Dark is Here: Chasing traces

Dark is Here








Rosie Santos



The last bell rings and all the students flood the hallways. Everyone is already in a different world. It's called "after school". Kids are walking, running, jogging. The motion makes me sick. Kids are talking, laughing, gossiping, and everyone, I mean everyone, has a cell phone. Kids are texting, snapping pics, sending videos back and forth and now I'm even more discussed.


I try to ignore the underclassmen talking about meaningless things like


"Ok, so there I was embarrassed because I dropped my pencil in class, when Senior-quarterback-super hunk-Zack Maxell, picks it up and personally puts it back into my hands. And get this, just before he turns to go back to his seat, he winks at me!"

Was I ever that ignorant? I wish I could go back in time and slap myself whenever I acted like that. Oh, check out this prima donna sophomore making a seen as she's coming down the hall with her wing girls.

"Can you believe I have on two different navy blues?" The girl complains. "No my skirt is lighter than my vest!" That girl is so dramatic about the damn skirt being unnoticeably lighter than her vest she almost pokes this other girl in the eye. Then she has the nerve to act like it's the other girl's fault.

"Man we chillin at my house today?"

"Man that's like a twenty-minuet walk!"

"What? Chicken again? I don't want no chicken tonight! We eat chicken all the time!"

"Remar doesn't even notice me. I wish I had green eyes."

"What? Why?"

"Because, that's his favorite color. I wish I had eyes like Rosie. Then Remar would like me, I just know it."

"Who, that paralyzed girl?"

"Claudia! You say that like she was always like that. Everyone knows that Rosie was supposed to…Oh, hi Rosie…"

This freshman is so self-conscious. She is one of those white girls that came from one of those catholic schools where it's mostly nothing but white kids. Those girls come here looking scared as cats and they have to adjust to the diversity of our school. I crack a half smile as best I can and she smiles back nervously.

"You know that girl Jayneice?" Her friend Claudia says as they continue, "She is sooooo pretty, I wish I had her hair…."

"Did you

It angers me though. How ungrateful and spoiled we can get sometimes. The only person I ever honestly wanted to be like was Maria, my older sister. Everyone loves…loved her. She was always smart, beautiful, and a great soccer player. I always tried to be like her, though she always told me to be better; on the field, in the classroom, and in the mirror.

About ten minuets later, the hall thins out till it's deserted. Good, just the way I like it now. I hate when people go out of their way to be nice to me. Especially the ones that were never nice before.

"Ok Rosie," Ms. Turner comes out of Ms.Kritch's classroom. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yes ma'am." I say. What did you think?

"Please, after school you don't have to say ma'am." She laughs. "It makes me feel old."

You are old.

"Honey, I just had a conversation with Ms.Kritch about you class work." Ms. Turner says. "She said you grades have been mainly C's and D's."

So?

"Rosie it's important that you keep your grades up now that the big sports colleges are no longer…well…you're going to have to rely on academics."

I don't reply. Instead I let out a slow angry sigh.

"Um, I'm sorry could you wait here for a second?" Ms. Says. "If I don't go to the bathroom now it'll be along wait at my other job."

I kind of wish I could shrug my shoulders. Ms.Turner leans down to…wait is she really going to lock the fucking wheels? She puts the first lock into place. I can't move my arms, so where in the fuck does she think I'm going to go? I swear I could only lift my arm just a little bit; I'd slap some sense into this lady.

"You don't have to…" It takes restraint but I'm use to being quiet now.

"Did you say something darling?"

"…You don't, have to…" I sigh some anger out. "…You don't have to lock the wheels, I…can't move my arms…I can't go anywhere…"

"Well when's the last time you tried?"

"…Just a second ago." I say with my teeth clenched. Ms.Turner gets the message I guess and decides to dismiss herself to a quick bathroom break with out locking the other wheel. Darn, she's got me facing the hallway. If anybody comes by and see me, they'll think I look completely ridiculous with only one of my wheels locked. Ah who cares what they think, if anybody comes by I can ask them to unlock it for me.

I sit in silence till seemingly out of nowhere I hear footsteps right behind me.

"…Ms.Turner, is that you?"

No answer. I already know that there's no way it can be Ms. Turner. With the shoes that she's wearing I would have heard her. I just want to let whoever that is know I'm not alone so they don't need to mess with me. There are plenty of jerks and weirdoes that go to this school.

Suddenly it whoever that is doesn't sound so light on their feet now. They've relaxed and started walking normal-like. The person comes into view finally. He stops and stands right in front of me with his arms folded. Great. Who the hell is this guy?

It's a black boy. About…5'9. Dreads. He's built really athletic and muscular. He's wearing a black t-shirt, jean shorts, and black Nikes. And he's got tattoos on his forearms. One arm says MIKE.

No, wait…that's right. I know who this is. His name is…Mike James.

I've never met him before but I've sure heard his name. From what I hear, he's nothing but a thug. Most of the stuff I heard about him was related to fighting and girls. I don't know that much about him. Don't care either. All I want to know is what the fuck does he want?

He stares at me in the eyes. I just stare right back through frown. He doesn't scare me. He doesn't say a word. What the hell does he think this is a staring contest?


Suddenly he cocks an eyebrow and shakes he head.


"…That wheelchair is ass-ugly girl…"

What the fuck did he just say? Did this ass-hole come up here just to say that? Should I even…

"Don't trip I'm just kidding," He goes. "Medicaid ain't shit."

Don't trip?

"I came because I want to ask you some questions." Mike says. "You were at that girl Talisha's party a while back right?"

I just stare at him with an inspiration for hate.

"Can you tell me how long you was at the party?"

What the fuck is he talking about?

"Did you talk to Telisha?" He demands.

I'm pissed. Seething. Angry as hell and I refuse to be intimidated by this common thug.

"…Ms.Turner!" I call out.

"…You gonna answer my question?" Mike says all calmly like he's so fucking cool or something.

"Ms.Turner!" I shout.

"…Cut that out and answer my question."

"Ms. Turner!"

"She a little tied up right now." Mike says.

Tied up? What the hell is this?

"I'ma leave, soon as you answer my questions."

"You can kiss my ass!"

"That ain't what I asked you."

"Go to hell you piece of shit!"

"…Go to hell?"

Mike stares at me for a minuet. Good. I hope I hurt his fucking feelings. He turns and walks over to…my locker! What is he doing? He puts on a pair of white gloves and starts to turn the combination knob. Who does he think he is? He doesn't know my combination. In seconds the locker door swings open. But I don't know even my combination!

"Help!" I scream. "Somebody help me!"

"Hey!" Mike shouts. "Can't nobody hear you, ain't nobody coming back up here till it's time to mop the floors!"

"I told you to go to hell!" I shout.

"Yeah, I heard you." He says as he's going through my stuff. "I just want to know if I can take this with me."

He comes back over to me with my old green gym bag. I haven't seen it since I went into the hospital.

"What the fuck are you doing?" I demand.

"You said go to hell and I was just gonna take some of this shit with me," He says. "But I'm scared they might check my bag at the door some let me just burn some of this right now…"

This guy is crazy as fuck! What the hell is he doing to my stuff? He takes a pack of envelopes out of my bag and starts to scan them.


"Hum…you got full-ride scholarships to go to some big schools." He says. "Hmm, guess you don't need these anymore."


He holds up the envelopes and pulls a lighter out of his pocket. He lights the bottom tip and right before my eyes what I used to live for begins to burn from bottom to top. Mike keeps holding it by the tip but he also keeps looking me in the eyes. Is he looking for me to react? He thinks he's smart. We'll see in a second how smart he is…


"I guess you already gave up on this shit huh?" Mike watches me and I let my eyes shift up a little towards the ceiling. He sees where I'm looking. Mike cocks his eyebrow and looks up towards the ceiling at the water sprinklers. Then he looks back at me and a slight smile creeps across my face. It must be dawning on him now. He's probably going to try and put the envelopes out before they trigger the water sprinklers. Too late now though, he already lit the envelopes.


He looks up at the ceiling again, but he isn't in a hurry to put out the small flames like I though. As a matter of fact, the cocky fool looks completely calm as if he doesn't realize that any second now the water sprinklers are going to come on and the police and fire department will be here to arrest him and ruin his little plan and…

He looks at me again. He flops what's left of the still burning envelops in front of me still trying to get a reaction and ignoring the water sprinklers. Why haven't they turned on? There is smoke from the flame so…


The ashes fall to the floor and he looks at me and scans me for a reaction. I only stare back with hateful silence. He starts digging in my bag again. I stare up at the sprinklers again with a newfound hatred for modern technology. What the hell? What's wrong with them? I look down and his eyes make contact with mine again. He watches me for a second but he doesn't say anything, and neither do I. He glances up at the ceiling briefly as if I'm crazy or something. I do the same and then our eyes meet again.


"…What chu lookin at?" He asks in a quiet tone. "Those don't work…"


He says it as if it's world knowledge or something; like it's as plain as day. And then he's back to snooping around in my bag again. I glance up one more time in disbelief. He looks up at me and he opens his mouth but my anger makes me faster.


"Fuck you!" I say with my teeth clenched.


"………..Well, even if you could, they still wouldn't work," He says. "They brand-new so they ain't even connected yet…supposed to do it tomorrow though…."


Who does he think he is? What is he trying to gain? He digs into my bag again and brings out my old soccer ball. I had forgotten all about it. He looks at me and this time his expression changes like he's onto something. He stands up and walks over to me.


"Where'd you get this?" He asks.


"Why?"


Suddenly he looks impatient and he drops the ball on the floor. I'm relieved but he's pulling something out of his pocket. Suddenly he flips out of pocket knife he gets ready to jam it into my ball.


"Hey stop!" I shout.


Suddenly Mike stabs the ball with his pocket knife and all the air hisses out of it.


"Why'd you do that?" I shout.


"Cause I asked you where you got the ball from, and you asked why!" He shouts. "Next time answer my damn question!"


He holds the flattened ball up to my face.

"Where did you-"

"It was a gift from my grandma!" I say. "I had it since I was three!"

He drops the ball into my lap and walks back over to my bag. Ok, this shit has got to stop. I have to do something.

"What do you want!" I shout.

He turns around and looks up at me.

"…To ask you a few questions," He says. "Why? You don't want to do it the hard way anymore?"

"I'm tired and I just want to go home." I say. "So what is it?"

He turns around and walks over to me. "I asked you about Talisha's party."

"What about it?"

"Were you there?"

"That was on a Friday night." I go. "I had a soccer game."

"That ain't what I asked you."

"No." I say.

"You lying."

"And how the fuck would you know?"

"People saw you drop by and say happy birthday to Talisha."

"Yeah, I was there for like five minuets after the game." I say. "My mom threw me my own party."

"Did anybody from Telisha's party know about your party?"

Suddenly, there is a loud knocking sound coming from the bathroom door. It's Ms.Turner thank God! She's saying something about the door being locked. Mike gets fight in my face.

"Did you tell anybody at Telisha's party about your party?" He demands.

"…osie!…I'm..ocked….in!" Ms. Turner shouted.

"You better answer me and not her!" He says looking at me in my eyes.

"…Ms.Turner!" I shout. Mike turns around quickly and digs into my bag like he knows what he's looking for exactly. What's he going to do now?

"Ms.Turner! Use your phone!" I shout as loudly as I can.

"………I…….y…..hone…out….there!"

Ah shoot I think she just said she left her phone out here. Damn she did leave her purse out here! Mike walks back to my locker and stuffs my bag back in then shuts the door. He turns back to me and I see that he has three of my old diaries in his arm and my great-grandmother's gold necklace, all of which I had completely forgotten about. I realize too late that my face is giving away my feelings. He got the reaction he was looking for. He drops all of the items in my lap and gets in my face again.

"You know what?" He says while he's reaching for something. "I ain't want to hurt you but I got to let yo stuck-up ass know, that I'm serious and I ain't got no time to waste foolin round wit you!"

Oh this motherfucker has got some nerve to be…Mike pulls a gun from underneath his shirt and puts it in my face. I gasp. His whole expression has changed. He doesn't look cocky and calm anymore, he looks serious and determined.

"I sear before God…" He says quietly. "I won't think twice."

I think for the first time since being paralyzed I can feel my heart beating in my chest.

"Who did you tell about your party?" He asks. "You better think hard too…"

"…N-nobody, at first. Most of the girls were young and I didn't know what my crowd was going to be like." I say.

"Careful…" Mike says slowly. "The second I smell some bullshit…"

"…When I was leaving, these three girls came up to me." I say slowly. "T-they said hi or whatever and then they…what are you doing?"

Mike reaches into his pocket and pulls out this long black tube. Then he starts to screw it into the barrel of the gun. It's a silencer!

"I told you I didn't want to hear no bullshit." He says.

"I'm not lying!" I cry.

"Nah that's my bad, I ain't make myself clear." He says as he puts the gun in my face again. I close my eyes. "You said they said hi or whatever, I don't want to hear no hi or whatever, I want to know exactly what they said! Talk!"

"…Hi Rosie, good game tonight. Yeah, twelve to one, that was like murder with a gun..." I squint at the barrel of the silenced gun. "Uh, thanks."

"Doin good." Mike says. "You don't gotta talk like you reading a play though."

"Uhh, they asked if I was having a party to celebrate." I say. "I told them yeah. I said they could come with there parents."

"Did they show up?" Mike asks.

"Y-yeah, well, two of them did." I say.

Mike reaches in his pocket again and I hold my breath. I shut my eyes and say a quick prayer in my head. I open them again and Mike is smiling at me.

"Chill out, I'm ain't gonna shoot ya" He says still smiling. "…Were you praying just now?"

"Uhh…Yeah I-"

"Careful now, don't bullshit me." He says it in a joking tone like he's happy all of a sudden. What's his deal? His changing moods every minuet is really weird. He must be doing it on purpose just to mess with me. What is this guy after?

"Uhh…" It kind of gives me the creeps, him smiling and pointing the gun at me at the same time.

"Is this one of them?" He asks suddenly back to being serious. He holds up a picture of a cute younger black girl. She was definitely with the two that had spoke to me that night. But I never saw her after I left.

"No, she didn't come to my party but she was with the other two girls at Talisha's."

I anticipate his next question is going to be why do I think she didn't come?

"Do you know why?"

"No, I didn't talk to her."

"Hmm…what about the other girls?" He asks.

"They showed up at my aunt's house without their parents." I say. "I let them hangout at the party for like thirty minuets then I told them to call their parents to pick them up."


"Gimme their names." He demands.


"I don't know." I say honestly.


"I bet." He says. "What did they look like?"


"Umm, one was black the other one was Spanish." I think hard. "Both looked like middle-schoolers about thirteen. I could g…"


"What?" Mike suddenly looks like he's onto something. "They took pictures at yo party didn't they?"


How does he know all of this shit? It's like he was there. Shit…he's a lot smarter than I gave him credit for.


"You ain't as smart as I though you was." He says. "And I almost thought you was telling the truth."


"W-what?" I gasp as he flicks the safety off the gun and points it in my face again. "H-hey! NO! I'm telling the truth! No Don't!"


"Thanks, you sure that's all you want to tell me?"


"My aunt took the pictures on her camera and she got them developed!" I say quickly. "They're still in her car! I'm not lying!"


"…….Nah I was just making sure," He says. "People don't stick to a lie when you give them a chance to live. Thanks for telling me the truth."


I suddenly I think I'm safe. But I don't feel safe. Mike stands up and steps back. My heart starts to skip beats. Oh my God. Mike raises the gun.


"Sorry bout this." He says. "But if I don't do this, you're going to tell the police I held you up with a deadly firearm."


"N-no…" I whisper. I can't think of anything to say. He's really going to shoot me! Mike pulls the trigger. The silenced gun makes that spit sound just like on TV and I just know I'm shot and I'm going to die here. I wait for the pain to register to my brain that I'd just been shot. I look down at me red shirt but can't seem to separate any blood from my red top. Did he miss? I look back up at him to try an figure out what just happened. Quietly but surely, bubbles were flying out of the barrel of the gun.

"Now you gotta tell the po-pos I held you up with a bubble-gun." Mike says while smiling. "But dang though, that was good. It really look like I shot you. You got drama class?"

The…


"Wha-" I can barely get out.

"I'ma give you a chance to get the pictures." He says tucking the gun back under his shirt.

"Is this a fucking joke?" I go suddenly angry again.


"No, that girl who didn't go to your party, her name is ... she's missing. And I'm going to find her."

"Oh what the fuck, that's what this is about?" I go all pissed off again. "Why don't you just call the-"


"I did. Fuck the police." He says and he gets right up in my face like he's angry again. "They ain't working fast enough and they don't give a fuck. She's just another black girl missing."


"…Get out of my face..." I say slowly.


"Make me." He challenges while staring into my eyes. "Go ahead tough girl. Slap me, punch me, push me away. If you can."


I want nothing in the world more than two seconds to control my body.


"That girl is missing," He says. "You're helping her by giving me the pictures."

"So," I go. "Why do you care?"


"Because, don't worry why I care, just get the pictures and you'll never see me again." He says. "I'll find out the rest."


"Nothing would make me happier."


"Good. Have 'em with you tomorrow."


"…I'm calling the police."


"…I ain't scared; I'll just take these as collateral." He takes the three diaries from out of my lap, as well as my soccer ball and my grandmother's necklace.


"I'm still calling!"

"What you yo gonna say? That I held you up with a toy?" He goes all confident. "You can't say I held you against your will cause you can't move anyway."


"You lock Ms.Turner in the bathroom!"


"That door was already locked, I just left it propped open." He says. "Everybody knows you can get locked in there and Ms.Turner didn't even check it before she went in."


This is unbelievable. The shit makes sense. He could just say I'm lying and the cops would just take the easy-route. This guy is smart. And I hate to hand that to him. He planed this shit out good.


"So…" He says like he just dismissed everything in my defense. "You gonna help me save the girl?"


He leans very close to me and stares into my eyes.


"You gone get those pictures for me or do I gotta crack your auntie's window on my way home?"

"Get out of my face."


"Make me."


I stare at him with red anger. He smiles and it only makes angrier. His eyes glance down and then back to my eyes. Suddenly it looks like he's thinking again. Then he smiles like knows something. Is this ever going to end?


"Give me a kiss." He says.


What? I swear God just give me a few seconds of freedom so I can slap the taste from his mouth.


"Come on, " He says. "Just a peck on the cheek."


Is he serious? He turns his head to the right to offer me the side of his face. I lean back to avoid him. He turns back to me and shakes his head.


"Sorry girl, this for your own good." He says.


"Wha-"


He leans forward suddenly and plants his lips on mine. I lean back as far as possible in my chair to escape this disgusting sick boy. But I can't get away and I keep my mouth sealed shut. I scream loud inside my head though. I want to just punch him.

With all my might. Finally he stops. I breathe again for the first time in ten seconds. I'm about to use my second breath to scream every curse word I know and don't know.


"You-"


But I fall silent as Mike reaches over and grabs holds up my wrist and holds it up in front of me. I gasp as I notice right away that my hand, which I thought I'd never use again is balled up into a tight shaking fist.