Suzie’s House 282 : A Dark and Snowy Night

He was right behind her. Emma walked as fast as she could, too afraid to run because if she did, then Bruce would have an excuse to run, too, and there was no way she could get home before he caught up with her. She concentrated on the crunch of frost under foot and tried to ignore the painful pounding in her heart and the enclosing darkness between each street light.

Emma once watched Bruce trip a girl at the top of a staircase. He’d done it on purpose, and smiled as the girl slid half way down before catching herself. Emma saw him set off the firecrackers under the bleachers during a game, too. The cheerleaders were trying to make a pyramid, and almost had an accident. She’d seen him slam people into lockers for no reason and once he stuffed a guy into a garbage can head first. And that was just the stuff everyone pretended didn’t happen. What did he do when there weren’t any witnesses? Like now.

Calm down. It might be coincidence. Even if he never went this direction after school, he might have some reason for going this way. She shouldn’t let it rattle her. She tried to walk faster when she was already breathing hard and barely keeping it together. The patch of ice caught her by surprise. She went sprawling.

This was it. No way she’d get out of this alive. The tears already started running down her face. Maybe she’d pass out before the worst of it.

Laughter interrupted some entirely too graphic images of what he was going to do to her. She rolled over to find him standing over her, laughing so hard he had to double over. He collected himself enough to stick a hand at her, like he expected her to just take it.

“That was great. Classic. Too funny.” His hand drifted down as he laughed between each word. Then he gave her a hard look, finally noticing she didn’t take his hand. “What’s the matter? ‘My not good enough for you?”

“Quit… quit laughing. I-i-it isn’t funny.” She shoved herself to a sitting position, then checked her ankles because it felt like she might have broken one.

“You were afraid, right?” He grinned at her. It wasn’t a nice grin, but maybe it was the street light being so far up the block and the way the snow put a glow on everything that made him look evil. She knew that kind of guy way too well already.

She didn’t try to say anything, but she could have said a lot if she’d had the nerve. Stuff like what a jerk he was for scaring her like that, and how he didn’t have to make her so embarrassed.

“Oh, if looks could kill, I’d be dead. Relax, princess. I’m not going to do anything to you. Tonight.”

She got gingerly to her feet and found the ankle only hurt a little. She could hobble home on it. So she did.

“Hey, why didn’t you and Kate wait for me? Afraid I smell or something?”

“This… this isn’t your direction.”

“I heard everything you said, by the way.” He totally ignored her comment. Great. Now he knew about her stage fright. “A blindfold? That was a stupid idea.”

Emma tried to ignore him. Maybe she didn’t like the idea, but that didn’t mean it was stupid, especially since Kate was at least trying to help her.

“Imagine you up on stage with everybody staring at you like you’re some kind of freak because you have a stupid blindfold on. People would be coming up to you in the halls all the time to tease you about it. That’s no way to sing.”

Again, Emma didn’t say anything, although keeping herself from nodding made her neck feel stiff.

“I’m just saying that what you want is not so much to make it so you can’t see them, but rather so they can’t see you, right? Right?” He looked like he actually expected an answer this time.

“Uh.. yeah. I guess.” But that wasn’t it at all. She wanted to be seen. She really did. Just not as she was – a nervous, stupid, ugly thing.

“So do what my Dad calls ‘Kiss Style’. Wear so much makeup that nobody can even guess who you really are.”

Emma winced. Like she was going to make herself look like a clown just so she could sing. She hobbled along, eager to get home, which was only a little bit further now.

“Not into makeup huh? Well how about a mask? With a mask you can do anything. If people don’t like it so what? It’s the mask they’ll get mad at, not you. Who cares if they boo. No one will ever know it’s you. In a way, it isn’t you. It’s the mask, right? You can sing however you like. Can’t you see it?”

And just like that, Emma did see it. She could really strut with a mask on. She could sing her heart out and no one would guess it was weird for Emma the scaredy cat doing something like that. She could tease the audience and joke around with the band and if anyone didn’t like it, she’d throw the mask away and no one would ever know. She could finally really let her voice out. She wanted it so bad she could taste it.

“Yeah,” she said, putting a lot more into the word than she probably should have. “Yeah.”

“Good.” He nodded like he was pleased. “I’ll get you one.”

Relieved, Emma thought he would go away then. But he didn’t. He got a scary look in his eye and he got way too close. She tried to keep walking like she didn’t notice. Only a few feet to go. If she could just get to the door….

He grabbed her arm and swung her around so she ended up looking at him. The hair on the back of her neck danced around and she felt like throwing up. And just when she thought for sure he was going to do something really bad, headlights from a car pulling into her driveway swung over them, and then Bruce let go and ran off.

Thank God. She was safe. She turned toward the house and there was her brother getting out of his car. Suddenly Bruce didn’t seem like the worse thing out there anymore.

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