Afflicted

"I dunno." My eyes were drawn to the black SUV still parked outside the house next door. It was empty.

"Is he doing something wrong?"

Evidently Lacey wasn't going to drop the subject of my love life. I tore my eyes away from the SUV, gave the house behind it a sweeping glance to confirm that he wasn't anywhere in sight then gave the subject my full attention.

"Ryan's not doing anything wrong," I said slowly, trying to find the words for what I was feeling, or wasn't feeling. "He's... nice."

"Oh God."

"What?" I looked at my best friend as she glared back at me dramatically.

"Demi warned you - you're not allowed to break his heart!"

"Break his heart?" I laughed. "I hardly think his feelings for me are-"

"You're all he talks about! He saves a seat for you at lunch every day - even on the days when you skip out on all of us to "do your assignments in the library" and we all know you aren't coming." She made air quotes with her fingers as she said the bit about the library.

"Why are you air quoting me? I do spend that time in the library doing my assignments!"

"Yeah I know but Demi thinks that's lame so she makes out you're secretly doing something else which no one knows about but her." Lacey rolled her eyes and I pushed aside my irritation with Demi. Nothing that girl said or did surprised me anymore.

"Anyway, just because he saves a seat for me-"

"I'm telling you, that boy has got it bad. If you break up with him you'll break his heart and if you break the quarterback's heart at this point in the season-"

"I know, I know, if the football team suffers, the cheerleading squad suffers," I sighed. How had I managed to get myself into this situation?

"Yeah and if the squad suffers because of you, Demi will skin you alive."

We turned off of the street and started to cut down a back alley which led to the school. We walked in silence while I stewed over my situation. The most irritating thing about it was that I hadn't even been planning on breaking things off with Ryan. I just hadn't been thinking about him much at all. And now that I was, I realised that my heart wasn't in it.

Lacey grabbed my arm suddenly, jolting me out of my sultry thoughts and knocking the half eaten apple from my hand. I stumbled to a halt as I spotted the huge raccoon which had stepped into our path, blocking our progress down the alley.

For a second I could have sworn it glared at us. My heart stuttered in my chest as some instinct warned me to run. I pushed the silly fear aside with a slight shake of my head and clapped my hands at the creature instead.

"Shoo!" I said, stamping my foot as I took a step towards it.

The raccoon bared its teeth at me, spitting out a hiss and arching its back. My breath caught in my throat as I stumbled back, bumping into Lacey. Her hand tightened around my arm as she started to pull me away.

The raccoon snarled at us, advancing slowly with saliva running down its teeth. We backed up faster, afraid to turn our backs on it but desperate to escape the alley as quickly as we could.

It was big. Bigger than any raccoon I'd ever seen before. As we managed to increase the distance between us and it to a few meters, the raccoon sat back on its haunches, lifting its front legs in the air and swatting them at us aggressively. If I had been stood beside it, I could have sworn it would come up to my waist or higher.

My foot caught on the curb as we made it to the alley's entrance and I nearly fell. Lacey's grip tightened on my arm as she yanked me upright.

We paused to glance back at the raccoon and it lurched towards us, spitting angrily.

We both screamed and sprinted away down the street. The sound of scampering feet and snarling followed close behind us and we didn't dare look back as we raced away.

Chapter Two

Lincoln

The back door seemed less intimidating than the front somehow and I crossed the backyard slowly as I approached it. My father had never been one for gardening, leaving that kind of work to me or Mom. I'd spent many hours mowing the lawn and trimming the hedges, often taking longer than necessary just so that I had an excuse to stay outside. Not that you could tell now; the grass brushed my shins tauntingly, letting me know that my time here meant nothing to it. Not that I was surprised by that; my time here hadn't meant anything to anyone in this house.

I wondered again why I'd come. She'd made her choice and it sure as hell wasn’t me. And if she wanted that sonofabitch more than her own kid then why should I console her after he up and died?

I ran a hand over the short hair at the back of my head, frowning up at the house from the relative safety of the backyard.