c h a p t e r t w o .
Roman Godfrey
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ROMAN WAS COMPLETELY UNBOTHERED BY the smell of alcohol and cigarettes that permeated the air in Jude's room. He took the joint from her fingers like it had become his second nature, having become well-adjusted to the familiar routine after years of friendship.
Roman was splayed out on her bed as if it were his, his eyes absent-mindedly drifting from her to the television and off into orbit again.
Jude was sitting on the couch, her fiery hair braided over her shoulder, her freckled skin glowing in the light of sunset through the window. She was wearing a soft pale green cotton sweater and her cloud-print pyjama shorts. Coiled in her lap like a frail old lady, was an elderly French bulldog, snoring like a faulty engine with a face only a mother could love.
"Are you ever embarrassed?" he asked.
"Of what?" she tilted her head, her eyes glued to her phone as she scrolled through unread text messages. He noticed frown lines on her forehead as she focused on an unsaved number.
"Of owning such an ugly dog."
Roman didn't hate Minnie. Not really, but he would never admit to his unyielding love for that raggedy abomination out loud.
"If you're going to be mean to my comfort animal I will send my foot into your balls so hard it will end your bloodline," she warned him. She was joking of course, he could see it in the way she tried and miserably failed to keep a straight face.
"Comfort animal or biological weapon?" Roman snorted.
"You're horrid," she shook her head, picking up a throw pillow and hurling it in his direction. He caught it just before it could hit him in the face and ruin his princely soft brown hair, a grin flashing across his lips.
She was right and Roman was horrid. In more ways than one. In more ways than he wanted to admit, even though with her he never even needed to. The thought made him frown. Time spent puffing on cigarettes and inhaling obscene amounts of cocaine and fucking cheerleaders in his car was nothing compared to the moments where Jude could make him stop and think. To say he still wasn't a shallow and arrogant bastard around her would have been a lie, but he did care about her and he did love spending time with her. Loved.
A warm draft slid inside through the open window beside the bed, brushing the nape of Roman's neck and spoiling the impressive spiral of smoke from the joint. It was dark out now as the sky seemed to vanish, all colour swallowed by the void of starless night. Something rang out through the trees, like distorted barking mixed with a scream. It chilled him more than he cared to admit when he finally heard the sound drifting closer to the tree line.
"That's a deer, you stupid idiot" Jude laughed warmly as she caught him staring out the window with poorly concealed terror. "They do that all the time. Pretty spooky huh?"
Spooky didn't explain the way the unease felt like bugs crawling beneath his skin. He didn't find himself spooked very often, not unless he got that gut feeling.
His eyes stayed trained to the window.
"You want something to eat? I think I'll eat you if I don't eat something now," Roman changed the subject to one he deemed more urgent, mostly in an attempt to comfort himself.
"Is that you offering to bring me food? And not the other way around? You- Roman Godfrey?"
"Do you want something or not?"
"What about pizza?" she asked.
Jude had a way of making suggestions that weren't really suggestions, but in fact, were the word of law expected to be followed lest one find themselves excommunicated from her graces. Or maybe she was only like that with Roman.
"Of course your fat ass wants pizza. Let's order and I'll go pick it up. Now hand me the dog."
"What are your intentions with my daughter?" she eyed him dubiously. Minnie's eyes drifted in opposite directions as she raised her head to look at him. He was uncertain if she was seeing his face or if she could only see the space either side of him.
"I'm going to punt her across the trailer park" he said. "I'm going to take her for a drive. She'll probably die before she sees that kind of luxury if I don't"
Roman just wanted to spend time with the dog.
"Jokes on you she's immortal."
After much discourse over what toppings to order, Roman picked Minnie up in his arms, because he didn't even know if she could walk without crumbling to dust and floating away in the wind, got into his car and drove to pick up a pizza.
The day after that Jude wasn't at school.
It wasn't as out of the ordinary for her, but it was a bit annoying for him to sit by himself surrounded by other people pretending to be his friends for the benefit of his immaculate godly image.
But she wasn't at school the day after that either. And, what's more, she hadn't said a word to him. No texts, no calls- and no answer when he called her.
Then Judith Evergreen was reported missing and then Roman didn't go to school for days. He stayed in bed most of the time, only getting up to rifle through piles of clothes to find spare packets of cigarettes once a couple days turned into weeks. His mother came to his bedside and offered comfort and coaxed him to eat, despite having not been afraid to show her disdain for Jude the trailer-dwelling junkie [as Olivia would often call her].
Nothing worked to fill the void that Jude's disappearance had ripped open inside his soul. Numbness wriggled beneath his skin and bathed him in despair.
When he did go back to school, people looked. People talked.
They talked about Roman. They talked about Jude which was more than any of them had ever even thought about her. They talked about the new boy Peter who was a Gypsy. They talked about how Christina Wendall in a few grades below him started a rumour that he was a werewolf. Roman mentioned the boy to his mother whose disdain for Peter's kind became suddenly animated and so he refrained from mentioning it again.
He wondered what exactly it was that Olivia knew about the Rumanceks.
The first thing his cousin Letha did when she saw him was fly into his arms. Her blonde hair bounced as she ran to him and practically crushed him. She had always liked Jude.
No one had liked her more than Roman.
He didn't show it in public, but it ached to not have his funny red-head companion at his lunch table, or belting her stupid crappy indie music in his car, or coming over to his house to drink all his liquor and explore his absolute maze of an estate. No more cuddles with Minnie, who sat on the couch waiting until she couldn't wait any more.
Roman had gone to the trailer to check on her, Lance Evergreen passed out on the couch as always, and had been the one to find her.
Jude was gone and Minnie knew it. Roman knew it too. He knew exactly how the old crone must have felt. He buried her somewhere nice and finally allowed himself to cry.
Olivia broke the news to him the morning the body was found a month later.
She sweetened her words and spoke to him like a child, sugary sympathetic and fake but he didn't care. At first he stopped breathing. He sat still, the only sound in the room the rapid beating of his own frantic, fractured heart. Then he breathed but it was sharp and painful and tragic and suddenly he wished he hadn't let the air in. It was the first time since he was a child that Roman wept into his mother's arms- right where she wanted him.
A week passed. He did not attend the funeral.