Reapers

Back at the apartment, Sam and I had dinner, and then I went to my room to shower and get ready for bed. It was only eight, but I’ve been enjoying my routine of watching a movie before bed. So, I crawled into my big fluffy comforter, flipped the TV on, and browsed the movie selection. Gojo stared at me with those big, crisscrossed eyes of his through his bowl.“Hungry?” I asked leaning over to grab his jar of floating fish food. He kept swimming at the side of the bowl until I dropped a pinch into his tank. I watched as he swallowed them whole. Within seconds he was back at the side of the glass begging for more.“Gojo, you eat too much.” I plopped three more pellets into his bowl. Unfazed by my comment, Gojo kept nipping away at the floating sticks at the surface of his tank. After finishing these last three off, he returned to the tank’s side again. I put my finger against the glass in front of him and moved my finger across the surface. Gojo followed my finger around in a complete

Back in my room at the apartment, I put on a nice blouse and a blue jean mini skirt. I left my hair wet and wrapped my robe around me. Then I packed a small bag with my brush, hair product, and makeup and stuffed it in my nightstand drawer by the window. When I was finally ready with all the details, I went out into the living room and sat down with Sam for a few minutes while he drank his beer and watched more criminal shows.“Going to bed?” Sam asked when a commercial came on and I stood up.“Yeah, there’s nothing else to do since you won’t let me go to that party.” I crossed my arms and pretended to be upset about it.“I’m just looking out for you Jay,” Sam sighed. “I know I’m not Thomas, and I won’t ever replace him. But I am trying here, Jay, I really am.” I couldn’t be mad at Sam. He was just like a father to me, maybe even more of a father than my real one was. He was at all of my recitals when I was growing up. He helped my mom with all of my decorations and birthday parties.

Hunter wasn’t in any more of my classes. After fourth period, I went to lunch and met up with Callie in the lunch line to debrief her on the whole Hunter situation.“I like him.” she declared. “He’s foreign and spunky.”“You haven’t even talked to him yet,” I muttered back, taking a seat at the closest lunch table.“I’m a great judge of character, Jay. Trust me,” she winked. The rest of the cheer squad started taking seats around us, gossiping about who knew what and I couldn’t care less until I heard Mia say Hunter’s name.“That new kid Hunter Masters is in P.E. with me,” Mia informed the table. “I think he may try out for the football team. That means I may have a chance with him.” My stomach tightened.“What makes you think he will choose you?” Natalie growled back. “You’re scrawny and pale.” Mia hesitated until Kara came to her rescue.“And you think he will choose you?” Kara replied, “Any intelligent man would know better than to get tangled up with you. He might catc

We pulled up to Callie’s wide two-story house. It was surrounded by trees. The wooden house always seemed to be getting smaller and smaller every time I came back to it. Callie was waiting on the front porch swing and jumped up to meet us at the police car when Sam threw it in park.“Jamie!” Callie exclaimed, “It’s been so long!” “I know!” I fake cried as she wrapped her arms around me, “A whole three hours!” “Crazies.” Sam shook his head and popped the trunk for me to grab my bag out of it when Cal let go that is. “So will you be home when I get out of school?” I asked throwing my backpack over my shoulder, Callie reached around and grabbed my duffle bag.“I should be. Fingers crossed that nothing would come up.” Sam put an arm around me and gave me a half hug as we all walked to the door.“Sam!” Mrs. Cannon answered as the door swung open, “It’s been so long since I have seen you! How have you been?”“I’ve been great, Candice. Thank you for letting Jamie stay over.”“Oh nonsense,

When we got back to the apartment Callie’s mother was already there waiting outside with Leah. We got out of the car and silently followed Sam into the apartment with Mrs. Cannon and Leah trailing us. We stood in the living room staring awkwardly at each other until Leah finally blurted, “Are you going to tell us what happened out there or are we just going to stand here all night?” What was I going to tell them? Did I tell them about Hunter? Hunter was a Delazar, Sam made it pretty obvious he did not like Delazar’s very much.“We skipped school.” Callie shrugged, trying to keep her tone even.“And did what exactly?” Leah glared, folding her arms across her chest.“We had girl time and lost track of time,” Callie replied evenly. She would not tell them what was going on, I guess that was fair, they weren’t telling her anything either.“Liar.” Leah growled, “Stop wasting our time.”“Why are you even here?” I finally said.“I wanted to know what the two of you were up to, just like ever