Spark

4 - The Nutcase

When the night was full of terror and your eyes were filled with tears – The Night We Met

The first time Miles hugged me, I thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest.

Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub.

On and on and on it went. It was the longest I'd ever been held. I'm not the touchy type. I don't get excited by the thought of someone else making skin contact with me. But being there in his arms that cold September night in junior high, I thought I'd been wrong about what I really liked and didn't. Because I really liked being in his arms. I liked it so much, I secretly wished time would stand still and I'd be the only aware person so I could get more time to hug him. I liked it that much.

And when he let go, I felt that. The air was chillier than before and my chest felt hollow. That was the first time I acknowledged ever really liking Miles in a different aspect of the word. I was attracted to him and I was a bit terrified he wouldn't see me the same so I caged my feelings in and greeted him every morning with a smile like we'd done since we were one digits.

×××

"Do you think he's ever going to come back?" I ask Charlotte, tipping myself upside down on the large, white sofa in our living room.

Charlotte is right in front of the sofa, seated on the rug situated in the centre of the room. She's got the coffee table drawn in close and is scribbling some ideas down on a page. The TV is turned on to an episode of How I Met Your Mother and I subconsciously chuckle at something Barney says.

We do this every Saturday. Watch marathons of comedy series and just enjoy being in each others' company.

"Why would he?" She sighs. "If he's got a conscience, he should stay as far away from us as possible." She turns to look at me. "Especially you."

"Sometimes I want him to come back," I confess. "It feels like it'd be better if he did."

"It won't and stop with–"

Her sentence is cut off by a thundering, smashing sound coming from the outside. It's immediately followed by a loud scream and a string of colourful words. This goes on for a couple of seconds before Charlotte and I stumble over each other to check out what's going on.

Swinging open the door, we take notice of a girl furiously banging on the Bryants' house door. Their side window seems to have taken the brute of this girl's anger and is now spotting a large, gaping hole in the bottom right side. I gape at the damage and stomp forward to examine it, imagining how devastated Ally would be when she found this out. She took her home very seriously when it came to both the interior and exterior design. Something as ugly and violent as this was sure to have her upset.

I turn back to the girl who is still pounding her fists on the door in anger, veins popping out of her neck. "Get out here, you coward! You and that bitch better get out here before I fuck up your whole house!"

I couldn't have been more confused. Did she, perhaps, have the wrong house?

Half the street was peeking out from their windows now and I suspected it was only a matter of seconds before someone decided they'd had enough, picked up the phone and called the cops to file a noise complaint.

"E-excuse me?" My voice carried that slight stutter I got whenever I spoke to strangers. I was nervous walking up to this obviously deranged girl and absolutely unsure what to say without coming out of this scarred. "Is there s-s-someone you're l-looking for in p-particular?"

She hesitantly stops pounding and turns to look at me with fury in her eyes. "This is Miles Bryant's home, right?!" She barks this, as if to confirm something and to ask me to fuck off.

I flinch at how loud she is–I still can't get over how people can be so disturbingly loud–and merely nod my head.

"Right!" She shouts. "This is the fucking psycho's home. That dickwad thought it was okay to fuck with me and just leave! Do I look like a fucking joke?"

I assumed this was a rhetorical question. It was not.

She inches closer to me and shoves my shoulder. "Do I?! Because I'm fucking not!" She screams, tugging at her hair.

Where did Miles find this nutcase?

She goes back to pounding on the door and screaming profanities but then saunters back to me a couple of seconds later with slitted eyes.

"Are you that bitch?" She suddenly accuses.

My eyes widen and I'm instantly thrown into panic. My mind flashes red and the word danger repeats in my head. I open my mouth to respond but don't get a chance to before she shoves me backwards again.

"Are you?!" She repeats.

Charlotte struts over at that moment and shoves her back. "Fuck off, would you?"

She completely ignores Charlotte and charges at me like some possessed individual seeking out its target.

"This is pathetic," Charlotte says, grabbing her by the elbow before she takes another step towards me. "Making a fucking scene because of a guy. Aren't you ashamed? I am, for you."

Charlotte has her way with words. She yields them like a weapon. She knows how to make them hurt. The right tone to put in. The right expression to accompany it with. Right now, she's done everything right and this girl is seething at her. She looks like she wants to cry and at the same time, she looks like she wants to scratch my eyeballs out. It's crazy that she's just jumped to the conclusion that I'm some girl Miles is seeing when I haven't even done anything to trigger that thought. It says a lot about her and how paranoid she must be as a person.

She pulls out of Charlotte's grip then and glares and flares at me.

Ally's car pulls into the driveway at that moment with Miles in the passenger seat. He looks angered and is out of the car before Ally has had a chance to park properly. He instantly strides over to where the girl, Charlotte and I are.

"Miles!" She sobs, throwing herself into his arms. Her hands, wrapping tightly around his waist.

Charlotte scoffs and turns away, cussing under her breath.

Ally steps out of her car and gapes at the state of her home and the gawking neighbours.

"Miles Henderson Bryant!" She screams in that tone she uses when she's genuinely upset or hurt.

Miles wears a disgusted look at the girl wrapped around his body. He struggles to pry her off but succeeds in doing so to her dismay. He walks over to me, his blue eyes scanning every inch of me the whole time.

"Casper looks way better than you right now." He says, stopping a few inches away from me. His hand cups my chin and he lifts and assesses me.

"You surround yourself with nutcases." I say, although my voice is barely a whisper. His gaze is burning into me as he looks over my face and he shadows a ghost of a smile at my response.

"What's your name?" I hear Ally ask the girl, dropping her usually polite tone.

My eyes flicker to where she's standing and then I remember his hand is still on me so I swat it away. I feel his eyes still scanning every inch of me even as I do my best to escape his scrutiny.

"Veronica." She sobs, pulling at Miles' shirt.

He throws a disgusted look at her and shrugs her off before looking back at me, his features softening.

My heart leaps and slams to the floor with a thud. It struggles to beat. It's slow.

Lub-dub...Lub-dub...Lub-dub...

This is why I can't like you anymore, Miles.