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  A shiver ran through my whole body. I hadn’t heard that part of the story, but Murphy usually doesn’t disappoint.

  “I knew this would come out eventually. I just hoped it wouldn’t be so soon,” Richard said.

  “We didn’t want to frighten you guys. Especially you, Oliver.” Mom said.

  “So you knew?” I asked.

  “Our realtor told us. They’re required to disclose information like that. It was the reason this house sat on the market for so long and why we got such a good deal. The previous owners were having a hell of a time trying to find a taker.” Richard finished his beer and got up for another.

  “We didn’t want to worry you, but this house was a great buy.” Mom took Richard’s hand when he returned to his seat.

  “You can switch rooms if you like. The spare bedroom’s only slightly smaller. I can help you with it tomorrow,” Richard said.

  “No, it’s okay. I’ve been in there all summer. It’s not like it’s haunted or anything. It’s just embarrassing first hearing that stuff from kids at school. It’s like I’m a punch line.”

  “The story of your life,” Jeremy said.

  “I know, you have no problems,” I said sarcastically.

  “Boo-freakin-hoo,” Jeremy said, practically spitting pizza chunks at me.

  “Perhaps we should have told you guys earlier,” Mom said, picking off the pepperoni from her slice of pizza.

  “Do you guys know the story behind it?” I asked.

  “No, we weren’t given details,” Richard said.

  “He blew his head off,” Jeremy said.

  “Whoa, how about a little respect,” Mom insisted.

  Jeremy had to get one more statement in to put the final nail in the coffin. “Over some girl.”

  After dinner, I retreated to my room to listen to more music on my computer. I needed to take my mind off the fact that I’d been living in a suicide room all summer. I was too old to still believe in ghosts, but the memory of my childhood ghost—Kafka the bogeyman—still lingered in the deep, dark recesses of my mind. Jeremy would never let me forget him. Kafka the bogeyman had invaded my dreams increasingly less over the past few years, but he was still with me, even here. Sometimes I wondered if he had actually survived the fire—a childhood bogeyman refusing to be forgotten.

  I gazed at my reflection in the floor to ceiling mirrors that made up my closet doors and thought of my porcelain-skinned bogeyman with long, boney fingers, crimson flecks in his black eyes, and the long black overcoat he always wore. Then my thoughts turned to the boy who’d occupied this room before me. The carpet in my room did seem newer than the carpet elsewhere in the house, and the paint, fresher. The shiver that had rippled through my body when I’d heard the news of my room returned with a vengeance as the ghosts and bogeymen danced in my head.

  I’ve been in this room for months. Nothing has changed.

  It didn’t take much self-convincing to bypass Desiree’s offer and download several of Elliott Smith’s albums myself. I loaded the albums onto my iPod, drew back in my bed, and placed the headphones over my ears.

  “Desiree was right about this guy,” I said to myself, allowing the beautifully conflicted voice to serenade me with his tortured view of the world. I allowed myself one more glance into the mirrors, making sure there were no unexpected reflections, before succumbing to the music completely.

  I awoke to the dissonance of some band I didn’t even remember downloading. The overwhelming light in the room made me cringe. My eyes had no intention of adjusting. I removed my headphones, kicked off my shoes, and slipped under the covers. I closed my eyes again, but the light was becoming even more uncomfortable. I sat up and blindly flailed my arm around in search of the light switch, but ended up smacking my hand against something solid. A sharp pain shot up my arm, and I had to bite my lower lip to keep myself from waking the whole family. I reopened my eyes to see what I’d hit so unexpectedly.

  My dresser?

  My dresser, which I had positioned to the left of my window, now barricaded my closed door. A door that opened inward! I looked back at my empty wall and the dresser-shaped indent in the carpet, then back at my blocked door.

  I was imprisoned and alone. Or maybe not. I chanced another glance at the mirrored closet doors.

  I couldn’t possibly turn off the light now.

  3

  Collision Course

  I wasn’t able to move the dresser back to its original resting place without taking out all of the drawers, and even then I had to drag the cumbersome, wooden beast across the carpet. I left it in the middle of the room for a moment to open my door. Suspiciously, I poked my head into the hallway. It was early Saturday morning. The sun and the rest of the family seemed to still be soundly asleep.

  I had to get out of my room. I went to the kitchen and brewed some coffee. An earthy aroma filled the kitchen, and I sat at the table with a steaming mug and turned on the miniature television. I flipped through the channels in between loud sips, anything to get my mind off my moving furniture.

  Frolics walked in from the other room and plopped himself down next to my feet. Maybe a companion while I sleep would make me feel safer. But I didn’t want to also traumatize the dog.

  Three hours and four cups of coffee later, Mom strolled into the kitchen in her bathrobe.

  “Good morning,” she said, grabbing herself a bowl of cereal. “How did you sleep?”

  “Not well. Did you hear anything last night?”

  “I don’t think so. Like what?” she asked, sitting down next to me.

  “I dunno, just anything strange.” I went for a final sip, but my mug was empty. There was no way my dresser moved across the room without making any noise. It didn’t just float to my door!

  “Is this about the conversation we had last night at dinner?”

  “It’s nothing. Never mind,” I said, defeated. I got up from the table and rinsed out my mug. “I’m done with the TV,” I said as I left the kitchen.

  Standing at my door, I peered into my room. It looked so normal and peaceful in the light. But images of last night paralyzed me from taking that final step over the threshold. Instead, I went into the bathroom and closed the door. Glued to the mirror, I repeated to myself over and over that I wasn’t crazy. There had to be a logical explanation. I’d outgrown my belief in ghosts. Hadn’t I?

  I wasted the rest of the morning catching up on homework at the dining room table. My iPod drowned out the commotion from everyone home and helped me concentrate on chemistry and geometry. Mom was finishing up some housework, Richard had the television on while he read the newspaper, and Jeremy was hanging around like a sloth.

  That night came quickly, and I considered sleeping in the family room. But that would only bring unwanted attention. I found an old plastic doorstop in the spare bedroom and used it to prop my door open. The nightlight from the bathroom gave the hallway an eerie hue, but it also gave me the slight reassurance that I was still connected with the rest of the house. I wasn’t completely alone.

  It took me half the night to fall asleep, but when I awoke the next morning everything was as I had left it. Sunday night was no different. I awoke Monday morning loathing school, but my room was still in perfect order (not exactly perfect, but at least the mess was mine). My mind kept going back to Friday night, but the fear was subsiding. It was time to start a new week.

  My morning classes flew by, and I could barely recall what I’d learned. I didn’t fully awake until gym. This was probably due to sharing the class with the guys who had, for some reason, taken an instant disliking to me.

  My class played baseball in the farthest diamond from the school. I got up to bat three times throughout the game—struck out twice and walked once. My amazing sports abilities were put to good use in the outfield, where I ended up mostly kicking clumps of crabgrass and dirt.

  Again, by the time Coach Andrews dismissed us, the other classes had already left. When I made it to the locker roo
m, some of the students were already leaving for lunch. I hurried to change so I wouldn’t be left alone in the locker room with certain unsavory characters. But I wasn’t fast enough.

  The guy with long black hair with whom I’d bumped shoulders with—twice now—came around the aisle and stopped at the edge of my row. His two friends flanked me from behind.

  “How’s our new buddy doing?”

  I didn’t dignify his statement with a response, closed my locker, and was about to pick up my backpack when the guy with the shaved head grabbed it.

  “What do we have here?” he said, unzipping my backpack and looking inside. He took out one of my textbooks, which had a paper bag jacket covered in drawings. “Looks like we have quite the Picasso,” he said, examining both covers.

  “Let me see,” the guy with long black hair said and threw up his hands in a catching stance.

  The guy with the shaved head tossed the book over my head. I reached out in a desperate attempt to snatch my flying book, but it soared past me, just out of reach. It was like I was back in the outfield.

  “Very nice, Nut Grain.”

  “Good one.”

  “Give me back my book,” I demanded, but my voice trembled.

  “Here’s another one.” The shaved-head guy with my backpack had taken out another textbook. “Catch, Sasha.” He tossed that book, too, and it flew open in midair, with the pages thrashing like batwings.

  Sasha reached out, but the pages slipped through his fingers, and the book hit the wall with an echoing thud.

  I turned to the two guys closest to me and lunged for my backpack, but they laughed, backed up, and evaded my clumsy attempt.

  “Watch out, Greg, you’re getting him mad,” laughed the third guy.

  “Are you getting mad, Newbie?” Shaved-head Greg patronized me.

  I kept lunging for my backpack and continued to miss by mere inches, which might as well have been miles. The more desperate I became, the more erratic I moved. My foot snagged one of the bench legs, and I toppled forward.

  Everyone laughed even harder.

  I wanted to tackle one of the guys—any one of them, whomever I could catch—and repeatedly punch him in the face. Knock out some teeth. Break a nose or two. That would show them I wasn’t to be trifled with. But I couldn’t; my fear was crippling.

  Greg tossed my backpack over the tile wall and into the showers. They continued laughing and walked by before I was able to get up. Sasha chucked the textbooks he had, trying to get them into the showers with my backpack. One cleared the wall and the other ricocheted off the tile.

  “It’s almost too easy. What a loser,” Greg said as they left the locker room.

  “Maybe he’ll off himself, too,” Sasha said.

  “One can only hope!”

  Then they were gone.

  I picked myself up and sat down on the bench, alone. I couldn’t keep myself from crying, but I wiped away the tears immediately and remained silent in case there was someone else left in the locker room. It was almost impossible to breathe and my heart pounded so hard it was making my arms twitch. My hands were trembling as much as the morning after the dresser incident, when I drank four cups of coffee in a row.

  When I regained the strength to stand, I collected my textbooks. My backpack was in the showers, unzipped, with my notebooks and papers scattered everywhere. Everything was wet. I tried drying my stuff with a nearby towel, but my notebooks and papers were already warped from the water damage.

  This was the first lunch I actually wanted to be alone, but I had promised Desiree on Friday that I would join her and her friends. I wasn’t hungry anymore. I just wanted to go home. I began heading for the humanities building where I had been eating my lunch for the past week but stopped halfway there. I wanted to be alone, but I didn’t want to be alone. I could see Desiree’s face twisted in disappointment from finding me back in my lunch safe haven. Maybe eating with others after what had just happened to me would be a good thing. Some inclusion would be good. I turned around.

  Desiree, Eli, and Anna were sitting in a small patch of grass behind the science building, away from most of the student body. They already had their lunches out and were chatting away. I greeted the group and sat down in an open space between Desiree and Anna. Desiree beamed. Anna was the only one I hadn’t met before. I shook her hand as Desiree introduced us. Eli looked just as relaxed as the first time I had met him, still in shorts and sandals.

  Anna was tall and thin with short strawberry blonde hair and a light complexion. She had powder blue eyes brightened by dark mascara. Her V-necked blouse fell just short of covering her silver studded belt, tied over the loops of a pair of Dickies that had been cut into shorts.

  “I looked up Elliott Smith online and listened to a bunch of his songs,” I said.

  “Isn’t he wonderful?” Desiree asked.

  “His songs are amazing. I downloaded a few albums, so I don’t need the compilation you talked about making me.”

  “That’s too bad, ’cause I already made it.”

  Eli showed his first hint of concern. I needed to offer an olive branch.

  “Do you listen to him, too?” I asked Eli.

  “Yeah. Desiree listens to him all the time. I’ve grown to like him. I had to. Otherwise, I don’t think she’d have me.” The three of them laughed. “I hear you and Desiree share like half your classes.”

  “Yeah, I guess we do.”

  “You must feel lucky to have such a nice girl to latch on to.”

  “Eli, stop,” Desiree said.

  “He’s just jealous ’cause he’s stuck with me,” Anna said.

  “Do you have a problem with me?” I asked, feeling myself tense up.

  “That’s my girlfriend you’re hanging out with, just remember that,” Eli said.

  The girls were quiet. No one ate. I hadn’t even pulled out my lunch from my backpack yet.

  “I didn’t come here to screw up your perfect threesome. Desiree invited me. She’s your girlfriend. I get it.” This wasn’t turning out to be the carefree, meet-new-people lunch I had expected. After the incident in the locker room, I didn’t need this. I could be eating peacefully alone in the humanities building hallway. “I think I’m gonna go,” I said, getting to my feet.

  Desiree took one angry look at Eli and stood up with me. “I’ll go with you, Oliver. I have to finish my history homework anyway.”

  I left with Desiree. She obviously hadn’t planned for lunch to turn out the way it did. I was tired of being accused, harassed, and bullied. I didn’t know what this meant for the future of our relationship.

  “I’m sorry about Eli. He’s not usually like that.” She seemed sincere. And naive.

  We walked past the science building and through the quad. Along the way I noticed the three guys from gym class. They sat with a larger group of guys and girls. Just the sight of them brought back the fury of the incident in the locker room. I tried not to look at them, but I couldn’t help glancing over.

  “Hey, Nut Grain!” one of them yelled. “Who’s your girlfriend?”

  “She’s a little out of your league, don’t you think?”

  Desiree and I kept walking, and I tried my best to ignore them. I had a hard enough time dealing with them when there were only three, and now the group contained eight or more.

  “Who are they?” Desiree asked.

  I tried to stay focused ahead. We were almost across the quad.

  “Some guys in my gym class,” I said, clenching my fists.

  “Nut Grain! Aren’t you gonna introduce us?”

  Desiree turned and shouted back, “Shut up, jerks!”

  Everyone in the group laughed and the verbal assaults kept on coming. “Now we know who wears the pants in the relationship. And it sure ain’t you, Nut Grain.”

  I stopped. My nails were digging into my palms. We had almost reached the humanities building. The doors were in sight. Desiree tugged at my arm, pleading with me to take those last few steps.<
br />
  “Don’t listen to your girlfriend. Come over and play, Newbie. I may even go easy on you—a welcome gift, if you will.”

  Apprehensively, I turned to face my aggressors. It was Sasha doing most of the talking. He stood in front of his group, staring me down. Students from other groups began to tune in to the escalating conflict.

  “What are you gonna do?” he asked, not laughing anymore.

  I was sweating under my clothes and my knees shook, which hopefully didn’t show. Desiree continued to tug at my arm.

  “Watch out, he might trip and fall into you,” Greg shouted, looking as menacing as ever with his shaved head. That got people in the group laughing again, but not Sasha. He was dead serious.

  I took a step forward, despite Desiree’s efforts and the screaming in my head that I should turn around. What are you doing?!

  The group quieted, anticipating my next step.

  I had no idea what I was going to do. I had never been in a fight before, but I saw one unfolding before me. I was afraid to move forward, but terrified of backing down. What are you doing, stupid?!

  “What’s your problem with me?” I said, taking another step, then another, and another, until I found myself purposefully walking toward him, breaking through my petrified state.

  He shrugged. “Does it really matter? Maybe I want to see if you have what it takes to shoot yourself in the face.”

  “It’s not gonna happen.” I stopped at an arm’s length away from him. The rest of his group stood up and encircled us. I now wished I had just turned away, the fear and claustrophobia became overwhelming.

  “I believe in you, Newbie,” he said with a smirk and, before I even knew what was happening, he punched me just below the breastplate.

  I sank to my knees, coughing and wheezing, and gasping for air. My eyes welled up and I couldn’t catch my breath. A stabbing pain resonated throughout my abdomen.

  “Get up! Get up, Nut Grain!” Sasha yelled. The group surrounding us cheered and laughed.

  Someone yelled, “Fight…fight!” and more students came running.