Reggie's thick brows are so worried they're almost meeting above his big nose. His tongue slips out, wetting his dry lips right across the wound where it has recently been busted.

"I mean, this ain't..." he says, and he pauses like he can't think anymore. Like his cogs get all rusty and creak to a stop. Then he somehow gets them all oiled up again and he goes, "this ain't no joke, man. I'm not even sure I should show you this."

He looks like hell: black eye, bruised cheek, and his cracked lip all swollen. When he says that, my arms feel tingly, and the little hairs there stand up. I toss my baseball lightly from one hand to another, not hard, but just enough so that I really feel the weight of it. I know he's being serious about this.

Reggie says that three days ago, he found this thing down in his basement. He accidentally banged the wall with an old broom he was pretending was a staff (he's a big fan of Morgan from The Walking Dead). A big gaping hole got knocked in the wall and a dusty old locked box was inside. That's where the thing was hidden.

"What is it?" I ask. 

"I don't know," he says, almost in a panic.

"You can't be serious."

"Swear to God, I never looked," he says, doing some weird hand sign that probably has something to do with some religion. "Mike got the lock open and then after how he acted, I just closed it." 

I didn't get it. "What exactly did he do?"

"He attacked me!" 

"I see that, but...why?"

"He lost it! He just came straight at me, like he was possessed or something. I swear, it had to be the thing in that box. Whatever is in there, you gotta be careful." His eyes were wide, afraid. I felt a lump forming in my throat. 

"Why don't you just look?" I said, feeling nervous.
"I'm scared to!" I can see it on his face that he's truly scared of this mystery box. "You're the bravest guy I know, Cody."

I can be brave. I'm always the first one in our group to try new skating stunts. I love rock climbing and I've bungie jumped a couple of times. But this is different. 

"I think you're just pulling my leg," I say, because I'm tired of playing games, but I have that eerie nagging feeling. It's like there's something twisting around and around my stomach. A fishing line, and I'm hooked--metaphorically. "Let's see it then."

"Tell me what it is, don't go all mute and psycho like Mike did," he says.
His hands are shaking while he pulls out this forest green metal box. It's about the size of an old lunch box and has some visible rust spots. It's all banged and scraped up. I stop switching hands with my baseball and just grip it in one. 

Reggie has his head turned, squinting, like there's going to be an explosion. He opens it and I am amazed.

All at once, it's like all my emotions leave my body. All my thoughts. Then all at once, they all come flying back at me from every which way. The thing I'm looking at, it's worth more than words.

"What is it?" Reggie says.

"A...a photo." I'm staring like the deer in the headlights that everyone is always talking about, my heart pounding away. "It's..." 

How do I put it into words?

"It's a woman. A picture of a woman. She's just standing there, looking at the camera. Black-no-blo-no, no, red hair." 

Wasn't it all those colors at some point? It doesn't matter, it's red. I've decided that it's red, which is good, because that's my favorite anyway.

"Green eyes that stand out like someone put a black light on and they're made of special paint. Wow, she's pretty," I say. It's getting hard to focus. I see her smiling at me, her arms are open, inviting, like they're waiting for me to walk right into them. 

"Dude?" Reggie says all frustrated. 

"She's..."and then it occurs to me that maybe I shouldn't tell him. In fact, I get an idea. A great idea. "It's just a photo. Nothing really. I think you're tripping."
Reggie looks disappointed...relieved? He clamps the box shut and sets it on his night stand. 

"Dude, I was so ready for it to be something crazy," he says. 

"Well, it's not," I say. "Let's go play ball." I hold up the baseball to remind him visually.

As we leave the room, my eyes sweep back to the box. She's laying just inside. Laying in the dark, smiling.

*

I've waited all day, but I can't take it anymore. I'm sweating. My mind just keeps going back there. My heart is racing. I need her. I need to see her again. This isn't just desire, this is so much deeper. This is life or death. I'll die if I can't look at her. But I'll see her tonight, as soon as Reggie goes to sleep. I'll slip from his closet and get rid of him. Then it'll just be me and her forever. I traded in my ball for my bat, and it's the hard wood I feel in my hands now. I hear Reggie snore. In the blackness of his closet, a smile spreads over my face.

--THE END--