Serum

I had always hated loud music. Before you get your panties in a twist: I mean the kind that you can hear three doors down that not only rattles your windows, but also mine. At that point, I think it's gone a little bit past ridiculous, and I'm sorry if I seem like an old lady about it. I mean people who think they have to crank up the bass to get other’s attentions or something, I don’t know, they just always drove me nuts. When my mother and I moved, it was no different, idiots living in a trailer park, getting drunk and blasting country music of all things. So I began to go for walks, every time someone started their “drunken junkies” as I liked to call them. Which was pretty much any incident in which they were inebriated or stoned and decided to play music loudly enough to announce to the world that apparently that also made you deaf. So I’d leave the trailer park, walking further and further away. The local high school was just down the street, and I discovered that there was a paved track around the football field. Soon, I had an established route, walk to the local high school, if there wasn’t anybody there I’d take a few laps around the track. It was always well lit and I had never met anyone out there, so I wasn’t too afraid. Of course, I took the cellphone and the knife my father left me when I went, just to placate my mother and make myself feel a little safer. One night was different. Originally it started as a fight between me and my mother. We hadn't had that many problems before my father left, just the normal teenage rebellion thing, but lately it was much, much worse. I thought by the time you got into college you were supposed to be past all that stuff with your parents. And the stupid neighborhood made it worse. It felt like we were two magnets reversed so that we just bounced off each other in all the wrong ways. This fight was another of our idiotic "well just leave then" arguments. I'm not sure how it got started, I just remember me saying something about the dummies surrounding us in the trailer park, and her saying that I could "just leave then", and then someone started their extremely loud “junkie” music, and well, I hit the black-top at a run. Unfortunately, I had always been a bit on the chubby side, so I didn’t make it far before I had to resort to a very brisk walk. Yeah, yeah, I hear the laughter now. Either way, I made it to the track in half the time, headphones in to block everything out, but something kept making me jump at all the shadows. I felt as if the back of my head was crawling, so I started making sure to keep to the well lit area as much as possible. I realized I was freaking myself out, so I turned up my music, trying to cover the sound of my footsteps, and my own brain yelling at me. I sped around the track as fast as possible, skin still crawling, jumping when I thought I saw an extra shadow on the track, which turned out to be my own. Or when I saw something by the side of the track, that turned out to be a trash can, and once one of the lights even went out on me as I walked under it. I was loathe to go home, especially being so angry, but with that creepy sensation crawling, and me jumping at every little thing, I thought it might be wise to head back. As I was making one last round, something made me spin around. I had the sensation that someone was right behind me, almost as if they had breathed upon me. I jerked out my earphones and turned the sound down, staring around, heartbeat rising. Seeing nothing, I cautiously began walking again, making it halfway when something brushed my arm. Ducking, I turned and straightened, knife in hand, and ended up face to face with a very nice looking guy. His dark brown hair blew softly in the breeze. There was a look I really didn’t like on his face, but suddenly the look was gone, replaced by puzzlement, curiosity and then amusement. He looked down at the knife, which I sheepishly, and somewhat warily, put away. “Excuse me, but would you mind if I walked a ways with you, you know it’s really quite dangerous to be out so late on your own.” He said. I grunted. “No.” I said embarrassed by my grunting response. “No what? No, you don’t want me to walk with you, or no you don’t mind?” He chided in a flirtatious manner. “Sorry, no I don’t mind if you walk with me, knock yourself out.” I said, somewhat shocked that this guy was actually flirting with me. Most guys I knew tended to avoid me some, I guess I scared them with my “tough-guy” act, but it wasn’t my fault, it was how my dad brought me up, as my unfortunate knife-wielding showed. “All right then, shall we walk?” He asked with a grin. I nodded, absently and began trudging around. After a while he looked at me again curiously. “Is everything all right, I noticed you seem to be in a steam about something. Oh, and I’m sorry I frightened you, my name’s Conner by the way, I live just down the road, on Maple Street.” He stated. “Adrian, and no everything is NOT all right. I’m just worked up about stupid things and stupid people.” I responded angrily. Conner gave me a questioning look, and so I started to rant, getting worked up again and that maybe it all seemed a little silly now. But I was feeling better for getting it all off of my chest. After sympathizing with me about stupid people and loud music, and telling me that everybody fought, Conner continued to talk and make jokes until I was feeling much better. I noticed my steps were lighter and I was laughing at what he said. We kept walking for a while and all of my problems began to fade. Conner was keeping me in stitches, and I didn’t even notice how many laps we made. Eventually I looked up and thought about how long I had been gone. “Crap, I better get back.” I told Conner. “I’ve been out here half the night already, and if mom realizes, she’ll think I was abducted and have the troopers out looking for me.” Conner laughed gently. “Would you mind if I walked you home? I was serious when I meant it wasn’t safe out when you were by yourself. Unless of course you think I’m dangerous…” Conner joked with a wolfish grin. A quick sparkling of his teeth in the dark caught me off-guard and I thought vaguely that his bite looked a bit off.  “No, I don’t think I could believe there was a single dangerous bone in your body. You’re too much of a joker. So yes please. I would very much appreciate it if you walked me home.” I replied and started leading the way towards my house. When we got to the trailer court, he waved farewell and headed back the way we had come. I walked quietly back towards my house. In the next weeks, I continued my “drunken junkie” walks, and a few times Conner caught up to me on the track. Each time he nearly scared the life out of me because I would not hear him or see him until he touched my arm. What shocked me was, we always seemed to have something to talk about, and I felt as if I had known him for years. Or maybe in another life-time. We would spend hours there, only parting after Conner had walked me home, assured that I was safe. I was afraid that I was developing a bit of a crush, and tried to squash it down. But it suddenly seemed that Conner and I were repeatedly bumping into each other at the track. So I stopped fighting it, and soon we were arranging to meet each other there, just to walk around and keep each other company. I laughed more than I ever had in my life. Sometimes we would meet and just sit in the bleachers staring at the stars. And all the while I grew more and more fond of Conner, which was probably a mistake.