Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes(15)

Jessica flopped down on the bed, lying across it to face Charlie.

“So tell me about you,” she said confidentially, mocking a talk show host or someone’s nosy mother.

Charlie shrugged awkwardly, put on the spot. “What does that mean?” She said.

Jessica laughed. “I don’t know! What an awful thing to ask, right? I mean how do you answer that? Um, how about school? Any cute boys?”

Charlie lay down across the bed, mimicking Jessica’s position. “Cute boys? What are we, twelve?”

“Well?” Jessica said impatiently.

“I don’t know,” she said, “not really.” Her class was too small. She had known most of the people in it since she moved in with Aunt Jen, and dating anyone, liking them “like that” seemed forced, and altogether unappealing. She told Jessica as much. “Most of the girls, if they want to date, they date older guys,” she said.

“And you don’t have an older guy?” Jessica said, teasing.

“Nah,” Charlie said. “I figured I’d wait around for our batch to grow up.”

“Right!” Jessica burst out laughing before quickly thinking of something to share. “Last year there was this guy Donnie,” she said. “I was gaga for him, like really. He was so sweet to everyone. He wore all black all the time, and he had this black curly hair so thick all I could think about when I sat behind him was burying my face in it. I was so distracted I ended up with an A-in Trig. He was super artistic, a poet, and he carried around one of those black leather notebooks, and he was always scribbling something in it, but he would never show anybody.” She sighed dreamily. “I figured if I could get him to show me his poetry, I would really come to know his soul, you know?”

“So did he ever?” Charlie said.

“Oh, yeah,” she said, nodding emphatically. “I asked him out finally, you know, ‘cause he was shy and he was never gonna ask me, and we went to the movies and made out a little, and then we went and hung out on the roof of his apartment building and I told him all about how I want to study ancient civilizations, and go on archaeological digs and stuff. And he showed me his poems.”

“And did you come to know his soul?” Charlie said, excited to be included in girl talk, something she felt like she’d never really gotten to participate in before. Charlie nodded eagerly. But not too eagerly. She calmed herself as Jessica scooted forward on the bed to whisper.

“The poems were awful. I didn’t know it was possible to be both melodramatic and boring at the same time. I mean, like, just reading them made me embarrassed for him.” She covered her face in her hands. Charlie laughed.

“What did you do?”

“What could I do? I told him it wasn’t gonna work out and I went home.”

“Wait, right after you read his poetry?”

“I still had the notebook in my hand.”

“Oh no, Jessica, that’s awful! You must have broken his heart!”

“I know! I felt so bad, but it was like the words just came out of my mouth, I couldn’t stop myself.”

“Did he ever speak to you again?”

“Oh, yeah, he’s perfectly nice. But now he takes statistics and economics and wears sweater vests.”

“You broke him!” Charlie threw a pillow at Jessica, who sat up and caught it.

“I know! He’ll probably be a millionaire stockbroker instead of a starving artist and it’s all my fault.” She grinned. “Come on, he’ll thank me someday.”

Charlie shook her head. “Do you really want to be an archaeologist?”

“Yeah,” Jessica said.

“Huh,” said Charlie. “Sorry, I thought—”She shook her head. “Sorry, that is really cool.”

“You thought I’d want to do something in fashion,” Jessica said.

“Well, yeah.”

“It’s okay,” Jessica said. “I did too, I mean I do, I love fashion, but there’s only so much to it, you know? I think it’s amazing to think about how people lived a thousand years ago, or two thousand, or ten. They were just like us, but so different. I like to imagine living in other times, other places, wonder who I would have been. Anyway, what about you?”

Charlie rolled over onto her back, looking up at the ceiling. The tiles were made of loose, stained Styrofoam, and the one above her head was askew. I hope there aren’t any bugs up in there, she thought.

“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I think it’s really cool that you know who you want to be, but I have just never had that kind of a plan.”

“Well, it’s not like you have to figure it out now,” Jessica said.

“Maybe,” Charlie said. “But I don’t know, you know what you want to do, John’s known since he could hold a pencil that he wanted to be a writer and he’s already getting published, even Carlton—I don’t know what he has planned, but you can just see that there’s a scheme brewing behind all his kidding around. But I just don’t have that kind of direction.”

“It really doesn’t matter,” Jessica said. “I don’t think most people know at our age. Plus, I might change my mind, or not get into college, or something. You never know what’s going to happen. Hey, I’m gonna get changed, I want to get some sleep.”