Courageous Love - Jerry Cole Page 0,19

about if he really did have powers or whatever. I tried to tell them no but I think most of them are here to see if he does or not.”

Maybe that was a step in the right direction?

“Hey grave man?” a younger kid looked up at Cecil and my ears burned listening to them.

“Yes?” Cecil said timidly.

“Why is your hair like that?” he asked pointing at Cecil’s shockingly white hair. Honestly, I wondered that too.

“I dyed it that way. My hair was pretty light already and I liked the color in some pictures I saw,” he said as casually as he could. I could still hear some wavering in his voice.

“Oh.” The kid frowned. “My sister dyes her hair greenish blue.”

“Is that bad?” Cecil asked, apprehensive, like if it were, he would run away from the poor kid.

“No it’s just. I didn’t think you could do it too,” the kid admitted and went back to pulling up the withered flowers.

After that, the kids in Cecil’s group started talking like all the others. They asked Cecil a lot of questions and seemed somewhat disappointed each time at how normal his answers were. Eventually they just started telling him about some show they were all watching like he was any other adult they’d roped into talking with them.

I didn’t need them to suddenly think Cecil was the most amazing guy in town. Honestly, them realizing he was an absolutely normal guy with a weird job was better than anything. It was what Cecil wanted. He didn’t like to stand out, he just didn’t want to be ostracized or lonely.

“This place looks so good,” Beth said as she handed out water bottles to everyone. “Now does everyone remember what I said?”

“That it’s a surprise and we can’t tell our parents yet what we did today?” A few kids said something along those lines in smatterings around the group.

“Yep!” Beth said cheerfully as if this wasn’t something highly suspicious. Everything she did seemed so wholesome and wonderful that we might have convinced all the kids to keep their promises.

Beth led them all home after we said our goodbyes. I turned to Cecil and saw him staring off into space.

“How was it?” I asked.

“It was,” he seemed lost for words. “It was nice.”

“Do you think you are ready for phase three?” I asked.

“You’ve already done so much.” Cecil turned to me and we were so close to one another. If I just pulled him a little closer…

“Cecil. I’m not giving up now, and I’m not letting you give up either. I’m not regretting this. I had fun today too.” I didn’t really do community service, unless it was court mandated after a very embarrassing public nudity situation.

You’ll thank me later

I was reminded of the words my father said before he shipped me off here. I didn’t want him, and by extension the terror twins, to be right about anything. But on the other hand, it was time to stop thinking of this place as my prison. It was becoming my home.

Chapter Eleven

I loved October. I liked the in between fashion seasons where everyone was still figuring style out, I liked the weather, and more importantly, I loved Halloween. I dressed up and acted stupidly and/or sluttily at parties three hundred sixty-five days a year, but on that day everyone else was doing it too.

I was also excited to learn that back when Cecil was a child there used to be a Halloween festival in town. He very quietly explained it ended in part because his family used to be in charge of setting it up and after the year of death that followed his parents’ passing, there wasn’t much enthusiasm to put it on ever again. It was a shame such a long tradition had to end. As soon as he told me about it my plan formed. Phase one was to convince Stacy, Beth, and Jordan to help me get people in the right places before we did anything concrete. Phase two was convincing the part of the town that wasn’t so caught up in their beliefs about Cecil that their minds could be changed, i.e. the kids, how normal and good Cecil was. Phase three, my favorite phase, was to party.

In the dead of night before Halloween, some people Stacy hired, me, Beth, Stacy, Cecil, and few of the older teens, Jordan included, who snuck out helped us set up all the decorations just like how they remembered them. I very sternly told