Ada rushed out of the room, glad to leave us behind. I walked unsteadily over to the door and Maximus held my side the entire way. I couldn’t believe that Ada was hearing voices too. It gave me more credibility that these things were actual y happening, but I didn’t want her to suffer the same way I had. She didn’t need any of that.
With those thoughts running through my head, it was no wonder I could barely touch my food, even the beef and broccoli, which I adored. I put it into my mouth anyway, chew, chew, chew, swal ow. But I didn’t taste it.
It was weird to sit at the dinner table with a guy and my family. I couldn’t even cal him my boyfriend, because he wasn’t. He was just a man I made out with, who liked to cal me darling, and who I hoped had some sort of answer to the destruction around me. But I was the only who felt a bit awkward by the whole thing. Wel , not counting Ada.
Maximus talked to my parents like he’d known them for years and even though it tickled me that they were getting along so wel , it pissed me off at the same time. I think it’s because they never had a nice thing to say about Dex (with reason) and I didn’t feel the same way about Maximus as I did about him.
Your heart needs time, I thought to myself. I was right, too. Everything with Dex was such a fast, precarious, passionate blur. I needed someone steady and normal (relatively) and good. Dependable. Like Maximus. I might lack the passion at the moment, that yearning in places other than between my legs, but I had just met the guy.
And yet there he was, shoveling chow mein in his face while talking to my parents. And I was dwel ing on this when there were other things to focus on. Dangerous things such as multiple ghosts.
I started piling some lemon chicken on my plate in order to look busy when the doorbel rang three times with a slight pause in between each one.
My heart thudded about loudly. After everything, I didn’t think I could take any more.
“Who wants to get that?” my mom asked, the fear ripe in her voice.
“I wil ,” Maximus volunteered, like I knew he would.
He patted me on the arm as if to say he’d be right back and took off toward the door. My dad, feeling unsuited as the man of the house, took off after him, and of course I had to fol ow as wel . Because I was scared and stubborn at the same time.
With the door open, they were staring at something on the steps, Maximus’s tal frame beside my dad’s short and stocky one, the light from the motion sensors shining down on my dad’s bald spot.
Before I even saw what it was, I knew what it was. The pig’s head.
And I was right. As I poked my way between the two men, I saw the poor hog’s gory, disgusting, chopped-off head lying on the front stoop. Its eyes were gouged out. A nice, evil little touch.
I was more annoyed than scared. I walked back in the house, shaking my head, as Ada and my mom came cautiously around the corner.
“Oh, very mature Abby!” I yel ed up at the ceiling, shaking my fist dramatical y. “Couldn’t think of anything better, could you? Is that al you got?”
“Perry,” I heard Maximus’s warning tone. “I wouldn’t…”
I shrugged and in the back of my mind I realized I was that close to accidently enacting a scene from I Know What You Did Last Summer. I pushed past Ada and my mom, tel ing them, “It’s the head of the pig. You don’t want to see it,” as I walked back into the dining room.
I plunked myself down in my chair and let out one exasperated sigh. My head was swimming. Every thought had importance. Every thought was a loaded gun.
My dad cal ed the cops from the kitchen phone, while Maximus and the rest of them came back into the room.
They al stood behind their chairs, staring down at me and down at the food. I guessed everyone’s appetite was gone after that.
Ada announced she was tired of the fuzz and going to bed and Maximus helped my mother clear the trays and put them in the kitchen. I thought about how nice that was of him, even though part of me felt like he was sucking up. The bitterness of the thought was surprising. I mean, I wasn’t helping. But I had a lot on my mind.
When he was done, he came back into the dining room and took the seat beside me.
“How are you feeling?” he asked. His voice was gentle.
Too gentle.
I eyed him. “I haven’t been babbling in Latin, if that’s what you mean.”
He paused and licked his lips. “What makes you say that?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Isn’t that what the demonic people speak?”
“I think you watch too many scary movies.”
Or maybe I don’t watch enough, I thought. They could teach me a thing or two.
He looked up at the clock on the wal and from the hesitant vibe that was rol ing off of him, I knew he was thinking about leaving. I couldn’t let him, though. Not after last night. Not after today.
“Can you stay over here? With me?” I asked, conscious of my parents being in the next room over.
He gave me a smal smile and I knew it wasn’t going to be good news. Goddamn it, what happened to the Maximus who asked me out on dates and was always flirting with me?
“I don’t have any of my belongings on me.”
I nodded and looked down at the greasy lemon chicken.
“But you could come over to my place. If you’d like. I’d like you to.”
I brought my head up sharply and ignored the vice-like feel in my head. “You mean it?”
Why didn’t I just add Gee, golly at the end of it? But despite sounding like a fawning idiot, the fact that I didn’t have to stay in my house was like music to my ears.
He nodded quickly and smiled wide. “Of course I mean it, Perry. I’d love it. I just have a one bedroom, though, but I can take the couch. It’s super comfy and light as a good beignet.”
I didn’t know what that meant but I gave him a grateful smile and got up to get my stuff together and escape the confines of my house of horror.