1
“You’re a damn liar. Don’t talk about things you don’t understand.”
“Paige?” I heard Joy behind me. “Paige can we go home?” She sounded far away like she was speaking in whispers. When I turned around I saw how red her cheeks were. Jesus, crying in the bathroom at a bar. This was not the classy Joy I knew.
“Yeah, wanna stay with me tonight?” I took her by the hand and led her to the door. I was angry at Ultan, but I wanted to kill Dave. You mess with my friends, you mess with me.
Upon arriving at the door Ultan stood in my way. “Move!” I yelled at him. Joy looked at me confused and unsure of what to do with herself.
Ultan held out his hands as if he were waving a white flag. “Paige I didn't mean to upset ya, but ya need to know the truth. Things aren't the way ya think they are.”
“I don't know what to think anymore, but what I do know is that I'm trying to leave right now and you're in my way, so move.” The words struck a chord and he slid to the side not looking like his casual self anymore. I guess perhaps he did care about what I thought of him and his sick joke wasn't something I was going to go along with. This time he had pushed too far.
When we got out to the car I realized that I’d been drinking too much to drive. Joy, on the other hand, had been smart and hadn't wallowed in her own self-pity at the bottom of the glass.
I was shaking when I sat down in the car. Between Dave and Ultan, the entire male gender had taken a serious nosedive tonight. But seeing the guy who looked like Nick? Being so smug and arrogant? It brought back all of the feelings of the night that he disappeared. Waking up the next morning to police officers knocking on my door asking me questions. Making me feel like I didn't know Nick at all. It wasn't fair, I promised myself that no one would make me feel like that ever again. But here I was having trouble strapping myself in with the seatbelt because of how hard my hands were shaking due to my emotions.
Joy put the car in drive and we sped off. She gave me a few seconds to relax before diving into the lengthy questions I knew she had been waiting to ask.
“What the hell happened back there? What was Dave doing with that girl? And then I come out of the bathroom and you’re screaming at Ultan.”
I shook my head. “Nothing. He’s just messing with my mind. I can’t take him sometimes.”
“Why? What happened? He didn't hurt you, did he?”
“No! Nothing like that. He just thought that playing some sick joke would be funny. Remember me telling you about my ex-boyfriend, Nick?”
Joy nodded, continuing to keep her eyes on the road. It was dark and had started to rain. I could tell she wanted to listen but she also had to focus on driving.
“He said that guy that I saw when we were shopping, the one I said looked familiar, was Nick.”
“No way!” She said, only taking her eyes off the road for a moment. But that's all that fate needed to intervene. Our tires couldn’t catch on the slippery pavement and we spun out of control. I watched the dark night spin around me and screamed until my lungs burned. I put my hands out in front of me and focused on my life. I do not want to die, I repeated in my head. I do not want to die! I felt warmth spread from the pentagram sitting on my chest flow out through my arms and into my hands. I opened my eyes for only a moment to see blue light extending from my fingertips into the air. The light stopped as our car came to a halt only mere inches from a tree. We were so close that I could see the moisture running down the bark from the rain. I took deep cleansing breaths trying to calm myself as I thought about all the other times I had been so lucky.
Things like this had happened to me many times in my life. My mom always said that someone like a guardian angel was watching over me. I rubbed my pentagram necklace, hoping that whoever it was would know I was saying thank you, as I had done probably a thousand times before. There was the time that the knife slipped in the kitchen and I should’ve lost a finger, but instead it just fell to the floor. Or when I was ten and playing on a slide that was too small for me and it came loose, I simply fell to the ground. No scrapes or bruises. My parents always just called me lucky, but maybe it was something else.
I stared down at my hands in amazement. Had I just saved us?
Joy began to panic. “Oh my God! Oh my God, are you okay? I am so sorry.”
She quickly checked herself, and then me, for any injuries, but we couldn't find any on either of us. When we got out to check the car it seemed fine too.
Joy began to pace outside of the car. We decided not to call 911 because everything seemed okay. She was in shock. I stopped her and put my hands on both of her shoulders to try to focus her.
“Joy! Hey Joy, what made you drive off the road? What did you see?” I had seen her turn her head just a split second before our almost crash.
Joy stopped as the realization dawned on her face as to why we swerved. “There... There was a man near the road. Oh my God, there was a man near the road, Paige! We have to find him!”
She began looking back towards the darkened street, but neither of us saw anything. I stood shivering from the rain hitting my bare skin where my top was cut out.
“Did I hit him? Paige did I hit the guy?” Joy was frantic.
“No, I mean I don't remember that.” I didn't mention that I'd been a little more concerned about our own lives and the light coming from my hands that I hadn't even noticed the person on the road.
Just then a man stumbled from behind the trees, looking very dazed and confused. It only took us a second to realize that it was Dave, Joy's would-be date for the evening.
Joy ran to him, throwing her arms around him the moment she could. “Dave? What are you doing out here? We just saw you at the bar. With that girl.”
Dave looked so lost. “What girl? I was supposed to meet you. Were you there?”
Joy held his face between her hands as she searched his eyes for recognition. It seemed as though the past few hours hadn't happened for Dave as they had for us. Something weird was going on here.
“Dave, the girl in the bar. The redhead. Do you remember her?”
Dave just kept shaking his head. He looked muddy and disheveled.
“Joy,” I called, “Let’s just take him home.”
I sat in the back, so that way Dave could sit in the front seat with Joy. He was so dirty, almost looking as though he had crawled in the mud to get onto the road. I didn't want to confuse him further, but I needed answers.
“Dave? Do you remember the girl you were with?”
He shook his head. Then he rubbed his forehead almost like he had a headache.
I tried another approach. “What about before? Do you remember where you were before you got to the bar?”
This time he nodded, some recognition showing on his face. “I was at the shop. We were really busy and this couple came up. Weird kids all dressed in black. Attractive couple, they were talking to me about something.”
Now we were getting somewhere. “Do you remember what they were talking about Dave? Or their names?”
Both Dave and Joy responded at the same time. “Natalia.”
Dave looked wide-eyed over to Joy as he asked, “You know her?”
Joy locked eyes with me in the rearview mirror and replied, “I used to.”
Shit, it was the same girl from town that day. It was the girl from Joy's past she wanted to forget, I knew it was her.
“Okay, so the woman is Natalia, what about the guy? Dave do you remember the guy’s name?”
Dave rubbed his face with his hands as if trying to get his brain to function properly again. “Yeah I do. Nick. He said his name is Nick.”