The Song in the Squall by Nathan Singer

Author:Nathan Singer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Down & Out Books

For the next several days, Dya stayed home from school in order to perpetuate the ruse that she had significantly injured herself on the rocks. Mary Louise recommended, in the interest of consistency, that Dya try to limp or hop on one foot even when they were alone in the apartment. Dya tried her best, but it felt ludicrous, and often only did so when Mary Louise was looking.

One evening, as Dya lay on the living room couch reading, the ground floor doorbell chimed. Jumping up, she headed quickly over to the door before it rang again.

“Hello?” she said quietly into the intercom.

“Hey, Dy. It’s Malik. I’ve got your homework.”

“I’ll buzz you up.”

She hit the unlock button for the downstairs door and immediately realized her mistake.

Oh, damn it!

She wasn’t wearing the bandage around her foot, and in the time it would take to retrieve it from her bedroom and wrap her foot convincingly Malik would already be up the stairs. Indeed, in less than half a minute he knocked, and then walked in. She hobbled to the couch and eased herself into a sitting position, feigning a slight wince of pain in the process.

“How you feeling, girl?” Malik asked, dropping a handful of folders and a DVD on the counter of the kitchenette.

“It’s still pretty sore,” she said in a soft voice, “but nothing’s broken. I’ll be fine.”

“Where’s Mary Louise?”

“She had to lie down. She gets bad migraines sometimes. Has since she was a little girl. Apparently.”

“Ah, that sucks,” Malik said, also lowering his voice. “Hope she’s okay. Jesus, this is the house of pain up in here.”

“Just needs time. All will be well. Thanks for bringing that stuff.”

“No problem. Sarah gathered up most of it. I also dug out this old bootleg I transferred to DVD of the late, great Layne Staley playing with Alice In Chains. He’s got a broken leg in the video, but he still manages to totally bring it live. I thought it might be, like, an inspiration or something.”

“Thank you, I can’t wait to watch it! I’m sure I’ll be fine for the show, though. So Mal…” she said with a wry little grin, “I couldn’t help but notice that you’re wearing my blood.”

Malik was in fact wearing the same green flannel shirt he wore the day of Dya’s accident on the rocks.

He laughed. “Pretty metal, right? I tried to ZOUT it out, but it seems to have just locked it in further. Oh well, I don’t have a lot of shirts, and it’s one of my favorites, so why not. What’s a little splattered blood between friends?” Dya giggled. “Now see, Dy, I would kinda assume, that instead of giggling at that, most girls would be a bit weirded out by it.”

“Well, you do realize that I’m not like most girls, yes?”

They both laughed.

“True that, true that. So let me see how your war wound is doing.”

She couldn’t exact say no, as her bare foot was right there resting on the coffee table.

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