Mad About You

Fifteen-Promises, Promises

Fifteen

Promises, Promises

Three things I was certain about Tyler at this point. He was somewhat real to more than just me after Luke's affirmation of what I thought happened that night, he was a real person in the past that someone who was alive knew of, and he had the power to make me feel things I've never felt before and it scared the bejesus out of me. Sleep seemed to find me as I contemplated all these things in my dazed and confused state...

Feeling odd was an understatement as I roamed down a long hallway that rocked back and forth like one of those funhouses. A clown appeared out of nowhere nearly scaring the bejesus out of me and stopping me in my tracks as it scrolled by with a creepy grin and laugh. As I walked further, another clown popped up from the other side. I could see a door at the end of the hall, and I started running towards it dodging the clowns because clowns freaked me out.

Once I reached the door, I quickly opened it to see mirrors all around me, much like a funhouse. I wasn't wearing what I wore to Bobby's party instead I was in an 80s outfit. It became even more obvious as I heard a live version of Promises, Promises by Naked Eye coming from the outside of the funhouse that this wasn't a dream and the girl that I was staring at wasn't me. This was a vision from her past and it was confirmed further when a young Donovan came up behind her with a laugh.

"I hate funhouses." She grumbled.

"I just wanted to show you a good time, being the new girl and all." Young Donovan said, wrapping his arms around her playfully.

She pushed him away from her obviously peeved off.

"A good time is riding go-carts or playing videogames at the arcade. Not scaring someone half to death Donovan."

"Oh come on it's not that bad. A few clowns never hurt anybody."

"I guess you haven't read Stephen King's It."

"I don't have time to read when I am the captain of the football team."

"That's unfortunate."

"Look Annie, I really like you and I want to get to know you better. I consider this like a date." He put his hand under her chin and she moved back a bit as he tried to kiss her.

"Donovan, I like you a lot but just as friends. I just don't really want to get involved with anyone especially considering we are all going off to college in a few months. You understand right?"

"Yeah." He said looking obviously embarrassed and a bit irritated.

"Great, so can we get out of here. This place is giving me the creeps."

"Yeah we can go meet up with Marissa and David."

And suddenly the vision ended abruptly as I felt sprinkles of cold water emerge all over me.

I opened my eyes to see I was still on the lawn chair with Alex, Brick, and Izzi laying beside me in the other lawn chairs still knocked out until they felt the water as well coming from the sprinklers. They all propped up.

"What the fuck!" Brick hollered, jumping out of the lawn chair and narrowly missing diving into the pool.

I looked around to see that Tyler was nowhere in sight. The sun was high up so I knew it had to be close to late morning. I just hoped it wasn't already noon. I checked my phone to see that it was 11am.

"Fuck fuck fuck! It's going to be noon soon. I was supposed to meet my dad so we could talk before the game." Brick yelled running into the house.

"I have to get to the hospital asap!" I exclaimed to Alex.

Alex dropped off Brick and Izzi since their houses were close by and then there seemed to be a long silence as we rode down the freeway to the hospital together.

Finally, Alex muttered, "I'm sorry about last night. I was a major asshole to you."

"No it's fine. The gypsy had no right to say that."

"Just so you know it's true. I did nick myself a few years back. I even went as far as taking a lot of opioids and they had to take me to rehab and when that didn't work, they took me to the only person who could get through to me."

"And that was?"

"My abuelo. He took me down to Chiapas where he was born and raised and I really got to see how privileged I was. It made me stop feeling sorry for myself. I had all this and children that were far younger than me didn't even have a pot to piss in. Ever since then I've spent every summer trying my hardest to give back. Even if my grades didn't do the trick my plethora of community service would certainly win most schools over."

"And your father's wallet." I chimed in.

"Yeah that too."

"You sound like you have an amazing abuelo. Most grandparents would just spoil their grandchildren rotten when finding out their hurting themselves but yours really did the best thing to get through to a kid on the edge. I know mines did."

"You tried killing yourself too?"

"In a sense. I drunk so much Everclear once that I got alcohol poisoning. I was around 12. This was right before my grandmother got really sick. They put me in rehab for a month before my mom got me out. At the time she was training to be in the military so she didn't know about my alcohol poisoning stunt until after she quit and then they just took me to Disney World which was great but it didn't fix the problem. I just got better at hiding it after that. My mom thought keeping booze out of the house would make things better, but it just made me more proactive in getting it. When she thought I was better she started putting wine back in her cabinets and I started taking sips and replacing the missing contents with red wine vinegar. To this day she's in denial that I have a problem. To this day she's in denial that she has a problem."

"I feel like we are literally the same person. My mother has an issue with cutting herself up only with plastic surgery while I have a problem with cutting myself up only with an actual knife. I've never told anyone this not even Izzi but I try to do it in places that no one would ever see like under my breasts or my underarms. I've only really had sex twice and both times they were with my shirt on because of the cuts."

"Wow I would have never guessed."

"Yeah so that gypsy I guess is the real deal." Alex mumbled.

"Even so she had no right." I said taking her free hand that wasn't on the steering wheel. She smiled gripping it back.

"Thanks for understanding. I knew when I first saw you that you and I were going to be really close. I just had a feeling. I feel like now we can really tell each other anything." She put out her pinky as she turned into the hospital and parked in front of the ER entrance. The time was now 11:58, I noted as I looked at her dashboard. "Promise me we will tell each other everything. No secrets."

I didn't know if I could keep that promise considering if I told her about Tyler, she would probably think I was nuts and not want to be my friend anymore, but I had to do something because time was pressing and I told my mom I would be there exactly at 12.

"Promise." I said, taking my pinky into hers. She smiled at me and I smiled back before jetting into the ER.

I knew that I was going to regret that later but for now I would just focus on the detrimental state I was about to be in with candy striper duty.