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I knew Moody, and while I could plainly hear the joking edge to his voice, he really would do all of those things; Moody was a man of his word.
This whole routine isn't new either; he does his drill sergeant bit at least once a month. I only laughed, smeared on a little eyeliner and fluffed up my short, brown, gold tinted, curls.
"You swear?" I asked, grabbing my bag off of the floor.
I paused before opening the door to see if he would respond. He didn't. I opened my door and found him leaning against the wall staring at nothing.
"Hello, earth to Moody," I said on my tiptoes, waving a hand in front of his pale face.
Moody's an albino, and 'Moody' isn't even his real name. He decided to legally change it to something that is as special as he.
"Yeah, I'm here," he said with a curved grin.
I checked my watch. We were so late. I was glad my mom, Evelyn, left for work at the crack of dawn after having another blow out with Dad, or I would be in serious trouble. She'd been cracking down a lot harder lately. Last week, she grounded me for borrowing her car and leaving the takeout bags from Magoo's in it overnight. I could have only imagined the smell.
"Do I look okay?" I asked, patting down my loose curls.
Moody rolled his eyes and offered that sarcastic grin of his.
"I've seen better," Moody said.
I punched his arm, smiling anyway.
"We're late," I announced the obvious, after shoving him.
Moody pouted.
"But what about my perfect attendance record?"
Moody did his best hound dog impression. He has pink irises due to some color pigmentation distortion that happens when you're an albino.
"I think you'll live," I said, heading for the garage.
On my way out, I noticed there were boxes of my dad's stuff on top of the kitchen table with a few of Mom's work samples next to them.
Mom works as a biology professor at UTC and tells me, "If you love your job, you never work a day of your life." What a load of crock. Moody and I work at Magoo's - a tavern in town. I'm a waitress, and he's a bus boy. There's nothing to love about standing on your feet for hours and having to deal with crappy customers and their crappy tips, or the occasional weirdo that calls me "Sugar." Still, Magoo's has the best French Dip sandwich and sweet tea in town. I should know; I've been dining on that combination since I was nine years old.
"Well, better late than never," I said, as we sneaked through the empty halls of our school.
We decided to hide out in the library for homeroom when we figured it was too risky to try to get in.
We sat on the back wall of the library listening to Breaking Benjamin on Moody's iPod. My mind started to drift back to the night I first met Moody. It was a night that neither of us - no matter how much we might want to at some point - would ever forget.
I was twelve, in my first year of middle school, when we first met. A couple and their adopted son finally bought the house across the street. It didn't really make a difference to me, but Mom and Dad and a lot of other nosey people in the neighborhood wanted to welcome them to our lame little cul-de-sac on Justine Lane. About a month after they moved in, a get together was planned. Which basically meant they would be invited to a party and asked all kinds of personal questions that made them feel uncomfortable.
The strange thing is, I'd never seen their son at school. Of course, he was there because I heard the other kids make fun of him. I didn't feel good about it, but at least the teasing wasn't directed at me anymore.
Around midnight, the party was still going on at Mrs. Bate's. I was sitting at my window staring at the two-story, stucco house the Johnston's had moved into. There were lights on in an downstairs bedroom that I later learned was the son's room, so I figured he was still awake, but his curtains were drawn. If they weren't, the way their house is angled, I'd be able to see right into his window. He could probably see into mine right now.
I'd been trying to get to sleep for the past hour, but it just wasn't happening. I knew what I needed to do to relax. It was something that Benjamin had told me; well not in so many words, but it always helped just the same.
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