An Open Sky

Chapter Seven ~Alexa~

A dark figure stirred out of the corner of my eye. It travelled closer to the house. I leaned over the brambles that were covering the figure from my view. It was a man. That much I could tell. I continued to watch out of curiosity, the man’s height was of my father’s, but I soon realized it wasn’t him at all. I was far from the house, behind the secure obscuring of the trees. My heart raced at the thought of Jay, but the dirty blonde hair that the figure possessed slowed my heart, but pumped my adrenaline. His walk was choppy, as if he didn’t want to be seen. He seemed unsure of himself, often back-tracking his last few steps before continuing on.

He momentarily went out of view and I cautiously watched, not knowing where he would appear next. Then I heard the faint jingle of the house doorbell. I propped myself against the tree, wanting to step into the confines of the house. I didn’t want to be out in the open where I could be seen, even with the protection of the trees. Walls were more concealing than leaves, but my body kept me in the trees.

 I froze as I watched the man, the young man, come walking around the side of the house. The hood on his gray and black striped sweatshirt was now pulled up, shadowing his face. He wasn’t facing the trees, even though he was walking towards me. My heart raced. I noticed how he always angled his shoulders away from the trees, like he was afraid of them, or he knew where I was. It was like he didn’t want me to see him, but he wanted to see someone.

I continued to watch as he stopped directly under my window on the second floor and peered up at it. Okay, this is getting weird. There’s no way he’d know that’s my window, would he? My mind flashed back to stalker stories I’d seen on the news, how the man would always peek through the window. I thought about my open curtains at night, and how I’d leave them open. He was looking for me.

When he eventually gave up on the window, he slowly made his way to our deck. He hesitated before setting his foot on the first stair, almost as if he expected us to be sitting in the kitchen waiting for him. At this point, I was glad I was in the shelter of the trees, and not in the house, hiding behind a door. Even if it was a little creepy to watch, I knew it’d be worse if I was confined to walls of the house, at least outside I could run if needed.

I watched him take each step. His legs were shaking as he made his way up. He positioned himself against the stairs to look over the floor of the deck. When he was okay with the appearance of the empty house, he stood, walking to the glass door. My eyes widened as he leaned up to the glass, using his hands to block the glare of the sun. Just then, a strong wind came and rattled the trees above me. My fingers dug into the bark of the tree that was positioned behind my back.

At the sudden growling of the wind, he jumped and flew back down the steps. The rush of the wind and the quick movement of him running down the stairs blew his hood back down around his shoulders as his foot hit the grass. His legs froze, not allowing him to go any further, and his hands shot to the back of his head, desperately trying to pull his hood back up.

After a moment of fumbling with his hood, he gave up. He stood there, frozen again, and turned to the woods. No. He turned to me. His eyes pierced through mine for just a split second before he took off toward the front of our house.

I sat there, eyes wide, staring after him. So he did know I was here. But how? There were chills racing down my spine as I thought of the possibilities. Was he the same person who’d dropped off my shoes earlier? I barely even had to ask the question before my mind decided it was a definite yes.

I wasn’t close enough to notice any specific qualities about him other than his dirty blonde hair that was in a Beetles kind of mop-cut. Well, and the fact that he’s a total creeper, I thought.

After a few more minutes of waiting to make sure he was gone, I got up and made my way back to the house. I walked up the deck, trying to retrace the boy’s steps exactly. I couldn’t figure out why, but I was curious about this boy. Amused by him, actually. I was so keen on moving up the stairs exactly how he did, that I didn’t even notice the bitter wind cutting across the yard. The wind enveloped me, numbing my fingers and churning my insides. It was like it went right through me. My body was shuddering so hard I could barely steady my hand enough to wrap it around the handle to the sliding glass door.

I don’t know what was making me shudder more: the biting wind, or the fact that the door was already unlocked and he could have just walked into my house.

I pulled on the door. Nothing. The lock was flipped up, I should’ve gotten in easily. I frowned and silently cursed the door before I pulled again, harder. I managed to open it wide enough to fit my pinky finger in. I knew I could have just walked to the front of the house and went in the garage, but I had the strangest feeling that the boy was up there waiting for me to come. Despite my curiosity of him, I was scared.

I positioned one foot on the wall and the other firmly on the ground. I gripped the handle with both hands and heaved. I could feel the door leisurely making its way away from my foot and further to the rest of my body. It groaned in complaint to my constant heaving. I continued to pull. I could just make out a faint laughing that was coming from the woods, but when I stopped to catch my breath it was gone. I figured I was just letting my fear envelope me. It was just the wind…just the wind.

I looked back at the door to find that I’d opened it wide enough to slide in sideways. I slid back into the house and welcomed the heat back to my body. It didn’t take me long to decide that I wasn’t going back outside today.

Instead, I crawled onto the couch with a blanket and let my popcorn pop, becoming noise in the background, drowned out by the TV stations that I was flipping through. By the time the microwave was beeping, alerting me that my popcorn was done, I’d found a romance movie about a young actress who moved to L.A. and had to choose between her childhood friend, who was obviously just using her for popularity, or a cute actor that she’d starred in a movie with.

I got up and went to the kitchen to retrieve my popcorn. I could smell the salty butter as soon as I opened the microwave door. I pulled the bag open and was immediately hit by another wave of the butter and heat that seeped up into my face.

I ran over and dove onto the couch, the kitchen tiles chilling the soles of my bare feet. I snuggled deep in my blanket, wrapping myself up like a cocoon, and focused on the movie and the popcorn that was taunting my stomach. Anything but him.

She chose her friend. Of course. Can’t you see he’s just using you? He totally has a date with another girl tonight! She found out eventually, and had to go and beg for the cute actor to take her back. She totally blew him off. That’s why I hate these movies, I thought, the girl always chooses the wrong guy, gets hurt, and begs for the other one to take her back. I would never stoop that low. Then again, I wouldn’t be stupid and get hurt in the first place.

I turned off the TV, too angry with the girl to watch any more. I left my blanket and empty bag of popcorn downstairs and walked up to my room. I absent-mindedly picked up the crumpled note off of the floor and examined it in my hands. If creeper boy was the one who dropped off my shoes, then he touched this. He wrote this. This is his handwriting, I thought. I was very amused by this idea, but it gave me chills; the good kind of chills, not out of fear, but out of anticipation. I knew he’d come back sometime, he had too. He just had too. But what would I say to him? How would I confront him?

I smiled at the idea.