That One Night

This is my worst nightmare. I’m being chased by something and I don’t know what it is. I’m running as fast as I can but I can’t get away. I come to a cliff and I have to decide whether to jump or be killed by this thing. I jump and right before I hit the ground, I wake up.

Sitting up on my bed, I look at Angie. She’s painting her toenails in a chair by the window. The breeze comes in and blows her hair into her face. She moves it, patiently, and continues to paint.

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” she said.

“Well, it is,” I said. “When I wake up, it shakes my whole body as if I hit the ground and I can’t go back to sleep.”

“Wanna hear mine?”

“Of course,” I said.

“I’m in a barn and I’m wearing a white dress. I jump out of the barn into some hay. The FBI is there and they arrest me because they think I’m an alien.”

“Well yours isn’t very scary either.”

“I didn’t say it was scary,” She said, defensively. 

Angie was quiet for a minute. She finished painting her toes and blew on them. Rising from her seat, she moved to the window to close it; it was getting colder.

“What’s the most scared you’ve ever been?” I asked her.

She puts on a cardigan as she answers, “Last year, I watched a scary movie and this girl was being killed by an invisible demon and she was all bloody. I couldn’t sleep that night. I just sat up with the lights on.”

“I don’t like scary movies either,” I said. “The most scared I’ve ever been is when my brother and I saw a mountain lion while hiking and it got dark and we were sure the mountain lion was stalking us.”

She laughed. She had a great laugh; melodic, I would say. She told me she used to want to be a singer but it fell by the wayside. Angie and I had been seeing each other for a couple of weeks now. She asked if I wanted to stay in rather than go out. We planned to watch a movie on TV.

“Have you seen Freya?”  She asked.

“Who’s Freya?”

“My cat.” Angie started to call the cat.

“Oh don’t worry,” I said, “I let her out when I came in.”

“You let her out!” She was furious.

“I thought it was ok!”

“She’s not an outdoor cat.” 

Flapping her hand, she opens the door to the apartment and calls down the stairs for Freya. I started to put on my coat.

She turned to me, “where are you going?”

“I’m going to find your cat.”

“Alright,” she said, a bit calmer, “but I’m going with you.”

So our date night turned into a search party. We started in the alley behind her apartment. We looked behind trash cans and under dirty mattresses. No luck. So we decided to walk down the street.

“Are you mad at me?” I asked.

“I’m not mad at you,” she said, “I’m more frustrated with Freya.”

“Does she do this a lot?”

“More than I’d like her to.”

I slipped my hand into hers. She didn’t pull away.

“I like hanging out with you anyway.” She said.

I squeezed her hand. At the end of the block, we stopped under the street light. Angie looked up at me and we locked eyes. I kissed her and held her close. We stood there on the corner for a minute before breaking apart.

On our way back, we walked by a bar. A guy smoking outside yelled something crude at Angie. Well, I wasn’t going to stand for that. I told him he needed to apologize and he laughed and blew smoke in my face. I told him again that he needed to apologize, trying to keep my cool. He pushed me so I pushed him back. So he punched me in the nose. I fell back into some chairs and a policeman who was on the street came by and arrested the guy. 

They asked if I wanted to press charges. I didn’t. Blood covered my chin and a bit got on my shirt. Angie put her hand on my face.

“Does it hurt terribly?” she cooed.

“It does.”

“Let’s get some ice on it.”

I went inside and the bartender let me use their bathroom to wash my face. When I came out of the bathroom, Angie was at the bar and she had ordered us drinks. I sat and, grabbing my glass, toasted her. She blushed and clinked glasses with me. Angie asked the bartender for a baggie of ice which they produced quickly. I held it to my face.

Angie pointed to my hand, “What’s that scar from?”

“Which?” I asked, looking at my hand. I noticed what she was talking about. “Oh, well when I was a teenager, my friends and I were having a firework war. We were shooting each other with bottle rockets and roman candles. A roman candle hit me in the hand and I got a burn from the powder.”

“That sounds painful,” she said.

“It was,” I laughed, “My brother shot a bottle rocket and it hit a bag full of fireworks and it just exploded on the hood of a car. The owner was furious.”

“Wanna see my scar?” She asked.

“Absolutely.”

She pulled up her pant leg and pointed to a pale mark across her shin.

“I was running in my friend’s yard and I jumped over the fence but the fence was sharp so it cut me open.”

“Oh wow,” I said.

“It was shallow so it wasn’t so bad.”

Angie looks at the clock.

“I don’t know if we’re going to find Freya tonight,” she said.

We got back to the apartment and walked up the stairs. Who did we find but Freya? She had been waiting for us. I looked at Angie and we both just laughed. We ended up watching a movie after all. Angie fell asleep but I stayed to watch the rest and then slipped out quietly, careful not to let the cat out.