Page 3 of Believe in Caloosa Springs

“I missed you s-o-o-o much,” she purred, her voice muffled by her face buried in my hair.

“I missed you, too.”

“When did you get your nose pierced again?” Mandy asked, letting me go and taking a step back to look me over.

I shrugged. “Like a year ago, or something.”

“Your hair is fading out, though. I have some dye, but I might be out of blue.”

“Do you have bleach?”

Mandy nodded. “I just got some magenta in the mail the other day. It’s what I’ve got underneath.” She turned around and flipped up her shoulder-length curls, exposing a hidden layer of fuchsia.

“Damn, that shit is bright.”

“I know!”

Ninety percent of my hair was jet-black, save a large chunk in the front that draped across my forehead and framed my face. Most recently, It had been blue, but things had been so hecticas I was preparing to leave Vegas, I hadn’t had time to get in to see my hair stylist before I left. It had long since begun to fade out, and the lime green from the time before that was starting to poke through. The overall combination was starting to look something akin to swamp-water. I needed an intervention.

“Are you hungry?” Mandy asked.

“Starving!”

“Do you want to run down and grab a bite at Cassie’s, or just chill and order a pizza?”

“Wait… you guys finally have a pizza place?”

“Well, technically it’s still Cassie’s. Last year, Sam helped Cassie expand and revive the menu. Part of that included building a large brick oven in the back so they could start making pizzas.”

“I thought Sam was the sheriff?”

“No, that's Wyatt, Sam’s husband.”

“Oh, well, whatever. Do they deliver?”

“Only Thursday through Sunday.”

“I’ve never been so happy for it to be Thursday,” I mused.

Mandy helped me carry my suitcases into the house she’d lived in for as long as I could remember. Her parents had moved to this little nothing place when Mandy was a young teenager. None of us could figure out why they’d chosen to go way out here in the middle of nowhere. After four or five years, they had decided the winters were too cold for them as they approached retirement and decided to move down to Florida. Mandy, being 18 at that point, had chosen to stay. She had a job and managed to convince the property owner to let her continue to rent thehouse. He’d agreed, and the rest was history. Er,herstory,I guess.

She opened the matte-black front door and led me through the entryway and into the living room.

Oh my god, it looked so cozy. Mandy had painted the walls a dark, inky green, casting the room into shadow. Dimly lit bronze sconces dispersed enough light to illuminate the room without being overbearing. The floor boards had been stained dark, and the heather gray sofa and loveseat adjacent to each other made a nice contrast against the floors and wall.

On the small wrought-iron-and-glass coffee table sat a pair of ornamental pearlescent skulls set between two pewter candlesticks, each supporting a long green taper.

“It’s gorgeous in here,” I told her, taking a look around the room. There were creepy-cool Victorian portraits hung on the wall in antique gold frames, like it was Dracula’s pool house. “I’m impressed. It wasn’t nearly this cool the last time I was here.”

“Well, the old guy who owned the house died. There was no one to come claim it, so I’ve just been continuing to pay the taxes. As long as I do, I imagine the house is as good as mine. Without having to pay him rent every month, I was able to just stack it away and start remodeling and making it into my own little goth paradise.”

“I’ve never been more proud of you,” I gushed.

Mandy laughed, and I followed her down the hallway towards the spare bedroom. She stopped just outside the door and turned to me. “When you told me that you were finally coming to stay with me like I have beenbeggingyou for years, I was so excited that I made you something…”

“You mademesomething?” I asked excitedly. There was no other human on the planet that got me the way Mandy did, so any gift from her was always spot-on.

“Yeah, kinda. I did the same thing in my bedroom last year, and I’ve been obsessed with it. I thought you would like it too.” Mandy opened the door and entered the room.

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