Andrea slammed her locker door shut, annoyed at herself for thinking that she
was ever going to get anything more than a 'C+' for her biology test.
"Is it that deep though?" She heard Briar ask her, finally looking up from the
phone screen that had her firmly secured in a chokehold most days.
"I'm not getting into USC with a 'C+', Bry. And damn well sure aren't getting a
scholarship with a 'C+' either."
Briar shrugged her petite shoulders, a long and lanky girl that was almost as tall
as Andrea herself, "Your mother's got her very own practice, Andy. It wont
matter where you go, so long as it is not outright terrible, because you'll be
getting more summers and time in at an actual practice than even most Cal
students. Just work hard enough, and you'll be okay."
Andrea glared at Briar's pretty and pale face, filled with freckles like the night
sky was with stars, before sighing, "Damn it, Bry. I just wanted to be mad and
wallow in self-pity for a bit, and you had to come along and give me hope. You
know, when you're not scrolling through instagram all day, or hopelessly falling into
the abyss of a thread, you spit something wise here and there."
Briar was back to her phone midway through Andrea's sentence, "Hmm? Oh,
sorry Andy. Just knee deep in this thread about a mother who ended up sleeping
with her stepson after his graduation party."
She laughed at Andrea's annoyed expression, "I'm kidding!" and as a sign of good
faith, Briar even went so far as to put her phone into the back pocket of her
denim jeans, "See? I'm all in."
Andrea turned and the two started to head towards their English class, and she
took longer strides, because it seemed like one of those days where she'd have to slap on a demerit for being late on top of this 'C+' turd-sandwich, "You
spoken to Kaala yet?"
Briar's red eyebrows started dancing up and down on her face, as her swamp-
water green eyes beamed with glee, "She texted me saying that a couple nights
ago, she had found her future baby-daddy."
Andrea laughed, "Yeah, I bet she did."
"Was he really all that?"
The image of Julian flashed into her mind for the hundredth time, everything
about him was…. Perfect, his smile, his build, even his moustache… perfect!
Everything except for the slightly crooked nose….
"More than, Bry. Imagine if a failed point-guard-turned-model was thrown back
in time and raised to be some Napoleonic era gentleman with that fancy accent
you hear on stage when Le Petit is performing Othello or some shit like that."
Briar hugged her books tightly against her chest, "Whoa… I can see why La was
adamant about throwing away her future for him."
"I would too," Andrea joked, looking down at her Biology paper again, "If I had a
future to throw away, that is."
"Ewww! More self-pity!" Briar teased, "Keep it up, Andy, and you might find
yourself low enough to start yourself a GoFundMe."
Andrea snorted, "Bruh, could you imagine? 'Help! Bombed my Bio test, need your
generous donations, without which, I wont have generous donations'"
Briar shook her head and sighed, "Wouldn't be the craziest thing I've heard be
put up there. People really took something meant for good, and had to go and
ruin it."
"You talking about Instagram, X, YouTube or Facebook?"
Briar scrunched her nose at her again, "Eww! Not in the day and age of our lord,
Tiktok, did you just bring up Facebook, Facebook! Do I look middle-aged to you?!"
Andrea laughed as they entered Ms Labelle's classroom, just as the bell rang and
the elderly teacher closed the door behind them.
"You made it just in time, Ms Bordeaux." Ms Labelle said, her turkey neck
bobbing up and down as she spoke. She was dressed in her usual attire; a pencil
skirt of black worn over her black leggings above some dark brown shoes with a
mustard-yellow sweater covering her thin abdomen. Her sunken brown eyes
glared at Andrea, "Do try and arrive a few minutes earlier. You too, Ms Jackson."
"Yes ma'am." They said in unison, marching to take their seats towards the back
of the classroom.
"Now class, we last left off with Coriolanus, as he met with his mother to
discuss…."
And like clockwork, Andrea's mind tuned out the yapping old turkey, and instead focused on other things, comforted by the fact that English sat alongside Maths and History as subjects she could sleep through and still score a solid 'A-' on an off day.
.... "And thank you once more, Andrea. You were an absolute Godsend." She guessed that being stuck in her neighbourhood without a way out may have been disconcerting for a man who was from Europe (his accent lacked too much to be Cajun) but that then begged the question... why was he in my neighbourhood to begin with?
And it could not be a coincidence that he turned up at her mother's house, knowing her name and operating within the same profession. And her mother's reaction all but sealed that it was a lie that they did not know each other, Andrea knew her mother to be the sort of person who would give away the shirt on her back to someone in need. Were she not, Andrea would not need to have gotten a scholarship to attend St Martha, for Antonina Bordeaux could've accepted the handful of offers she had gotten to become some corporate lawyer, or hot shot attorney in one of the bigger law firms within the
city. She was in the middle of trying to find whatever features she might share with
Julian, when she felt a jolt of electricity shoot through her spine and her hair rise
upon her arm. Andrea turned her head slowly, so that she could see out the
window to spot a hoodie and camo pants, stood there, glaring at her school.
"Ms Bordeaux?" Ms Labelle's voice pulled her out of her mind, and Andrea looked
around, unsure of when exactly she had gotten up from her seat. Her English
teacher wore an expression that was a mix of annoyance and concern, her thin
and vein covered hands placed on her narrow hips. Andrea turned back to see
that the man was gone; as if he were an aberration that had dissipated the
moment she looked away.
"Uhmm… may I go to the bathroom, Ms Labelle?"
Her teacher glared at her, but had no reason to deny her request, and so she
nodded her head, her grey crown of curly hair never daring to move a strand out
of place as she did so. Andrea caught Briar's look of worry and tried to alleviate
some of it with a smile before she left, running down the hallway until she felt alone
enough to pull out her phone.
'La, u won't believe wat I just saw!'
She was in the middle of typing out another message when her iPhone buzzed
and she read Kaala's reply, 'Don't say it's that creep from Remi's!'
Andrea frowned and cocked her head as she typed her reply, 'Yeah, Y?'
'Cuz, he's standing outside by the large tree across the road, in Chem rn.'
Andrea locked her phone and felt her chest begin to tighten, her hope of having
imagined him dashed, or maybe Kaala and I are both just going crazy? She
wondered, since the both of them drank and ate pretty much the same things.
Hopefully, one of those things they ate/drank had some flesh-eating parasite that
attacked the brain, and consumed the part of the mind that stopped people from
imagining red-haired hooded men dressed in camo pants who chased after two
sixteen-year-old girls as a past-time.
"Or, maybe I have a stalker…." Andrea finally muttered to herself, and hearing
those words out loud made it all the more real. She wanted to cry.
"I suppose I should look on the bright side, and actually be flattered." She
nervously chuckled before moving to the end of the hallway to look out a
window, thankfully her and Kaala's stalker was nowhere to be seen.
She considered fetching Kaala and getting her out of class with some made up lie
that would have not been believed for a second, to maybe go and tell her mother.
No ways he follows us to court, Andrea thought, the idea becoming more and
more appealing as she moved to return to class, bailiffs and judges who could
sentence him easily, having seen his stalking first-hand? Easy money!
But Andrea thought against it, for as long as he was out there, and her and Kaala
in here, they would be safe. St Martha's was walled off from the rest of the
community of upper-class New Orleans, with four entrance points guarded by
two security guards at each of them. No, the smarter move would be to get
through the school day, have lunch out in the open surrounded by as many
people as possible, call an uber exactly three minutes before school ended, and
leave with Kaala and Briar amidst the wave of schoolgirls going home. Most were wearing the same attire as them anyway, jeans, khaki and chino pants underneath their school jerseys or blazers. This was the only time Andrea could think of where she was grateful for the boring uniformity. She sat down behind Briar, kind and soft-spoken Briar, who did not deserve to be put in the crosshairs of this should the worse become reality.
Andrea was so within her mind thinking about what to do that she did not hear
the bell go off, and it took Briar standing in front of her and lightly tapping her
shoulder to bring her back to reality, "Are you okay, Andy?"
Andrea wished to tell her friend everything, but not yet, and not now, not when
she was still unsure of what was going on, "Peachy. Period just kicked in, so high
five to killer cramps and crazy bloatedness."
That seemed enough to set Briar at ease, and the two of them hugged before
Andrea went her separate way to French. It was another of the easier
languages, seeing as how she could actually hold a conversation in French at the basic
level, as her mother and Granny both spoke it fluently.
It was another one of her decisions made to follow the path of her mother,
picking up a second language would expand her clientele, for she had long seen
her mother help out older Creole-speaking people who just weren't all that sound at
English. She sat next to Rondell, one of the few black boys who attended St
Martha's, a tall and dark boy with a wide smile and small eyes.
"If it isn't Ms Frenchie herself. I was hoping you weren't about to leave me alone
in this class."
She met the outstretch hand with a fist bump of her own, "And let you bring down
the class average? Not on my watch."
He hissed, which was actually just the sound of his laughter, that was quickly
drowned out by another bell ringing. Andrea went through her day, a paradox
that had gone by both dreadfully slow, and somehow within the blink of an eye.
And before she knew it, Andrea was in Maths class, seated several seats down
from Kaala, her phone in hand as she called the uber and sent Kaala the text.
They had gone over the plan at lunch, but Andrea was not one for overthinking
things and did not want to leave a smidgen of a chance for misunderstanding.
The bell rang, and as if they were being controlled by one mind, the two of them
got up before anyone else, marching out the door as soon as Mr Huff had quickly
spewed out five questions that were to be done for homework.
Andrea was relieved to find their uber waiting for them by the north entrance, on
the exact opposite end of school that she and Kaala had entered from that
morning, hopping in, their presence hopefully masked by the hundreds of other
girls dressed in the white shirt and red-green chequered jersey and blazer jacket of St Martha's.
"Hi. I don't mean to be rude, but we're in a hurry." Andrea interrupted the driver
just as they were about to say hello.
"No problem." He replied, putting up the volume of his music and turning quickly
onto the road to head more into the centre of town.
Kaala was on her knees on the back seat, looking out behind them to see if the
hooded man was following them, only turning and sitting down when she felt
certain that not even he and his teleportation could cut this distance short.
"I got a bad feeling about this, Andy." Kaala said, her hand on her stomach, "I
feel…. Queasy, I guess."
"Maybe you shouldn't have let your greasy food get cold after all." Andrea joked,
but Kaala frowned back at her, "Nah-uh bruh, we are not about to do that."
She met Kaala's frown with a raised eyebrow, "Do what exactly?"
Kaala rolled her eyes at her, "Do that thing where I'm scared or worried about
something, and you are too, but instead of just admitting it, you wuss out and
instead tell a terrible joke to gaslight yourself into thinking everything is fine."
Andrea pulled her face into a frown of her own, "…. Terrible?"
Kaala sighed and folded her arms, her leg crossed over the other, "Whatever. Will
your mom be free to see us?"
Andrea had wondered that herself. Her mother had been hard at work of late
trying to get the charges dropped on some kid with D1 baseball aspirations, but
wound up getting himself involved in an aggravated assault case. His D1 dreams
were surely done for, mostly because Andrea had searched his name and saw a
.305 batting average. He could at least go D2 or D3 and maybe try and make an
MLB roster as a project from the minors, but she doubted it.
"Maybe, Momma has been hella busy with that Jerome kid, remember?"
That answer seemed to bind Kaala within a spell of fear, and Andrea reached out
and grabbed her hand, "Hey, don't worry too much about it, okay. I got us. Uncle
Edgar's there too, he ain't let a soul break into Momma's office in the ten years
I've known him. And Delilah is probably there as well, so we'll come out straight, I
promise."
"For now." Kaala both sounded older than her mild sixteen years, as well as
younger somehow, like a little child who knew too much and refused to be lied to.
They continued their ride into town in silence, Andrea wondering what could
possibly be going on in her friend's head when the driver turned off the road to
park next to the sidewalk, "Alright, we're here." He turned back and smiled,
probably hoping for a tip that she was most likely going to give just because he
did what was asked and got them here in good time.
"Five stars and five bucks." Andrea said as she and Kaala got out the car, scanning
the busy street for the one person on planet earth who seemed to give a damn
about them, outside of their families of course, and probably for all the wrong
reasons.
Andrea had spent a good chunk of the ride wondering what could possibly make
them so special as to draw this one man in like a moth to the flame, but she could
not think of it at all. It could not just be a racial thing alone, as even though Kaala and herself were people of colour, so were most people at Remi's, and thus that still did not explain the reason for this level of fascination. But he came to her area, and so she could not rule that out, it had to have been a factor.
Their gender was a reason too, it had to be that rather than their wealth or status, otherwise he would never have bothered to hunt for potential people to kidnap in her neighbourhood. So gender then. If he came to my neighbour, it could never be for kidnapping and ransom... So maybe to kidnap and take us to some foreign place to work for them in the sex trade? They were in the age range for it, and lived in the sort of city where disappearances are barely noticed by anyone outside of their, relatively speaking, tiny communities, and remembered a month later after the fact only by their families. And the news would not make too much of a fuss about people like Kaala or her being taken, so that brought it altogether. And so, gender and race.... Andrea cussed underneath her breath, because he would also know that Andrea and Kaala came from the sort of homes that had the resources to put law enforcement on his tail, and keep to it for as long as humanly possible. My mother is an attorney for Christ's sake!
And Kaala's father was one of the best cardiologists in the city, kidnapping them for trafficking would be a lot more trouble than it was worth, especially because there were a lot of easier targets in that very same neighbourhood who wouldn't have those resources. And he would know this, he had to have, if he bothered enough to do the research needed to track them down to their school, then he would have also probably done research on last names and family ties. Andrea sighed, so kidnapping for ransom was back on the table, fuck my life... After all that game-planning, all she could be certain of was that she was about to be kidnapped.
…. What the fuck is going on?
"Andy…."
Kaala's voice pulled her out of her own internal think tank, her eyes drawing
almost instinctively to where he stood, down the street from them. His aura and
presence a lighthouse amongst the sea of people moving to-and-fro, and it was the first time she had gotten the chance to see his face. The look of it made her wish that she hadn't. He was expectedly gaunt, with visible cheekbones that hovered above his fiery
and trimmed beard. His nose was pudgy and short, and his ears a mass of flesh
that looked like they had been lazily stuffed together by a butcher who half-assed attaching them onto the sides of his head. His eyes though, were all that
Andrea could seem to focus on. The green orbs sunken into his head that glared
with a vault's worth of hatred, anger and amusement in equal measure.
"Go inside." Andrea said as she bit down on her bottom lip and tried to push her
immense fear into the back of her heart and mind, her feet beginning to move
towards him. She felt Kaala's hand wrap tightly around her wrist before she
could even take the second step, "What? Bitch, are you crazy?! We're trying to
run away from him, remember?"
Andrea pulled her wrist free, her anger towards him enough to share with Kaala,
"And the fuck has that done for us? No. Now's the best chance to ask him what
his deal is. I'm not an idiot, Kaala. I didn't have daddy's money to get me into St
Martha's like you!" She snapped, and Andrea instantly regretted it, seeing Kaala's
heart sink through the look in her eyes, "We're too in public for him to try
anything." She said, with a much softer touch, and she even gestured towards the
security guard stood outside the car dealership down the road, "I don't think
even he would be that brazen to try pull some bullshit here."
"But what if he does?" She asked, her voice only an octave above a whisper.
Andrea, for all her parading of her intellect, had never considered that. But it was
too late now, any more hesitation and she would lose the little courage she had
drudged up to suppress her fear, "Then you run inside and tell Delilah and Edgar
everything."
Andrea stepped onto the street, focusing anywhere other than the evil glare that
made her want to curl up into a ball and wail, relieved that she had crossed the
midpoint of the street and thus was beyond the point of no return. An eternity of
anxiety later, she stood on the sidewalk, a few feet from him, the man had not
taken a step back when watching her walk up towards him.
He doesn't care that we know…. Andrea realised, and that made him a hundred
times more terrifying. She had been reassured by the fact that he just seemed
bad at this, to be caught time and time again, but no, this was worse, way worse.
She would take incompetence over callousness any day. Andrea stood a few feet
away from him, the people all around them blurred into the background as she
forced herself to look into his eyes, his fiery eyes, and there was a moment
shared in the vacuum they had seemingly created between them where nothing
else mattered but each other.
"What's your problem?" Andrea asked sternly, right after a pathetic gulp.
Her question doubled the amusement and halved the anger, as he moved his
chapped lips and it took her a few seconds to clock that the disgusting fissure on his mouth was his excuse for a smile.
His cracked lips parted to reveal a graveyard filled with tombstones that a British person might've called teeth, chipped and deteriorating by the minute. The smell that wafted from his mouth brought to her mind the image of a morgue left with no power for a week straight.
"Shoot if ya ain't got guts, I'll give ya that much, darlin'." He said, speaking in
some accent that sounded both old and…. Wrong. It sounded as if some person
from an ancient civilisation was kidnapped and forced to watch 'Gone with the
Wind' over and over again. "Either you're just as gusty, or you're just plain stupid. You know who my mother is."
It was not a question, "Yes ma'am, 'n what of it?"
That made Andrea mad, more fuel to throw onto the fire within her heart, "What
of it? Bruh! She'll have your ass thrown in jail quicker than you can find another
streetlight to stand under."
He laughed and somehow, the smell got worse, "Jokes don't mask the sense of
fear, lil girl. Knew a couple jokers who'd thought it would too. But don't mind me
'n my complainin' much, I'd love it if ya kept on tryin'."
Andrea took a step forward despite her trembling hands, balling them up into
fists to get them to stop shaking, glaring up at the reddest and ugliest
interpretation of death she had ever seen, "You look like you've missed a couple
meals, so I'll chalk this stalking thing up to you being out of your cotton-picking
mind from all the hunger. Leave, now."
"Oouuu!" He exclaimed with glee, "For a moment there, the fear disappeared.
Almost had me thinkin' you're more than some gnat fit for feedin' the Source."
Andrea took a step back as his glare intensified, and green flames began to dance
around the irises of his eyes, "Oh darlin', you've no idea what I am. 'N no, I ain't
talkin' in no metaphors or some self-aggrandisin' way. When I says what, I means
what. Adhaesit in luto!"
He reached out and Andrea yelped and then slapped his hand away, much to his
delight, looking around to see why it was that no one seemed to care that he was
trying to physically assault her.
"No one's comin' darlin', Got the fog actin' extra thick for this…." Andrea tried to
move, but she could not, the soles of her school shoes were bolted onto the
sidewalk.
So instead, Andrea started screaming for anyone to help her. Man, woman, child
or elderly, it did not matter, she requested help from all of them, and all of them
continued on their way as if they could not see or hear her.
"I'mma roast you slow, enough to hurt you, but not nearly enough to kill you.
Resiliunt et aperi, draco!" His mouth opened wider than it had any right to, bones
clicking as his jaw dislocated and a gust of warm air forced Andrea to lean back,
her arm out to cover her eyes from the glowing heat that was the hooded man's
mouth. Andrea had no idea what was going on, of how this…. Thing, could be able
to do all this. Either or, no amount of confusion could make her lose the
realisation of what was about to happen, I am about to die….
"Andrea?" She turned to see Julian standing there, waving at her as he
approached with his long strides, a hat in hand.
He sees me?!
"Julian!" Andrea called out to him, tears flowing down her cheek as she turned
and was all of a sudden able to not only move, but run towards him. Andrea
slammed against his muscled frame as she wrapped her arms around him,
uncaring of the fact that she was hugging a man she had only ever met once
before, and spoken to for barely five minutes.
"Wow, and what did I do to deserve this greeting?" He patted her back
awkwardly.
"Julian! We've gotta go! He—" Andrea turned to point at…. Nothing, she was
pointing at nothing. Just like that, he was gone.
"I-I… I don't understand."
"Neither do I, Andrea." He said kindly, as he lightly removed her arms around
him and awkwardly patted her on the shoulder, "How about we talk all about it
as we wait for your mother, no?"
She did not know why, but his presence was a relief that her spirit was excited to
be in the vicinity of, "Y-Yeah… yeah, that's a good idea."
Andrea tried to recompose herself best that she could, "I'm… I'm sorry about, you
know, hugging you…."
Julian nodded his head, "No worries there, Andrea. Haven't gotten one in a long
while anyway, seems I was due for it." His face changed and became more….
Stern would have been too strong a word to describe it, but the amusement and
light in him that could draw all eyes towards him in any room, seemed to
dissipate and be replaced by a cold and blank demeanour. She could not say for
certain what it was, especially with his dark shades still covering his eyes.
"Now, tell me what just happened."
Andrea never once considered lying to him, despite how crazy the story would
have made her sound, "There's…. there's been this man that's been following us
and—" He cut off her quick babble with a raised finger, "Andrea, you're still a
little frantic. You must be able to compose yourself and formulate your thoughts
quickly, before relaying what you think if you ever wish to…." He hesitated a
moment before nodding his head, "follow in your mother's footsteps."
He's right, she thought, taking a few deep breaths as she quickly replayed what
had happened over again in her mind, "There has been a man that has been
following me and a friend of mine,"
He nodded his head, "Kaala, I presume."
"Yes. At first we'd thought that it was a one-time thing, but then he kept on
showing up. First at my house just before you arrived, and a second time at
school, and then just now before I bumped into you."
Julian was stroking his moustache as they stood on the same sidewalk that
Andrea confronted her stalker and almost got burnt alive upon, surprising her by
how seriously he seemed to be taking this, "Alright then. And you then thought it
wise to approach him instead of hide and wait for your mother in her office?"
Andrea tried not to sound too defensive, "I… I thought that it was my best chance
at learning what it is that he wanted."
"Ah… and best to do so in public, surrounded by people who might just help a
teenage girl if she was attacked by some strange man in a hood. How very bold of
you."
His praise raised her spirits, and Andrea could not fight the smile forming on her
face despite herself, "Thank you! That's what I told Kaala."
"And," Julian continued, "Did he tell you what it is that he wanted?"
This was the hard part, because he did, and at the same time, did not. Andrea
knew that whatever she had just told him would no longer hold up after what
she was about to say, for he was more than capable of dismissing her words as
the ramblings of some attention-seeking child were she to be honest.
Andrea sighed, and decided to carry on, I should think of it as more of a test run,
she told herself, for when I tell Momma, "He did, but it made no goddamn sense. He mentioned something about feeding me to the source, or whatever. And then he trapped me with like…. His mind, or some shit. A-And then he opened his mouth, but not like how you and I open our mouths, but like.… like a snake would! And then his
mouth started to heat up like a furnace and he threatened to burn me… slowly…"
Julian's expression remained blank, and she gave him a moment to take it all in
before he inevitably began to question her and her sanity.
"That is odd." Was all he said, after he had decided to put her out of her misery
and finally say something.
"I just told you that some man trapped me with his mind, and then opened his
mouth as wide as a snake, and then tried to burn me with the fire burning in that
mouth…. And all you're gonna give me is a 'that's odd'?"
Julian raised his heavy shoulders before letting them fall, "I suppose I need more
time to digest what you just said, Andrea. I do not wish to undermine your
experience by…. Questioning its existence, but it is a lot to wrap my head around.
So I had hoped that a 'that is odd' would do for now."
She felt relieved that he did not outright call her crazy at the very least, "I guess
that makes sense…. Oh my God?! Where's Kaala!"
"Steady now," Julian turned and pointed towards her mother's practice across
the street, "I spoke to her and saw her inside. Shall we go and let her know that
her best friend is okay?"
Andrea nodded her head, that silly smile still upon her face as they went. She
could feel him glance towards her a few times, but chalked it up to him being
worried for her. They entered the building and walked towards the elevator, her
mother's practice was on level three, "Wait a minute…. Why were you there?"
Julian raised an eyebrow, "Where, exactly?"
Her eyebrows furrowed as she glared at him, the two waiting for the elevator,
"You know what I mean, Julian."
"Julian? How informal," He said, a small smile threatening to appear, "I…. I
wanted to see your mother again, I suppose. She was not exactly appreciative of
my…. Advances, the last time the two of us spoke."
If Andrea's jaw could hit the ground, it would have at that exact moment, "You
were coming to ask out my mother again?"
The elevator dinged a moment before the doors slid open. Julian turned to face
her to give her a goodbye, for what could be the final time, "No, not again. I had,
earlier, but supposed I should have read the situation better. I came to apologise,
that is all."
He spoke with such finality that Andrea had no choice but to take him at his
word and enter the elevator, "Well… I'll tell her that you stopped by."
"Thank you." Was all Julian said, those dark shades that hid his eyes the last thing
she saw before the doors began to close, "Go a little easy on your friend."
Andrea pressed the button to take her to floor three, where at the end of the
hallway, written in faded gold, was Bordeaux and Perkins, the name of her great-
great-grandfather and his partner, Lancel Perkins, a man who used to be a slave
to a lawyer born in Massachusetts who allowed him to read through his
textbooks and eventually wound up educated enough to enter law school and
become an attorney. Perkins' family moved some time out of New Orleans in the
60's, leaving the business in the hands of her grandfather, Armand Bordeaux,
who then passed it onto her mother a handful of decades later. That long legacy was a double-edged blade that would be at the core of Andrea's
anxiety. On the one hand, she was so proud of her family's lineage in law that she
would beam with pride whenever someone stopped her in her neighbourhood to
pass on a thank you to her mother for taking on their case, or walking by Joe
and Larry to hear them recount to her for the hundredth time how her
grandfather got them out of a bind in the 60's during civil rights protests.
But on the other, it was a lot of pressure; being the only Bordeaux she knew of
her generation, working to take that baton and run with it as well as her
predecessors had. It's what made every 'C+' in Bio or 'B-' in Chemistry so
frustrating, that she was failing from the outset. Not even coming close to even
deserving the baton, no less taking it in stride.
Andrea entered the office quickly, having told Kaala once of where her mother kept
her spare key hidden (it's under the pot plant by the door), "Kaala!"
"What?" She asked, one of her thick eyebrows raised as she looked up from the
magazine that she was reading sat on the couch adjacent to her mother's desk by
the window, "Don't be shouting my name just because we're in your mother's
office, Andy."
Andrea stopped and cocked her head to the side, "What the….?"
Kaala sighed and rolled her eyes, putting the magazine down, "Relax Bruh, it was
a joke."
"No! I know that, it's just…." She frowned at Kaala's confused expression, "The
hooded man…."
Kaala snorted before bursting out into a fit of laughter, "Is this some type of
prank, Andy? You know tha—"
"Kaala!" Andrea snarled as she grabbed her by the shoulders, "This is no laughing
matter! Why'd you leave me behind with that man! You were supposed to stay
and call for help if anything went wrong!"
Kaala's dark brown eyes looked up at her with terror, but not fear for the shared
enemy that she seemed to have forgotten about, but at Andrea herself, "Andrea!
You're hurting me!"
She let go of her and took a few steps back, her mind reeling as Kaala pulled her
knees up to her chest, "I don't know what you're talking about! You said that you
wanted to leave school and come here to get some maths homework done. Then
we met Julian and he took you aside to discuss something he wanted your
mother to know…. I decided to come up here and wait for you…."
This cant be fucking happening….
Andrea sat down on the couch next to Kaala, her head reeling as she tried to
grasp for anything to indicate that it was the world, and not herself, that was
going mad.
"Kaala…. I think that I'm going insane…."
And then Andrea remembered that the Hooded man was able to do…. things.
Things that made other people noticing what he was actually up to impossible,
like an entire sidewalk full of people deciding to ignore her being attacked by
him. Did he do it to Kaala too? She wondered, unsure of if what she had even seen
had been real to begin with.
Her friend reached out tentatively, and then more assuredly when she was
certain that Andrea was not going to tear her arm out its socket and beat her over the head with it, "Look, Andy. If ever anything comes up that you need an
ear for, I'm here, okay. I will always be here."
Andrea felt her eyes begin to sting as she leaned over and buried her head in
Kaala's lap, "I know La… it's why I love you so much."
"I love you too, Andy."
Those words did lift her mood some, but it was still incredibly dreary in her
heart right then. The fact of the matter was that only two things could be true,
either the man hunting her was some evil super powered freak who wanted to
kidnap her and feed her to 'The Source', or she was losing her goddamn mind.
Both options were horrifying, and to see her best friend all of a sudden forget
their shared plight made Andrea feel all the more dreadful and hopeless. As if she
were drowning in a pool filled with people, and not a one of them cared enough to
notice. She was tempted to try again with Kaala, just to make sure that it was not
her friend who was losing it, when the door opened and her mother entered with
her assistant, Delilah Jones, carrying a cabinet full of sheets and files behind her.
"Momma!" Andrea shot up off the couch and launched herself towards her
mother, who stumbled to catch her, "Oh! Wow, thanks for the greeting baby."
Her mother's arms wrapped around her, forming a barrier between Andrea and
the world that seemed to be turning against her, creating a little safe space that
was for them and them alone.
And for a moment, Andrea was freed of all her stresses and gifted with a little
chunk of her childhood back.
"What's wrong, Andy Baby?"
I should tell her…
"Momma, I…."
Tell her….
"I saw Mr Nerva today."
Her mother let go as Delilah snorted, and like a hole in a hull, the world and all its
evils began to flood back in, "… Lord have mercy. And what did that man want?"
"Your number and a date." Delilah muttered, and her mother glared at her.
Andrea was once again taken aback by her mother's hostile tone and demeanour
and frowned, "Nothing…. Just to apologise for bothering you...."
She rolled her eyes as she took off her dark grey coat and hung it on the coatrack,
"So, he is apologising for bothering me by…. bothering me again?" Andrea
watched her mother set her briefcase on the table and sat down, "Well, if you
ever run into Mr Nerva, run. And if you're too hard headed to listen to me and
stick around, at least be good enough to tell him to stick it where the sun don't
shine."
"Or to give him my number instead," Delilah winked at her, flipping her braided
ponytail behind her shoulder, "That man is fine as all hell."
Her mother and Delilah began bickering, and the scene before her hit Andrea like
a truck, the slice of normality very much needed after the ocean's worth of
insanity that had ruined her day up. The sense of relief almost made her want to cry, "Yes Momma." She smiled and went to sit back down with Kaala, "Sorry about earlier…. I lost it for a bit, but I'm back now." Andrea said, as much for herself as it was for Kaala, "Now, get to doing the homework, I need something to copy off of."
"Now I know you didn't just say that in front of me." Her mother said, her eyes
never once looking up from the case she was reading.
The two girls laughed, and Andrea decided to leave her troubles for another day.