Chapter 2

Jim and Claire spend more time with Daniel, and Jim starts showing more of his own insecurities.

Chapter 2

     “Sorry,” I said to Claire while holding her hand.

     “No, no. It’s my fault. I could have said no, but I didn’t.”

     “I thought you were all for the idea of getting to know Daniel better, anyway.”

     “Yeah, in school and whatever, not hanging out with him at his house. It’s just a little weird, I don’t know anything about him.”

     “And you think I do?”

     “Well at least you have more experience with him than me.”

     “Oh,” I said blandly, “well at least there’s that.” We were waiting for Daniel outside of the school. He said he would meet up with us and we could walk to his house, which was supposedly only 15 or 20 minutes away by foot. He said he would meet us here right after the last bell rang at 2:00. It was almost 2:30; all the buses had left and neither Claire nor I had any transportation to get home until our parents came back from work later that evening. So I kind of understood why she was a little pissy, but in my defense, inviting him over to our table was her idea.

     “Sorry I’m late, guys,” Daniel said as he walked out the front doors. “Phoebe wanted to make up with me.”

     We both nodded our heads, in accidental unison, and said it was all right.

     “Okay, so let’s go home.” We both followed Daniel, wondering who should say what and when. We walked in silence for a few minutes; one would expect the person that initiated the hang out to take a little more charge of activities and conversation, but Daniel wasn’t saying a word. We were trailing behind him, looking at him move forward, never turning around once.

     I wondered if he was having an imaginary conversation with Phoebe in his head, if he always had one with her while walking home from school, like if the two of them would always be walking home together in his mind.

     Claire broke the silence after a few more minutes. “So what do you want to do today?” I didn’t know if she was talking to me or Daniel.

     “I dunno. You want to play Halo?”

     “I’m not really good at video games.”

     “How about you, Jim?”

     “Um… I mean, I like to play Halo, but Claire’s not really into it,” I reiterated.

     “Well I’m sure we’ll find something to do.”

     I wasn’t so sure, and I could tell that Claire wasn’t, either. I almost preferred the eccentric Daniel who talked to invisible friends to the Daniel that wanted to hang out but not make much of an initiative to do something besides play games.

     I wondered if this was what he and Phoebe did all day, just played video games together or whatever. I half-expected to find her own Gamertag on Daniel’s Xbox.

     When we arrived at his house, the first thing I noticed was that it was as ordinary as any other house. It wasn’t grand, or overly maintained; the grass was cut, flowers were planted in the front yard, lawn ornaments were scattered here and there, the side of the house needed to be power washed, and the paint on the shutters and door were faded.

     Daniel reached into his pocket and grabbed his key. He unlocked his door and let us in. The inside gave off the same impression as the outside; it was maintained to a point but you could tell minimum effort was often given, most likely because of busy parents without much time. Daniel turned on the lights, but even with them on the place still seemed dark. No ceiling lights, I noticed soon after, just a bunch of floor lamps with black or brown shades.

     “Do you two want anything to drink?” Daniel asked as he lopped his backpack on one of the kitchen chairs. He opened the fridge. “We have Pepsi, lemonade, ginger ale, and… and water.”

     “I’ll have a glass of water,” Claire said.

     Daniel took a glass and filled it with water from one of those purifying pitcher things after adding a couple of ice cubes from the freezer.

     Claire took the glass from Daniel. “Thank you,” she said, smiling.

     “What about you, Jim?”

     “I’m good,” I said, waving his offer off.

     “You sure?”

     “Yup. I’m sure.”

     “Don’t be weird, Jim,” Claire said. She turned towards Daniel. “Jim never takes food or drinks at my house, either.”

     “Why not?” Daniel asked.

     I smiled and exaggerated a shrug. “Dunno. Just don’t.”

     “Huh. That’s weird.”

     Chose to be the bigger man again.

     Daniel opened a can of Pepsi for himself and sat down at the table. Claire and I joined him and watched as he took out a daily planner from his backpack. He opened it up and looked through it, taking a pen and crossing things off.

     “So… whatcha doing?” Claire asked after a couple of minutes.

     “Sorry, I just want to clean a few things off my to-do list.”

     “Like homework and stuff?” I asked.

     “Yup.”

     “Did you do all that stuff you’re crossing off?”

     “I did a little of it. I don’t feel like doing the rest, though, so Phoebe’s going to do it for me tonight. She owes me, anyway.”

     “That’s, uh… nice of her.”

     “Yeah, she’s great.” Daniel finished presenting his show and put the planner away. “Sorry. Come on, let’s go upstairs.”

     We followed Daniel up to his room. Along the way I noticed pictures of his family, mostly of just him and his parents. I guessed that he was an only child.

     The upstairs hallway had all of its doors closed. I didn’t notice a dog or cat around, so I thought it kind of odd. Why would all of the other doors be shut? When he opened his own door, I wondered if this was what it was always like for Daniel, looking at closed doors and only opening the one he knew.

     “Sorry, it’s a little messy. Just sit down wherever you want,” Daniel said as he motioned the entire area.

     The first thing I noticed was dirty laundry on the floor, mostly because Claire always gave me this disapproving look whenever I left clothes lying around on mine. And sure enough, she gave the same look to Daniel.

     “I know, I know,” he said as he went around the room and picked up his mess. “Phoebe’s always on my case. She’s says it’s such a guy thing to do. Of course, when I stop by her house, she always has her underwear lying out for everyone to see.” Daniel lifted the lid on his hamper and put the clothes in. “Not that I mind,” he said with a smirk. I chuckled while Claire rolled her eyes.

     Daniel started his Xbox and handed controllers to Claire and me. “We’ll teach you how to be good at video games,” Daniel said with a smile.

     “You can be on my team,” I said to Claire.

     “You’re damn right I’ll be on your team,” she muttered back.

     Daniel signed in (sure enough, there was another Gamertag, xoph0ebeox) and set up a
Slayer match. He put me and Claire on a team while he and five random people online were split between our team and his.

     “Okay,” Claire said very unenthusiastically, “how do I play.”

     “You move with this, you jump with this, you shoot with this, you throw grenades with this, and you crouch with this,” Daniel explained while already distracted by some guy sniping him.

     “Well that sounds easy,” Claire replied sarcastically.

     “Here, let me help,” I joined in. I showed Claire which buttons did what and told her to stick by me so she didn’t get killed.

     “Aww, my hero,” she said with a smile.

     For the next hour Claire humored Daniel and played Halo with us, even though I’m pretty sure she got frustrated at not getting used to the game. Still, it was nice of her, ‘cause she was cool like that.

     Daniel got quiet while playing. If I looked at any other teenage guy, I would have just thought he was really into the game or concentrating. But as I looked at Daniel, and then the screen, and the way he always seemed to have this empty spot next to him, I wondered if it was just the three of us in this room, or if he imagined he was playing the game with Phoebe, too.

     Between matches, when the game was loading, I looked around Daniel’s room. Some dirty laundry, a bed that wasn’t made, some papers and other clutter on his desk, a TV, an Xbox; this was any teenage guy’s room.

     Claire gave me a look, as if asking what I was looking for. I didn’t know. Something, anything, that could give me some insight into Daniel’s madness. I’d expect a crazy person to live someplace a little more eccentric, but this room, even this whole house, is as normal as it could get. And that frightened me.

     Claire nudged my shoulder in the middle of a match and nodded toward Daniel’s dresser. It took me a couple of seconds to figure out what she was pointing to. But amidst the junk sprawled out over the top, I saw it. A framed photo of Daniel and some blonde with short hair and this radiant smile, lying in a hammock with each other.

     Holy s**t, Phoebe was a real person.

☺☺☺

     “That’s so weird!”

     “Too weird.” Me and Claire couldn’t get over the picture in Daniel’s room. When he got up to use the bathroom, we both raced to the dresser and stared at the photo to confirm that there was indeed a girl lying with him in a hammock. When we left that night, we must have spent the entire trip home going ohmigodohmigodohmigod. When we finally got back to my house, we calmed down.

     “He looked a little younger, didn’t he?” Claire asked.

     “I guess so. A couple years, tops.”

     “Still, he looked so cute with her.”

     “He definitely looked happy.” He really did. After looking at that picture, I realized that Daniel always had this forced look of bliss on his face when talking with Phoebe. Don’t know why it took me so long to get it; imaginary friends and forced reactions seem to go hand in hand.

     “So what do you think happened?” Claire asked.

     “What happened to confirming he was just some crazy random guy? Why are you getting so into this?”

     “That was when we thought he was just a weirdo with an imaginary friend. Now there’s some secret story behind all this.”

     “I don’t get it.”

     “Oh my God, what if she’s dead?” Claire covered her mouth and gave a very girly shriek. “And Daniel can’t get over it and she still exists in his mind? Oh my God, that’s so sad, now I feel really bad!”

     That definitely would suck. “But we don’t know that. And not to put a damper on this, but we don’t even know if that’s Phoebe. It could be his sister, or his cousin, or something.”

     “Jim, sweetie, no two people lie next to each other like that unless there’s something going on. Least of all in a hammock. And Jim, I don’t care what Daniel says. There was definitely something going on between them.”

     “I guess.”

     “Get your yearbook out.”

     I grabbed last year’s yearbook off my bookshelf and opened it up.

     “Let’s look for her.”

     We looked through all of the freshmen photos three times and didn’t see anyone that resembled Phoebe. (Actually, we did see a couple of girls that did, but their names didn’t match up. We also saw several Phoebes, but they didn’t look anything like the girl in the photograph.) Then Claire thought maybe she was older, so we looked through all of the sophomores. Then the juniors. Then the seniors. Then the sophomores again. Then the juniors. Then the seniors. Then everyone all over again, starting and ending with the freshmen.

     “Where is she?” I asked, frustrated. “We destroyed this book like a thousand times looking for this girl.”

     “That is weird. Would there be any reason why she wouldn’t be in it?”

     “I dunno. Maybe she missed picture day.”

     “They would still have her name. Were there any Phoebe’s without pictures?”

     “No.”

     “Hmmm…”

     “Hmmm…” I mimicked.

     “Don’t be a jerk.”

     “Fine.”

     “Maybe she went to a different school.”

     “Maybe. Or maybe she is a cousin or something that he’s really close to, and she lives far away.”

     “Are you saying the girl in the picture isn’t Phoebe now?”

     “Well we don’t know for sure if it is or it isn’t, or who Phoebe really is to Daniel,” I explained, trying to sound as intelligent as I could. Claire wasn’t the only one with brains. I had my moments, too. And the phrase don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched seemed to apply here. “We won’t actually know who that girl is until we actually…”

     “Actually what?”

     “Ask him.”

     “Well I’m 100% certain it is her. But if you need more proof, then go ahead,” Claire challenged.

     “Oh, I will,” I answered, “I’ll ask the s**t out of him.”

     “I’m looking forward to it.” Claire got up off my floor and kissed me. “It’s getting late. I’m gonna head home. Love you, Jim.”

     “Love you, Claire.”

     As I watched Claire leave my room, with her perfect butt bobbing with each step and her hoodie zipped up, tightly hugging her body, and her strawberry scent wafting through my room, teasing my nose, and watching her black hair sway back and forth, I thought of how lucky I was. How lucky I was to have met Claire, to have someone give me a second chance at love, to love me unconditionally and work with me on so many compatible levels as both a friend and a lover. And I thought of Daniel. Of Phoebe. Were they like this at one point? Could Daniel just not handle the loss of someone like that in his life? Is that what happened? He lost this, and he needs it so badly that it drove him to continuing a dead relationship in his mind that was so strong it began to come out in his interactions with the real world?

     I began to think of life without Claire, but stopped because it was too terrifying to handle.

Reviews

[selkietales]

So you probably don't mean for this, but near the middle I started to get really freaked out, mostly because I'm supposed to be in bed so my light's out and I'm scared of the dark. Imagining Phoebe as a ghost or something really did not help. At all. lol so your writing is really good! It just sucked me in and now I'm going to read the next chapter.