Suddenly a car sped in front of me, nearly missing my foot. I fell down hard, back on the sidewalk, stunned. It was the strangest thing. Just nano seconds before the car almost squashed me, I felt a pull. Like somebody had grabbed onto my jacket and tugged as hard as they could. But when I looked back to see who had saved my life, nobody was there. It was almost as if a ghost had pulled had me. Now I was thoroughly freaked.
"Allie!" Dana yelled and scurried across the street. "Are you ok?"
"Uh, yeah." Truth be told, I was not ok. I was utterly confused.
"Oh my god!" her eyes grew wide. "look at your face! It's completely red. Did the car hit you?"
"Dana." I said interrupting her rant. "Calm."
It was strange telling her to calm down, when she was usually the one to tell me to calm myself. Although she said the words, they never got through to me. When I was excited or on a sugar high, there was nothing on earth that could stop me from completely losing my sense of normalness.
"Yeah, calm." She sighed and took a deep breath. "Are. You. O. k.?"
"I'm fine." I got up. "I don't know how I'm fine, but…"
"But what about your face?" she asked, her chocolate brown eyes filled with worry.
"That wasn't from the car Dana." I said.
"Oh." She snorted, all traces of worry erased from her gaze. "Really. You're such a clutz."
"And proud of it." I said a hand on my hip. I suddenly noticed the pool of kids from the earlier trying exiting from the wall area. "Come on. Let's walk and talk."
We walked around the corner and up the street. When I made sure that nobody was following us, I let out a sigh of relief.
"What's up with you today." I looked over a Dana who was scowling at me. "You seem kind of distracted."
"I don't know." I touched my chin lightly, exactly where Cole's gentle fingers had been only minutes ago. "There's something about Cole, that almost makes me uneasy. Like there's some kind of power he has that I don't know about."
She stopped and so did I. her eyebrow raised as she looked at me with question in her eyes. "Have been watching too much anime again?"
"What's wrong with Japanese art? Do you have a problem with it?"
She rolled her eyes and started walking again.
"Still," I muttered.
"By the way," She said looking back at me. "If your face didn't get hurt by the car, what hurt it?"
I stiffened. "Doesn't matter."
"It matters to me." She looked forward.
"But you'll kick his ass." I wined.
She glanced back again, and I could see all traces of humor gone from her face. "It was a guy? Damn right I'll kick his ass!"
I sighed, but decided to tell her anyways. "Jared was teasing me, so I pushed him. He got mad and hit me on the cheek."
She spun around and her nostrils flared. "He hit you?"
"Dana calm down, it didn't even hurt." Lying through my teeth, I put my hands out in front of me, ready for anything.
As I expected she strode forward back towards the school. Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around her tightly, making so she couldn't go anywhere.
"Let me go so I can teach the jerk a lesson!" she struggled to brake free from my hold.
"Dana, stop it. You're over-"
"You're over reacting again."
I turned a soon as I recognized the voice. "Hey John"
"Yo."
"Could you help me contain your girlfriend please?"
"Sure." He smiled through his brown eyes. I handed Dana off to him and he started talking to her, calming her down. I watched from a distance. There was something I had never told Dana about John. I had liked him. When Dana told me she liked him too, I just smiled and said things like 'That's great!' and 'You should go out, I think it would be really cute!' when I didn't mean it. But now that they were together, they were happy, so I was happy for them.
They were both laughing now, so I started laughing too.
"I swear. I feel like I have to do that a lot." John said.
"That's because you do." I snickered and Dana stuck out her tongue at me.
"Is it Ok if I walk Dana home from here?" John asked.
"Yeah," I said. "We have to part ways here anyways."
"Bye Allie!" Dana called as they walked off.
"Bye!" I waved.
As they walked away I watched them. They talked, smiled, laughed and soon, faded into the distance. Then I was alone. I was peering down the yellow, leaf colored street at absolutely nothing. The wind picked up and lifted my hair off my shoulders. The leaves danced around as I tucked a piece of loose hair back into place.
Suddenly I shivered and turned back to my street. My house was about ten minutes down the road, yet it felt like a century a way. I felt lonely living in a different place then all of my friends. Out of the loop and then sometimes forgotten. But whenever that happened, I picked up the phone and gave Dana a call. It helped. Most of the time.
I looked up and saw my house just ahead. It may have been a long way from my friends, but it was still home. I took in a quick breath and raced towards its welcoming aura.