What The Hell Is In My Attic Chapter 2

Two weeks went by and I still hadn’t managed to stand out any more than I did in my old school. I really wanted this year to be different. I bet if I’d come to school in a limo I would really stir the pot but no, I was going to keep that as plan B. In case I got bullied and abused, that is. God, I really must start going to some form of karate or something before I get my ass kicked by ginger-head. He gives me those criminal vibes.
By now though, I’ve established that ginger-head has a name, Ahren. At first I thought it was a really strange name but, come on, who am I to judge. The purple-haired girl goes by the name Ayumi. It’s a beautiful name. I have yet to speak to either of them. It’s not that I didn’t want to, it’s only that I never know what to say. If I play my cards wrong, I risk getting whooped by Ahren, thus making me look like an even bigger loser.

In physics class Miss Sinclair gestured for us to stand up.
“Today, we’re going to start a project on astronomy.” Fuck, yes. Astronomy. “You will work in pairs and, unfortunately for you, I will choose the pairs.” The class groaned and a few in the back objected. Miss Sinclair rolled her eyes.
“Last time I let you choose pairs you did not manage to include everyone in the class. To be fair to everyone, I will choose pairs and that’s final.” She wrote the list of pairs on the whiteboard. I’m paired with Ahren. I glanced over at him and caught him looking at me.
I flashed a smile, he grinned and gestured for me to sit next to him. I grabbed my backpack and took the seat next to him. We sat in silence for a few minutes.
“Astronomy seems fun.” I tried to break the ice and he shrugged.
“There are other things I consider more fun than astronomy.” He said. I opened the book.
“I think we should-”
“You know what?” he interrupted me, “there’s this really funny clip on Youtube.” he turned his laptop on and put the video on. It was a accent prank video that had gone viral and was up to 90% of the students’ inside jokes. It was funny, racist, but funny nonetheless. Ahren had to pause the video countless time due to laughing too much. Miss Sinclair looked over at us and gave me a warning look. I didn’t want to get into trouble but at the same time I didn’t want to look like a nerdy loser in front of Ahren. Ahren laughed again, this time loud enough for Miss Sinclair to hear and she got up and started walking towards us. Ahren quickly changed the tab on the laptop to a Wikipedia page on astronomy.
“Are you guys working?” She peeked at the page and then back at us. Ahren wrapped his arm around my neck and pulled me close.
“You bet we are. Astronomy sure is an interesting subject.” Miss Sinclair grinned smugly.
“Ah, and funny too, I see.” she stated, “Wikipedia is a secondary source, Caldon. You know better than to use it.” Ahren nodded and let go of me, tracing his fingertips along my neck. His touch lingered and my pulse quickened. What the fuck was wrong with me? I turned to Ahren.
“O-Okay so I was thinking that we could, you know maybe, study after school some day. I don’t want my first presentation to be a last minute one.” Ahren nodded,
“Your house?” I froze for a second. I didn’t really expect him to suggest my house and I don’t think I’m ready to show people how I live.
“Well, my house is a mess. What about your house?” He shook his head vigorously.
“No, no, no. Not my house. It’s god damn World War III over there.” I sighed.
“Library?” “Sounds good.”

The rest of the week went by quickly and me and Ahren went from acquaintances to friends. He wasn’t at all as scary as he first had seemed and deep down his sense of humour and personality was almost compatible with mine. His build however is the complete opposite of mine. I’m not nearly as fit as he is. He’s tall and ripped, but not too ripped, whereas I have a skinny slender figure. I couldn’t beat down a 4th grader if my life depended on it. It was Friday afternoon and I had finally agreed to take him to my house for astronomy-studies. He grinned at me playfully as we walked to the mansion that is my home. My father really admired gothic styles and upon buying a big piece of land he created his own gothic mansion from scratch. The building itself was white and the rooftops were triangular shaped, in front of the mansion was a beautiful garden with a wide and long gravel path in between a garden of flowers and in the middle of the gravel path was a fountain.

When we reached the front of the mansion, Ahrens eyes widened.
“You live...here?” he looked at me and then back at the building in utter shock. I nodded and grinned. His reaction was priceless. We walked up to the front door and I opened the door. Ahren looked around in awe. There was a round table in the middle of the entrance hall. On the table was a vase full of flowers, there was a light beige colored marble fireplace on the middle of the left wall and two crimson armchairs opposite of it. My father adored the color crimson. On the right side was a sofa and a bookshelf. There was a wide stair opposite of the front door, also marble, with a brown rug placed so it covered the middle of the stairs. Allowing you to walk without slipping.
“Follow me.”

I walked up the stairs and was greeted with my father arguing with Viorica, in the corridor, about an insignificant thing such as the placement of the sheets and the timing of the cleaning. I sighed and quickly walked into my room only to notice Ahren hadn’t followed me. I walked back into the hallway and saw him observing the argument, grabbing him by his sleeve, I pushed him into my room and shut the door.
“Hey! You don’t have to be so aggressive, you know.” I chuckled and raised my eyebrows.
“Haven’t anybody told you it’s rude to listen in on other people conversations?”
“That was hardly a conversation, I’d call that ‘ripping heads off’” he chuckled, I didn’t understand what he found so amusing about two people arguing. All it ever does for me is to give me a permanent migraine.

Hours went by and I was sitting on my desk reading my notes on astronomy from class, far too concentrated on studying when Ahren sighed. I looked over at him and saw him laying in my bed sideways with his chin resting on his hand as he was flipping through the pages of our physics book restlessly. There was something about him that made me nervous. I keep disregarding it as just plain nervousness over his bad boy reputation, but deep down I feel that’s not really the case. He’s interesting to me. I can’t seem to get over it, I need to know more about him.

He suddenly slammed the book closed, making me jump out of my reverie.
“I need a break. We should do something.” I shrugged.
“I don’t know. It’s getting dark outside and there’s not much to do in here.”
“Don’t you have any creepy areas in this place? Somewhere haunted? Maybe a facility for personal execution?” I may have laughed at what he said, but deep down I was terrified for my life. The problem was that, as I mentioned before, this house was built about 20-30 years ago. At least before I was born, 17 years ago. The mansion may look like it was owned by a blood-thirsty Lord but really, we’re a humble family.
“The house is newly built. No deaths have been occurring yet.” Ahren tugged on his bottom lip as he furrowed his brows.
“How about an attic?” I let out a terrified laugh, shaking my head.
“No way, dude. That place is fucking scary.” Ahren laughed and smirked.
“Come on. I’ll bet you 30 bucks, you will find something fucked up in there. Possibly the body of a former maid, I don’t know. Just speculating.”
I hesitated.
"Fine." I said as I got off my chair and walked towards the hallway where my father and Viorica had argued, Ahren was following me.