Unexpected Visitors

AN: Ok, so I've finished the next chapter. It's s little bit longer than the first two, so be happy.

Oh, one more thing:

The paragraphs in italics is a flashback. So don't get confused.

Chapter Three: Evil Memories

Aurora shivered as she reached out with her mitten-covered hand and grabbed onto one of the brooms in their garage. She silently handed the broom to Chris and grabbed the second one for herself. She took the broom and walked over to the farthest corner from the other teen and started sweeping. She made a mental note to ignore him; if he wanted to be around her so much, she sure as hell wasn’t going to acknowledge his presence.

After she heard Chris start to sweep, she took a moment to look around the room lit only by the small light that came in though the windows on either side; it was definitely bigger than she remembered. Maybe it would take longer to do this than she had originally thought.

Aurora looked back down at what she doing and frowned. She wasn’t sweeping up anything. Her eyes quickly scanned the rest of the floor, and she sighed loudly; the goddamn floor wasn’t even dirty. What the hell was her mother thinking?

“I meant what I said before,” Chris said, bringing Aurora from her thoughts.

She briefly wondered what he was talking about as she continued working, but didn’t say anything. She tried not to do anything to let him know that he had even heard him speak.

“I’m really sorry,” Chris said after a second. “I wish I hadn’t gone through with it. I didn’t know that Melissa set up such as horrible thing. I just want you to know that I’m sorry. She was a bitch, and I’m not going to do anything else that would hurt you.”

Oh, so he wanted to talk about that. Too bad she didn’t want to talk about it.

Aurora tried her best to look like she wasn’t paying attention any to him. She couldn’t hear him sweeping anymore, so he was probably watching her, waiting for her to say something. If he kept this up, though, she would have to say something; the sound of his voice was annoying her, and sooner or later she’d snap at him.

“Aurora, would you at least say something please?” Chris tired again. “I feel like I’m talking to a wall.”

The wall would probably respond more, Aurora thought. All she wanted to do was finish her job and retreat back to her room where she wouldn’t have to deal with him any more.

Chris leaned the broom he was using against the wall and started to walk over to her, if she was trying to ignore him, then he’d make her listen. “Aurora, listen to me, I’m trying to apologize here.”

Aurora could hear him walking towards her and she started to panic. She had a broom in her hands, and she wasn’t afraid to use it. Turning around quickly, she lifted it up and swung it in his direction as fast as she could. “Don’t come near me,” she threatened, narrowing her eyes at him. “If you come any closer, I will hurt you.”

Her little attack didn’t scare Chris, but he did flinch at the broom being swung at him. He raised his hands in defense, “I’m not going to do anything. I just want you to listen.”

“I heard what you said and I don’t care, you bastard,” Aurora said. Glaring up at him, she used her broom to gesture at his forgotten one. “Go back and sweep. The sooner we get this done, the faster I can get the hell away from you.”

Chris’ slightly angry expression turned to a sad one. “Do you really hate me that much?” he asked.

Aurora was getting more annoyed by the second. Was he just being stubborn or was he really that stupid? Of course she hated him. She’d never forgive him for that stupid stunt he pulled with her. She’d never forgive him for humiliating her because she was naïve and believed him.

“If you’re not going to help, then go back inside and quit bothering me,” Aurora replied.

Chris started sadly at her. After a moment he walked over to the door and paused for a second to look back at Aurora. “I just want to you know that I never wanted to do it in the first place. I like you.” Without another word, he entered the house and closed the door softly behind him, leaving a stunned Aurora staring dumbly where he had just been.

Shit, he likes me, she thought, still holding the broom up from when she had threatened him. Aurora finally came back to her senses and moved from her frozen position. She resumed sweeping, numbly and not thinking about anything else the entire time.

~*~

Forty-five minutes later, Aurora had finally finished sweeping and she was freezing. She put away both of the brooms and went back inside. She dumped her coat, mittens, and hat into the closet and headed for the kitchen for something warm to drink. Upon entering the kitchen and seeing her mother and Mr. Giovanni still chatting, she remembered that the power was still out, and the only thing she could have, would be cold.

Aurora sighed and left the kitchen to go up to her room. But when she got to the living room, where the stairs were, she was horrified at what she found there; Chris was sitting on the La-Z-Boy chair in the corner of the room, playing with the all black cat that was resting on his lap and purring loudly. He was playing with her cat.

“Traitor,” she immediately shouted and glared at the pair of them. They both froze and looked at her. Chris looked confused, he was about to ask what she was talking about when the cat began to struggle against him and bit his finger when he wouldn’t let go.

“Ow,” he said watching the cat jump off him and run over to Aurora’s feet. The small cat walked behind her legs and poked its head out as if it was glaring at Chris as well. “What the hell got into him?” he asked, examining his now bleeding finger.

“Don’t go near him,” Aurora said, her eyes not leaving Chris.

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Chris replied, slightly angry. His finger was bleeding a lot; the cat had really sunk its teeth into him.

“Who said I was talking to you?” Aurora glared. She bent down to briefly scratch her cat behind the ears. “If he tries to touch you, Hun, you can bite him again or something. Be creative.” The cat started hissing in Chris’s direction. “Good Vincent. Come on, we’re going upstairs.” She opened her arms and Vincent jumped into them. He started purring as she lifted him up with her and brought him to her room.

Still sitting on the chair, Chris was confused as he looked at his wound. “That cat is vicious.”

“Vicious?” Liz asked, entering from the dining room. “Are you talking about Aurora’s sweet, little Vincent? I can’t believe we forgot to warn you about him,” she said, hand on her hip and her head tilted to the side. “You’re not allergic to cats, are you?”

“Sweet? How can that cat be sweet?”

“He’s sweet to her,” she said, walking over to him. “Oh,” she noticed Chris’ bleeding finger, “he bit you. Let’s go get that cleaned. I hope Vincent doesn’t have rabies…” she trailed off as she grabbed his injured hand and dragged him into the bathroom.

“R-rabies?” Chris asked.

“I’m just kidding. He doesn’t have rabies.” Opening the cabinet behind the mirror, she took out some disinfectant and poured it on a tissue and gently dabbed it over the bite mark. “I’m surprised Vincent actually let you get close enough for him to bite you.”

“I was playing with him and he seemed fine, until Aurora came in and got mad,” Chris responded, wincing slightly from the stinging of the disinfectant.

Liz stopped what she was doing and just stared up at Chris, her mouth hanging open. “You touched him? I mean, Vincent actually let you pet him? Are you serious?”

“Well yeah.”

Liz made a ‘humph’ noise and continued cleaning the bite. “That’s why Aurora got mad.”

“I don’t understand. What’s going on?” Chris asked.

Liz decided the bite was clean enough and she started to put everything away and take out a bandage to wrap around Chris’s finger. “You might not know this, but about a year ago, during the fall, there was a couple of days when Aurora disappeared.”

“I remember,” Chris said. “The school was alerted and all the teachers were so worried.”

“Yeah, we alerted the school and police to help find her; we thought she had run away,” Liz paused for a second, thinking back to that time and remembering how worried she had been. “Anyways, Aurora came home a few days later with a sleeping kitten in her arms. It turned out that she was talking care of the kitten in the forest behind our house, and coming back for food during the day when no one was home. We don’t really know exactly what she was doing but she was covered in scratches and bruises. Aurora begged my mother to keep the kitten, even thought Mom hates cats. Mom was just so happy to have her youngest daughter back that she agreed after a few minutes.

“And so, Vincent joined our little family, but he didn’t like anyone but Aurora. It’s as if that cat can actually understand what she tells him. Vincent won’t even let me pet him,” Liz finished with a sigh.

“So he doesn’t like any of you guys, but he likes me?” Chris asked, still confused.

“Apparently. I think you’re the first person he let get close to him since Aurora brought him home.”

~*~

When Aurora opened the door to her room, she let Vincent jump down from her arms and she followed him into the room. She sat down on her bed and laid down, her feet touching the headboard and her head at the end. She found a comfortable position with her pillow tucked under her chest and she patted the soft fabric of her quilt, motioning for Vincent to join her on the bed.

The small black cat jumped onto her bed with ease and sat down in front of Aurora looking guilty.

“I can’t believe you like him,” Aurora said looking at her one-year-old cat. She lazily lifted her hand to scratch behind his ears just the way he likes it, to show that she wasn’t really angry with him. “But really, Vinny, why him?”

Vincent mewed softly and pushed his head up against her scratching fingers.

“For once in your life, I don’t understand what you mean,” Aurora replied. It was true that she could communicate with her cat; it was as if Vincent could understand words and she could understand his mews and body language.

Vincent repeated the same ‘mew’ as he did earlier, but still Aurora didn’t understand at all what he meant. It was rare that they couldn’t understand each other; so rare in fact, that this was the first time.

“Oh well,” Aurora sighed and began stoking Vincent’s back. “Just stay away from him, ok?”

Vincent stopped purring and blinked at her.

“You know very well why,” Aurora said, ruffling his black fur a little. “He’s evil. Don’t you remember what he did to me?”

He tilted his head to the side, and mewed, looking curiously at Aurora.

“Oh right. I never told you. It happened before I found you,” she said, recalling the memory that she had desperately tried to forget.

~*~

“Pst. … Pst, Aurora,” she heard a voice call from the desk beside her. Curiously, Aurora looked from her work, over to the girl that was grinning evilly at her. She didn’t know why Melissa, one of the popular Italian kids at her school, would talk to her, but Aurora guessed she might want help with the homework or something.

“I know a secret,” the tanned girl said, pushing a piece of wavy, jet-black hair behind her ear. “A secret that involves you.”

Aurora’s dark blue eyes grew wide at what she heard, not completely understanding what Melissa was telling her. “What?”

“I know someone who likes you, silly,” the girl laughed at Aurora’s confusion. “And he’s going to ask you to the dance on Friday.”

Aurora frowned. Why did Melissa know this? Why was she even telling Aurora about it? The popular kids usually just ignore her, and when they’re not ignoring her, they’re making fun of her. “H-how do you know?”

“He told me,” Melissa said, tapping her pen against the cool surface of her desk. “He told me that he likes you.”

“Who?”

“Chris.”

Aurora frowned again. The only Chris she knew was … “Chris Giovanni?”

“Of course.”

~*~

Two days later, when Aurora was gathering her books from her locker and placing them in her bag, she felt a light tap on her shoulder. She turned only to stare at a chest for a second before she finally looked up into the face of none other than Chris Giovanni.

“Hi Aurora,” he said with a charming smile.

Honestly Aurora didn’t think he actually knew her name. “Uh, hi,” she said and returned to filling her bag with her homework.

Chris leaned against the locker beside her, just watching for a second. “Are you going to the dance tomorrow?”

Aurora paused, her heart stopped for a second. Was he really going to ask her? She thought that Melissa was just messing with her; there was no way someone as popular as Chris would ask someone like Aurora to the dance. Things didn’t work that way.

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Aurora said truthfully as she continued to pack her stuff. “Why?”

“Oh, I was just wondering if you wanted to go with me to the dance, no one else has asked you yet, right?”

Aurora’s mind was spinning. He just asked her. Chris Giovanni just asked her to the dance!

“Um, no, no one asked me …” Aurora trailed off nervously.

Chris smiled. “So you’ll go with me then right?”

“I guess,” Aurora said, trying to sound cool, but in reality, it felt like her heart was going to burst because it was beating so fast out of excitement and nervousness.

“Great,” Chris said. “Meet me in the gym at seven thirty. See you there.” He patted her on the shoulder as he walked away to the buses.

~*~

The next day couldn’t come sooner for Aurora. She couldn’t sit still in any of her classes and she was counting down the time until she was to meet Chris. The school’s dance actually started at seven, but they were meeting half an hour after it would start. He wanted to be fashionably late, she guessed.

After school had ended she went home and started getting ready immediately, even though it was only three thirty. She hopped into the shower to wash her hair and shave her legs. Everything had to be perfect, so she ended up shaving twice, just to make sure she didn’t miss a spot.

When she was done, she styled and blow-dried her, at the time, died dark blue hair. Then Aurora pulled out a skirt from her closet and dusted it off. She didn’t skirts, but her mother had insisted on buying it anyways, so Aurora might as well use it tonight. She found a nice gray low cut tank top that went well with the blue knee length skirt. After she was done dressing she started putting on some make-up; black eyeliner, silver eye shadow, waterproof mascara, and some shiny pink lip-gloss.

Finally, when Aurora was all set and ready to go, all she had to do was eat dinner and she was off to the dance. Her heart was pounding hard as she sat in the passenger seat as her mother was pulling into the school parking lot. She was really going through with this. And she was terrified.

She nervously stepped out of the car with her ticket in hand and thanked her mother for the drive and allowing her to go. Aurora began shaking as she walked through the front doors of the school and made her way down to the gym. She could already hear the song that was playing before she opened the first set of doors to the gym. Aurora paused for a second as she looked through the small windows on the doors into the dark room. She calmed herself down a bit listening to the music before she opened the doors and stepped in.

There were two teachers waiting to collect her ticket and stamp her hand on the other side. Aurora looked in awe at all the students dancing in the gym, some she recognized, and others she didn’t. The stage was set up with giant speakers and a DJ. There were different colours and patterns of lights coming from boxes on top of each speaker.

Aurora glanced down at her watch; it was exactly seven thirty. She waited a second before she ventured into the people dancing, looking for Chris, and it was another minute before she found him.

Aurora could feel her small heart breaking as she stood in the middle of the gym staring at Chris, whose eyes were closed, and lips pressed against Melissa’s. She didn’t know what to do and just as she was about to walk away, a student behind her, bumped into her and she was forced into the couple that were making out.

“Oh Aurora,” Melissa said over the music when her lips parted from Chris’. “You actually came, how sweet.” She gave Aurora her evil smile and continued has her arms wrapped around Chris’ waist, “Too bad he’s going out with me.”

Aurora couldn’t believe what she had heard. As tears ran down her face, she escaped from the gym as fast as her shaking legs would take her. She felt humiliated and stupid for believing that she had a chance with Chris. Of course he’d date someone like Melissa.

She found peace and quiet in the school’s library. Slowly as she opened the door, she walked to the back and hid herself between the shelves. Aurora sat on the floor and finally let the crying take over her. Her whole body was quivering, and she just let the tears flow. She swore to herself, as she sat alone and cried, that she’d never let this happen again. Aurora was never going to trust anyone ever again.

~*~

After remembering the horrible memory of the day of the dance, Aurora avoided everyone and stayed up in her room with Vincent for the rest of the day. She wouldn’t let her sister or her brother in, nor did she go downstairs when it was dinner time, but at about quarter after nine in the evening, her mother knocked on her door and let herself into her daughter’s room.

Mrs. Carson looked down at the girl, dimly lit by candlelight from the nightstand, lying down and lazily petting Vincent, and sighed. She walked over to the bed and sat down next to Aurora. “What’s wrong, Sweetie?” She asked, putting her hand on her daughter’s forehead to feel the temperature. “Are you sick, Dear?”

Oh great, Aurora thought. Her mother had switched from ‘clean freak’ mode into ‘overly motherly’ mode. Now her mother was going to try to act like a sweet little mother trying to talk care of her baby; Aurora just wanted to be alone.

“No, Mom, I’m fine,” Aurora mumbled. As soon as her mother had sat down on her bed, Vincent had jumped off and went to lie down in the corner, watching them, so Aurora couldn’t pet him anymore while her mother invaded her room.

“Why didn’t you come down for dinner, you haven’t eaten since this morning.”

“How much longer are they going to stay here?” Aurora asked, ignoring her mother’s question.

Mrs. Carson sighed again. “Is that was this is about? You don’t like Chris?”

“I don’t like either of them.”

“Mr. Giovanni is a gentleman and Chris is a sweet boy.”

“Ha,” Aurora said sarcastically as she sat up on her bed, finally looking at her mother. “That’s a lie and a half.”

“Aurora,” Mrs. Carson scolded.

“To you, he may be the cute and sweet little Italian boy, but to me, he’s a jerk.”

Mrs. Carson looked at her daughter for a second, waiting before she responded, “I never said I though he was cute.”

Aurora glared at her mother, catching her mistake and mentally kicking herself for it. Her cheeks flared up a bright red that could be easily noticed, even in the flickering candlelight.

“Alright, I’m sorry,” her mother apologized. She got off her daughter’s bed and walked over to the door, placing her hand on the knob. “But I expect you downstairs for breakfast tomorrow morning. I don’t want to here any more of this ‘I’m not hungry’ crap. You’re about to starve to death.” Mrs. Carson didn’t wait for a response from Aurora before she left the room and headed to her own.

~*~

AN: Well, I hope this chapter was long enough. I was told that my story sucks and that I'm forcing it by using Vincent, so I might not continue writing anymore. It's not that what has been said is really affecting me, but after hearing it, I just kinda lost the will to continue, you know? After being told that the story is really good and they can't wait to read the next chapter, and then having them say that it sucks half an hour later, will do that to you. I don't know. I may continue, I may not. It's really bumming me out to, because I thought that this was a half decent story and I couldn't wait to finish it. I even had plans for a sequel. But whatever.

Review if you want. I would appreciate people's honest oppinion of the story. Seriously. I want to know if people really think my story sucks, or it was just one person being a bitch.