Traveler by L.E. DeLano (book suggestions .txt) 📕

realizes I forgot his name, he decides to have a little fun at my expense. Maybe he gets a thrill out of creeping girls out. And then he asked me to meet him for coffee! He’s got some serious nerve.

As I’m running the scenario through my head, I realize it would make a great beginning to a horror story. Halloween is right around the corner, and my creative writing teacher is sure to ask for something in the genre.

I glance down and can’t help but laugh at myself, because I recently tried my hand at sketching my dream guy, but I am lousy at that kind of stuff. He looks like a bad pumpkin carving with a wig. If I need a thoroughly creepy monster for inspiration, this drawing would do the trick. Words are a better way to paint. Well, they are for me, anyway. I am just reaching for my pencil when my mother appears in the doorway.

“Hey, you,” she says. “What do you want for dinner?”

She pulls a sweaty tendril of hair out of her eyes. At forty-six, her blond hair is showing some gray, but only if you catch it in the right light.

The hair color is one of the few traits we share. Everyone tells me I look like my mom, because my dad’s hair is dark brown. When my parents were still together, everyone called Danny and me the “mini-me’s,” since we each resembled one parent more than the other. If you went beyond the superficial, you could easily see the differences. Not a lot of people do that, though.

I look up from my notebook. “What do we have to eat?”

“The usuals. Soup. Pasta. Bagel Bite Pizzas.” She ticks the options off on her fingers. “I think we have some leftover taco meat from the other night,” she offers.

None of it sounds good. Probably because it’s always the same stuff—easy stuff that a mom with two jobs and a yard to take care of can make quickly.

“I’ll just heat up the taco meat later,” I say. “I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

“Suit yourself,” she says. She wipes her damp neck with the hem of her T-shirt, which unfortunately has dirt clinging to it.

“Mom. You just put dirt all over your throat.”

“What?” She swipes at it again. “Better?”

“Worse. You look like you’re growing a beard.”

“Sexy. And itchy. I need a shower.” She steps into the room, checking herself in the mirror over my dresser. “Finish what you’re doing and then come down. I don’t want you eating at nine o’clock at night.”

“Mom! Can I have popcorn?” Danny’s voice calls from downstairs.

“Danny!” she calls back. “It’s dinnertime, buddy.”

“I need my dinner so I can have popcorn!” he shouts.

She rolls her head on her shoulders. “Okay! I’m coming!”

I watch as she turns to go down the stairs. For as long as I can remember, Danny has been pampered like that. My mother’s shower will have to wait until she makes him dinner and then he gets his popcorn. Danny comes first. It’s just the way it is. The way it always is.

I get up and close my bedroom door to drown out the sounds of the Xbox and pots clanging as my mother starts dinner.

I rub my forehead with my fingers and pull my Spanish homework closer. Maybe I’m reading too much into this whole encounter. Finn is a guy I’ve obviously met somewhere before, and he bears a resemblance to a guy I’ve been dreaming about, so my stupid brain locked the two together and now I can’t remember dream guy any other way. Finn was probably just trying to be friendly, but he’s got bad social skills. He’s not being a creep. He’s just a normal guy.

I turn to get another notebook out of my backpack, and I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror over my dresser.

“Snap out of it,” I say to my reflection. “It’s all just a coincidence.”

Only it doesn’t feel like a coincidence. It feels like fate.

4

Stalker

I spent a mostly sleepless night thanks to a green-eyed somebody, and now I barely have enough time to get out the door this morning. Thursdays are always hard because Mom works her second job. Some days, she and Danny work together at the retirement home, but Thursdays she works early at the drugstore, and that means I have to make sure that Danny has his breakfast. He can put his own Toaster Strudel in the toaster, but sometimes he can’t get the frosting pack open and he’ll hack it apart with scissors trying to open it himself. Today he manages fine, but he can’t find his favorite cup.

I finally locate it with the dirty dishes in the half-full dishwasher, clean it out, and hand it to him, and then I realize I am going to have to run all the way to school if I don’t get a move on.

I wave good-bye to Danny, reminding him that I’ll be home at two forty-five, and then I run down the steps and out onto the sidewalk. It’s getting colder in the mornings now, but we haven’t had snow yet. The neighborhood is decked out for Halloween, with pumpkins and scarecrows all over the place.

I’ve lived in Ardenville my whole life, grown up in the same house and walked the same street to school. When my parents divorced, Dad stayed in town, and he lives only a few blocks away, so the walk doesn’t vary much. It’s a nice place to grow up—if you like sameness and quiet and a place with no surprises.

The sound of footsteps coming up alongside me breaks into my thoughts.

“Can I walk you to school?”

I am seriously so startled I let out a shriek. He knows where I live? Now I am really starting to get alarmed. He’s in my dreams, he’s in my reality … and that can’t be coincidence. Maybe my subconscious is trying to warn me. I try to keep my voice calm.

“I’m fine, thanks.