Wicked - 3. Kyle 2

Something was spooking me and I refused to believe it was Marie's reading. I refused to believe I was cursed. And yet Monday had been off, there was no other way to put it. Tuesday morning I stepped outside to get the mail and across the road, behind a side-gate a black Great Dane was barking incessantly – at me. Something about it was hauntingly transfixing; I scurried quickly back into the house.

My parents were in the kitchen. Dad in his suit by the granite counter-top, typing a work email on his blackberry. In front of him sat a pink grapefruit and little spoon, his breakfast. Mum was adding fruit and yogurt to her blended smoothie. She was also dressed to leave for work, two jewel earrings flashing as she raised her head.

"Want a breakfast smoothie, Kyle?" Whenever they spoke to me it was always just a few tones off scolding.

"No thanks, I'll just grab an apple later."

"Have a good day at school, champ." Dad raised his face "Do your best."

"I hope so."

"You will, you're a Thorburn."

I went back upstairs to my room, recognizing the concern on my face in the full-length mirror. The poster beside it was Fargo, an acclaimed 1996 film that was made by two brothers, Joel and Ethan Coen. I had nothing in common with any of my brothers, we were as different as different could be. It was one thing to be the black sheep of the family, but... No, I stopped myself.

Self-pity didn't do any good. I'd find some kind of job after school that hopefully paid enough, allowing me to move out somewhere. Sitting on my bed with a sigh I instead thought about Marie Humberdross's psychic reading.

After she told me a slighted lover had done black magic on me I'd wanted to leave. I'd not left fast enough to miss the pitying looks in her eyes. She knew I didn't believe in magic so she couldn't help me. Her expression said it all: she thought I was a dead man walking.

The main issue I have with her reading though... is that I don't have any slighted ex-lovers. The only relationship I'd ever had was with a twenty-year-old guy called Ethan Bowings. If you could call what we had a relationship. It was a pathetic, three-month long affair in which he cheated on me at the end and lost interest. I didn't feel we were compatible anyway. But regardless I'd not done anything to Ethan, and cheating aside it ended fairly amiably. Or at the very least, there was no vicious hurling of insults and anger. Apart from my initial reaction to his betrayal. But we'd split and that was that.

If Ethan felt anything for me it was perhaps guilt – though I didn't expect he felt even that. I can't see how he'd feel any malevolence toward me. He was a cashier in a dollar store, he was obsessed with Pokémon games and toys. A typical man-kid. He was annoying, actually.

Apart from Ethan I've had conversations with boys over dating apps, one or two I gave my number and there was back-and-forth for some months but nothing eventuated. I was ghosted or given the toss. My dating life was appalling, but I had too many other things to focus on. Study, work and family. With a toxic self-image like mine, I couldn't help thinking nobody would ever want me and that I shouldn't expect them to.

In the same way that I couldn't imagine anyone liking me – as uninteresting and underwhelming as I am – I also couldn't imagine anyone disliking me enough to put a curse on me.

Slighted lover, I thought as I slung my bag over my back when it was time to go. Heading down the stairs and into the garage. I'd been raised to be well-mannered and polite, aside from that I was naturally conscientious. I couldn't imagine slighting anyone without realizing.

Dad's Holden commodore and Mum's Toyota Yaris was gone. At the end of the long concrete space, by the workbench was my white Mitsubishi Lancer. A gift after I got my license, but a second-hand one considering my grades at the time had been far from satisfactory. I was just happy I didn't have to take the bus.

The electric garage door slowly wound itself up with a screech, after reversing I got out to thumb the button then slip back under and outside. Checking for that neighbor's dog but it wasn't there. Instead a fly buzzed past my ear and it was somehow just as ominous. I got in the car and pulled out onto the road. It's nothing, you're probably still upset by Grandad's funeral. I drove to school.

I didn't have roll call with Kim, instead I sat beside an old friend after the first bell rang. Brody Dawson was a people person, shaved-headed and sporty. Our teacher wasn't paying attention to the class, face red with hay fever allergies as she pawed at her tissue box. As I reached the table Brody leant on the side legs of his chair, angling toward me.

"Did you see the latest Marvel movie?" Frost-blue eyes. With his shorn hair he reminded me of a marine in the making.

"Of course not."

"That's my line. Of course you didn't." his chair fell flat and I took my seat beside him.

Brody was a movie buff too, only he loved superhero movies. He saw every single one of them at the closest iMax stadium theatre on their first day release. He had no taste for anything before the 2000s, before CGI was good. As he'd say.

Brody was one of the people I'd come out to as gay. It was years ago. Brody was swept away by a moment of bi-curiosity when we had a sleepover. Nothing was done apart from sleeping in the same bed together and cuddling. But it was the gentle disposition he'd treated me with that night. Upon waking he'd sat on the edge of our makeshift bed-fort in his living room, said to me 'you know I'm straight right?' and that bi-curiosity never came over him again. Just a momentary breeze that came and went. Since then he'd had a few girlfriends. At least it meant he was okay with his friend being gay.

I'd had a crush on him since, but knew nothing would ever come of it. Sometimes I wondered if Brody knew and liked that I had a crush on him, he treated me with the same friendliness he treated girls in our class.

Announcements started and then roll call was taken; I side-eyed my desk-mate. Was he secretly obsessed with me and a practitioner of dark magic? What a dumb thing to think. Brody stared forward while bouncing his knee. I turned away and rested my face in my hand. Nobody is out to get me, I'm not going to entertain the thought anymore.

Afterwards I had General Maths with my best friend Kim. I'd only joined the class a week ago after having to drop down, but was glad to have her company. Not being left alone to deal with spitball-shooting and paper-airplane-throwing General kids. Mr Steele was the teacher, a man in his thirties with grey flecks in his hair. Apart from the sport teachers he was probably the hottest faculty member in Brine High so no complaints there. Most of my class was lined up outside the door. I stopped by the metal drinking fountain to wet my mouth before joining the line behind Kim. Beside us multi-colored papers were taped to the glass. A wall clock overhead could be heard ticking on the opposite side of the corridor.

"Hey Kyle." One of the classmates Kim was talking to, a musician boy called Jesse noticed me. Kim and her other friend turned.

"Hey."

"Did you do the homework?"

"Yeah. Wasn't hard, there was just a lot of it."

"Nice, man." Jesse nodded. He was kind of weird, one of those people who look right at you without blinking. As if he found our conversations fascinating. It made me wonder what was going on inside his head. Maybe he knew I was gay and so that fascinated him for some weird reason. His eyes were a thin band of blue around dilated pupils.

"Ugh I hate this class," Kim complained, her shoulders going slack "Mr Steele gives us way too much homework!"

After that the school day passed with little event, except for the fact I was more depressed and anxious than usual. I was chalking that up to my recent strokes of bad luck – and by bad luck I mean a series of random coincidences. When in Physics, sitting through a confusing lesson on the equations of angular momentum, I could hear popular kids in the front row gossiping about an upcoming beach party this weekend.

Those well-groomed and manicured beachside mansion kids annoyed me. Speaking in drawls about overseas trips in the middle of the year. Self-entitled, spoiled and sour. The parents had enough money to pay for weekly anger management sessions their bossy kids needed after getting exactly what they wanted a few too many times. Luckily I wasn't friends with any of them, staying clear of their elitist circles.

My final class was Drama, an elective. I hated being on stage and performing, but I was absolutely fascinated by lighting work, backstage tech stuff and the process of screen-writing. Acting in front of others was something I loathed, I much preferred working quietly and effectively behind the scenes. Dutifully organizing all the tasks we were given without bossing anyone, keeping everything running smoothly.

At the end of the day Kim invited me to watch movies at hers with a couple of friends. I declined, our taste in films were also vastly different – Kim liked Harry Potter and fantasy, romantic comedies, also sad emotional films that were bizarrely designed to make its viewers cry. I needed to study anyway. But afterwards I promised to send her a message if I wasn't doing anything else. Kim traversed the student parking lot to her blue Honda Accord. There were a few flashy vehicles in the lot, roaring to life with racecar engines. My white Mitsubishi Lancer sat humbly in its spot, I hopped inside and the little crystal on the rearview mirror scattered tiny rainbows along my dashboard. Starting up and turning the aircon dial, following student traffic after I'd sat for a while and rid my car of the day's heat, exiting out onto the road.

On my way home I could see builders hard at work doing exterior renovations on someone's house. I stared out at them as I made my way around the strip of road, then somehow my car stalled. It stopped right in front of the house, all the lights in the gearbox flashing. I struggled with the stick and heard a shout. Uphill there was some kind of accident, a pair of men were struggling with an appliance and it fell into the side of their Ute, breaking the locking mechanism on a strap, a series of pipes slid down and off, bouncing across the cement driveway. I unclasped my seatbelt and flung myself out the door and onto the road as one of the pipes arched over and speared the glass of my driver's window and the space my head had been.

The rest of the poles slid to a stop beside me as vibrating tubes of metal. Little pieces of glass had showered my head and body as I sat breathing, eyes bloated. From beyond the neighboring hedge my vision alighted on a black Dobermann dog that was watching me with pricked ears, it turned and skulked away.

I was in shock, soon the workers were rushing toward me and yelling if I was alright. A flurry of panic and concern, I was dazed for a long minute but then my hands started shaking. One of the men drove my car and parked it off the road after extracting the pipe. There were apologies and phone-calls, insurance information exchanged.

"It was a freak accident," it was the overseer, a portly sun-tanned man with the red nose of a drinker "But why were you parked like that in the middle of the road?"

I didn't call my parents first. I sat on the grass under the wide shade of a tree and rested my back against a brick wall holding the mailboxes of several tenants. I decided to call Kim and she answered on the second try, probably just got home or out buying snacks in the supermarket for her movie marathon.

"Hello?"

"Kim, I literally almost died just now." I breathed into the receiver.

"What? What the hell happened?"

I stared out at my car and tried to describe everything as coherently as possible, my heavy breathing made it difficult. After I did Kim was silent. I ran fingers through my hair, the shakes hadn't stopped.

"What I saw... goes beyond bad luck." I couldn't stop thinking about it, I almost died. "Do you really think what Marie said is true? I have a slighted lover out there, a very evil person who wants me dead?"

"Well... do you?" her tone implied I might be hiding something from her.

"Of course not!"

"Yeah I know, I know, I believe you. I was actually skeptical too when Marie told you that. You're not a bad guy... actually you're a very decent and helpful guy. You're quiet. And I can't imagine anyone you could've pissed off that much."

"Is this supposed to be magic? Did someone make a voodoo doll of me or something?" When I thought of the kind of magic preteen girls got into I imagined them lighting candles at night on a full moon, speaking in silly poems to some pagan nature deity. I had no concept of the type of magic that people out there actually took seriously, I didn't know what it was apart from bizarre rituals for self-hypnotism. It didn't compute. "Have you ever done magic?"

"Not successfully," Kim admitted "But I did read a book on wicca. Marie once told me I had magic from my Grandmother's side of the family."

"Well whoever's doing this to me is clearly mad about something. I'm going to meet up with Ethan, my ex-boyfriend. I really don't think it's him but I also don't know anyone else it could be."

"That's a good idea, Kyle. Do you need me to pick you up?"

"No... I got to call my parents for that. The car doesn't seem damaged apart from the window, but I'm too shaken up to drive."

"Okay..." she paused for a thoughtful moment. "This person, this curse energy that Marie described... it doesn't sound like wicca. It sounds like the heavy-duty satanic occultist stuff, the stuff people are supposed to stay away from." She paused and I swallowed "Good luck though! Call me afterwards!"

Mum had been home early while Dad had to leave a work meeting. Both my parents drove to where I was and after sitting in the back of Dad's Holden commodore I could hear him yelling at the construction men, loud enough for everyone by the street to hear. I knew my interrogation would come afterward, I wound my window down at his approach while Mum sat patiently with her phone in the passenger side.

"What happened to the car?" he demanded "Those idiots said it's fine and it seems to be working now."

"I don't know, Dad. It stalled or something and the gearbox was lighting up."

"Has that ever happened before?"

"No."

"Did you remember to get the car serviced last month like I told you to?"

"Yes. I don't know what happened. They said it was a freak accident."

"I'll say..." he huffed and looked aside, hands on his waist. "I ought to sue them for this. Work health and safety policies. What a complete bunch of idiots!"

Mum lowered her phone "Honey the Bachelor is starting soon. You mind driving Kyle's car back and I'll drive yours?"

"Yeah, yeah. Did you get their insurance and contact information?" Dad asked me again.

"Yes."

"Did you take pictures?"

"No... I'm still shaken up about it Dad..."

"Oh honey," Mum turned and rested a hand on my shoulder, her rings flashing "I'll make you up a nice banana blueberry smoothie when we get home."

We left after that but I didn't stay home for the smoothie. I left Mum to her program and Dad to his phone calls, making my way on foot to the dollar store where my ex-boyfriend used to work. I could've sent him a Facebook message, but he might misunderstand the reason I want to get in touch again. Or he could outright ignore me. Kim would be keeping tabs on her phone but if I asked her for a lift it'd ruin her movie marathon. Obviously this should be more important than a movie marathon, but I still chronically detested being a burden to my friends and family. Ridiculous.

It was also ridiculous to consider I was in danger of black magic, yet here I was now in casual clothes, sweating and walking to the shop street this sunny afternoon. Getting up the steep hills in my sneakers was painstaking, but the wide blue ocean views all over Brine was enough to convince frequent dog-walkers to be out and about.

In fifteen minutes I was down by the shops. The doors to the dollar store slid open and I fanned the air out beneath my shirt, internally groaning with relief at the aircon. In here there were tall shelves full of knickknacks and Christmas decorations were presented already, even considering the date was over a month away. The lone cashier was a teenage girl with a face full of freckles, wearing light-up reindeer horns on a hairband. We were the only ones in the shop, she stared when I walked over to her.

"Excuse me, does Ethan Bowings still work here?"

"Uh, he's not in today."

"I'm an old friend of his. I need to speak to him about something important."

"Have you tried calling?"

"He must have changed his number. Can you tell him I want to talk when you next see him? I'm Kyle Thorburn."

"I know he's working closing shift on Thursday. You can come in then."

"Thank you, I will."

I turned away, hesitated before reluctantly making my way out the air-conditioned shop and back under the afternoon sun.