CHAPTER 16
I was pondering what Richard had said about hope. I had my head in my hands and my hands resting on my knees. Richard was still sitting beside me. I felt his arm go around me. He pulled me a little closer. I rested my head on his shoulder and moved closer to him without hesitation. Even though I loathed myself for falling in love with him, I couldn't help the feeling of warmth and safety when I was in his arms. Safety! I scoffed at the thought. Safety was the last thing the surrounded my friends and me.
"Just remember to hope. Hope for the best." Richard crooned.
"I'm not sure I can. I've taught myself to ignore hope." I whispered.
He placed his other arm around me. I rested my head against his chest. I could feel his chest move up and down. He was calming. I closed my eyes. We sat there for a period of time, that is until it was ruined.
"Awww! Look at you two!" Kori was standing in the doorway with her arms across her chest.
"Shut up!" I moaned not moving from my spot.
"So are you feeling better about the situation?" Richard asked Kori. I knew he meant the way she was living with us and all.
"Yeah, but I haven't been able to unpack because these to people are hogging the room." She teased. Kori walked to her bags and began to search for places to put them. I had only needed the dresser to store my clothes, so Kori hade the entire closet to her. She slowly unpacked her belongings. Richard stood up. He helped my up, and the three of us walked out into the living room. Kori, in her spare time while we were talking, had made my tea and made a cup for herself. I sat down at the table and drank my tea.
"So what are we going to do? It's a late afternoon on Monday. What is there to do?" Kori asked eager to do something.
"Well, we have to be at work real soon." I reminded her.
"Oh yeah." Her smile turned into a frown. "Work."
"It's not that bad. It's neat listening to people's poetry. Plus we can read in our spare time." I mused.
"Sure, sure." Kori pouted on the couch.
"Well, there's got to be a game on TV or something interesting to watch. I can keep myself busy." Richard reassured us.
I left the room, after placing my tea mug in the dishwasher, and went to go clean up and get ready for work. I took a shower and got dressed in dark denim jeans and a black spaghetti strap shirt. I lined my eyes with my usual black eyeliner. I also slapped on some black lipstick. Hey, I already know I'm dark, why hide it? I pinned my nametag on my shirt and headed out my bedroom door. Kori had already run through right after I got out.
I walked into the living room.
"Where's Kori?" Richard asked flipping through the channels.
"She's changing for work." I answered him plopping on the couch with my favorite Edgar Allen Poe poetry book. It was harder to concentrate on my book with the chatter of the senseless TV shows Richard was watching.
"Ok, let's go, Rae." Kori called from the front door.
I closed my book and placed it on the couch and walked to the front door.
Richard waved bye and we left. It was a longer walk to the Dark Days café. We reached there a half an hour later.
"You're late!" Our boss yelled. We quickly got our little black aprons from the backroom and started work immediately.
At first the evening business was slow but it picked up around 7:45. I would wait on a customer and then I'd sit down and listen to the open mike poets.
After 8:13 p.m. rolled by a group of guys passed by the café's window. It was the Jump City High's football team. I despised them. I would sometimes catch bits of their conversations as I passed by them in the school's halls. They would talk about girls and of the latest show or some junk thing like that. I loathed the way some fools would bow down to them or be intimidated by them just because they were jocks with big heads.
I nearly died when one of them opened the door to the café. The rest fallowed. They were loud and obnoxious. The poet who was reciting a very dark and beautiful piece was drowned out by their laughter and yells. I got angry. They thought that they were too cool for common courtesy. Why were they coming in anyway? They didn't belong here.
"Hey let's check out the Goths' café." Said the one who opened the door.
So that's why they came in. To criticize the place where different people hung out. I got up from where I was sitting. I took my place at the cash register and the pack of jerks to approach me.
"Hey what's up?" Laughed one of them.
"Can I help you?" I asked with a monotone, cold voice.
"Sure babe." I knew he was just trying to annoy me. "What kind of food do you serve here?" I was about to answer when another asshole interrupted me.
"Bat's wings? Vampire's blood? Human guts?" He joked. So they thought that Goths eat that stuff?
"No. We serve whatever you can see that's on the menu." I answered trying not to yell at them.
"Oh, then we'll wait before we buy anything." The first guy replied. His smile was so cheesy it killed me. I rolled my eyes and turned to walk away. I knew all they wanted to do was make fun of the people who came to this café. I walked out from behind the counter and back to my seat in the corner where the bookshelves were. I reopened my Stephen King horror book.
"Got any spell books in here?" The pack had followed me. The football player was searching the shelves.
"No." I growled.
"Gee, you Goths sure are pissy." He laughed, giving one of his fellow losers a high five for his o-so clever insult.
"Sure." I knew if I ignore them they would go away.
"So you admit to being a bitch?"
"Leave me alone." I warned, my head not even moving from my book.
"You creepy people always want to be left alone." He mumbled. Somebody in the crowd of jocks snickered. I was so close to hitting him. I hated being called creepy. They didn't even know me. Yeah, they'd still call me creepy, and probably more, if they knew what I really was, but the way people automatically assume that if you are Goth then you're creepy and like to drink blood and eat bat's wings. It really pissed me off.
"If you have no business here except to annoy me, then leave." I glared at them.
"Oooo! She's warning us. What do you think you can do? Cast a spell on us?" He retorted.
I stood up and walked over to them.
"I'll show you the way out." My tone was chilling. I pushed them out the café's doors, but as soon as I got them half way out, someone pushed me out of them. I stumbled into he group of football players. I looked behind me to see who had pushed me. It was another football geek. I tried pushing my back to the café doors but a hand wrapped around my arm. I fell backwards.
"So you think you're big and scary?" The guy who had pulled me back asked.
"Just leave me be." I warned again. He raised his eyebrows. I slapped his hand off my arm and turned to go back inside but he caught me again but this time around my waist. I jerked around. I pulled back my clenched hand and slugged him right in the nose. He reeled back in pain.
"Don't ever touch me again!" I yelled. Before I could even think about going back to work, he threw himself at me.
"Bitch!" he yelled. He hit me with such force I almost hit my head hard enough to go unconscious. The football team had now encircled me. To bad they café's windows where painted black so no light could shine through because now nobody could see that I was being attacked. He stood over me. I looked up at him. He was smiling.
"You Goths think you're all tough at what not, but you're not."
"You are such a pig." I moaned. I flung my leg up. He made a stupid mistake of standing over me. I kicked right where it hurt him the most. His knees buckled and he fell to the ground cupping his crouch. I crawled out from underneath him. The other guys tried helping their buddy. But a few stayed to make sure I couldn't leave. I was struggling to get out of their iron grip.
"Let go of me you bastards!" I shrieked. Just then, the two men holding me fell on their backs. I stared in astonishment as Kori stood over their bodies with a pan in her hands. She was smiling.
"Thanks." I whispered with a weak grin. We both looked back to the retreating group and went back inside.
"Are you okay?" Kori asked walking me to the back room.
"Yeah, I'm fine." I said sincerely
"I saw you go outside but when you didn't come back in I looked out and they were crowed around you. I went to the kitchen to get the pan." She explained.
I cleaned up my nose, which had started to bleed since that guy hurled himself at me. Then I joined my fellow employees. The rest of my workday was a little more relaxing. I had one girl who was so impatient, but I held my tongue no matter how much I wanted to grab her nose piercing and drag her out the door. By the time we closed the café it was 9:12 p.m. and we were really tired.
The cool night air felt good on my cheeks. The walk back was relaxing. Kori and I talked and it felt good to know I had an actual friend.
"Richard?" I asked opening the front door.
"Over here." He said looking over his shoulder from the couch. He was watching some dumb show.
Kori and I left Richard to his TV and we went to get ready for bed. I changed into my black PJ pants and my purple cami. I brushed my teeth and cleaned my face.
"So what are we going to do tomorrow?" Kori asked after we had figured out our sleeping plan and got in bed. The lights were turned off and the window was open letting a small breeze course through the room.
"Well besides going to school, I don't know." I answered.
"Tomorrow is Wednesday." Kori thought aloud. "Oh my God! That means it's only two days away from Prom!" She exclaimed sitting up.
"Oh joy." My sarcastic tone fit my feelings toward the stupid event. I didn't care about getting dressed up to go out with a guy, in my case Richard, and dancing the night away. Maybe I'll just show up to Prom with jeans and a T-shirt on.
