Tell-Taled
I felt trapped. I really, really, did. I wanted someone to please tell me that this whole thing with James was going to be resolved by today. It wasn't. When I went over to his house around 2, I found a pissed-off Dionna standing on the porch, knocking loudly on the door. Her daughter, Madison, was picking grass in the front yard. "Do you have a key?!" she demanded when I walked up there. "Yeah, you locked out?" I replied. "I just spent the fucking night at the bus station! With Madison and fifty hobos! Where was James?" she asked, as I unlocked the door. "Probably still under the influence of his experiment," I muttered, and pushed the door open. Dionna gathered up her bags, and Madison, and stormed into the house. "James Kafei! If you're home, your ass is mine!" she yelled, first thing, tossing Madison onto a couch, and dropping the bags on the floor. "You walked here?" I asked. "No, genius, I took a cab," she replied, and started up the stairs. I prayed that James had gone with Sadi and the rest of the family to where ever they'd all disappeared to.
No such luck. I hurried after Dionna, up the stairs, and caught up with her in the front hallway. She was opening bedroom doors, and luckily, she was looking all on the wrong side of the hall, across from James's room. I quietly slipped into James's room, and there he was, curled up asleep in the half circle chair of his, the needle that he'd injected the ProMeth in was still in his hand. "Shit," I said, and locked the door, and then hurried over to him. "Wake up," I said, shaking him hard. His eyes opened. "What?!" he snapped. "Dionna is here and she's on a war path. I feel sorry for you because you've pissed off a New Yorker. Worse, an Itallian New Yorker," I replied. James's eyes widened. "I forgot! I was asleep!" he said. The door knob rattled. "Billy! Are you in there? Who are you talking to?" came Dionna's voice. "Hide!" I hissed at James, and ran to the door. James ran to the closet, opened the door, and pulled open the trap door on the floor to it. The labyrinth. Clever. I unlocked the door, and let Dionna in. "He's not here," she said, quietly. "I know. I think they all went somewhere as a family," I replied. Dionna seen something over my shoulder, and pushed her way in. She bent down near the chair that James had been asleep in, and picked something up. It was the needle that he'd injected the ProMeth with. She looked it over before dropping it in the SHARPS container on James's shelf. "I don't want Madison getting hurt," she explained. "Are you staying here?" I asked. "Sure. Why not? I'm going to be here for a long time, I hope," she replied. "Huh?" I asked. Was there something here that I didn't know about? Dionna smiled. "I'm not going home. James asked me here forever, I think he's going to ask me to marry him," she replied. If only she knew how many times James had asked Jade to marry him, probably with the same ring that he was going to ask her with, she wouldn't have been so happy. But I didn't say anything. James and Dionna deserve to be happy. We all do.