Heaven || kh

3 - Spiders and Smiles

Seeing as I didn’t bring much with me, it doesn’t take me long to unpack. I have half a donut left from the food shop on the train, and I gulp it down, even though it’s been slightly mushed in my bag.

    After brushing my hair into a ponytail, I step into the bathroom to see what I can do to make myself even less noticeable.

    There’s a small, head height mirror hanging over a sink, and both a shower and a toilet. Dumping the make up I brought along on the side of the sink, I decide to draw some freckles onto my clear face. After attending dance competitions when I was younger, I’m pretty skilled with a make-up pencil, and in a few minutes I have a splattering of brown dots that look surprisingly realistic across my cheeks.

    Then, I saw it.

    And by it, I mean a massive spider crawling up the side of the mirror.

    Unlike most people, I have a genuine reason for being afraid of spiders. When I was little, and our school was on a class trip to the zoo, I somehow managed to get bitten by the Australian Red Back spider we were being shown. I had to be rushed to hospital, and I’ve had a massive fear of them ever since.

    So I kind of scream my lungs out, throw the make up brush in my hand across the bathroom, and tear out of my motel room at the speed of light.

    I stood in the cream hallway for a minute panting. No way was I going back into there until the spider was out.

    “Hey, are you alright?” A boy’s voice asked from off to the side of me, and me, being the on-edge person I was, I looked straight up from where I was bent in half against the wall with my eyes wide.

    “No!” I wheeze, completely aware of the fact the boy who’d asked if I was okay is looking straight at me and extremely cute, which meant I was about to start rambling. “There is a huge-ass spider in my bathroom and it was gonna try and bite me and eat me!”

    Then, he laughed. Actually laughed, as if my freakout was funny.

    “Don’t laugh at me! It was like the size a-” I pausd, trying to think of something to compare it to, “-shoe box!”

    “Oh really?” He asked, tilting an eyebrow, a smile etched on his face and blue yes twinkling.

    “Yes!” I wail.

    “Do you want me to get it out for you?”

    “Yes!” My voice sounded slightly hysteric.

    He grins again, and tilts his head back, flicking his blonde hair, before stepping towards me. “Come on then,” He made to push open the door to my room.

    I follow in behind him, ready to run at any sign of another spider.

    “Where was it?” He asks, stopping and glancing around my room, leaving me extremely grateful I’d cleaned up my stuff, rather than just strewn in across the room.

    I let out a hoompf after almost running into his back. I thought I was quite tall for my age, at least in Pittsburgh, but blondie is way taller than me.

    “In the bathroom,” I choke, and point towards the open door that led to my worst nightmare.

    He chuckles again, and confidently swaggers towards it, before disappearing inside.

    Me, being the sort of person I am, creeps over to peek in to see how he was going about killing the demon thing.

    Instead, I saw him reaching out, and letting in crawl onto his hand. He saw me in the mirror, and turned around, a grin still stretched across his face, which widened after he saw my look of pure horror.

    “It’s just a huntsman, they aren’t dangerous.”

    “But-but-” I stammer. How could anyone bear to be that close to a spider? I bolt back into the main area of my room again to compose myself after seeing the creature of hell.

    I hear the boy’s footsteps as he walked closer, and do my best not to have another freakout when he holds it a mere twenty centimetres away from my face.

    “It’s not that big.” He says, as the thing crawls up his arm and I vomit a little in my throat. “We get way bigger ones.”

    My eyes must have glazed over a bit as they do when I’m terrified, because he reaches out his non-spider arm and grabs my shoulder to steady me.

    “You’re really that scared of a little spider?”

    I shake my head to clear it out of spider-induced terror (which only worked a little) and shiver, but not because of the cold as I feel his hand through the material of my t-shirt.

    “It’s not little!” I whimper as it make its way past his elbow.

    “Scaredy-cat!” He laughs, letting go of my shoulder after I think he’s sure I’m not going to faint, before he walks over to a window, opens it and flicks the spider into a nearby tree. The window closes with a bang. “That better?”

    “Are there more?” I ask.

    “Your scaredness is actually hilarious,” He tells me.

    “That’s not a word,” Great. Now that the threat is gone, I’m transforming into my normal state around boys, where I accidentally correct their grammar and ramble and say they’re stupid.

    He shrugs. “It should be.”

    I bite the inside of my cheek so I don't start on how funner should be one too.

    “I’m Josh by the way. My parents own the motel.”

    Taking that as a sign to tell him my own name, I mutter, “Kal-” Before hastily correcting myself, “-Klara!”

    “Interesting name. Never heard it before.”

    “It’s a nickname,” I stutter. “It’s just Klara.”

    “Just Klara. Suits you.”

    I can’t help blushing threw my painted on freckles at that. No one ever told me Kalani suited me.

    “Thanks,” I say, a small smile spreading onto my lips.

    “If you ever need me to get rid of another spider, I’m right down the hall.” Josh smiles (which he does a lot of). “Just scream, I’ll hear you.”

    “Huh, thanks.”

    “No problem, Just Klara.”

    And with that, he actually tousles my hair and walks out of the room.

~~~~~

whoops i ship it sort of

whaddya think of Josh?