Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Days pass and I worry that Fay may never call. To add on that, dad keeps showing up. I keep hallucinating my dad staring back at me when I least expect it. For example, at work yesterday, when Wen and I were secretly hanging out in his custodian office for lunch and playfully arguing mythology genres, I thought I saw him when I turned around to grab my laptop, but when I turned back, all I saw was a water cooler.

"Dude you okay?" Wen asked me.

Wen noticed me looking at the water cooler suspiciously.

"Uh... yeah," I said shaking away my nerves. "I just thought I saw something."

Wen smirked.

"What, you think my crappy old water cooler is gonna miraculously turn into some sematic warrior ninja?"

I answer his question with another question.

"Are you sure I'm the one who's lost it?"

Wen gets up and heads to the door.

"I'll get back to you on that."

It's Tuesday morning now and I've called in from work because I didn't feel too well. My hallucinations have gotten worse and now not only is dad appearing in my dreams and at work, I'm even hearing voices. I also have a cold.

Huddled on my couch, bordered around piles of used tissues, I self-consciously watched an excerpt of one of those fake cheap-looking vampire shows. The lights in the room are dimmed and the weather has gotten colder making the wooden floors even more colder to step on then before. When the show was over, I reluctantly got up, dismissing the clutter of tissues around me and headed up to bed. My sheets are also cold and I quickly found the source of that. My window was opened. I'm pretty sure it wasn't opened before. Closing it, I battled an upcoming of sneezes while struggling to close out the cold. After, I quickly crawled into the bed and tussled up into the covers. I fell asleep. Immediately I dreamt of dad again. It was Christmas back in Louisiana. My old home. I think it's a memory, because 15 year old me appeared and stood next to dad and Rene in front of a Christmas tree. Dads laughing at something Rene had said I'm just standing there smiling straight ahead. I then remember that I'm smiling for our annual Christmas photo that we took every year until dad died. I remember this day. Just as I remembered from eleven years ago, dad comes out and pulls me into a head lock. I laugh when fifteen year old me laughs remembering how easy life was before everything got complicated.

I didn't get to see what happened next because I woke up to a scratching sound. I open my eyes and woke up in shock, immediately thinking dad was back to haunt me again. I don't know why he's coming after me but what I know for sure is that I want it to stop.

I threw off my covers and pulled on a pair of jeans quickly before opening my door and descending the stairs to the source of the sound. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I grabbed the first thing I saw, an umbrella, and crept over to the kitchen. The kitchen was much colder than the rest of the house, just like how I felt in my room earlier. Likewise, the window was open and this time I'm absolutely sure I didn't leave it open.

The scratching sound stopped suddenly but then the sound of a trash can tipping over caught my attention.

"S**t!" a voice said.

Not wanting to but out of curiosity, I went to the window and leaned into the cold and chill night.

"Wen?" I called out as my gaze fell upon his familiar bushy brown hair. I squint my eyes.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Wen stood up no longer attempting to hide in my knocked over trash can.

"Whoa man, you live here?" he asks me. He uses his signature smirk to indicate that he's just messing with me.

"Dude what are you doing here? I ask again groggy from sleep. "It's like... I don't know what in the morning."

"Actually, like 3." Wen answers looking smug.

"No seriously, what's up?"

Wen drops the cheeky grin and hugs himself.

"Um man, can we like talk about this somewhere else? It's kind of freezing out here."

It takes my half sleeping brain almost two full silent minutes for me to get what he's saying.

"Oh, um right, come in."

I step out of the way and Wen clambers in head first and lands clumsily onto my kitchen floor. He gets up and looks around.

"Nice place." He says as his eyebrows quirk up. "I'm surprised that everything's neat. It's obvious your walking femme fetal does all the cleaning for you huh?"

"That's Impossible because I don't have a personal lady figure in this household."

"So all this is really your work?" Wen asks aghast.

"What? Is it too girly for you? I'm sorry, not all men like me likes dark and brooding colors. I more of a wake up to sunshine kind of guy."

"So you say, so you say." Wen says walking around.

I cross my arms.

"So what's the biz, Wen? You here to give me my missed work assignments since I skipped out today?"

"Oh yeah, you did blow work today. Did I tell you that you looked like s**t? You really do. I mean your noes is all red and there are dark rings around your eyes. Do you have allergies? Your eyes are red too."

"Shut up and stop changing the subject. I'm sick alright?"

He puts his hands up in the air in mock surrender.

"Chill okay? So this is what happened. I know you don't know this but me and a buddy of mine live like two blocks away from here and therefore that's how I know where you live."

"That's one of the questions I probably would've asked. Now how about the 'what the hell are you doing here' part?"

"Curiosity?" he squeaked.

"Not buying it. What do you want Wen?"

"Okay, okay, truth is, I was dared to spy on the new guy by a couple of drunks down by the bar a few miles back. The bet is for a two hundred bucks so I couldn't cave."

I laughed.

"You have a job, moron."

"Yeah, a sucky one. No matter how many toilets I unclog or loose facets I fix, at the end of the day I'm only paid like ninety or a hundred bucks tops."

"Don't jobs like that pay higher?"

"You've seen Thomas right? I'm lucky enough to still pay my bills with the kind of cash I'm getting."

I lean back on the kitchen counter.

"Yeah well that doesn't totally explain why you're snooping around my house at this late hour. Couldn't you experiment me at work?"

"Nah man, I've already done that. You're boring as hell, aside from your little head quips that is."

"Gee thanks." I say sarcastically. "So what, you think I'd be any more interesting at home?"

"For a controlled psychopath, yeah."

I roll my eyes.

"Get out Wen."

I start towards my door and open it wide, indicating him to leave.

"What, I just got here!" he objects.

"Yeah I know, now you're leaving."

"Come on man, you're not even going to give me some water or a beer or something?"

I walk back to where he stood defiantly leaning on the kitchen pedestal.

"Nope, I have work tomorrow and quite frankly, you do to."

"You're no fun Dominic, you know that right?"

"Please excuse my lack of not wanting you here right now at three in the morning." I reply smugly.

"Yeah well whatever."

Wen pushes off of the counter and pushes past me.

"This won't be the last of me Dominic List."

"Sure it won't." I mutter. "The door is that way."

I glanced at my open door and felt a sudden chill run down my spine.

"Yo dude, you okay?"

It took me a couple of seconds before I scarcely turned my attention back to Wen.

"Huh, me? I'm fine, I'm..."

I look back at the door.

"Fine." I finished.

"Don't look like it man. It looks like you've seen a ghost."

I turned my head so fast I'm pretty sure a strip of my hair would have flung off if that was possible.

"Where'd that come from?" I said defensively.

"Yo man I'm joking, chill."

I watch him as he tries to figure out what's going on in my head.

"Remind me next time when I decide to sneak into this place not to wake you up. You look like a crazed mad man."

He comes a little closer and leans into my ear.

"I'd use that face with the chicks. They love crazy s**t like that." He pulls away and casually strolls to the door.

"Oh yeah, there's another reason I came." He says. "There a party, I'm inviting you. I'll tell you more when you're not deprived of sleep and acting weird."

He backs out and closes the door but not before grabbing an already open beer from the table.

"Later mad man." He says.

I'm left in peace and relieved that I could now go back to bed again but something else is nagging me. There this weird feeling that something else is still there. I've seriously lost my mind. I slumped dully towards my bedroom and when I found my window open again, I didn't bother closing it.

If dad wants to open a god damn window, then to hell with him.