“Don’t. I’m just tired.”
A few minutes pass before I get another reply. “It doesn’t get any better.” Her message, it shouldn’t annoy me the way it does. I can’t help it.
”How would you know?”
But she doesn’t reply. I text a question mark. I can tell that she’s getting my messages.
“You don’t understand, OK?”
Still nothing.
“You’re just like the rest, wanting a part in this without actually being held accountable. You say you worry about me. Don’t. I’m going home. Fuck this.”
I drive off just as the bell rings, signaling the end of classes for the day. It’s like getting out before the flood washes me away or something. It’s this adrenaline rush that I get leaving before anyone sees me.
It’s kind of funny actually, looking back on it later.
And it’s strange when I think, “Wonder what H is going to try today,” and I’m almost excited to get back home.
Really strange how that is, huh?
But that’s my day. As time goes on, things start to change shape.
That’s today, and tomorrow, it’ll be maybe different or exactly the same. Only thing I’m sure of is that it’ll be one step closer to that party.
Yeah, I’m really not looking forward to that party.
The weekend arrives quicker than I wanted it to. It feels like one second I’m driving home from class and the next thing I know I’m standing in my family room, the one room in my house that’s never ever used, and people I barely know from Meadows are filling that space.
They all want me to say something like, “I know all you people.”
Really what I’m thinking is “I don’t know any of you.”
But that’s kind of wrong to say too. It’s mean-spirited and it makes me feel like shit. Maybe that’s my problem; I’m becoming withdrawn. Over the past few days, I’ve thought back to the dream. I’ve thought back to what happened, and I have started to look forward to the next dream because part of me just knows that it’ll happen.
It hasn’t happened yet.
I’m starting to tell myself that the reason for being so withdrawn is because I have started to look somewhere else. Where? That’s kind of the problem. I’m looking around for something that even I’m not sure of. I’m not finding whatever it is I want to find in the people who look at me like I’m exactly what they are looking for.
No, I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.
I only know that this isn’t going to work. I mean, look at this. Check it out:
Jon-Jon charges ten dollars at the door. Brad lingers around me at all times. Becca, who tells me what to do via text message, is too busy hanging out with people she never gets to hang out with; it’s because she’s in the same room as them — guess who drew in the popular crowd? yup — that she gets that chance.
She’s making the most of it.
Blaire isn’t here. She’d never show up for something like this. It goes way over her head. Also, she’s sure as hell still holding a grudge. The other day, when she stopped by the lunch table to ask how I was doing, she left before I could really say anything. She goes and texts me later like I’m a charity case, like she knows something I don’t. I haven’t bothered to text or call — figure she wouldn’t answer even if I did.
Brad speaks for me: “Yeah, bro, here’s the man, the main man!”
Jon-Jon takes bets for the big séance or summoning that’s going to happen later.
People walk up to me, usually one by one, but also there are times when it’s a whole group. By now they aren’t even remembering the running part. They’re all focused on H. Well, to them it’s just “the demon.” They are all fixated on the demon. They start by saying stuff like, “What’s it like?” Some flat-out ask me stupid stuff like, “Can you get it to slap me in the face?” One girl who said we were in a class together last semester keeps asking me whether demons are like people and have all the same organs, limbs, and, yeah, “genitalia.” Sick, I think, but I say the one thing I say to everyone: “Yeah.”
“Yeah” to the question about experiencing a cold chill.
“Yeah” to the person who asks me if it’s true, that being haunted means things go “bump in the night.”
“Yeah” to the one who asks if they can get drunk around me (i.e., the demon), hoping that being drunk or something will make it easier for the demon to mess with them.
After all that, some stick around making “conversation.” But since we don’t have anything in common, and they don’t really have a lot to say, it usually ends up with a bunch of gossip or talk about hobbies and news.
This one guy wouldn’t go away.
Brad would leave after introducing me to a person, and this guy just sort of latched on and started giving me a lesson on poker — not just any kind of poker, but Texas hold ’em. When he asked me if I’d ever seen a game, I said, “Yeah,” and that launched him into a long, really energetic sort of explanation of this one time he made almost a thousand dollars playing.
Here’s where I could’ve questioned if it was true, because he’s young and probably couldn’t get into casinos yet. What’s the age requirement, anyway?
Here’s where I could’ve helped the conversation by actually saying something else, but instead I sipped from a glass.
But I chose the glass, and that’s what I end up thinking about the most.
I think in distant commands — listen, listen, take a sip, listen, listen, look around the room, nod, take a sip — and it’s all I can do to keep from walking out on the entire party. This is supposed to be my party, you see, but it’s really none of that. It’s a number of things, but at the very bottom of the list is me.
I catch Nikki Dillon talking to some guy I don’t know.
When I look over at her, she catches me and looks away. So that’s how she’s decided to treat what happened between us. Nikki’s going to ignore me. Makes it easier on me, I guess. I could go over there and strike up a conversation, but that’s not me. That’s never been me, especially now when I know why she even bothered.
At some point, Becca texts me, “Where are your parents? Should we be worried they’ll show?”
I look at the screen blankly, longer than I need to, but it’s good because for as long as it looks like I’m texting, I don’t have to pretend that I’m interested. I type slowly, “They aren’t here. Work.”
I’m not lying. It’s true. My parents are at work. They have their own lives. I’m just a small part of it.
Brad runs around the house once, shouting, “Everyone, attention please!” And I know what’s about to happen.
Jon-Jon wanders over to the coffee table. Along the way, he grabs my arm, says to me, “How excited are you to make money, on a scale of one to ten, ten being a future millionaire?”
But he doesn’t give me time to reply, because he sets down the board on the coffee table. He gets Brad to do all the talking, but Jon-Jon stands there, next to me, all smug and cool and people know him as exactly that: a smug and cool guy. People seem to think it’s still all Jon-Jon’s thing even though I’m the one haunted, I’m the one who is “hosting” this party.
I sound like I’m bitter but I’m not.
I’m just observing.
It’s all kind of insane, really.
The fact that people will pay attention only when you’ve already sort of stopped trying to get their attention, yeah… I don’t know, doesn’t it sound kind of fake?