The Girl

"Hey." Shawn turned around--halfway, his right side towards the speaker. She was leaning on the back of the bench, but, when he acknowledged her, she quickly and gracefully swung around to sit beside him. She smiled. Shawn resisted the urge to scoot a little further away from her. She was tall and slim with red hair, dyed or natural, he couldn't tell, cropped in a boyish style. Her crop-top and cut off shorts displayed more than enough of her for him to conclude that she was decidedly "hot". He forced himself to keep looking forward, letting her see only the right side of his face.

"So...which bus are you waiting for?"

Shawn glanced at the sign--it was on his left, fortunately. "The 27, to Mackenzie Place."

"What, you live in Mackenzie Place?" Shawn nodded. "That's a posh neighborhood. I'd give my right arm to live there."

"Why? Where do you live?"

"Devinston Cresent, and my house is the shabbiest on the block. " When Shawn said nothing after a pause, she continued. "You don't look like the Mackenzie Place type."

"What'd you mean?"

"You look like you're from my side of the tracks. Most people over there are all uppity and wear designer clothes and attend fancy events."

"My foster--adoptive--parents do, but I'm not that type."

"I can see that. Oh--there's our bus."

"Our bus?"

"Yeah--I'm two stops before you."

"Right--Devinston, of course."

They boarded the bus together, with Shawn a step or two ahead. He found a seat with a window on his left and was immediately joined by the girl.

"By the way, my name is Erin. What's yours?"

"Shawn."

"That's a nice name. How do you spell it?" Shawn spelled it out. "Well, that's pretty straight forward. I always found it weird how some people spell it S-E-A-N. It looks like it should rhyme with clean or bean. Sean? Have you seen Sean?" She laughed a little,  then stopped when she realized he wasn't laughing.

"Yeah, and my last name is Dean, so you can imagine how that would sound." Shawn added and she laughed. Shawn smiled. When was the last time he had made someone laugh? For that matter, when was the last time he had carried on any kind of conversation with anyone but Adam and Terese? She had a nice laugh and a stunning smile. He kept his right side to her--what would happen if she saw the scars?

"So, where do you go to school?" She asked casually.

"Online. I dropped out of public school in grade seven."

"Really? I go to Alexander D. It stinks. I wanted to be home-schooled, but Mom said it was out of the question. Any particular reason that you dropped out?"

"Yeah. I didn't feel like going back after my family died."

"And how did that happen--if you don't mind telling a total stranger."

"A car accident."

"Oh, how tragic! Were you in the car?" Shawn nodded. "Is that why your nose is like that?"

"Yeah. I was thrown out of the car." My nose? Imagine if she saw the rest! 

But she had already changed the topic. "Are your adoptive parents nice?"

"I guess so. I mean, they try, which is more than I can say for most people."

"People. Never liked them. It's a shame I had to be one." She smiled, then looked up. "My stop--here," she pressed a torn piece of notebook paper into his hand. "Call me sometime." And then she was at the front of the bus, dismounted, and walked away quickly, swinging her long-strapped jean purse behind her. Shawn quickly unfolded the paper. It had her number and full name--Erin Dallas--and a little smiley face. He wouldn't actually call her--how could he?--but it felt good to be treated like a normal--or even kind of good looking--guy. 

That night, he couldn't get her out of his head. Erin Dallas. He quickly came to the conclusion that she was the most beautiful girl he had ever met. All night and all the next day, he kept finding himself imagining them together. He couldn't even watch a movie without her face replacing that of the heroine and his, the hero. It felt good to let his fantasies run wild. When Terese observed that he was behaving strangely, he told her everything.

"That's wonderful, Shawn! You must have her over sometime."

"No! She'd see me--it would be the end of the world."

"Then go somewhere with her. Let her get used to you. Once she knows the kind of man you are, she won't care what you look like." Shawn knew she was wrong, but he couldn't stop thinking about the possibilities. Maybe she would look past the external. Maybe she would be the one to draw him up from this depression, the one to show him a whole new world.

Finally, he plucked up the courage to call her. The phone rang three times before she picked up.

"Who's this?" She asked rather sharply.

"Hi--um--Erin. This is Shawn."

"Oh," her tone changed immediately. "Shawn from the bus? Mackenzie Place Shawn?"

"Yeah--I was wondering if--er--you might want to--well, I mean--"

"Hey, I was planning on seeing a movie tonight. Would you like to tag along?"

"Yes--or what's the movie?"

"Hell's Heath. It's some kind of thriller, set in the seventeen or eighteen hundreds with vampires and werewolves and all that fun stuff."

"Sounds cool. When are you going?"

"It's showing at 8:30 in the Crossdale Cinema. If you meet me at the Devinston bus stop at 7:50, we can go together."

"Sweet, I'll be there! And don't bother bringing money, I'll pay for everything."

"Oh, well aren't you a gentleman? See you there, Shawn!"

Shawn nearly dropped his phone. He was going to see a movie with a girl. It seemed surreal. Normal life. As long as she didn't see what she must not see. He quickly strapped on his left arm. The hand was realistic, but there was a chance she'd see it was fake. He rummaged through his stuff until he found a long, leather fingerless glove. It looked goth enough, all black with buckles going halfway up the arm, and, in it, no one could see that the hand was prosthetic. He decided against a cuff for the other hand and just put on six rings--three on the pointer finger, one on the thumb and two on the ring finger. He traded the dog collar for a short chain with a studded black cross. He added a full length black trench coat he'd picked up at a sale. It had a hood and a collar which could be turned up. Between the two, she'd be hard pressed to see his jaw, the only scarred part of his face not hidden by his hair. He put on the eyeliner and his favorite lip ring--a twisted metal one that made him think of barbed wire--and took a look in the mirror. He tried a few different expressions and decided that his best bet was to play it completely cool--to be the brooding, dark goth who doesn't care about anybody or anything. It wasn't a hard act--it was more or less true.

Erin was there when his bus pulled up, so Shawn didn't bother moving but sat still, once again with his right side towards her. She was wearing a decidedly skimpy white summer dress and huge red hoop earrings. Her black, high heeled ankle boots made her a touch taller than Shawn. When she sat down beside him, he felt a nervous lump in his throat. She was so gorgeous. Once again, she chatted continuously the whole ride. She told him about her uncle who still cried like a teenaged girl at tragic romance movies and her mom who couldn't even handle cartoon skeletons and hated horror with all her soul. She told him that she planned to be an interior designer someday and that she had helped paint a mural downtown. He learned that she had a baby sister who drove her mad, a mother who was way too demanding, and a dad who was a trucker and that she only saw him every second or third week. She was also acing math and failing social studies. She'd done ballet until her parents couldn't afford it any more, tried to learn the clarinet and failed badly, excelled at drums but couldn't afford a drum set, and hated her last summer job at A&W. He basically just sat there and thought about how beautiful her voice was. He could listen to her forever.

Getting from the bus to the theater, then to the room it was showing in without her seeing the side of his face was easier than he expected. As the left the bus, she took his right hand and stayed close--so close he could feel her--beside him as they got their tickets, pop and popcorn. She didn't even catch when the ticket lady's eyebrow raised at the sight of Shawn. 

Once the movie began, Shawn had started to relax a little. Her attention was on the screen--'sides, it was too dark for her to anything unless she looked close. Hell's Heath proved to be half horror, half very steamy romance. It told a tale of a man--a necromancer--who accidentally roused a vampire and fell in love with it, but he had to provide her human blood daily or her hunger would drive her mad and she would attack the village and probably get staked like her brothers. So the necromancer began finding different ways to lure victims out on to the heath to feed them to his beloved, until he accidentally lured out the vampire's great-great-great granddaughter and fell in love with her, throwing the vampire into a mad jealousy in which she hunted them all over the heath--the hunt made up at least half of the movie, with her proving her power over the heath by releasing all kinds of hideous creatures, most of which broke out of the ground, to go and kill the couple.

In all the romantic scenes, Erin either stroked his arm or brushed her foot against his, and, during the particularly scary ones, she clutched his hand tightly and leaned against him. Finally, when the, now reformed, necromancer drove a stake into the vampire's heart, and she writhed and shrieked while her skin rotted away and finally fell to dust, Shawn put his arm around Erin's shoulders. 

As the scene closed with the necromancer and his new girlfriend kissing passionately, Erin leaned in and kissed Shawn on the cheek. Startled, Shawn turned a tiny bit towards her. She clearly took it as an invitation and reached up towards his face--and brushed his side piece aside. Then all hell broke loose.

Erin let out a shriek and stumbled back two seats, then began screaming like she was in the movie they'd just watched. Everyone turned and stared, more than a few standing up. Shawn pulled his hood over his face and fled the theater, leaving the terrified Erin and the staring crowd. He stopped by the washroom, where he caught his breath. That had been worse than anything he could have expected. He'd anticipated disgust, revulsion, even, but not terror. He could see her wide eyes in his mind--staring at him like he was some kind of monster. He swallowed back his pain and smoothed the hair back over the scars. He had to get home--now, before Erin came looking for him.