Chapter Four: The Kiss
If you had told me a month ago that I'd be locking lips with my best friend in the front seat of his Ford Galaxie right after we ditched school, I would've told you that you were insane. Lucky for me though, that's exactly what was happening. I don't remember who kissed who, but I knew it felt exactly how they described it in storybooks. I had never kissed anyone before, so my expectations were pretty low, but my heart was still fluttering away in my chest the whole time. My head was spinning, and it felt like the world had been frozen in time. It was only one kiss, and it was just a few seconds long, but it was enough to leave me feeling dazed. If it wasn't for the loud car horn that was blaring behind us, I probably could've stayed like that all day.
When we pulled away, neither of us said anything. The atmosphere was a mixture of panic, butterflies, and raging hormones. I was fairly positive that Jonathan had never kissed anyone before either, so it was a new experience for both of us. Still, I hadn't quite expected him to just clam up right after. I mean, the awkwardness I felt about ninety percent of the time was enough to keep my quiet for the next fifteen years, but Jonathan had always been the sane and communicative type. Instead, he just flipped on the radio and avoided eye contact with me for the rest of the drive.
It took two hours, but we had finally made it to Jonathan's dad's house. I wasn't exactly psyched about seeing him, but I was hopeful in being one step closer to finding Will. I had only met Jonathan's dad a handful of times when we were kids, and he wasn't exactly the affectionate type. We had never exchanged more than a few words with each other, and both Joyce and Jonathan never had anything good to say about him. As far as I was concerned, he was a selfish scum that didn't belong in any of their lives.
Jonathan led the way to the front door, both of his hands clenched into fists. Through the window in the door, we were able to see some lights on in the living room, and I was able to hear a television playing somewhere inside. It was obvious that someone was home. Jonathan starting pounding on the door, shouting for someone to answer it as I stayed quiet next to him, surveying the house as best as I could. I was looking for any sign that Will had been there, but there was nothing. It was a normal front yard and an empty porch.
Suddenly, I saw something moving through the window. Hopeful that it was Will, my attention darted straight back to the door, so you can imagine the disappointment I felt when some young hussy opened the door. "Can I help you," she asked as rudely as possible, looking the two of us over like we were a pair of street rats.
"Is Lonnie here," Jonathan asked.
"Yeah, he's out back, what do you want?"
Jonathan, not even giving her the time of day, brushed right past her and straight into the house. "To look around," he said as he left me standing at the doorstep without him.
I gave the girl an awkward smile and a, "sorry," before squeezing myself in between her and the doorway.
"Hey," she shouted, "what do you think you're doing?"
"We'll be fast," Jonathan said, already heading down the long hallway in front of us. I trailed behind him, hoping to be at least a little bit of help. "Hey, Will," he called into each room as we searched. "Will, are you here?" He stopped just short of another room, reaching for the doorknob only to find that it was locked. I tried pushing on it, but Jonathan was quick to nudge me out of the way, banging on it as if his life depended on it. "Will?" There was no response.
We moved on to the last room, this door standing wide open for everyone to see. By this point, I was starting to doubt that someone other than Lonnie and his girlfriend had even set foot in this house, but the room did look a little suspicious. The bed wasn't made. It was obvious that someone had recently slept there. I looked over at Jonathan, who didn't make eye contact with me. He shook his head and turned around. It was no use. If Will had slept in there, it was obvious he wasn't here anymore. I lingered behind while Jonathan took off back towards the living room. I focused on the bed, looking around for any clue that a child had been in it, but there was nothing. For all I knew, it could've been some drunken friend of Lonnie's that had slept in there. Giving up, I turned back around, just barely catching a glimpse of Jonathan shoving Lonnie off of him seconds after he had shoved him into the wall next to me.
"Get off," Jonathan huffed, his eyes boring into his dad's for a moment.
"Damn," Lonnie scoffed. "You've gotten stronger." He beamed at Jonathan for a moment before noticing me as I hovered just a few feet behind them. He smirked, and I saw his eyes travel up and down my body, making me wish a black hole would just swallow me right then and there. "You're looking a lot older," he said.
I felt my face flush, not quite because I was blushing, but because I was so uncomfortable, and the unwanted attention was so embarrassing that I tried hiding myself behind Jonathan, who took a protective stance in front of me. "Leave her alone," he said to his dad.
The girl that had answered the door finally spoke up in that moment, standing partially in the hallway but mostly still in the kitchen. "Would someone explain what the hell is going on here," she exclaimed.
Lonnie turned his body so he was sideways, turned towards all three of us. "Jonathan, Cynthia. Cynthia, this is my oldest." Cynthia's glare then softened as Lonnie turned back around to wrap his arms around Jonathan.
Jonathan immediately shoved him off. "Get off of me, man!"
"I haven't seen you in years," Lonnie started, completely ignoring Jonathan's obvious disdain for him. Nobody said anything, so he turned his attention back towards me, popping his head over his son's shoulder to see me more clearly. "And this is little Daisy Clearwater. Your uncle still shacking up with my ex-wife?"
I didn't say anything to him. I was uncomfortable with attention from just about anyone, but his attention felt even more unbearable than average. I tried to hide myself even further behind Jonathan, who reached around to grab my hand in response, taking me by complete surprise. He had just spent the last two hours taking a vow of silence, and now he was comforting me in front of his creepy ass dad.
"Young love, I guess," Lonnie said, his eyes falling down to our intertwined fingers. Neither of us said anything, but Jonathan tightened his grip on my hand in response. "Hey, come outside with me. I want to show you something."
The two of us paused as Lonnie started making his way through the kitchen. I looked over, meeting Jonathan's eyes for the first time in the last two hours. I could see the worry in them from a mile away, but somehow his gaze was still soft. I offered him a weak smile, letting him know I was okay with following his dad outside. He nodded and squeezed my hand as we moved to follow Lonnie out the door.
He led us to an old muscle car that had been sitting in his backyard. It was obvious by the various tools laying around that he had been working on it recently. "Take a look at this beaut," he said, gesturing towards it like it was supposed to impress us. "You should've seen it when I got it. It took me a year, but it's almost running," he added, but Jonathan was clearly more interested in the trunk, dropping my hand to go over and open it up before Lonnie could say another word. "You wanna check up my ass too," Lonnie asked.
"Your son's missing," I said before I could stop myself.
Lonnie looked over at me with a smirk. "So she speaks," he scoffed. Jonathan slammed the trunk, cutting off the conversation right there. "Look," he then said, turning his attention back towards his son, "I told you the same thing I told the cops, he's not here and never has been."
Jonathan, now fuming, marched right back up to him, stopping just a few inches away from his face. "Then why didn't you call mom back?"
Lonnie shrugged, as if this were just some tiny misunderstanding. "I don't know. I just assumed she forgot where he was. Thought he was lost or something." I rolled my eyes from behind them, though neither noticed. "That boy's never been very good at taking care of himself."
"This isn't some joke," Jonathan snapped. "There are search parties," he started to trail off.
"Hopper's not still the Chief, is he," Lonnie asked, shaking his head when Jonathan refused to answer him. "Your mother's gotta get you out of that hellhole. Come out here to the city. People are real here, you know?" He paused. "Then I can see you more," he quickly added.
Jonathan furiously shook his head. "I know you don't want to see me."
"See," Lonnie began, "that's your mother talking right there. Does she know you're here," a beat passed as he looked over to me, "What about your uncle?" No response. "Great, so one kid goes missing and the others run wild? That's some real fine parenting right there." Another beat passed before he continued, feeding us as much bullshit as he possible could in that moment. "Look, all I'm saying is that maybe I'm not the asshole."
Jonathan, clearly fed up now, fished a poster out of his satchel, pressing it to Lonnie's chest as hard as he could before grabbing my hand and starting back towards his car in the front yard. "That's in case you forgot what he looks like."
The way he was pulling me back through the house and out the front door so quickly nearly made me trip over my own feet, but I didn't dare let go of his hand. Even with everything that had been going on lately, the tiny amount of closeness made my heart skip a beat. I thought back to what happened in the car, remembering the feeling of his lips on mine in the middle of a stop light. It was a feeling I knew I'd never be able to move past. I don't know if it was because it was my first kiss or because it happened with Jonathan, but hopefully it was the latter. He had gotten so protective over me in front of his dad that I had almost forgotten how embarrassed I had been about it.
"Fuck him," I heard Jonathan mutter as he opened up the passenger side door for me. I let go of his hand reluctantly as he shut the door behind me, appearing in the driver's seat just a few moments after. He sat there for a second with both his hands on the steering wheel but no key in the ignition. "I'm sorry," he then said, finally locking eyes with me for more than just a blink or two.
"For what?"
He shook his head, clearly beating himself up about something. "For taking you here," he answered. "I wasn't thinking."
"Jonathan, it's okay. I would've came with you no matter what. This is a tough thing to go through, and I'm always going to be here, okay?"
Where I expected there to be a smile, there wasn't. My words were supposed to be sweet and reassuring, but he had treated them like a Shakespeare lament he had heard a million times before. It hurt a little bit, especially when he perked up just a couple awkward seconds later. "Do you mind if we make one more stop," he asked, finally starting the car.
"One more stop where?"
Mirkwood. It was the street that Will had went missing on, and it was the one he always took home. Jonathan wanted to look around. He didn't trust the police to find every single clue that they could, so he wanted to take pictures for himself, and I wasn't going to argue. Honestly, his talent for capturing literally everything in one photo was unmatched, and I promised I would be there for him no matter what. That's why I was slithering my way through tape and barricades in the middle of a Tuesday night, trailing behind Jonathan as he crossed through each one, snapping photos of every inch of the scene that he could. I heard him mutter, "Where are you," before another flash fired. This went on for a while until my mind started wondering.
I knew it was ridiculous to keep fixating on the kiss in the middle of a crime scene, but I couldn't stop thinking about it. If I didn't mention something, it was going to eat me up from the inside. I wondered if I really had feelings for Jonathan or if I just had some kind of savior complex going on. I'm not sure. I thought about all the times we would spend time together as kids. I definitely didn't feel that way then, so why was I feeling it now? Was it hormones? Maybe it was his eyes. Or the way each tiny strand of his hair fell so perfectly around them. Or his compassion for me and his family; the way he treated me like I mattered just as much to him as his mom and brother. Maybe my feelings for him had changed.
"Jonathan," I whispered softly, though I wasn't sure why. There was nobody around to hear us in the first place. I guess sneaking around just made me feel quiet. He put his camera down for a moment, turning to look at me as a way of asking me what I was needing. "I think we need to talk about what happened earlier."
"What do you mean," he whispered back, oblivious.
My eyes fell to my shoes. I didn't know why I felt so embarrassed to mention it. It needed to be addressed sooner rather than later, right? Right? "The kiss," I mumbled.
"What?"
My face flushed. "The kiss," I said, much louder this time.
Jonathan looked away, turning awkwardly back to his camera. "Oh," he trailed off. A beat passed before he spoke again. "I'm not really sure how I feel right now, and I shouldn't have brought you into that until I did. I'm sorry, Daisy."
I nodded as I felt my heart start to shatter. I could tell he felt bad for saying it, but I didn't care in that moment. "I think I'm going to head back to the car."
"Daisy," Jonathan said softly, his eyes pleading for me not to be hurt, but it was useless. My best friend just rejected me seconds after I realized I wanted to be more with him. Of course I was going to feel hurt.
"It's okay," I lied, "really. I'm just tired from the drive. I'll see you when you get done."
The look on his face told me that he wasn't buying it, but he let me go anyway. I knew he felt bad, and I sympathized with him, but at the same time, I was cursing him. How could he act so sorry for me when he was the one that put me in this situation in the first place? I get that he's going through a rough time at the moment, but does that really excuse him from misleading me all day? A million unanswered questions were flying through my mind as I slowly disappeared from his line of sight. I had never been in a relationship before, and even though Jonathan and I had never actually been together, I was getting my first real taste of heartbreak, and it was the worst feeling I had ever experienced. It really felt like each string connecting my heart to the rest of my body had snapped all at once. I wanted to turn my brain off, but there was no use. Tears started pouring out as I replayed his words in my head, remembering how his eyes looked right after. My body felt like it was fading out. The breeze got colder, and the light of the world disappeared as I heard the most blood curdling scream in the distance.
My eyes opened, and it felt like the world had stopped. The same familiar debris and black sludge were floating through the air. I looked around, unsure of where I was. Everything looked the same, dark and melancholy vibrating through every inch of my skin. I half expected to see Will somewhere, but I couldn't feel his presence. It was weird, because I definitely felt the presence of someone, but not him. Will's presence was always warm and innocent, and this wasn't that. This one felt like a wolf that hadn't seen a drop of food in months. I felt its starvation like I could feel the wind blow. This time though, it wasn't looking for me. There was something else that it was going after, something with fresh blood.
Slowly, I stood up. I didn't feel scared anymore. I knew I wasn't being hunted, but at the same time, I wondered what was. As I started walking back towards the area Jonathan had been, the same direction I had heard that piercing scream come from, my hair started to stand on end. I couldn't hear it, but I felt the vague notes of a familiar song growing closer and closer with each step I took. Eventually, I ran into someone's backyard, and when I say it was massive, I mean it was massive. There were yards of well cared for grass and gardening as well as a large in-ground pool next to the house. There were lawn chairs and other outdoor furniture scattered around the patio. As I looked around at it, my breath hitched. When I saw her, everything made sense. It was Nancy Wheeler's best friend Barb, and she was the one being hunted.
My head snapped behind me in a panic. Everything suddenly felt so real. My eyes darted all around, searching for something to protect her with, but I couldn't find anything. My hands started to shake as I felt the thing getting closer and closer to her, seeing a single drop of blood fall from her newly bandaged hand. Suddenly, I took off towards her. I couldn't think of anything else, so I guess I was going to save her with my own two hands, as bad of an idea as that sounds. The pool lights flickered as I opened my mouth to scream her name, but nothing came out. Still, she heard me somehow. Her eyes met mine from across the pool for just a second, widening as she saw what was coming for her just a few feet behind me. I saw total fear in her eyes as a sharp pain ran down my leg, the monster's lanky fingers wrapping around me and squeezing as it threw me to the side. The last thing I saw was Barb being dragged into the empty pool.