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The evening air has a bite to it today, a cool forty degrees, so I pull my flannel and jean jacket tighter around me and huff into the air. The way the fog moves around my face, in a soft and fluid way, eases my turbulent mind. A dog barks somewhere in the neighborhood. There’s a lot of them loose around here and like the gang members, these hood dogs run in packs, attacking anyone who looks at them wrong.
I scoot further into the shadows of the branches, hoping like hell there’s not a pack running through here.
I reach into my pocket for my knife and rest my head against the trunk of the tree, fighting and failing to keep my mind off the situation I now face with my mother and my piece of shit, no-call-no-show father.
Me and mom aren’t perfect, but we hardly ever see eye-to-eye when it comes to my dad but slapping or hitting isn’t something you’d ever catch us doing to each other, unless you count the multiplechanclasshe’s thrown at me, but I don’t. That’s just funny shit. Tonight though, I don’t know, somethings got my mom in a fucked-up spot, and I don’t think she’s ever been there before.
“Fucking hell, I need a lobotomy.” I sigh and stretch my legs out in front of me, twisting my back from side to side to pop the bones.
Just as I’m about to shoot off ahurry your ass uptext to Noah, the sound of something falling and people laughing nearby has my head spinning. The fog has grown dense and it’s hard to see past ten feet in front of you, but I swear to God I see someone - the silhouette of a man standing - between the two houses across the street. It’s not the same area I heard the laughter from, but now that I’ve seen it, all my senses are telling me that shadow is the real threat.
I stare for a minute, hoping my eyes are playing tricks on me, but no, there’s definitely someone watching—
“Boo!”
My scream pierces the silent street until Noah’s hand slaps over my mouth.
“Quiet! You’re going to wake up la bruja!” He hisses.
I punch him in the chest before climbing to my feet.
“You fucking scared me, asshole!” I look back across the street and still see the man, “Do you see that guy standing there or am I trippin’?” I ask Noah, ticking my chin toward the silhouette.
Noah runs a hand through his hair as he squints, “Uh, yeah, babe, you’re trippin’. That’s mister Dumar’s scarecrow. C’mon, the guys are waiting at the spot.”
Fucking scarecrow?Dfaq?
Noah grabs my wrist and pulls me alongside him and begins yammering about the latest bullshit with his mom, but I don’t pay much attention as I look over my shoulder.
But thescarecrowis no longer there.
* * *
“Is mister Dumar a night owl or something?” I randomly ask from the back seat of Rico’s beat up Cadillac, interrupting his story of how he banged his boss last Wednesday. It’s total bullshit if you ask me, but to each their own, I guess.
I met Rico when I first moved here in middle school. He was one of Noah’s friends and the quickest to ask me out. I would have said yes, cause he’s not bad looking in the least, but he introduced me to his friends and Noah had my interest from the moment I laid my eyes on him.
Noah has had my attention ever since. His hair is straight and black, my favorite color. It hangs over his dark brows in a mess, but the way he styles it with products that make the strands look wet gives him a very e-boy look. His eyes are the color of newly mint pennies, a mix of bronze and copper that are framed with black lashes that look like eyeliner. He has angular but strong features which sometimes reminds me of an anime guy, but Noah is tooeverythingto be narrowed down into a fictional character.
He’s taller than my five feet, seven inches, but he feels so much taller. He’s very Chicano but also goth, covered in tattoos from his fingers to his neck. I know he has a lot more under his jeans, but seeing as he’s only into guys, I doubt I’ll ever get a chance to see what he’s packing…I mean what kind of tattoos he has.
Nah, I totally meant his dick.
Sigh, anyway, it was Rico who introduced me to Noah and Leroy my first week here. Now, we’re a whole crew, tight knit and down for one another, but Noah and I became incredibly close. Best friends, without the benefits…unfortunately.
Rico and Leroy are the kind of guys that’ll make you laugh on a shit day, but Rico is themachismoof the group, flirting with anyone possessing a pulse and fucking anyone willing, guy, girl or anything in between. Still, he’s the only one with a car and in Indianapolis, you need a car if you wanna get around, so we listen to his sex-capades and laugh at his ridiculousness.
“Why are you asking about that old timer? Do you have some sort of elderly kink, Val?”
Noah and Leroy laugh at Rico’s moronic question.
I roll my eyes and flick the back of his ear, “Does everything have to be sexual to you, numb nuts?”
“Ouch! Damn,ruca, I was just asking. No need for violence. If you like old balls no one—"
Noah slaps him in the center of the chest hard enough to knock the breath from him and make Leroy and I crack up.
“You talk too much, Ric,” he rumbles at our coughing friend before turning back to me, “Dumar ushers at the church my parents go to, so I’m pretty sure the man goes to bed early like them. Why, you still think that scarecrow was a person?”
