anything possible to make fun of the weak one, so helpless and alone. To make everyone turn and wonder why he’s laughing anyway? What did I do? Well, I ate a banana.
“Aaron.” Shannon whined. “You’re a freaking college guy. And you can’t even handle a girl eating a banana? That’s sad.”
“The way she eats it—”
“I eat it like a normal person would, Aaron.” I grumbled, biting another piece. “You just have a dirty mind.”
“Exactly,” Shannon said. “You thoughts are so disgusting. You never see Eric commenting.”
“That’s because Eric’s quietly thinking it.” Aaron said. “You don’t know what goes on when the girls not present.”
And finally, after like two hours of playing, we completed the game and counted our money. Shannon gave each of us a sheet of paper from a notepad she found in the box. We all announced our earnings, Shannon being the highest and winning. Eric came in second, him being an accountant and all. And I came in third with Aaron finishing last.
“Yeah. I won at life!” She said.
Aaron threw his money to the ground in a fit. “Well, you were a doctor! What the hell did you expect?”
“Hey! You were an entertainer. A lot of people in entertainment make a ton of money!”
“I guess nobody wanted what you were selling, so….” Eric said in a low voice to Aaron. I laughed softly.
Aaron crossed his arms and looked away. Shannon threw her money up in the air, as if to rub it in Aaron’s face.
Eric left the house to get some groceries. His mother called in, asking him to get neccessary ingredients for the dinner she planned tonight. Eric kept me in the warm hands of Shannon and Aaron, who were heated up in loose arguments in the dining room.
So I ignored them and lay down on the couch to take a nap. I use to take naps after I got home from school. At least until Emily came under my authority. Then they were so rare, but still there, waiting for me.
As I tried falling asleep, I could hear Shannon and Aaron enter in the room.
Shannon whispered loudly. “Shh! She’s asleep.”
Aaron sounded as if he couldn’t comprehend why Shannon said that. “No one was saying anything.”
I kept my eyes closed. I hoped that they would finally keep quiet now.
“So what are we going to do about them?” She asked him quietly. “They’re so hopeless. I swear they’re both dense.” She groaned, like this was an extreme problem even she couldn’t handle.
“They already kissed, didn’t they? At least that’s what you told me.” He mused. “How did you know anyhow?”
“Eh,” she said, probably with a shrug of her shoulders. “Eric didn’t see me, and I didn’t want to interrupt. They were really close.”
“You spied on them?”
“I looked away,” Shannon said in defensive. “When they stopped I knocked on the window.”
“What is wrong with him? He’s so stupid. He has a girl locked up in his room and everything.”
“Oh yeah. He’s going to go around and try to do things,” she said disgusted. “Eric’s not like that. He may do weird things, but he doesn’t abuse people.” She took a moment before adding, “He’s scared. I’ve known him my whole life to know that.” Her voice was wary. She realized she was talking to Aaron, “I at least talked to him.”
“What? I talk to him loads of times.” He said.
“Sure. But I at least talk about treating a girl right. You just tell him about your wild adventures with college girls. Like he really needs to know all that BS,” she said bitterly. “Eric is kind of like Carter in a way. He needs a steady girlfriend. Someone who looks past all the…flaws.”
“If I was Dottie, I don’t think I could look past something as big as this.” Aaron said.
Shannon’s tone was unsteady. “I think Eric saw something in her.” She considered. “I think he only did that because he knew it would have ended badly either way. Dottie has a boyfriend, after all.”
“So Eric kidnapped Dottie…?”
“Because he loves her, as crazy as it sounds.” She said.
“Wouldn’t it be a slight bit easier to just hang out with her?”
I could feel her glaring at him as if he didn’t get it. “Again, you don’t know Eric like I do. He’s messed up inside. What’s weird to you and I may not sound half as insane as it is to Eric.”
“So technically, you’re calling my cousin a serial killer.”
“He’s not a killer—”
“Well he might grow up to be one if he keeps this shit up.” He said, anger rising in his voice.
“God Aaron.” She paused and mumbled something I couldn’t make out. “You weren’t there when his friends died around him. He was hanging in the wrong crowd. He was practically suicidal—on the edge of dying. I couldn’t help him and I hated that! He wouldn’t trust me anymore…” She grew quiet. “He still doesn’t.”
“But he wouldn’t just kidnap her because he liked her.”
Shannon agreed. “You are right, but I only think that’s half the reason.” She struggled to find the words. “A cry for help, maybe. Eric hated Kade Mann,” She leaned back on the couch—I heard a squeak. “He’s the bastard that wouldn’t let it go.”
I bit my lip before I was going to rush open my eyes and say something. That wasn’t very nice and I wasn’t going to let her think that Kade ruined Eric’s life. Eric is much as wrong as Kade is right now and she was just being biased.
“You really want Eric to be with Dottie?” Aaron said.
“Yes.” Then added with a sly remark, “Don’t you?”
Aaron didn’t exactly reply back to Shannon, but he probably did a move to signify he doesn’t care much. She was not one to be left hanging without an answer. And they moved on to a new topic. One that wasn’t very interesting for me to keep listening to.
So I fell asleep.
15. DREAM
The dream was weird.
I’m pretty sure I was back at school—except everything I saw was in a vague tint of blue. I didn’t think much of that, as it normally is in dreams. Janaki walked by me while waving her hand to signal she wanted me to follow. We were like the only kids at the school. It seemed so deserted.
That was until we went inside the school. A huge banana greeted us at the door. But instead of acting surprised, I thought nothing of it. I just followed Janaki through the dark shadowy hallways seemed to never end.
Through the walk, I noticed posters that covered the walls and lockers. I stopped at one for a quick second, before Janaki whisked me away. ‘Have you seen me?’ It read with a tiny picture of someone missing from our school. Except this person was long dead, one of the missing from the tenth grade two years ago. My mind buzzed with confusion at this sighting of a poster.
I didn’t know where she was dragging me too, although I did sense that wherever it was, I would feel uncomfortable. We passed a classroom with the door opened wide, revealing Shannon. She sat on a large, wooden chair, something clenched in her hand. She looked like a zombie—dead to the world, but still there.
I wanted to stop and go to her but Janaki grabbed my arm and yanked me. It felt like she didn’t want to let me go, she wanted me to keep going with her.
The next thing I know is when we were inside a cold, dark room. I couldn’t see anything until she flipped the switch, a red light instead of your normal florescent. Sitting on the floor was Eric, cradling himself like that was the only thing left that mattered now. But then he gazed up at me, his face blank.
I kneeled down on the floor, not taking my eyes off of him. He grabbed one of my hands, looking down at it. He held if for a long time—not daring to let it go. He mumbled something incoherent and brought my hand up to his lips.
But it all happened so fast: Janaki screaming, someone with a black glove putting a hand around my mouth, and Eric still holding my hand, hard. I begged for him to let go, but he wouldn’t. He was going to decapitate me if he didn
’t, for someone else tried to take me away.
Finally Eric let me go. His hand grew limp, and I turned around furiously, quickly finding out that the banana greeting was taking me away. I shook my head, unbelieving that I was about to be abducted by a humongous banana before I heard a mournful cry.
The cry belonged to Shannon; she was hugging Eric as they both swayed. I didn’t comprehend why she cried, until I looked at Eric’s stomach. Dark red covered the upper left part of his chest. There was now a knife in the same hand that I just held seconds ago.
My jaw dropped. What was happening? Why?
Janaki screamed again, I grimaced at her. She had her hand outstretched to me, like something awful was about to happen where I stood. And she was right. In a moment, an object impacted me greatly….
I sat up, my eyes struck wide. I looked around the room, find Eric. He was sitting on the chair from his computer desk. He looked at me too.
“You were moving a lot in your sleep,” he said. “Nightmare?”
“Something like that,” I said while pulling the covers off. Then I asked him, “What am I doing in your room?”
“Aaron moved you up here because my mom came home earlier than I expected,” he said. “She barely caught you.”
I nodded solemnly. “Eric,” I said, twisting a hair tie on my right wrist. I put it there this morning in case I could no longer stand the way my hair falls in front of my face. “We have to talk.”
“Yeah.” He agreed. “I thought you would say that.” He went to the bed and sat down next to me. “Listen,” he said, looking at the ceiling,