It's spring break, so there's time to post. Here's a chapter. I'll try to get you another one during this week as well, but no promises. I wrote this section, then decided I didn't like it and re-wrote it over, which caused a considerable delay. This chapter should have been posted a couple of days ago, and then one after it, if i hadn't made changes, is already written. Due to the changes, though, it's hard to estimate the next post.

We went that way all the way to Alex's old beast of a car-that's what he called the old Grand Prix: The Beast-which was parked at the far end of the parking lot. It was cold. Really cold. Hdn't it just been warm during the day? That's one of the things I hate most about this time of year. It keeps you guessing. I wished I'd brought a coat and cursed the damn Groundhog, who I thought had seen his shadow this year, all the way to the Beast. I actually wouldn't have minded if Alex's hand had actually made contact with my arm at that point, but it didn't and at last I was finally settling inside the Beast for the drive... where? I had driven myself there, so I didn't need a ride home. My car was on the other end of the parking lot, and I considered asking Alex to just drive me there. After all, where else could we go? Back to Alex's place? But for some reason, I didn't say anything. I just put my seatbelt on and sat there. Strangely, Alex had left the windows down. Yeah, it was warmer earlier today, but hadn't he worried about leaving his car open like that? Then again, who would want to steal the Beast?

Alex pulled out of the parking lot without asking me where I lived, so I figured he didn't think he was giving me a ride home. Unless he already knew. That would be creepy, wouldn't it? He did turn in the right direction, i noticed. But then, lots of things are that direction, like the Dairy Barn and the corner store and the overlook. Other cities, even, if you kept driving on it. Our rival school was down that road, so if it had been football season, we might have been headed that way to paint their mascot our school colors or something. But it wasn't football season, and this was Alex. I just waited to see where I would end up, which was probably pretty stupid on my part. Alex cranked up some symphonic but heavy music and gunned the engine. The wind whipped my hair around and obscured my view. I wrapped my arms around myself in my thin costume.

Alex glanced at me sideways and put up both windows simultaneously. "You're cold," he said.

I shrugged. "I'm fine now," I said. It was true. I'd warm up easily with the windows up.

Alex shifted uneasily in his seat. At the red light he looked carefully at the cuffs of his Red Death coat. "Do you want my jacket?" he asked me.

"No, I'm good," I said. I really was. But I shivered as I was warming up, and I think he noticed. He turned on the heater of the Beaston and pointed all the vents at me.

He didn't say anything. He gave me a look. I felt like I could read his thoughts. He was practically begging me to let him take care of me. I snuggled down into the soft fabric seat and enjoyed the hot air. I even closed my eyes.

"Christine," Alex said suddenly.

I snapped my eyes open.

"Do you mind if we stop for a few minutes?"

"Umm… What?" My heart started pounding way too hard. Suddenly, the heat I had been enjoying so much a second earlier was overwhelming. My armpits felt damp and my eyes and mouth felt too dry. Why would we stop? Where we would stop? For what possible reason could we have to stop? There certainly wasn't anything suddenly very wrong with the car, but Alex's voice sounded urgent. Without words my thoughts turned to how my parents always warned me not to go riding in a car with a boy and how I always thought they were being absolutely dumb. Oh my god, they were right. I panicked. Outwardly I said, "Whatever, sure. If you really have to. Just don't let's be too long or anything. My Dad'll worry." I figured invoking Dad would remind him that all girls have dads and lots of those dads have guns.

"I won't be long," he said. "At least, I hope not." I tried not to think about all the things that could mean, but you know how it is when you try not to think about something. It's the only thing that runs through your head.

I had nothing to worry about really, though. Alex bolted out of the car without cutting the engine or turning off the headlights. Oh, I thought, relieved. I'd been on enough fishing trips with my Dad and two brothers to guess that he probably had to take a leak. I figured that for, you know, like, at least two minutes. Until more than two minutes had gone by and he hadn't come back.

I turned off the heat. It was really too much by this point. I turned off the music, too, and put the window on my side down a little bit and listened.

Nothing.

Weird.

I glanced at the dashboard clock and took note of the time. Surely by now he'd been gone at least five minutes. I let five more minutes pass. Still, no Alex. I opened the car door. The dome light snapped on and the door started to make that annoying ding it makes when the keys are in the ignition. I decided to leave the door open. Just my luck, I'd accidentally lock Alex's keys in and then we'd really have a problem. I took note of the time again and decided that if I didn't find him in like, five minutes, I'd start screaming his name. If he didn't turn up in a minute or two after that, I wasn't sure what I'd do next. Maybe drive his car back to civilization and see if someone could help me find him. Or maybe call the police. Or call Dad and ask him whether I should call the police or not. Of course, I wasn't wild about the idea of telling Dad that I was at the lookout point with some guy. It would be different once Dad saw him. Then he'd understand how I couldn't possibly be doing anything bad… but his first reaction was going to be very, very bad.

Whatever. Time was passing and I wasn't calling for Alex yet. I got out of the car carefully and opened the door wide so it wouldn't swing shut and lock me out, just in case the door locks worked automatically, even though I totally doubted it.

"Alex?" I called. Or, tried to. It came out like a whisper. I cleared my throat to try again as I stepped forward.

But I didn't manage to say anything because I startled. I'd stepped on and nearly tripped in something soft and thick. When I reached down to see what it was, I found Alex's Red Death coat, lying on the ground. I picked it up by the collar and took it with me as I moved closer to where I thought he was.

I say where I thought he was, because I couldn't be sure. It was dark. Really dark. I waited for a few minutes for my eyes to adjust, but the glare from the headlights seemed to keep my eyes in light-mode without doing much for helping me actually see in front of me. I debated whether to go back and cut the lights on the car or just yell for Alex a couple of times. In the end I did neither. I decided it was too damn cold to stand around in my flimsy costume in the cold air. I trotted back to the car hugging myself. I resisted the urge to put the Red Death jacket on.

It felt like forever, but it probably wasn't too long before Alex came huffing back to the car. He stepped into the headlights and I noticed it shirt was mis-buttoned as though he'd dressed hastily. I wondered if he'd had it wrong all night or whether he'd just had his shirt off, and then I wished I hadn't had that thought.

Alex collapsed into the drivers seat and didn't close his door. He pulled his long thin hair up in one hand and fanned himself with the other like it was warm even though it was definitely cold. I forced myself to remember that he was carrying a lot more insulation around than I was and wondered how I could have forgotten that in the first place.

"Sorry," he said breathlessly as he put the car in gear without closing the door. "Why don't you wear the jacket?" He glanced at me before closing the door. "Your lips are blue you know," he added.

I surrendered and shrugged into the thing. It certainly was very warm.

Alex mashed the accelerator and swirved back onto the main road a little faster than I would have considered normal. At the crest of the hill be braked hard and turned left. The Grand Prix coasted into a parking spot at the corner store. He got out of the car slowly and started toward the store. I considered going along but didn't want to walk into the store in my costume. Alex was still half in costume and I admit I did worry for a second whether someone inside would make a mean comment. Which, I thought, might have occurred to him, too. Why else did he stop and sit on the hood instead of going inside?

When he didn't make a move to go inside or come back to the car, I got out. I was just going to have to walk in with him, like it or not.

"Come on," I said. "We going in?"

He didn't respond. And he didn't look normal. No, I mean, not even normal for Alex.

"Umm… Alex? Why'd we stop here?"

"…get something to drink," he suggested. His voice was kinda faint. I didn't like it one bit.

"Sure," I said all fakey normal-like. "Whatdaya want? Pepsi, Mountain Dew….?"

"Jus' water," I think he said.

Um… okay. I took two steps toward the door and remembered—no purse. We'd left in such a hurry I hadn't gotten anything from my locker or from my car. My purse was in one of those places. I couldn't even remember which at first. Then I remembered: purse in the trunk of the car, keys to the car in my locker. My heart started a panicky pounding before I even realized why. If the school was locked up and my keys were in my locker, I couldn't get into my car, couldn't get my purse, and couldn't drive home. Damn! What time was it, anyway? We'd left early, so maybe the dance was just now ending, or maybe not even over yet. So, first, this water thing, then to get my purse, keys, and car back.

"Um," I started. "I uh… I don't have my purse, so…." I pointed at the door and pantomimed something I hoped looked like 'I can't buy you anything.'

He didn't say anything, just nodded a little.

I had to stop and look at him then, because something totally wasn't right.

"Alex?"

"I got it," he said. "My wallet's in the car. Jus' gimme a minute." Long pause while my heart rate picked up yet again. "I don't feel so good."

"Well, shit, it's cold as hell out here." I was cussing more than normal, don't know why. Sometimes I catch myself doing whatever the people I"m with do, or talking how they talk, but that couldn't be it because Alex doesn't cuss at all as far as I can tell. "Let's get back inside and get you warmed up," I managed without a single dirty word. But I heard myself and noticed it sounded like I actually gave a shit what happened to the guy. Which, I guess I did. When the hell had that happened?

"Worst thing I could do," he told me. But he opened the car door anyway and rummaged around in the dash to produce a black leather wallet and handed me a couple of crumpled bills.

"Water?" I confirmed.

"Couple of them?" He looked positively pathetic.

"Yeah." I bumbled into the store tripping all over my long white dress and bought four bottles of water, one of which I dropped on the way out. I stepped on my dress again as I picked it up and almost landed on my face. Graceful, I chastised myself sarcastically as I went back out the door.

I caught sight of my reflection in the door as I exited. A pale ghost wearing Red Death's discarded jacket. Death himself leaned against the old car outside in a white long-sleeved shirt and red pants and looked creepier with that faded expression than he had in the horrible mask. Well, weren't we a pair!

"Water!" I called cheerfully, because I couldn't think of a single intelligent thing to say.

He said nothing, just took the first bottle, drained it and handed me the empty. Our hands brushed briefly and I noticed that his were hot and dry.

"Um, you okay?" I said. Fever? I wondered.

"Yeah." He smiled for the first time in forever. "Better," he said. "Don't worry."

I opened my mouth to say "I wasn't worried," then decided to shut the hell up instead. I forced myself to look at him, and I let myself think the worried thought he'd expected me to have. "What's wrong?" suddenly popped out of my mouth in an anxious tone. I felt very peculiar all a sudden. I reached toward him and almost touched his hair. I pulled my hand back when I realized how weird I was being.

"Nothing." He leaned back and closed his eyes. "I just needed to cool down."

If anyone else had said that to me, I'd have either laughed or slapped him depending on his tone. But it was Alex. So I just stood there.

"You get inside," he told me. "You're freezing."

Yes, I was freezing, which left me perplexed as to why he needed to cool down. But I got inside without asking impossible questions. To my surprise, he got in too.

"Can we go back to the dance?" I asked

He looked at me with this shocked look on his face. I didn't think about what that look might have meant until later.

"No, like, I I left my car keys in my locker, and my car is at the school."

He looked deflated. "Christine, the dance ended a while ago."

Shit. "You sure?"

"Pretty much."

He drove me there anyway to make sure. The parking lot was dark, and everyone was gone. Damn.

I'm really sorry, Christine," Alex apologized. "I didn't realize you didn't have your keys. I didn't think about it. I should have seen you didn't have your purse, and I know there aren't any pockets in that. I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry..." I interrupted twice to say "Don't worry about it," but he just went on and then eventually exploded into, "I'm so stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!" punctuating it the first three times with a palm slam against the wheel and the final one with a head slam to the headrest.

"Jeez, Alex, it's okay!" I managed. "My brother can bring me over in the morning with the second set of car keys. Or my dad. Don't worry about it."

"You live with your dad?" He seemed surprised.

"Um, yeah. And my mom. Why?"

"But you said your dad would drive you over."

Shrug. Actually I had said my brother first, but who cared who drove me over? "I dunno," told him. I wanted to keep talking so he didn't get upset again. "My mom's not around that much. And Dad and I are really close."

He was calmer now but glanced at me as he drove. "I figured that," he said.

Why would he figure that?

But I didn't ask.

I was too weirded out by the fact that Alex knew exactly where I lived.

"Thanks for the ride," I mumbled. "See you at school!" I didn't invite him in and I didn't ask him to wait until I'd made sure Dad was awake to let me in. I just ran up the front steps as fast as I could.

Reviews, please?