Needy Little Things(69)

It’s cool out. Overcast, like it may storm later. I open Instagram as I walk and go straight to Deja’s page. This time I don’t look at the comments. I already know what they’ll say. People expressing their relief, their sympathies for the other girl, their renewed hope for Deja. Just like Facebook. I don’t want or need to read that stuff again. This time I look at her pictures. Really look. Before now, it was hard for me to do. Like somehow she could see me through the photos. Judge me for not doing more to avoid all of this. Plead with me to find her. But her pictures do none of those things. Her most recent one is of the four of us at Afro Alt. It’s a photo that begs to be printed and put in a frame. She’s kissing my cheek, and I’m pretending to be irritated by it. Malcolm’s on the other side of her, posing for the gods. Jude’s on the other side of me, looking away, laughing. Behind us, blurs of smoke and color and life. She’s written a mushy rhyming caption, which I’d read days ago, but only now strikes me as odd. Deja’s not the sentimental type, and she doesn’t have any special way with words. But as I swipe through her other photos and read the other captions, they all have a similar vibe. A lovey, sometimes romantic vibe that started right around New Year’s Eve. Jed might not have been her secret boyfriend, but the secret boyfriend exists.

I’m nearly at the convenience store when a need whispers at me. The walk had been completely silent until now.

Clothespin. Clothespin. Clothespin.

It’s faint and I don’t see anyone. They must be right on the edge of my range. I slow down, hoping they will put enough distance between us to silence it, but it doesn’t help.

Clothespin. Clothespin. Clothespin.

I look around, expecting to spot a frustrated person trying to hang laundry on a line when a kid, maybe thirteen, emerges from the trees. He jumps when he sees me.

“Sorry,” I say, even though he’s the one randomly popping out of foliage. “Um, this might seem a little odd”—I fish a clothespin from Santa Bag—“but you should hold on to this.”

He holds the pin in his open palm, glancing from it, to me, to Santa Bag. I know what he’s about to do a half second before he does, but I can’t react quickly enough. The boy throws the clothespin aside, snatches Santa Bag from my hand, and takes off running.

“Oh hell no!” I shout, taking off after his scrawny behind. “Hey!”

He sprints down the sidewalk and takes a right at the corner. I curse under my breath and pick up my pace. I turn the corner and run smack dab into a low-hanging branch, a broken twig slicing my cheek right below the eye.

Footsteps on the pavement draw near and a few seconds later, that dumb kid’s face is hovering over mine.

“Daaaaamn,” he says, fist over his mouth. “You bust yo—”

“Drop the bag!” shouts another voice from out of view. It’s deep. Intentionally intimidating.

“Who are—”

“I said drop the bag. Don’t make me say it again.”

Santa Bag clatters to the ground and the boy takes off. I wipe the blood dribbling from my wound and sit up.

“You okay there?” comes the voice again, softer and closer.

Goose bumps erupt across my arms because now it sounds familiar. I know this man. The need follows a millisecond later. Pocketknife. Pocketknife. Pocketknife.

Tim.

“Get away from me.” I grab Santa Bag and leap to my feet, patting my pockets for my phone.

“Looking for this?” He waves my phone in his hand, a fresh crack across the screen. “You dropped it back there. Here.”

He extends his arm, but snatches it back when I reach for the phone.

“Aht aht. This can’t be the only thanks I get for saving your hide.” He tilts his head to the side and takes a few steps toward me. “I think you’ve got better ways to show your appreciation. Unlike ol’ boy just now, I don’t want random things out that bag. If that’s what I wanted, I would have been had it. I know that’s not how this works, though.”

I walk backward, looking up and down the street for someone who might help me. There’s no one. My entire body quakes with fear as I scramble for a way out of this. Tim’s from Chefly, and people down there are very superstitious. There’s a good chance I can scare him right back. “You think you know how this works, but you have no idea. I have something for you, but are you sure you want it?”

His eyes shift from left to right.

“Are you sure?” I shout.

He takes a nervous step back, hands in the air.

I laugh bitterly. “Oh, are you afraid of me?” I take a quick step forward and he flinches. “Your type always is. You think I’m gonna curse you, don’t you?” This is exactly how things took a turn for Grandma Bryant. Saying stupid stuff to the wrong people, but I don’t have any other ideas. “You think I’m a witch, huh?”

“I ain’t about to find out, tell you that much.” He lengthens the space between us.

“No. It’s too late for that.”

“Hey, now. What you mean too late? What’d you do? Undo it. You can undo it.”

“It’s. Too. Late.” I savor the opportunity to flip this dynamic. To make him uncomfortable. Nervous. Fearful.

“Nah. Look, enough is enough. This wasn’t even my idea.” He drops my phone in the grass and jogs away. When there’s considerable distance between us, he shouts, “You can send that curse on down to Chefly where it belongs!”