Popular Nerd

Chapter Forty Six// Plane Ticket

Monday drags into Tuesday.

Tuesday night rolls slowly into the brink of Wednesday morning.

By then it's almost Thursday; Friday around the corner.

Now I am saying goodbye to my mom, Friday evening, as she loads her packed suitcases into the boot of her car, ready to leave for her weekend vacation with her new boyfriend.

"You be safe dear," she embraces me with a loving hug, her fragrance of pear and elderberry wafts up my nose and I savour her smell that my senses have come to known so well, the scent that makes me feel safe and secure as I know she is here.

I know I am older now- not a little girl who couldn't last a day without my mom in the house, to cook my dinner and tuck me into bed- but the thought of defending for my own makes me a little shaky. Perhaps it's the reality that Nathan is no longer around, I feel even more alone than I am. So with mom away, I will feel isolated.

"I will mom," I promise, letting her get into the car. My eyes fall to the ground. She starts the engine then wines down the window. I peer inside to meet her smile, contagiously making my lips curve, mirroring her happiness- she's happy; I should be happy too.

"Have fun... but not too much fun," her laugh fills the wind, cool against my cheek as the last leaves of autumn blow across the road. I step back as her window ascends, the wheels roll off the kerb and soon her car is out of sight.

I walk up the drive, following a grain of gravel as I kick it to the front door. I step inside and make myself some coffee.

For the remainder of the evening, alone as it felt, I spent the hours curled up on the sofa with Gossip Girl entertaining me on the TV. With the company of the blazing fire cracking within the fire place, the room illuminated with a warm peaceful glow. Peaceful, until the chime of the door bell interrupts my thoughts.

"Hello?"

I wrap my hand around the handle of the front door and pull it open. Through the mist of the night, broken by the yellow spotlights of the lamp posts bordering the street, a grey hooded figure stands silent on the bottom door step.

His face turns a degree, the light from above revealing his identity. "Josh?" My fingers quiver by my side. "W-what are you doing here?" I ask with the uncertainty of his late arrival. Eight thirty pm to be exact, what could he want at this hour?

"I'll ask the questions if you don't mind," when he spoke his voice is hoarse and raspy, no doubt he has just tossed away a used cigarette. My nose upturns at the disgust of his presence. He is not the same person I used to date.

"What do you want?" I disobey his command and position my hand firmly on my hip, sighing in the door way urgently wanting him to leave. With the wind bitter against my bare arms, biting at my flesh, I shiver- not only from the weather but from Josh staring me down with pierced eyes.

"Where's Nathan?" He asks sternly, demanding an answer.

"Why do you want to know?"

"I said I'll ask the questions," he repeats with a darkness poisoning his deep voice. "Know tell me where he is. Everyone at school hasn't stopped talking about that nerd all week. Where did he go?"

"Why would it matter if I told you, he's gone. Gone from here, from you and from-" me...

"From who?"

"Doesn't matter," my lips mumble, declining his attempt to get to me. He no longer has any control over me.

"So talk, where has he escaped? Pathetic nerd," Josh spits. "Is he hiding in his bedroom? Gone to granny's house? No surprise he's ran off to avoid this fight."