73I woke up to paws running over my stomach. For a moment I panicked, bolting upright, but the glimpse of an orange tail disappearing over the edge of my bed reminded me that there was currently an animal residing here. I ran a hand down my face, and shook the sleep out of my head.
A female voice rang out through our small dorm. "Aw, Camael, come here sweetie!" The cat bolted towards the voice, disappearing into the small hallway that separated the dorm from the door. A few seconds later Callie entered the room, holding the big tabby. Her face was buried in his fur, so all I could see of her features was her dark brown hair, falling messily all over the place. With a final loud kiss on the top of the cat's head, she let him down, and smiled at Kyle and me. Her smile was kind, and her eyes large and brown. I couldn't help but smile back. "Hey guys, how are you?"
"Luke's an ass," Kyle promptly responded.
"I am not!" I snapped. "Way to throw me under the bus man."
Callie looked at us both warily. "What happened?"
"Luke bought rotten food," Kyle grumbled. "Now I'm starving." Then, he looked at Callie hopefully, no doubt praying she would suggest that the two of them go get a bite to eat. Unfortunately for him, she just laughed, and sat down to start petting her cat again. I felt a little sorry for any of Callie's future boyfriends. They were going to have some serious competition from that cat.
"So how is he? Do you think he'll be happy here for a few days?" she asked.
"Yeah, Camel will be fine. He loves it here," I told her, walking over to pet him as well. Alright, fine, I love cats. Even my annoyance at Kyle's lack of planning and failure to discuss anything with me couldn't overshadow that.
"Camael," she corrected. "He's named after the archangel of Tuesday, because that's the day he was born, weren't you sweetie?"
Somewhere between the beginning and the end of that sentence she'd switched from talking to me to talking to Camael. I smiled ruefully at her, used to her habit of treating her pets like they were human beings.
"So what did you really do to ruin Kyle's life?" Callie said, as I tuned back into the conversation.
"He bought this gross rotten shit," Kyle interupted. "I'm not even kidding. I mean like past its expiration date rotten. Just because I never go shopping, he totally like...sabotaged my grocery list. I thought we had an arrangement!"
It was true that we did sort of have a plan. Kyle would make all of the lists, and I would do the shopping. In retrospect, I had gotten the short end of the stick on that one. "I didn't do it on purpose," I explained helplessly. "I just...didn't realise it was rotten." Saying it aloud it sounded even more ridiculous than before, and I felt my face heating up. Damn.
Callie laughed, but it was the nice kind. Honestly, with Callie, I didn't think there was any other kind. She's nearly angelic in her sickening sweetness. "That's pretty bad, Luke. You should complain. If it was really that rotten, they shouldn't have been selling it."
"I must've looked like an idiot to the cashier," I said, fully realising the embarrassing situation now that my exhausted brain had napped. "I don't think I can ever go back."
Kyle snorted. "What, you chicken? You're going to have to go back to get fresh stuff anyway."
"I seem to remember somebody promising they'd go next time," I said.
Kyle made a face that was between anger and horror, but when no one came to his rescue in a few moments, he gave in. "Fine, I'll go. If we keep eating noodles and chips for too much longer, we'll get scurvy." He stood up, stretched, and headed to the door, but not before shooting me a look that I think was supposed to warn me to leave Callie alone. If she hadn't been in the room, I would have laughed at him. What kind of friend did he take me for? I may be subconsciously trying to give him scurvy, but I would never hit on his long time and possibly unrequited love.
Callie waved goodbye to him, smiling pleasantly, and then turned back around. "He's funny," she said absent-mindedly.
"Yeah, he's a hilarious guy," I said, feeling obligated to play wingman.
She rolled her eyes at me, as if she knew what I was doing. She probably did. Kyle is many, many things, but subtle isn't one of them. "Hey, you want to go for a walk? Maybe get some lunch? I'm starving."
"Sure," I said, wanting to avoid being alone in my dorm room right now. For some reason, I couldn't shake the creepy feeling from earlier this morning. As stupid as it was to react this way from an encounter with a bum, I still felt weird. Almost like something was wiggling around inside my skin, and sliding up and down my back. It was awful.
It took about five minutes for Callie to make sure Camael would be safe here alone. I don't know what shenanigans she thought he would get up to when we were gone, but it worried me. I didn't want to come home to find everything ripped to shreds by a secretly evil cat. At least if he did anything Kyle would have to pay for it, not me. After she had finally checked every inch our small dorm, we headed out, and entered the elevator.
"So, where do you want to go?" I asked, during the ride downstairs.
"There's a great Farmers Market nearby. I could teach you how to tell the difference between fresh and rotten fruit."
I was wrong. Callie had a mean streak in her after all. But, at least it was a playful one. I could handle that.
It only took a few minutes to walk to the Farmer's Market. It was huge, taking up most of the park. The white tents, each one housing a different vendor and product, contrasted nicely with the bright green grass underneath. I swear, she knew everyone there. We couldn't walk more than a few steps without getting accosted. And yes, that's par for the course in a Farmer's Market, but when I was with Callie, she was equally happy to see all the vendors. Plus we got a ton of free samples. Cheese, strawberries, apples, you name it. Then, we settled in at one of the park benches to eat our loot.
It was gorgeous out. The kind of day that was almost impossible for winter in Portland. The sun was shining, but the air was crisp and cool. It wasn't even cloudy, let alone raining like normal. The nice weather had attracted a crowd of people to the Market, and everyone was smiling and chatting. At the table to our left sat a family of four, parents and two happy kids. It was nice. Peaceful. I finally started to unwind and relax from the morning scare.
"So, I guess you come here a lot, huh?" I asked, in between mouthfuls of strawberries. God, I love strawberries. I don't know where these had come from, they weren't even in season, but they were good.
"My dad's really into farming. He lives just outside of Portland, and he and I used to come here to sell our stuff."
Cute. I should've known Callie was attached to some sort of adorable hick background.
We were in the middle of a pleasant conversation, when suddenly the strange 'creeped out' feeling I'd been carrying around got worse. My back tingled and itched, like someone was watching me. To make it worse, the happy murmur of chatter around us suddenly slowed, and it went quiet. I looked up from my plate and glanced around. Some people were still interacting normally, but not all of them. The rest seemed to have frozen, and they were all staring. At me.
The family next to us wasn't laughing and eating anymore. They'd stopped, and all four of them were watching me. Their faces were blank, devoid of any emotion. They didn't talk. They didn't move. They stared. Throughout the park others had stopped moving, and were staring. I wanted to convince myself that it wasn't directed at me, but there were heads turned, people who had spun around, just to look at me. The itchy spin feeling of being watched intensified. I shuddered, and about a dozen pairs of eyes tracked the movement.
"Callie," I began, my voice sounding unsure and raspy. I wanted to ask if she saw it too. But when I opened my mouth, the staring people suddenly blinked, and went back to normal.
"Mm-hm?" she looked up from her plate. The whole thing had happened in less than a minute. She hadn't even noticed. Or, I was going crazy, and it hadn't happened at all. I couldn't decide which was worse.