The bell rang, signalling the end of the school day. Sasha stepped outside, feeling the cool air, signalling the coming of autumn. She was glad to be out of the school building. She had a good feeling she did well on her test. Now the rest of the day was hers.
"E-Excuse me. Sasha?" said a timed voice.
Sasha turned to see the boy that had given will the slip that morning. He had a backpack that seemed to be filled to the brim. She had no idea what he wanted to talk to her for. Though, he was new here.
"Yeah?" she said, narrowing her eyes at him. "What do you want?"
The boy, Jake, dug his toe in the ground. "I, uh, need to talk to you. Privately."
Sasha looked at the boy quizzically. He was a strange one, that was for sure. Nobody ever just came up and talked to her like that. It was actually sort of refreshing to have people talk to her without her threatening them first. She was in a good mood, so she nodded and followed the boy around the corner. She briefly considered that he might be leading her into an ambush as repayment for Will's treatment of him, but she threw the thought aside. She could do without the paranoia.
Jake stood there a moment, as if trying to figure out what to say to the girl.
"M-My name's Jake," he said eventually. "Uh, there was... an incident with a bully this morning," he said, haltingly.
Sasha nodded. "Yeah, yeah. You and Will. I was there for that. Listen, I've got plans for today, but you caught me in a good mood. Just say what you gotta say, and get out of my way."
Jake suddenly looked determined. He screwed up his face, took a deep breath and blurted out what sounded at first like a long stream of nonsense. "I cast a curse on your boyfriend now he's getting bigger and older and it's all my fault and I need your help to stop it!"
Sasha blinked. "What?"
"Well," Jake continued, "my grandmother taught me some ancient magic curses in case I ran into trouble. A-And I did, so I threw a curse on Will. But I wasn't thinking clearly and it got out of hand. Now I don't know what's going to happen so..."
He paused as he pulled his backpack off and unzipped it, revealing an eclectic mix. There were jars of mayonnaise, a handful of metal forks, several long candles wrapped up so as not to break, several bags of potpourri, a bag of salt, and a shoebox that smelled of dead rat.
"So," he continued, "I need to perform a counter-curse to set things back to normal. But I have to have him present to do it. Since he'd probably murder me the next time he saw me, I was hoping you'd convince him to do it. Y-You know so, uh, he doesn't, uh..."
Jake trailed off. He was looking at the ground, not meeting Sasha's eyes. Sasha wasn't sure what to think. The boy was obviously nuts. She actually felt kind of sorry for him, going through all this work.
"Listen, kid," said Sasha. "Jake, I don't know whatever voodoo religion your parents brought you up on, but you need to tone the crazy back a bit. If you want my advice, just stay away from Will for a few days. He'll cool off eventually. He always does. Now I gotta go. Have fun with your little fantasy land or whatever." Sasha turned to leave.
"Wait!" Jake yelled after her. "You gotta wait! It's all true! If you don't believe me, just-" Jake reached out and grabbed Sasha by the arm desperately.
Sasha immediately stiffened. She spun around and grabbed Jake by the arm and twisted it behind his back. "That's it!" she growled. "Nobody touches me!" Using the leverage of Jake's arm, Sasha marched him over to a nearby dumpster. She then pick him up by the seat of his pants and the collar of his shirt and hauled him in. She then grabbed Jake's pack and emptied the contents directly onto his head.
"Listen, you fucking lunatic," Sasha snapped angrily, "I want nothing to do with whatever little game you're playing. I'm going to go home and forget this ever happened, alright? If you EVER talk to me again, I won't be as nice as I was here." With that, Sasha turned and stormed off. Jake was too stunned to try and stop her.
As she took her bike off the rack, Sasha felt her phone vibrate. She checked it and saw she had gotten a text message from Will. It read: "GUYZ, MEET ME @ TEH SPOT @ SUNDOWN - Will"
The spot was a derelict gas station the group met at before trolling the streets, egging houses or what have you. Sasha texted back "K, c u there" and began biking home. The incident with Jake bugged her, still. She tried to push it out of her mind. She just wanted to relax with her friends. Was that too much to ask?
______________________________________________
The sun was setting. Sasha was at the spot, along with Dave and Ross, just as Will had asked them to be. Will was not there, not yet. It was just the three of them. Sasha stood alone, was Dave and Ross talked and laughed together about some delinquency they had performed at some point. Sasha had found herself growing distant from the boys. Though she would have laughed along with them in years past, she realized she wanted something... more out of her relationships. Dave and Ross were all right, in a sort of slack jawed bleary-eyed way. But now she was about to move on to high school, and she had a future to think about.
"Dammit, where the fuck is he?" she asked out loud.
Dave and Ross exchanged glances and shrugged.
"A better question," said Dave, smirking, "is what were you doing with that Gyp, earlier?"
Sasha glared at the boys. "What, are you spying on me?"
Dave merely grinned. Sasha wanted to punch his face in, but she knew Ross would take Dave's side and she couldn't take both of them.
"It's none of your business," she muttered. "Who cares about 'Gyps' anymore, anyway?"
Ross nudged Dave and pointed off down the road. Dave and Sasha turned to see a figure riding a bike toward them. Sasha thought it was Will at first, but as the figure drew near, she could see the rider was too tall to be Will. Though, that did look to be Will's bike, but it was difficult to tell at this distance with the sun setting.
As the rider drew even nearer, Sasha could see it looked to be a guy fresh in his twenties, about her older brother's age. He had a pair of sideburns and a goatee. Oddly, he bore a striking resemblance to Will. She couldn't recall him having an older brother of this age. And why would he be riding Will's bike?
The man rode up to the three delinquents and hopped off the bike. There was a box tied to the back of it. "Hey, fuckers!" the man said, a big, familiar grin on his face.
Dave crossed his arms and glared at the newcomer. "What do you want?"
The man ignored Dave and addressed the three kids. "You guys are never going to believe what happened to me!" he said excitedly. He gestured at himself and turned a slow circle, as if showing himself off. All Sasha could see was a moderately hairy man in his early twenties who looked like he could be closely related to Will. "Well?" asked the man. "What do you think?"
Dave turned to Ross. "I think we should split," he said, grabbing for his own bike.
"Oh, come on guys!" the man said. "It's me. Will!"
"What?" said Dave, incredulously. "You're fucked up, man. We're out of here. Come on, Ross."
Sill, there was something about the man. Sasha noted he was wearing the same clothes Will had earlier that day, if in a larger size. She thought back to Jake, the Gypsy kid. Either this was an extremely elaborate ruse or...
"Prove it," she said, arms crossed and giving her best quirked eyebrow.
"Uh, okay..." The man fumbled in his back pocket and pulled out Will's wallet. He flipped it open and showed Will's student ID. "What's that tell you?"
Dave and Ross stopped and peered at the wallet. Their eyes were wide and they looked closely at the man.
Sasha sneered. "All that tells me is that you have Will's wallet. I need more than that."
"Uhm, hmmm." The man put a finger to his fuzzy chin, thinking. "Ask me something only I would know."
"Where," said Sasha, anticipating this, "did Will and I first make out?"
The man smirked. "Seventh grade. Right after Miss Witherby's class. We went out the door behind the shop class and snuck out behind the tool shed. We were there for the whole period."
A chill ran down Sasha's spine. There was no way. This was impossible. It could still be a trick, a really, REALLY good trick.
"Alright," she said slowly. "Let's say I believe you. How..." She gestured at Will. "Just... how?"
Will laughed and shrugged. "I don't know, and I don't really care. All I know is nobody can tell me what to do anymore. Check this out!" Will pulled back his sleeve to reveal a flaming skull tattoo on his hairy bicep. Dave and Ross seemed to think it was the coolest thing ever.
"Whoa!" said Dave. "Sick! Nice tat! Ha! You even have arm hair. And a beard!"
Will rubbed his goatee, still grinning, enjoying the attention. "I brought some stuff for you guys," he said, uniting the box form his bike. He set it down and opened it, revealing a six-pack of bottled beer and a nice looking wooden box. "Help yourselves," he said.
Dave and Ross hooted and pulled out a couple bottles each. Will handed one to Sasha, who took it but didn't open it.
"Dude! You can totally buy us beer, now!" said Dave, eagerly opening one of his bottles.
"Not unless you have an actual ID," Sasha said. "I don't think that student ID is going to cut it anymore."
"Quit harshing the buzz," Dave muttered.
Will opened the wooden box, revealing several high quality cigars stolen from his dad's bedroom. He pulled one out and clumsily used a cigar cutter to slice the end off.
"Oh, man, can I have one?" Dave asked eagerly.
Will had the cigar in his mouth and was attempting to light it with an uncooperative BIC lighter. "Hold on a fuckin' minute," he muttered, the cigar in his teeth.
Sasha merely watched. She wasn't quite sure how to feel about all this, yet. If this man was Will, what did that mean for their relationship?
Will eventually lit the end of his cigar. He had seen his dad do this on occasion, so he attempted to puff on the thing to get it started. He almost immediately began coughing. This things had some bite! Not like the cheap cigarettes he usually smoked. However, after a few puffs he grew used to it.
Dave was still reaching greedily for a cigar, so Will handed him one, the cutter, and the lighter. "Go fuckin' nuts."
Sasha watched Will nurse his cigar and talk to Dave and Ross about how cool it was to be an adult now. Then she noticed something. Subtle changes seemed to encompass Will. Indeed, the curse once again took hold, and Will began aging from twenty-one to twenty-four. A subtle change, to be sure, but Sasha noticed small things. Will's face grew a bit more mature, his cheekbones becoming the slightest bit more prominent, as well as his brow. The curse seemed to affect another aspect of Will's as well. A slight curve appeared at Will's stomach, and he put on a little weight, around twenty pounds or so. The underside of his chin softened slightly and drooped, and his cheeks filled out ever so slightly. The musculature on his partially exposed biceps seemed to soften as well. Any other changes were so subtle they were not to be noticed.
Sasha stared for a moment, trying to comprehend what she had seen. Will must have noticed because and smirked and turned to her.
"So," he said. "Like what you see?"
The fact the Will, a man now in his mid-twenties was flirting with Sasha, a thirteen year old girl, made her feel kind of disgusted. She realized that Will probably didn't realize what he was doing, but that didn't make it any better.
"Will," she said. "Just how long is this supposed to last for? How old is this going to make you?"
Will shrugged and puffed on his cigar. "Oh, come on. Don't question it. Just let it happen. It's all good."
Sasha glanced at the slight curve at Will's stomach. "Okay..."