The Realm of Shadows, Part 4 (Technicolor)

At 6:45, I was ready to go. I had showered, and put my long brown hair up into a pony tail. I was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a t-shirt. I didn’t bother with make up, because I felt I had no one to impress. I sat around and read the newspaper for a half hour before Dave showed up. I wasn’t really surprised at his lateness because Dave was notoriously late.

Still, as I got into his truck, I couldn’t help a little rib. “You’re late, Dave.” I waved to my dad, who was in the garage, and he waved back.

“Yea, I know. My cousin called and I ended up talkin to him for a while. Sorry.” He turned his blue, puppy dog eyes on me, and I almost laughed. I hadn’t realized how much I had missed him.

He must have read my mind because the next words out of his mouth were, “Dude, I missed you so much! I’m so glad you decided to come over.” He reached over and squeezed my arm with his beefy hand. See the thing about Dave is that he’s a pretty big guy. And he complains about it, which annoys me. But, he’s my best friend, and I wouldn’t trade him for anything.

The ride to Will’s didn’t take very long. It was a huge old house. Will was always joking that it was haunted, but none of us had ever seen any evidence. Not that I believe in that stuff anyway.

Dave knocked on the door, and Will answered. “Hey, man! And my lil sis, how you doin?” Will gave me a huge hug. I like Will a lot. I would probably date him, but I’m not sure how he feels about me. He’s got dark curly hair, and dark skin. He used to be heavy, but then lost a lot of weight. The only thing I don’t like about him is that he flirts with EVERY girl he comes across. Oh, and he kind of acts like he knows EVERYTHING, if you know what I mean.

“I’m okay, Will. How ya been?” I asked.

“Great! I’m glad you guys are finally here. Everyone else has been here for like an hour already. We were going to send out a search party for you!” I saw Will’s face as he realized what he’d said. “I mean..”

“Never mind. Let’s go in. I can’t wait to see Sarah…and Jessie.”

Will lead us into the house, and Dave put his arm around me. I knew he was just being friendly, but it made me sort of uncomfortable. Dave and Will were chatting away about some baseball game that had been on the night before. We went down to the basement, where we usually had our little parties.

“Where’s your mom, Will?” Dave asked. I almost burst out laughing. Dave always said that Will’s mom was a MILF (and if you don’t know what that means, I’m not going to be the one to explain it to you).

“Mom and Dad went to a party of their own tonight. So we’ve got the house to ourselves!” Dave looked a little disappointed, and I lightly punched him on the arm.

We went down the creaky stairs to the remodeled basement. Sarah and Jessie were sitting on one of the couches, arguing. They don’t get a long AT ALL. Sarah is great. She’s one of those girls who will tell you exactly what she thinks. She’s tough, and cool, and sweet all at the same time. Let me put it this way, if she likes you, it’s all good. But if you get on her bad side, look out.

Jessie, who is Sarah’s cousin, is pretty much the opposite. She’s loud, and always has something to say about everyone, and its usually not very nice. She also complains… A LOT! I think she’s jealous of Sarah in a lot of ways. Jessie is short and has white blonde hair. She’s kind of pretty, but her face is kind of squished looking. She also looks about 12, and she’s 17. Sarah on the other hand has light brown hair, that is streaked with blonde. She’s pretty curvy, and very pretty. She usually has a lot of guys after her, but she mostly just laughs at them. Jessie has the major hots for Will, but I don’t think he’s interested in her. At least, I hope he’s not.

So, anyway, as soon as we got to the bottom of the stairs, Sarah and Jessie quit arguing. Sarah got up and gave me a hug. “How are you doing, hon?”

“I’m okay,” I answered. I sort of waved to Jessie, who was sitting on the couch in a pout. She nodded at me but didn’t say anything. I didn’t let it bother me. She was a moody person.

“Good,” Sarah nodded, and turned to Will. “So what are the plans for this evening?”

“Well, I thought we’d watch a couple of movies, or whatever. Just hang out, ya know?” “I’ve got a case of beer in the car,” Jessie finally spoke, jumping up off of the brown couch.

“Oh yeah,” said Dave. “Go get it!”

I felt kind of uneasy, but the rest of them seemed receptive to the idea, so I let it go. But then Jessie said, “I’ve also got another little surprise, but I’ll wait until after dark for that.”

“Jessie, I don’t really think..” Sarah began, but Jessie gave her a wicked smile, and dashed up the stairs to get the beer.

Sarah just shook her head, and asked, “So what movie are we going to watch?”

The whole thing was a little weird, but I was feeling pretty mellow. Just glad to be back with my friends, I guess. I should have known better.

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