Earth Angel
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chloe stood in front of Tuscany alone, waiting
for Phillip to bring the car around. It was an unseasonably warm night for
January, but still chilly enough for Chloe to wrap her arms around herself to
keep warm. She felt a whooshing noise behind her and turned her head to look,
but saw nothing.
She muttered under her breath quietly, "Must have been the wind...
weird."
Phillip's car drove up and he leaned over to open the passenger side door for
her. She jumped in the car and quickly put her seatbelt on. Phillip stared at
her strangely for a moment before speaking, "Chloe... you don't look so
good all of a sudden. You look pretty pale. Are you okay?"
Chloe shrugged in confusion. She felt chills run up her spine, and her stomach
started to turn. "I... I don't know, Phillip. My stomach feels strange all
of a sudden."
"Was it the food?"
Chloe shook her head. "I don't think so. I didn't eat anything that I don't
normally eat. It just hit me all of a sudden, whatever it is. Maybe I'm coming
down with something..."
Phillip stroked the back of her neck gently, trying to comfort her. "Well,
I was going to take you for a walk by the river, but I guess I'll just take you
home now. Unless you need to go to the hospital..."
"No, no. Just take me home... it's not that bad. Besides, I live with a
doctor... Craig will take care of whatever it is."
Phillip nodded and kissed her on the forehead. "No problem. We'll just make
it an early night then..."
Chloe nodded slowly and rested her head on the seat as Phillip drove off. She
laid one hand on her stomach and closed her eyes. Chloe felt guilty for cutting
their date short, but at this point all she wanted was to go home and lay down.
They reached her house in record time, and when Phillip stopped the car, she
looked at him weakly and forced a smile.
"I'm sorry for ruining our date..."
"Don't be sorry, just feel better. Do you want me to help you
upstairs?"
Chloe shook her head and opened the car door. "No, I'll be fine... thank
you."
Phillip smiled reassuringly and kissed her on the forehead again. "Call me
if you need anything."
Chloe got of the car slowly and replied, "I will... thank you."
She shut the door and slowly made her way up the front steps. Nancy and Craig
were nowhere to be found, so she padded her way upstairs and into her bedroom.
She stood in front of her mirror and gazed at her reflection. Just as Phillip
said, the color had drained out of her face and she looked ill. Strangely
enough, her stomachache had started to go away, but she still didn't feel quite
right. She closed her eyes for a moment, but instead of seeing blackness, her
mind was rocked with a strange vision. She saw Jan's face looking into a mirror,
her face was scratched and bruised and she had a gauze bandage wrapped around
her head. She saw more images of someone's funeral, and a car twisted and broken
in a heap. Chloe jumped backwards and her hand flew to her temples, she didn't
know if she was having some sort of vision, but it had scared her.
She ran to her phone and quickly dialed the number of Jan's cell phone. Jan
answered after only one ring.
"Hello?"
"Jan... Are you okay?"
"Uhhhh... Who is this?"
"It's Chloe, are you okay?"
"Yeah, Ghoul Girl... I'm fine. How the hell did you get the number to my
cell phone?"
Chloe paused, she had never known Jan's number before, but dialed it like she
had. "I don't know how I got the number. I just knew that I had to call you
for some reason."
"Well, whatever it is... It better be important."
Chloe didn't know where these thoughts were coming from, but she spoke them
anyway. "Don't get the car tonight. Don't go anywhere with Jason. Don't let
him drive AT ALL. If you do.... something bad is going to happen, something
REALLY bad."
"Right... and you know all of this because? Oh yeah, because you're a witch
and you used your crystal ball to see the future. Come on, Chloe... you're
wasting your time."
Chloe groaned in frustration. "First off, witches don't use crystal balls.
Secondly, I don't know what to tell you, but you have to listen to me. I had
some sort of vision, and now... I know things. I know that you have a teddy
bear, and you named him Henry when you were little. I also know that you have a
scar on the bottom of your foot because you stepped on a rock in the back yard
when you were eight. I know a lot of things that I couldn't possibly know, so
you HAVE to believe me."
"Chloe... you are REALLY starting to freak me out. I don't know how you got
this information, but you're scaring me."
"I don't know either, and I'm just as scared as you are about it. You just
HAVE to promise me not to get into a car tonight. Please. PROMISE me."
"Fine, fine, I promise I won't get into a car tonight. Now, you promise
that you'll lose this number and never call me again."
Chloe breathed a sigh of relief and hoped that Jan wasn't just pulling her leg
so she would shut up. "Believe me, I have no intention of calling you ever
again."
"Good, keep it that way."
The phone clicked as Jan hung up, and Chloe took a deep calming breath. Her fear
had caused sweat to bead up on her forehead and she used the back of her hand to
wipe it away. She walked to the closet shakily and changed into her winter
pajamas. After throwing her dress on the back of her chair, she laid down on the
bed and closed her eyes. Her stomachache had subsided completely and she was now
starting to feel better all over. She was just thinking about pulling the covers
over herself and attempting to sleep when she heard three tapping noises at her
window.
Chloe stood from the bed and went to the window. She opened it and peered
outside into the cold, dark night air. "Helloooooo... is there somebody out
there?"
Brady's smiling face peered back at her and he shouted up, "Yeah, Chloe...
it's me. I saw the light on, so I figured you weren't sleeping."
Chloe looked surprised. "Brady? What the heck are you doing here?"
"I need to talk to you. It's important."
Chloe sighed and nodded. "Alright, stay right there. I'll be right
down."
Chloe grabbed her jacket and a pair of slippers and headed to the yard. Brady
was sitting in a lawn chair with his fingers intertwined, nervously tapping one
foot. She sat in a chair next to him and gently kicked his nervous foot with her
own.
"Hey there, you look nervous or something."
Brady looked at her feet, adorned in a pair of pink fuzzy slippers. "Nice
slippers, very nice."
"You shush. They keep my feet warm... So what's up? Why am I out on my lawn
in the middle of January?"
Brady fidgeted nervously in his seat. "I need to talk to you."
Chloe raised both eyebrows curiously. "About what?"
"I uhhh... I don't know."
Chloe groaned softly. "You don't know? Brady, if this is some kind of a
joke, I'm REALLY not in the mood for it. It's been a rough night and I'd much
rather be upstairs in my bed where it's warm and cozy."
"Well, I know what it is I want to talk about. I just don't know if I
should. I came over here to tell you something, and now I'm not so sure I can go
through with it."
"Why not?"
Brady nervously ran a hand through his blonde hair. "I don't think it's
something you want to know. I don't want to hurt you, and I don't want to upset
you so now I'm thinking I just won't say it. I don't want to destroy our
friendship because of what i'm going to say."
Chloe wrinkled her forehead in confusion. "Brady, you're kind of scaring
me. Whatever it is, it can't be that bad. I can't think of anything you could
say that would ruin our friendship. Maybe if you said that were a psychotic
serial killer or maybe if you said..."
"I love you..."
Chloe nearly fell out of her chair and gaped at him in complete shock. "Oh.
Oh. You said THAT..."
Brady cringed, still in disbelief that those words had exited his mouth.
"Chloe, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have said it."
Chloe paused, trying to accept the reality of it. She shook her head slowly and
looked at Brady with complete seriousness. "Did you mean it? You should
never say it unless you mean it."
Brady sighed and nodded. "Yes, I do mean it. I don't know when exactly I
realized it, but it's definitely the truth. Do you hate me now?"
"No, I could never hate you. The truth is good, the truth is important.
It's important that you're honest with me. Honesty is a must."
There was a very long, very awkward pause that followed. Brady was waiting for
Chloe to react further, but she just sat there with her arms crossed and her
eyes staring at him blankly. He nervously stammered, "So... is that all
you're going to say?"
Chloe threw her hands up in confusion. "I don't know. What should I be
saying? What do you want me to say?"
"Whatever's on your mind... Say it. I can take it."
"I don't know... my mind is blank. I don't even know what to think or what
to feel right now."
Brady nodded in understanding. "I'm sorry, Chloe... I knew this would screw
things up. I guess we only have two options now."
"Oh yeah, what are those?"
"We can either forget this happened altogether and go on living like it
never did, or you could give me some inkling of hope, tell me that there's a one
in a million chance that someday you can feel something for me, something more
than friendship. Is that too much to ask?"
Chloe shook her head. "I can't do either of those things. I can't forget
what you said. Not many people have said those words to me, so I have a tendency
to remember it when it does happen. And, I can't tell you how I feel... It's too
complicated. There's Phillip... and... This is very sudden. You have to give me
time to think, Brady."
Brady lowered his eyes and sighed softly. "How much time?"
Chloe shrugged. "I don't know. You'd think that this would be easier, that
any feelings I may or may not have would just surface immediately. But, it's not
working that way. There's too much else involved... It could be a day, a week, a
year... I don't know, Brady... you just need to give me some space right now. My
head is... spinning."
Brady nodded slowly. "Okay, I'll wait... as long as I have to. I didn't
mean to hurt you, I really didn't. I'm sorry."
Chloe looked him square in the eyes and shook her head. She impulsively leaned
forward and hugged him tightly. "Don't be sorry. I'm glad you said it, no
matter what, I'm glad. Thank you for telling me."
Brady leaned out of the embrace and forced a smile. "Well, I'm going to go
now, because I really don't think there's anything I can say to make this
better. And, if I stay here any longer, I may say something to make it
worse."
Chloe nodded in agreement. "Okay... I'll... I'll call you."
Brady stood and squeezed her hand gently before walking away. She watched him go
but remained in her seat, letting the cool wind blow around her. Chloe sat there
lost in thought, she cared about Brady a lot, but she didn't know if that could
be considered love. Sometimes, she wasn't quite sure what love was, and that's
what she had to figure out. She stayed there until she became too cold to stand
it anymore. As she walked back inside, Chloe stared at the night sky filled with
millions of tiny twinkling stars and felt a strange sense of comfort and
familiarity in their presence. She smiled at their beauty and then headed inside
to get some rest.