Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway by Cherie Currie Read Free Book Online Page B

cranked as high as it could go. After seeing Bowie perform these songs live, every note, every line, had taken on a bigger, more profound character. I found myself paying special attention to the instrumentation, to the inflection of Bowie’s vocals. The music was providing a clue, a map to where I wanted to go. I sat on my beanbag chair, floating high above my body, transported out of myself by the glorious noise in my head.
     
    My mind was wandering, far from the math homework I was supposed to be working on. I am thinking about a kid named Byron Friday, who was also in the first year of junior high. I had fallen hard for Byron, although he didn’t even acknowledge my existence, apart from the occasional casual hello coming in or out of class. Byron was a handsome kid, blond and tanned, with shiny golden hair cut in layers to just above his shoulders. Byron was quiet, introverted, a mystery man on a skateboard. Sometimes I’d see him when we were on lunch break, whipping figure eights in the back parking lot or popping wheelies on his bike where he wasn’t supposed to be. I wondered if this was what they meant when they called someone a rebel. I wasn’t sure, but I knew that when I looked at him whizzing up and down the asphalt, I’d get a shiver that ran throughout my entire body.
     
    I hadn’t told anybody about my crush on Byron, not even Marie. But sometimes, when I was all alone like I was that night, I had this recurring fantasy about Byron and me. In this fantasy, it was a weekend, and Byron and I were having a picnic on the school lawn while nobody else was around. Byron would give me this look, and smile his cute, crooked smile, and I’d realize he was going to kiss me. He’d reach his hand out and touch my face lightly, slowly moving his lips toward mine . . . I’d get this wonderful, butterfly feeling inside when I’d imagine our lips touching. I wondered if this was what falling in love felt like.
     
    A sharp banging noise that cut through the music in my headphones finally disrupted this fantasy. I didn’t even hear him at first, knocking lightly on the sliding door leading from the backyard to my bedroom. Didn’t see his silhouette, stark against the fading light outside.
     
    Mom was out to dinner with Wolfgang. Marie was at the movies with her friends. Donnie was sleeping over at a friend’s house. I didn’t even know when they were supposed to be back. Marie said maybe ten o’clock, but that didn’t mean anything. I was enjoying having the place to myself. I had my homework laid out before me and it wasn’t until Derek banged louder on the glass that I finally looked up from my books and saw him standing there. He was yelling something, his mouth twisted up.
     
    Oh, yuck, I thought, what does this jerk want?
     
    I took off my headphones and clicked off the record player. I could hear him through the glass: “Hey, Cherie! Let me in!”
     
    “Marie’s not here!” I yelled back at him.
     
    He shrugged his shoulders and raised his palms up to the sky as if to say, “So what?” I shook my head at him and picked up the headphones again.
     
    “Cherie, come on, I just wanna speak to you for a second!”
     
    With a sigh, I put the headphones down and crept barefoot over to the door. I looked at him and wrinkled my nose. He was dressed in his usual uniform of skintight torn blue jeans and a filthy-looking Led Zeppelin T-shirt. Derek’s dark shoulder-length hair looked dirty, and when he smiled his ugly smile, you could see yellow crooked teeth poking through his thin lips. He wasn’t Byron Friday, that’s for sure. I unlocked the door and opened it a crack.
     
    “I said Marie’s not here. She’s out.”
     
    “Lemme in, Cherie,” he said, putting his mouth up against the opening. “I’m freezing out here!”
     
    “No!” I spat. “Go away!”
     
    Derek weirded me out, and the idea of being alone with him was not something I would ever consider. He was a real sleaze: