TWENTY TWO

When she turned, she felt Belle follow behind her closely in hastened movements. They walked through the living room together and just when she crossed the front door, her mother gave a sudden grip of her left arm. A little puzzled, she turned around, her brows were drawn over her eyes in a frown of confusion. “Is something wrong, mom?”

Belle looked a little paranoid as she informed her daughter. “Jacob has forbidden me from speaking about this ever again but I have to tell you.” She was whispering, and she looked really terrified at that moment. Her hair was still wet from her morning shower and trails of water ran down from her forehead down to her chin, and then dripped onto her collarbone before continuing their trails. She looked over her shoulder into the house before continuing. “You have to believe me. There’s someone watching and following me. I don’t know who. I don’t know why. But someone’s been watching me and I feel this insane goosebumps anytime I’m too close to a window or out in the open. You have to be careful, if you can quit your job—”

Laura cut her mother off before she could even complete the sentence. “That’s not happening.”

Belle insisted, her eyes were very pleading. “It’s so you can be home earlier and safe.”

“How sure are you that even home is safe...”

Parked outside the short fence of the Moore house, Cameron Sullivan watched the scene unfold from a distance. He was only there to fulfill his morning duty of picking his best friend, Laura, up on his way to school every morning. It seemed now like he was about interrupting some serious conversation between his bestfriend and her mother. The woman and the girl conversed in hushed tones and he certainly wasn’t close enough to pick on their conversation. He could just tell it was pretty intense with the stance they’d both taken. While they were at it, he scrolled aimlessly on his phone, doing nothing in particular. His other hand drummed against the steering wheel of his car, almost rhythmically waiting for the moment the conversation would be over so they could proceed on their journey to school. 

At a point, he pulled down the mirror and looked into it. His golden brown eyes stared right back at him, strands of dark brown hair tumbling over his forehead. Boredom was an understatement of what his eyes reflected. 

Few minutes later when he looked in the direction of the house again, he saw that Laura looked furious now. Oops. She gestured almost wildly with her hands, shrugged her mother’s hold off and began heading towards the parked car in fast trudges. His eyes locked with Belle’s on the front porch who just looked utterly frightened. When she smiled at him, he awkwardly threw a slight wave and an animated smile of his own in return.

The door to the passenger seat opened and closed with a loud thud as Laura settled in. She’d brought along the sweet smell that always lingered around her. Cameron couldn’t explain it but he was glad she smelt that amazing because he enjoyed taking a big whiff of her every morning. 

“Just drive.” Laura commanded. Her fists were clenched at the sides and her lower lip trembled, a habit she’d adapted as a way of keeping her anger at bay. She looked at her mother through the rear view mirror on her side as the car drove farther away. Only when the woman was out of view did she look away and at Cameron. He was sparing her quick glances while trying to concentrate on watching the road as well. Laura’s frown deepened as if to ask why he was staring without wording it out.

“Nothing.” Cameron said swiftly, and then gave a mocking shake of his head. He was smiling teasingly. “Never seen you two get along.”

“We did, until a few minutes ago.” 

“And well. What happened?”

“She wants me to stop work at the supermarket.”

“She got a reason for that?” Cameron asked. His brows rose over his eyes in a questioning look. “Uh?”

“She thinks she’s being stalked.”

“Stalked?”

“Yup.” Laura said, popping the ‘p’ and then she explained further, going into details. “She thinks she’s being followed and watched by someone and she wants me to be careful.”

Cameron gave her a dazed look. “Funny how my mom told me the same thing a few days ago. She says she feels like she’s been followed all through town. It’s just a feeling but she seemed pretty sure and terrified.”

Laura, saying nothing, eased into her seat and pressed her eyes shut. She was already petrified enough about the news of the serial killer terrorizing town. She couldn’t. Just couldn’t be bothered to the extent of quitting her job and staying home all evening after school. Not alone with her mother and her stepfather. And then, thinking of it, Jeanette Sullivan was her mother’s only friend in town because she had so secluded herself from everyone and was now lonely. Of course, the woman was older, enough to be Belle’s mother even but they still got along pretty well. 

Ever since she became friends with Cameron at twelve, she’d always wondered why his parents decided to have him so late after his older brothers. Cameron was, well, different from all other men she'd seen, perhaps she'd thought so because he was her bestfriend. He was handsome, not perhaps in the conventional sense, but he had that appearance which could make him stand out in the crowd. The prettiest one in the family. He was fair, almost pale white. His unfathomable, golden brown eyes contrasted exceptionally with his light toned face. His eyes were as deep and expressive, where you could get lost if you stared long enough. His face had that faraway look in it, which cannot be described in words.

His smile, which reached up to his eyes and wrinkled them, flaunted his modesty and humility. Often, you could see a hint of pain in his sparkling eyes, which would disappear as suddenly as it emerged. He sometimes spoke too fast, which perhaps revealed how much agony he concealed within himself. Above all was his frame and his stature. He was not extremely muscular, with 8 pack abs or 16 cm biceps. However, he could stand out in a crowd, which was mostly due to his way of carrying himself. Perhaps he was not the kind who had girls swooning over him. But he was simple and innocent. He was perhaps, just one in a million, who was “nothing special, but all the same unique”.

He was her bestfriend.

Which she loved so dearly.

Laura clicked in her locker’s combination number and swung it open. The old steel gave way with a screeching whine and dusts spiraled into the air like to announce their presence with elegance, like small specks of tiny ballerinas doing a prioutte mid air. Holding her breath for a few seconds, she shuffled around the locker, trying to arrange books for the day accordingly from first to the last class. The tiny space was filled with dried gums, snack wrappers, old books that smelt moldy, couple of emergency sanitary and tissues and yes a half eaten chocolate bar that had been there since the beginning of the year. The smell of the cramped up space alone could cause someone to fall sick, but not something a few sprays of air freshener wouldn’t fix.

She found the can at the corner of the locker and sprayed it a few times till the moldy, musky smell was temporarily overpowered. Now it smelt of something overly sweet and slightly nauseating.