Universal Choking Sign
Instrumental

"Why didn't you just ask him to move?" Elyse questioned, her fork poised above her mouth, broccoli hanging precariously close to toppling off as she paused in animation to look at me quizzically.

I stared at her in blank shock, unable to form a sentence, reviewing the events in my head as I considered her query. It was perfectly logical and she knew it. I knew she knew it because of how she said it. So simplistic. Why hadn't I just asked him to move? I wondered silently as I looked at her, seeing things through her eyes.

I knew Elyse would have done it, no problem, that was what I loved the most about her. She opened her mouth and said exactly what she thought, to whomever, for whatever reason. No apologies. If she had asked DC Birch to move away from her personal space and he hadn't, she would have made him. But me?

Asking him to move over had never occurred to me and it probably never would have without her prompting. The entire bus ride I just stayed there, pressed against the window on one side and DC on the other, wishing the uncomfortable affair would end already. And I had never, not once, thought to ask him to simply move over.

What was wrong with me?

Well that was probably too loaded a question to delve into during a forty minute lunch period, so I doubted that I actually wanted to go there. I blinked the thought away, trying to focus on whatever it was that Elyse was saying to me. She'd still been talking while my mind had wandered into 'what if' land and I figured that I'd probably missed a good half of a rant by now, knowing her.

"I said," she began to explain when I blinked back into awareness, not even needing me to admit that I'd zoned out because she knew me that well. "If he bothers you again, I'll punch him so hard my fist will go right through his throat."

It was a typical 'Elyse' threat, very over dramatic and graphic. I should have been used to it but I still managed to wince from surprise as she delivered it. She ignored me and continued her one woman rampage. "Why didn't you tell me about this yesterday, when it counted?" Her blonde eyebrows shot up incredulously as she framed the question. "I could have taken him out." She mimicked a punching motion with her hand balled into a fist, slamming it into the palm of her other hand. "Or at least given you a ride this morning. Did he ride the bus again? God, Care, I can't believe that creep lives right next door to you."

"No, he didn't, I don't know," I faltered, jumbling my answers together, suddenly conscious of the fact that Elyse had attracted Madison and Lindsay's attention with her dramatics and now both of them were looking at me. "I mean, no, he didn't ride the bus this morning. And I don't know why I didn't tell you yesterday."

Except I did know, of course, it was because I'd found Patrick Graywake's diary and that had taken over the forefront of my thoughts. The fact that the basketball team's captain had a diary in the first place and that it was now within my possession. Of all things. But I couldn't say that out loud because of one set of green eyes and one brown that were entirely focused on our conversation now.

It wasn't that I didn't like Madison and Lindsay, of course I did, they were my friends too. It was just that they were both gigantic gossips and I didn't need them spreading it all around school that Patrick Graywake, sensitive jock that he was, had a handwritten diary. Who knew what kind of damage that could do a to a guy like that? I couldn't imagine that he wanted anyone to know, much less the entire high school.

Anyway, I had been all abuzz about that Algebra quiz, too. If I brought home a failing grade then my mother—who taught Algebra at the community college for a living—would be too disappointed for words. There was nothing I hated more than her disappointment in me even though, unfortunately, it happened a lot with Math. That simply wasn't my strongest subject. I was very much a written word kind of girl, way more artistic than logical, which I'm sure that I got from my father's genes.

"Well he's staring at you," Lindsay interjected before I could continue my silent, introspective musings.

And, stupidly, I squeaked, "My dad?" Like that made any sense. Lindsay's forehead wrinkled but, to her credit, she pressed her lips together before she could snap at me for saying something dumb. I'm sure it was hard for her by the way Madison had to drag a hand to her mouth and snicker into the palm of it, like she was trying to be covert.

"Shut up, Madison," Elyse snapped while my cheeks flamed, leaning into the table with narrowed eyes. Madison and Lindsay cut their eyes at each other and shared glances that I didn't understand, except that there was a hint on condescension in them. Sass, I supposed, they were like that.

"Sorry," Madison mumbled and I'm guessing it was only because my dad was dead that she even bothered. Well, and she was probably sure that Elyse was about to kick her underneath the lunch table.

Elyse was extremely protective of me, like a mother hen, which some people might have found annoying. But I didn't. I didn't because I probably needed it. I'd been pushed and stepped on in the halls without so much as mumbling a complaint, that was typical high school life for me, but Elyse wasn't like that. When she first moved here and we became friends, she was saving me from one of those exact moments. Actually, Brody Davis had missed the trashcan and thrown his lunch right on me instead. He hadn't even noticed. I was sure it was an accident so I wasn't going to say anything, but Elyse Mitchell dragged him over to my table by his hair and made him apologize to my face.

He brought me a free lunch every day for a week after that. Which, truthfully, was kind of a waste because I liked to bag my lunch from home. But I let him because he'd been so terrified that Elyse would attack him if he didn't. It seemed only fair. I was a little scared of her, to be honest, but she stuck by me after that. And we fell into this rhythm of easy understanding with each other once I realized that she wasn't as terrifying as I'd first thought.

Still, she wouldn't let anyone make me feel bad and that included Madison and Lindsay, both of whom I had known longer.

"DC Birch," Lindsay corrected and there was a sigh in her tone that didn't quite come out as she spoke the name. "Is staring at you." She put the whole sentence together like I might have been too dumb to follow it otherwise and I supposed she had a point. My mind did tend to wander, I'd practically forgotten what we were talking about already.

But then what she said registered and it was all I could think about. I felt my face get hot as I ducked my head, trying to process what I was hearing in a more logical way than just confusion. But all I managed to do was stammer out a nervous, "What?"

"Yeah, he is," Madison looked a little too gleeful to validate Lindsay's statement. She was practically bouncing in her seat. "He's been staring for at least three minutes. He wasn't even facing this table," she almost lost the rest of her sentence on the snicker that followed that observation. "He turned around to stare at you."

I couldn't think of anything to say to that besides calling Madison a liar, which was rude. Anyway, I didn't think she and Lindsay would make up something I could so very easily verify and it wasn't exactly their style, pulling a prank to make me self-conscious. They'd never tried to make me the brunt of one of their jokes before, at least not that I knew about, and I was pretty sure that Elyse wouldn't appreciate it. So I knew that Madison wasn't lying.

But why would DC Birch turn around in his seat to stare at me across the lunch room? I'd known that he had this lunch, of course, most of the Junior class did, but we had never crossed paths before. I even knew that his usual table was only two down from ours, though I'm not entirely sure why it was that I'd noticed that before.

Just as I'd decided that I was going to ignore it and I focused instead on tearing off strips of brown paper from my lunch bag, Elyse twisted to look. In case Madison was lying, I guessed. I knew she wasn't when Elyse's jaw clenched and Madison's expression turned a little more smug than necessary.

"Do you want me to go find out what his problem is, Care?" She questioned, all wound up hostility, and I knew she was serious. My eyes widened as I sat up straighter, frantically shaking my head from side to side in answer. I couldn't imagine anything worse than that, to be perfectly honest.

The boy didn't have the best reputation. A lost soul, the mother's whispered about him, but they gave him a reprieve because he was motherless himself. Still, everyone prayed their daughters steered clear. It was that kind of thing.

And he'd sat down next to me on the bus and told me that he thought someone should murder me. Or had he been saying that he was going to murder me? God, like planning it. Like, making a list of people and including me in it!

I loved Elyse and I knew that she could dress down someone without a second thought, but the girl wasn't exactly a stellar line of defense. I mean, she was better than me, but what was that really saying? She was tiny, like a girl scout, with a pixie cut of blonde hair and innocent blue eyes. I didn't think there was anything that she could say to someone like DC Birch to get him to back off, even if she did have a nasty vocabulary of swears.

I was guessing that DC had a more impressive repertoire.

It wasn't that he looked dangerous, he didn't. If you could ignore the piercings. His face was actually almost angelic, to be perfectly honest. His skin was smooth and ivory white, it looked like it would probably be soft to the touch. His features were symmetrical and pleasant, arranged in such a way that he was actually quite nice to look at. He had a perfect jaw, all angles and tempting planes. And he had beautiful hair, so silky and coppery-brown that you knew it would be heaven to touch. Thick and full and messy. It spilled around the sides of his face, onto his forehead, dripping into his eyes. They were blue, a perfect storm-blue that hypnotized. But he had a barbell piercing going through the middle of his bottom lip and he had two eyebrow piercings in the corner of one of his eyebrows. And those hypnotizing blue eyes were more menacing than enchanting.

He was skinny, a wiry frame, and tall. But it wasn't about that. It was about the roughness of his knuckles, cut and bruised and scabbed over, and the intensity in his eyes when he was saying that he might like to murder me. It was about the gritty texture of his voice and the way he could make you feel when he frowned. It was like the whole world had filled up with his displeasure and it was conglomerating to suffocate you.

I had never spoken to him besides that lone hello, no, but I had seen him frown a million times. Let me assure you, not one of those times had been pleasant for me.

So no, I absolutely did not want Elyse to go over there and start anything with DC Birch. Not only was he intimidating, he was also my next door neighbor. So it wasn't just whatever retaliation he had planned for her that worried me, but what he would do to me after he'd dealt with her, as selfish as that sounded. It's not like he would have a hard time gaining access to me, our bedroom windows were literally across the yard from each other.

You could connect our rooms with empty vegetable cans and string, if you wanted to do that. Which, clearly, I didn't. But I used to see him in his room sometimes, when we were younger.

Okay, I didn't think he could scale across from his window to mine like Spiderman, but God. I didn't know what he was capable of either. Better safe than sorry.

"Care," Elyse chastised, as if unhappy with my deer in headlights reaction. She sighed, a heavy sound of frustration.

"It's actually kind of creepy," Madison instigated, crinkling her nose as she looked between me and DC's staring figure behind me. Or what I assumed was DC staring at me… still. "Maybe he really is planning how to kill you."

Lindsay, unable to bite it back I guess, snorted while trying to swallow some orange juice. She cupped a hand to her mouth to keep from spilling and Madison's nose wrinkled even more as she moved slightly away from her.

But it wasn't funny. And my face had gotten so hot that I was sure I'd flushed all the way down to my neck.

"That's it." In the next moment Elyse was standing up and I had to swivel quickly to snatch her arm and stop her from marching in DC's direction. Eyes wide, I snuck a quick glance towards the table where I suspected that he might be as I pulled frantically at Elyse's sleeve to stop her escape. Or assault, however a person wanted to look at it.

Oh. He was looking at me, all right. Not just in my direction and misconstrued as at me, like I'd hoped, but actually at me. Staring. Those blue eyes unwaveringly focused on my features. And he didn't look away when I glanced at him either, his expression didn't even change to acknowledge that he'd been caught.

Talk. About. Creepy.

I shuddered, yanking, until Elyse conceded and sat back down. But her face had flushed too, so I knew that she was just as worked up over it as I was internally. Which was not good.

"What the hell is his problem?" She screeched. I winced.

"Just leave it, Elyse," I mumbled, feeling my heart as if it were trying to leap up into my throat. "Come on. Let's go to History."

She looked like she might argue with me so I stood up without giving her the opportunity and turned to throw my bagged lunch into one of the large trash cans behind the table.

I did not look up to see if he was still staring at me. I scooped up my backpack and slung it around my shoulders, walking on shaky legs out of the cafeteria and praying that Elyse would follow me.

She did. She caught up to me just outside of the doors but her jaw was clenched tight enough that I knew it was with supreme effort on her part, walking away from a fight. Or whatever it would have turned into if she'd walked over to DC Birch and told him to leave me alone.

I mean, technically, he hadn't done anything to me. "He'll get bored," I assured her, because I couldn't imagine anything else. Whatever it was that I had done, he was bound to get over it and quickly. Any other alternative was simply incomprehensible.

Anyway, I had a bigger problem. Well, if not bigger then at least more immediate. And more within my range of ability to handle.

"I don't want to talk about that," I explained, latching onto her arm as we began a slow walk through the hallway towards our classroom.

History was the only class that Elyse and I shared with each other this semester, and we only had a minute to talk about this before we got there. We didn't have seats next to each other because Mr. Hollywood had assigned us based on our GPAs.

Yes, you heard me right, his name was Mr. Hollywood but if you so much as smiled when you said it then he gave you detention for a month. And, yes, he made us sit according to our grade point averages. His theory was that the smart kids didn't need to cheat off of each other and that everyone else wouldn't trust anyone's answer over theirs when they knew it was a level playing field.

He put the "underachievers" right smack in the front of the room, so of course I was in the middle and Elyse was in the last row, last seat. My little genius. But she was the first one to discover that tip about detention for laughing at Mr. Hollywood's name and, trust me, she was still bitter over it.

"I'm giving Patrick his book back after school, can I text you if I need a ride?" I refrained from using the word "diary" in our school hallways, in case anyone was paying undue attention to mine and Elyse's conversation. And I felt proud of myself for managing to have said that entire sentence without stuttering or faltering once. There was a hint of confidence in it that I honestly did not feel.

But Elyse knew this, of course, because she knew me. She stopped in her tracks and lifted an eyebrow, looking at me. "Are you sure you don't want me to do it?"

"No," I lied. I totally did want her to do it, actually. But I had found it and, somehow, it seemed right that I be the one to give it back to him. I sighed, emphasizing my point with a shake of my head. "I can do it." I assured her, trying to believe myself.

"Of course I can give you a ride," she said, still eyeing me like she was waiting for me to take the words back. "But rehearsal's an hour, so you know."

She had Drama after school every Monday through Thursday and she had Yearbook every morning on those days; it was the reason I always took the bus and the reason DC Birch had the opportunity to threaten me the morning before. But I wasn't thinking about that anymore.

"I've got a book." I assured her with a jerky nod of the head.

The look she gave me then let me know that she wanted to say something else about it, but she let a smile break across her face instead. "I can't believe you went into the boys' bathroom," she said, laughing quietly as she started to walk forward again. "What am I going to do with you, Care?" She shook her head, still chuckling as we walked into the classroom. I didn't bother to try and explain, again, that it had been an accident. She already knew.

History was my favorite class. Not because of the subject matter, which was actually kind of boring, but because of the teaching method. Mr. Hollywood gave the class in a lecture style and he almost never called on anyone to answer questions. He talked the whole time, probably because he liked the sound of his own voice, and if he thought that the class wasn't paying attention then he simply assigned an essay to do for homework that night. I couldn't pull off Math or Physics without a devout prayer beforehand, but writing I could handle. Besides, I never had to say a word in Mr. Hollywood's class. He actually discouraged it.

I could look beyond the boring subject matter, the heavy workload, the ridiculous name and the ironic narcissism that followed it, and even the horrible disrespect of the students so long as I wasn't expected to speak. Anything but that.

The class flew by. On a normal day I would say that was because I could zone out, guilt free, but today I knew it was because that meant there was only Chorus standing between me and Patrick Graywake. Given any excuse, time usually managed to conspire against me.

Elyse caught me as everyone began to disperse, her eyes boring into mine. She could see how nervous I'd gotten, I knew it. Her smile was soft, sympathetic.

"You know I'll do it, right? You know I don't mind." I did know that. I nodded to reassure her but I wasn't sure if it worked.

"I know. But I'll do it." I told her, getting antsy because the bell had rung and I knew that I had to get to the choir room with plenty of time to spare or transfer schools to avoid the impending public humiliation.

I had never been late to Chorus because Mrs. Hudson didn't believe in detention. She made the late kids line up at the front of the room and sing a solo by way of punishment. Some of the more attention-seeking of them were late on purpose, frequently, just for the chance to force us to listen to them crooning. Mrs. Hudson thought it was funny when they did that, she thought it was sweet.

I thought they were insane and that she was kind of diabolical for making that a standardized punishment. Not to give the wrong impression, because I loved Chorus; it was actually my favorite class of the day, the only one that held my full attention. And I loved singing. But I loved singing in the privacy of my own bathroom, into the shampoo bottle, when I was sure that no one else could hear me.

Hopefully, not even my mother. She would wince every time I so much as hummed a melody around her so I tried to avoid it. Needless to say, I was not putting on displays for anyone else. Especially not a room full of high school students. Just the thought of it was enough to make me shiver.

But Chorus ended too quickly too, and before I knew what was happening the last bell of the day had rung.

What I actually wanted to do with Patrick Graywake's "book" was bury it in my backyard and forget about it. Or maybe take it back to the bathroom I found it in and go back to my regularly scheduled life. Or mail it to him anonymously. Only all of those things were cowardly and I knew it. I actually was a coward and had no problem owning up to that fact, I didn't like facing the things that were difficult for me and would have been content to run and hide. But this wasn't about me and, as far as I knew, Patrick didn't deserve to have his property lost to him like that.

Maybe if I'd left it in the first place, but I hadn't. And so I had to give it back. It would have to be as simple as that.

I forced myself to rush down the halls to the place where the Senior lockers were, hoping Patrick would be visible and hoping that he would be by himself. I found him almost immediately, he was pretty tall, and of course he wasn't alone. My luck was never that good.

He was flocked by a group of people and, out of all six of them, I only recognized two by name. The first was Savannah Reed and Patrick had his arm slung around her shoulders; he was staring down at her with a smile spread across his face that was actually model-perfect. Seriously. It looked like they had been pulled from a magazine ad of pretend high schoolers. You know the ones where the models are actually in their thirties but pulling off seventeen, and somehow perfect? Yeah.

His hair was chestnut brown and brushed back respectably. His light green eyes were focused adoringly on Savannah Reed's face. She was shorter than him by about a head, which still made her pretty tall. Taller than me. She had strawberry blonde hair and lighter, greener eyes than Patrick. Everything but her smile was perfect, her features all angles and slender curves, like a model. And her smile was just off enough that it actually accentuated her features to an enhanced degree, rather than detracting from them.

She had her arm around his waist and she was halfway paying attention to him, halfway focusing on the group around the pair of them. And I knew that the rest of them were there just as much for her as him.

No, she wasn't the head cheerleader. She wasn't even a cheerleader. And no, she'd never worn a tiara at a dance, either. She was simply that pretty. She had the kind of face that a person remembered.

I tried to catch Patrick's attention with a tiny wave but I caught Savannah's instead.

She stepped away from him and towards me immediately, the smile dropping entirely from her face. The look she gave me was cold, contemptuous, and I forgot how to breathe. There was something predatory about her when she took another step forward and cocked her head to the side to look down on me.

She actually wasn't that much taller than me. A little, a couple inches maybe. But she lorded over me like it was a couple feet instead. Her eyebrow arched with exaggerated slowness. "Can I help you?"

And here I know I was supposed to speak, I should have definitely opened my mouth to say something, but I didn't. I blinked, looking at her with wide eyes, and tried to remember how to breathe.

She snapped her fingers in front of her face when I helplessly shifted my attention from her to Patrick in a frantic, repetitive movement of panic.

"Is she serious?" One of the guys questioned, a mixture between disbelief and amusement in his voice. I knew it was Silas because he was the other face that I recognized. Lindsay had nursed a huge crush on him last year and he'd been all she could talk about for weeks. Curly blonde hair, ridiculing smile, mocking eyes. I didn't get it but to each his own.

"Whatever," Savannah lifted a hand and flipped her hair behind her shoulders, spinning around in a complete dismissal of me a moment afterwards. She was walking back to Patrick when I, against all reason and surprising even myself, found my voice again.

"I need to talk to you," I mumbled, managing to suck enough courage from the air to meet his eyes. But I wasn't sure how well I projected or if my words sounded like… well, words. It could have been a bunch of gibberish, for all I knew. But he looked at me, which I took as a good sign, even if his eyes widened slightly and his eyebrows arched in surprise.

He laughed, tried to smother it by pressing his lips together, then lifted a hand with a finger extended and pointed towards his own chest in question. I nodded, feeling like I was about two seconds away from hyperventilating.

"What the hell, Patrick?" Savannah screeched, seeing the exchange, her annoyance morphing into blind rage with a quickness. I winced as she charged him, slapping his shoulder like she'd had every intention of bruising. He rocked back, trying to escape her, too late.

"I don't even know this chick," he protested, bewildered but still half-amused. "Shit, Anna. Calm down."

I realized that I had been dismissed when he didn't so much as glance at me again, trying to calm his girlfriend as she swung for him again. I should have left then, I realized that, but fear had melded my feet to the ground. I couldn't feel my legs well enough to use them to escape.

They argued amongst each other for half a minute before they realized that I was still standing there. Then Patrick's brow wrinkled as he squinted his eyes at me.

"Get the hell away from me," he commanded, shooing me with a flick of his wrists.

"But I," I tried again, surprising myself with my own daring. Or was it stupidity? God. Either way, he cut me off.

"Fuck off." I flinched, like he'd hit me or at least tried to, but he'd already turned his attention back to Savannah, who was calming down enough now to look a little shaken.

All I could think was that this girl was completely unstable. She wrapped her arms around Patrick's neck and melded her body into his, whispering into his ear. And I didn't want her to come around to another mood swing just to find that I was still standing there. It might be me she slapped the next time.

At that thought, I didn't need to be told again. I sprinted down the hall without a backwards glance to the sound of the group of them peeling laughter at my retreat.

I wasn't late enough to miss the bus after all, so I texted Elyse to let her know that I wouldn't need a ride.

To be continued...