CHAPTER 20

DOUBT METER

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I thought I couldn't pull the words out of my mouth only with Aiden, but it turned out that I couldn't with my friends either. Oh! My God! I prayed, please teach me how to lie. Wait a minute. God wouldn't help me with that.

"What do you know?"

"I was just cerebrating to go over to Aiden's house to make reparations," Irsia declared.

Why for?

"Well, I'm not gonna apologize. The guy bugs me." Elec was with her usual antipathy attitude toward him.

Slowly, my doubt meter went up. She knew. She knew. That's why she had always resented him. Well, she hated all the guys, but with him, her dislike scale was overboard. Maybe she was trying to protect me from getting my heart broken or she was just too possessive. Um... or maybe both.

"Don't worry, Margo. I'll go talk to him." Irsia assured.

"Okay, what changed?"

"Oh! I thought you knew."

"How am I supposed to know if you don't tell me what it is?"

"Actually, what were you about to tell us?" Elec's voice was laced with a touch of accusation.

"Umm... it's about the party that he went to yesterday." I was trying to keep it to a minimum to know what they know.

"That's what I was talking about," Irsia added.

Elec stretched her hand to show me the picture of Kyle. I got the phone from her to take a good look. Kyle's face was swollen black. I shouldn't have laughed at that, but I did. He deserved it. Period.

"The guy bugs me." Elec repeated as I gave her the phone. We laughed at the picture. "He did what I wanted to do." She laughed going forward and backward. I laughed even more seeing that and I didn't know why it made me laugh out of breath whenever I saw Irsia holding her nonexistent stomach when she laughed.

"You know what, I should forward this to everyone," Elec declared at the last chuckle of her laugh.

At the last strand of my laugh, I asked, "who sent you that picture?" Still gasping and choking.

"Miles," she said, bluntly.

And I wasn't suddenly laughing anymore. "I am sorry I asked."

I didn't know what was so funny about that. Irsia cracked up again and she kept saying sorry as she laughed.

She would laugh, covering her mouth and come to a halt with a sharp gasp; apologize, and then laugh uncontrollably and come to a halt with another sharp gasp and then apologize again. She apologized and laughed four times like that and I lost it and laughed, until Elec gave us a death stare.

Now, that everything was in place, I didn't know if I should tell them about Verena's visit. If I said that, I could disrupt things like the unstable movement of specks in the sunrays. Irsia could get upset again and Elec would love to stir the fire. Ugh... it was difficult. I hard swallowed all the build-ups and I began.

"I wanna tell you something else too."

"What?" Elec had her neck bent down into her phone but raised her eyes.

"Promise me that you won't go back to hating Aiden." I looked at Irsia.

"I never hated him. I was just angry."

I could already feel Elec's eyes boring into my skin.

"Verena came by."

"What? I knew it. I heard the sound of the car. I was about to peep through the window and this idiot wouldn't let me." Irsia pointed at Elec.

"What? You met the PSB?" Elec asked, lifting her neck fully. Up and straight. "And you weren't scared?"

"I was... but then I realized she was just as human as us. Being PSB is just kind of her talent."

"Why did she come?" Elec didn't like it one bit.

I explained that she offered me to help and that she read my mind. I also told them about the advice that she gave me about blocking my thoughts. I succeeded in hiding the truth but I knew it was not possible in the long run. Eventually I would have to tell them.

"She offered to help?" Elec asked with a tone that she would usually use for skeptical remarks.

"I don't know. I think Aiden had asked her to." As soon as that sentence came out of my mouth, I was searching for the undo option. "Why does it matter? She gave me a wise advice and I actually should follow it and don't be so doubtful of her."

"What else did she say? You could have called us you know?" Irsia looked like she regretted.
Now was the time to tell how different she looked today.

"You both should have seen her. She is this completely different person. Confident maybe even brash; dashing..."

"Really!!" Irsia's voice went over the roof. Louder than Elec's.

"Please don't fight with him again. He looked so worried." I practically begged Irsia.

I reached home and I didn't have to open Aiden's umbrella. The news on TV said about a man from Aelburn. He had gone missing for 3 days and his parents, wife and two kids refused to go to the CONMISDUM protection facility. The staffs of the CONMISDUM facility had to forcefully take them for some hypnotic therapy in CONMISDUM protection facility which was said to have some effect on the people who could have been infected. It was said that the hypnotic therapy could prevent the delirium. Apparently, the guy got infected from befriending someone at a bar a few days ago. The video in the news showed the neighbors watching the family as they were being forcefully loaded into the van. I assumed it was the neighbors who reported. It was disturbing.

As I was about to go upstairs, I found a small red envelope at the table in the hall. I knew what it was; it was my new phone number. I virtually danced.

"Is this for me?" I asked my mom, as she walked out her room with a towel in her hair.
She didn't answer. It wasn't going to ruin my mood. I could call my friends anytime. I could text my friends anytime.

I asked her again, "I just asked you if this is for me?"

She just nodded her head and walked to kitchen. I sighed. She'd never change. Well, if I had one thing that I didn't need to worry about - it's me moving out for college. Because there was nothing that I would miss here except my friends. I rushed upstairs, took a shower, and I put the SIM card in my phone. I went to the window and dialed Elec.

"Guess who this is?" I bragged. I saw her rush to her window.

"Oh my God!" She did a dance.

"I know..." I did a little dance too.

"Just don't give this to anyone at school."

"I won't."

I called Irsia and bragged again. Then it hit me. I had memorized the phone numbers of Elec and Irsia, but not Aiden's. I asked for his number. I had a plan to play with my new number with him. I wanted know if he could find me if I send a message without my name in it.

It was evening and I still wasn't clear about what I thought about Aiden and what I thought about Elec and Irsia knowing about Aiden's feelings for me. And I had a lot of thinking and blocking to do about the Auroville Villa incident. Because it began to scare me. I paused it temporarily to sort out the thoughts about Aiden. I decided to use the assumption theory. I used it in circumstances like this.

In this case, there were only two assumptions for both the problems. Well, for the first case. 1. I liked Aiden too, and was scared of admitting. 2. I didn't like Aiden. For the second case, 1. Elec and Irsia knew about it and hid it from me, as they didn't want me to get hurt. 2. They didn't know about it.

The second case was just too obvious that Irsia and Elec were hiding it from me. There was no way that they didn't know about this. They sure as heaven knew. As for the first case... it was still hard to decide. I liked him, but I wasn't steadfast about the thought. I didn't know how to make myself sure of that. I thought it was the side effect of blocking my thoughts. It was frustrating.

I took out my notebook and pencil. Writing something could clear my mind. Writing a poem or just about anything could set my mind free. As I held my pencil against the paper, I noticed my hand trembling. Images of the ghost of Auroville Villa flashed against my mind - the way it crept in the dark like smoke and hung around each of us. I remembered the way it floated in the air, being embedded as an accessory of the unnatural darkness. When my memories brought the thoughts of the way it touched me, I dropped my pencil and it fell under my bed. As I bent down to see under the bed, it was dark that I couldn't see where the pencil was, and just then my phone rang. I jumped and gasped. It was Irsia. I picked it up and I knelt near my bed. I tilted my head to adjust the angle to see where my pencil was.

Irsia was telling me in a chirpy tone that she talked to Aiden and things went back to normal. I was telling that I am glad about it. Something wasn't right. Something about the darkness under my bed just wasn't right. The room was bright lit and not a streak of light passed under my bed. Not a hue of light reached under my bed. I stopped responding to Irsia. I turned the flashlight in my phone and flashed it under the bed. The light from the flashlight was swallowed by the darkness. That felt a little déjà vu. But why?

I moved an inch, slowly but carefully, using my knee; tilting my head further to see if I was right. My trembling was so bad that I couldn't make myself sure of what was underneath my bed. Irsia noticed my silence and was asking what had happened, but I couldn't answer her. I put my head under the bed and moved a bit closer. I bent my back and used my elbows to crawl. Moving a bit further, I raised the light straight, and there.... there was that black oil dripping face so close to me. It was so close that I saw two blurred, smoky faces of it. I felt its lifeless breath over my face. My scream came out choked and constricted. In a swift movement, it pulled me into the dark.

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