problem the way I wanted to.
"Hey Melinda...what have you heard about the Slenderman?" I aksed.
She looked up from her dabbing. "Really? You askin if I'm scared shitless of him like some weirdos at our school? Nah." She continued to work on her galaxy. "He ain't real, girl. He's a scary story that parents use to make us behave and not run the fuck away."
"What about the kidnappings?"
Her hands left my foot to lift into the air and point at me. "Don't tell me you be believin all that shit people are spreading around about him comin to this area an-"
"No, no, I don't believe in it either, I'm just wondering."
A sigh came from her and she went back to her work. "Lemme tell you somethin. There's been a shit ton of kidnappings and every time the person has been caught eventually. No Slendy man involved. This one will clear up too, you just gotta be patient. It's probably some creepy pedophile fucker."
"Right. Yeah. There has been a lot of those."
"Exactly. Slendy man ain't real, trust me. I know my shit."
I laughed. "Don't you always?"
"Yep. Quit movin your damn foot. I'm gonna get galaxy puke all over you."
The voices from the campfire drifted over to where I was sitting, laughter, whispering, quiet conversation, accompanied by the loud crackling of the fire in the center. In the back of my mind I counted five people. Two were snuggling with each other, one cooking marshmallows, the other two whispering about scary stories.
One of them announced that they were going to tell the others about the legend of a girl who went missing nearby and became a slave to the Slenderman, and how she still roams around the forest searching for her stolen humanity.
Oh. The irony.
They all gathered around in a circle to listen to the tale. Given, some details were off, but that was bound to happen from the story being retold over the years. At least most of it was accurate. The two girls cuddled with their respective boyfriends for comfort and looked rather distraught at the thought of being at the hands of Slenderman.
My finger twitched, and a log in the fire collapsed with sparks flying, making most of them jump or scream. One of the guys even clutched his girlfriend for a moment before regaining his fearlessness and laughing saying it was just the fire.
A girl spoke up and said she didn't think it was a good idea being out here with the Slenderman around. The teller of the story scoffed and assured her that the tall fucker was just a stupid legend and that monsters weren't real.
I tilted my head to the side. One of their tents flipped over, making the girl screech and stand up. She told her boyfriend that she wanted to go home. Another guy said that it was just the damn wind, nothing to be scared of.
Is it my turn?
Turning my head I gave him a look, pushing his white face out of mine with my hand.
No. I'm practicing.
The girl was in an argument with her boyfriend as well as the storyteller, while the other couple was sighing about how they always end up fighting over something. The girl was about to storm off to their truck parked nearby, picking up her blanket angrily, and I raised my hands.
The dead leaves and branches around their feet began to rise, as well as the trash they'd left. The girls began screaming at the top of their lungs and the guys joined them with their respective shouts and swearing and commands to go the fuck back to the truck.
They dropped their belongings on their scramble back out of the forest but I don't really think that they were too concerned about them at that point. When they left I dropped the forest debris to pick up all of the things that they had left, and I stood, going down the hill to make sure I threw it all to the very edge of the forest by the highway.
"There are other ways to practice with your abilities, Rei."
I remained silent and simply walked back up to head further into the trees. It was only around midnight and there were already campers showing up. Usually they wait until it's at least 3 in the morning. A lot believe that 3 in the morning is when all the paranormal activity starts.
"Or perhaps you would rather taunt and terrify them. Does it entertain you?"
I stopped moving, sighing deeply, before I turned back to him. He stood there and I could feel his smile hanging in the air, hanging like his long arms by his thin sides. The amount of expression in this faceless being amused me to no end sometimes.
"Scaring them shitless is the only way to get them to stay out," I explained. "I'm not maliciously entertained like you, believe me."
His voice rose an octave. "Oh, I see."
Feeling an analytic session coming, I spun and attempted to walk away, but unavoidably he followed this time at my side. I made sure to keep my annoyance in check so that he wouldn't point out the leaves floating in the air around me if it did occur.
An amused noise came from him. "I was not about to say anything."
"Yes you were."
"Well, not about what just occurred, at the very least."
I glanced at him. "Then what?"
"I will assist you with your abilities, if you wish. You have not requested assistance with them. I am beginning to think that you never will."
"No shit, really?" I skipped ahead using my teleporting to get further into the forest. "I'm doing just fine with them. I know what I can do and how to do it."
"Mostly."
I whack him sideways in the gut with the back of my hand, which results in him taking it and weaving his fingers through mine. At this point I know it's just about useless to try and yank my hand back. I've been putting up with him for many many years now. There are no proper battles to pick with him, everything is impossible. He's more like a 5 year old than the however-the fuck-old he is. He still won't tell me. He won't tell me anything.
"What are you brooding about now, Rei?"
I looked at him, gave him the best poker face I could and said, "There's no communication in our relationship."
It took him a full few seconds before he processed and caught that it was a human thing. He only said 'oh' in acknowledgment and I cracked up at my genius irony. If anyone accused me of having lost my mind I would most likely agree without a second of thought.
I always turned him down when it came to him teaching me about my powers. The truth was that I didn't want to know what I was actually capable of. I hadn't experimented to my full extent for a very good reason. Even I hadn't seen what he was capable of doing either. Some things I would rather not know. Besides, it could be dangerous. Our power was something that neither of us knew much about. Well, maybe he knew, but he never told me anything.
"Right here looks good," I told him, stopping.
He halted as well and released my hand. My feet left the ground and soon I made it to the very top of him where I rested my legs on his shoulders and put my arms on the top of his head. I let my chin sit on my folded arms while he rose higher and higher, silently stretching, avoiding branches, until we were past the very tops of the trees.
There were a few clouds but they couldn't hide the blanket of stars aligned randomly in the black sky. It was a clear enough night. I quickly found the north star and pointed to it, his head tilting up to find it too. One after another I pinpointed the constellations in the order that I saw them and he followed whether he recognized them or not.
"The one with the weird tail there, it's easy to see," I added making the shape with my hand for reference.
In my excessive amounts of spare time I'd taken up reading multiple kinds of books. At first it had been novels but those were too easily memorized and it took no time at all to get through them. Books with pictures and puzzles were much better to my liking. I began to learn all of the astrological signs and kinds of stars and the different galaxies that were beyond ours.
Everything that I saw could be remembered as easily as if I had just taken a picture of it. Talk about a photographic memory. It was much more, though, I could understand it and process faster. More efficiently. Everything was so much quicker now.
Except time. Time was always long and boring and it never ended.
"Captain Sprinkles is getting lonely," I stated. There's orion. There's orion's belt.
Slenderman's head lifted and I had to move my hands down to his neck because he wanted to lock his empty eyesockets with mine. He probably didn't think that my statement required an answer of any kind because of its utter irrelevance.
"I'm going to get him a friend," I continued, pressing my lips to the spot between where his eyes would be, then staying there with my mouth and nose against him for a while.
"Why won't you tell me?"
He slowly returned his gaze to the stars above us with no sound. He wasn't in a very talkative mood tonight it seemed.
I lifted my hand and traced the outlines of his soft face, the contours that I'd long memorized and continue to memorize. "Do you not remember? Or is it something that you don't want to remember?" Still nothing. I touched the indents that were the deepest portions and went around them with my fingertips. "You were human once."
His response was a bitter snarl of a laugh. "What gives you that kind of indication?"
I shrugged and used both hands now. "If I told you, you'd deny everything. It's not for the obviously somewhat human-like features, though. Just that doesn't make you human. It's much more than that. More than what's on the surface or what used to be."
I wasn't rewarded with a response this time. Back to silence and the noise of the swaying trees. He almost had ears. There were little almost ridges on the sides of his head, tiny indents and curves. His adam's apple was very much visible as was his windpipe, which made him look almost fragile, but it would never be possible to hurt him. Not that I would ever want to consider doing so.
"Will you tell me eventually?" I asked and laid my hands flat against his cheeks. "Or will I be forced to suffer the rest of my miserable existence not knowing? It's going to be a long time, you know. An eternity. You're going to have to put up with me bothering you for an eternity. Can you deal with that?"
For a faceless creature he sure gave me some looks. This one was a look full of all the unspoken words he dare not break the silence with, ones he'd told me night after night and countless hours after hours that we'd spend together. He was threatening to tell me them all over again when he got the chance. The very question, could he deal with me, that warranted the worst kind of retaliation from him.
I would be paying for that later.
Ey there. Been a while, I know, sorry, blah blah. I finally managed to force myself to have some writing time and it worked out quite nicely I'd say. I might go back and edit this later but I figured I'd been keeping you all hanging long enough. If anyone has an questions I'll be glad to answer them. Let me know if I need to make the change in the point of view clearer or anything.
Also you look very lovely today. I'm glad that you're here. I appreciate you a whole lot, and not just for reading this. You're wonderful. If I could make a heart symbol on here I would. Pretend it's there. Beliiiieeeeeve.