Ok, I'll admit it, the thought that there may be a chance that I'd never see my demonic, narcissistic love interest again did cross my mind. And on top of that, it did make me cry a little. But I never would've admitted that if I knew I'd arrive in my front yard to find him perched on my tire swing and staring at me.
"Look what the cat dragged in," he comments halfheartedly, and I just kind of look at him.
"Why are you still cursed?" I ask. "Do you not love me?"
He seems taken aback, but I know he knows that the jig is up. Rose has filled me in on everything, and I don't know if he knows how I know, but he definitely knows that I know. He jumps off the swing and walks over to me, pushes his sunglasses up and brushes his white gold hair out of his face.
"I love you," he begins, and I don't know what emotions to feel, "but it's not that easy."
"Why?" I ask, unable to help myself from reaching out and grabbing him by the jacket.
I shuffle closer to him and bury my face in his chest, because I just want to be close to him. I just want to touch him and feel him, the warmth radiating from inside his shirt. He wraps his arms around me, but I'm too comforted to cry.
"John," he begins, holding my shoulders. "I'm sorry for what I did... but I can fix it."
"You can?"
"Yeah. I'll go to the hospital tonight when there's no one around."
I start to feel a little better when I remember how Dave fixed me with his magic, back when he almost killed me in my room and he was John Coffey. When I think about Dad getting out of the hospital, I think about things finally starting to feel ok again. And ok again was definitely the thing I needed.
I put my hands on Dave's face and pull him down to my level, then I kiss him. He seems surprised by this, which makes me happy. Surprising people, especially Dave, is fun. And on top of that, he cares enough to go make my Dad better for me.
"Can I tell Jane?" I ask, even though she won't believe me.
"No," snaps Dave. "Listen John, all this still has to be a secret, ok?"
"Ok..."
Standing out in the yard, I can see my window upstairs, and the light's on. This fills me with a sense of dread, because either Jake or Jane or a home invader is up in my room. I guess Jake or Jane wouldn't be as bad, just awkward and embarrassing, but yeah home invaders are never good. "Did you leave my light on?" I ask, and Dave just frowns.
"Nope."
A second later, he's gone, which just leaves me to throw open the front door and run up the steps. When I see that my door is closed, my heart almost stops. "Dave?" I whisper, but there's no response. I have a bad feeling I'm alone on this, and I curse quietly. He's still a douchebag.
Slowly, I grab the door knob and turn it, shocked and horrified at what I find. Dave's brother, triangle glasses guy, Dirk, is in my room, on the floor, surrounded by a little moat of candy. And wouldn't you guess that sitting right next to him is my cousin, Jake.
My jaw drops, and Dirk gives me this look. This look like don't say anything or you're both dead. And Jake just turns around and grins at me. "Howdy, John! We were just waiting for you."
"Y-you... me... uh, we? You mean, you're here of your own will?"
I try hard to ignore the grave stare that Dirk is giving me, and Jake laughs. "What a card! No need to get your knickers all in a twist, I was just keeping the poor fellow company until you got back."
"I... I don't..."
"You know, your schoolmate here! Your chum."
I stand still and can't hear myself breathing, because I'm not. I try to think of what I should do in this situation, evaluate whether or not Jake is in danger, and how much danger I am in. If Dirk has gone out of his way to fabricate a story to fool Jake, then he probably doesn't want to hurt him. "Oh, yeah. Right. Sorry, Dirk, I forgot..."
"It's cool," responds the blond phlegmatically, shrugging ever so slightly. He's the best liar I've ever seen.
"Where's Jane?" I ask quickly, suddenly remembering her.
"The hospital," says Jake, and I swear I'm about to faint.
"What happened?" I demand, making my cousin laugh out loud.
"Visiting your Pops! Jesus criminy, John..."
Dirk looks alert, like he's waiting. Waiting for me or Jake to say something stupid so he can kill us both. I wonder how he was careless enough to let Jake see him, or if he did it on purpose. It feels like forever before Jake stands up and makes his way past me, out the door. I slam it shut and wait until I hear his footsteps all the way down the staircase. Then I look at Dirk.
"What do you want?"
"I know about your little rendezvous with the psychic girl," he states.
"Yeah, so?"
"So now that you know about my Bro's condition, I guess you wanna break the curse. You love him, don't you?"
He says that mockingly, but I don't care. I'd love Dave no wonder what anyone says, especially some jerk in stupid anime shades. "Yeah... duh." Duh felt like a good comeback, but in retrospect, it was actually pretty lame. That doesn't really matter right now. What matters is that I have a possible death threat on my hands, and to all of you who think I'm being a wimp, and that you would fare so much better against paranormal forces, well, shut the fuck up! I'm about to piss my pants right now, and you would be too, ok? Trust me!
He smirks, and I've never seen him show any emotion before. "Did the psychic girl tell you that there's two sides to the curse?"
"Uh... no." But Dave had alluded to it out in the yard. I had forgotten to press him on it before he disappeared, as usual.
"Well, as accurately as I can put this, only half of the curse is on Dave. The other half's on me. If you want to break one part, you have to break the other part too."
It's that moment when something almost clicks but you still quite don't get it. Imagine algebra or something. It's sort of like what Dirk is telling me is half making sense, but I still don't get it, like I'm missing a piece of the puzzle.
"...You want me to be in love with you?"
"No, idiot. It has to be someone else."
"...So you want me to be in love with someone else."
"Someone else has to be in love with me."
Why do I know where this is going? "You can't have my sister!" I exclaim, and he smirks again.
"I don't want her. Let's make a deal..."
I. Hate. Deals.
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
My boyfriend is cursed. My boyfriend's brother is cursed. In order to lift the curse on my boyfriend, I have to get my cousin Jake to fall in love with him. I don't even know how to do that, because love is just supposed to happen, right? No. Not when an extremely buff, scary dude is threatening you. But in reality, yes it is, and you can't force it. But in reality, tell the buff scary dude what he wants to hear. It's the most strategic way of doing things.
...And yes, I did just call Dave my boyfriend.
But anyway, Dirk is gone for now, and I'm sitting on the couch, watching TV, when Jane walks in the room. "What are you doing up?" she asks me, and I shrug.
"I just have this feeling... About Dad."
"He's fine," she assures me. "I talked to him just today."
"No, I mean, that he'll be back soon..."
Jane scoffs. "John, you know what the doctors said. Dad will be lucky if he gets out in a month. Now stop it."
I shake my head, trying to suppress my smile. "No, Jane. I had this vision. I think I might have some kind of psychic powers."
"Sure," she responds. I didn't expect it to be any different, but it'll be worth it tomorrow when Dad's better, and I get to see the look on her face as she shits her pants.
"Where's Jake gonna go?"
"...When Dad gets home? I don't know. He'll probably take off and disappear for a while like he always does."
Jake the globetrotter. I don't know what I'm going to do when he's gone, except be screwed and have Dirk kill me and take Dave away. There's only one answer. "He can't leave," I say suddenly, which takes Jane by surprise. She cocks her head like she's trying to look in my ear and read my mind.
"What?" she asks slowly. "I thought you didn't like Jake..."
"I... He can't go..." If I bust out the crocodile tears I can probably get Jane to do my bidding, which would be convincing Jake to stay. Somehow, I don't think he'd listen to me.
"John," she sighs, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. "You've been through a lot, ok? New house, new people, new school... But Dad won't be out of the hospital for a while, and we'll get on fine without Jake once he's back. You'll see."
"But Jane, he can't go. I... I really need him to stay..."
"John—"
I can already hear she's on the brink of some deeply psychological, consoling speech when we're both interrupted by a crashing sound. Then I have this feeling that I'm not the only one in on the deal.
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
"What are the chances," mumbles Jane as we sit around Jake's bedside.
"Maybe our house is haunted," I muse, raising an eyebrow at her.
She shakes her head, and Jake giggles, still tickled from the painkillers for his broken ankle. Luckily, Jake's in a lot better shape than Dad, because Dave had the decency not to go too far this time. Although I wish his timing was better, because it's three in the morning and I'm up waiting in the hospital.
"I'm gonna go walk around," I say, standing up. "You stay and wait for the doctor..."
"Don't get lost this time!"
I smile and don't bother to tell her that I don't think that's going to happen again. The hallways are dim and I know there are a lot of people trying to sleep, and if I got caught by a doctor or a nurse I'll probably get sent back to Jake's room. Dad's asleep and I don't want to disturb him. I take the elevator to the first floor and sneak outside. The sudden cold makes me shiver, but there's not much going on out here. I sit on the curb.
At first, I'm fine, but then I start to feel really tired. I haven't realized until now that I've been up since early in the morning. It's almost like this fact suddenly knocks me out even more, and I lie down on the sidewalk, promising I'll only stay there for a couple minutes before I go back inside, because it's cold and Jane and Jake (or at least Jane since Jake is high) will worry about me. But I start to doubt that I'll keep that promise as my eyes start to close.
"Dude, what are you doing?"
I look up to see Dave standing over me, and he reaches his hand down. I lazily grab hold of it and let him pull me up to my feet. He stares at me thoughtfully for a moment, then shakes his head. "I swear all I ever did to you was make you sleep deprived. You were all bright eyes when I met you and now you're anemic."
"That's a funny way of looking at things," I answer, not sure whether or not to take offense to that. In a way, it was true, but lack of sleep has honestly been the least of my worries.
"Are you mad at me for pushing Jake?" he asks. He's still holding my hand.
"No, I think if you hadn't, Dirk would kill me..." I try not to smile, but I can't help it. "Plus, he's a dick sometimes. Not on purpose, but still."
"I always knew you had a sadistic streak, Egbert."
"How?" I ask, weakly punching him in the arm.
He snorts, using his free hand to reach into his jacket pocket and pull out a pack of cigarettes. He slides one out with minimal difficulty, places it between his teeth, and lights it. "Just the impression that I get," he mumbles, pocketing his cigarettes and lighter before bringing his hand up to his mouth. I've never seen him smoke before, but I'm not at all surprised that he does. His voice is always raspy and he smells like it occasionally.
I grip his hand a little tighter and close my eyes, because for a minute, I can imagine what Dave would be like if he was just a normal, non-cursed guy. I can imagine what it's going to be like once he's back to himself, and how happy he'll be, and how we'll be able to be together. I'm tired of secrets. I want Dave to meet my family and be able to hang out with me. I want everything to be normal again. For a couple minutes, I just stand there and pretend it is, until the sound of Dave's steady drags on his cigarette fade and his voice breaks the silence.
"Hey, don't tell me you fell asleep standing up like that."
"Nope," I respond, opening my eyes. The first thing I see is a shooting star, so I make a wish.
