I Love Him!

My mother did not want me sitting next to Eric Hartz on the bus.
She called Mrs. Blehart, the teacher who was in charge of the bus routes.
Mrs. Blehart was the stereotypical old battle-axe, as frightening to us small kids as the wicked witch herself. She was tall with wide shoulders. She had thinning hair and a wart on her hardened face. A real cliche!
When I returned to school Mrs. Blehart told me that I was not to sit next to Eric and I was so afraid of her that I just nodded and murmured okay to each one of her tyrannical commands.
Not only that, but she was going to ride our bus home that day to make sure I did not sit next to Eric.
Eric called me over and I was too afraid to even answer him. Mrs. Blehart kept turning around to make sure I was obeying.
When I got home I was furious.
"Why did you do that?" I screamed.
"I don't like that boy and I don't like how he's made you change!"
"But I love him! I love Eric!"
"You should love your parents! That's who you should love!"
I grabbed a large steak knife and held it to my throat.
"I'll kill myself if you don't let me hang out with Eric."
"Go ahead and kill yourself! I'd rather you be dead than friends with that boy. So go ahead and kill your damn self!"
"I'll die and then I'll be with Satan. Then I'll be happy!" As the leader of a one-man cult Eric had a rather elaborate theology. He constantly talked of God and the Devil. When I told him that our family used to live on Adrienne Road he shushed me. "Don't you say that name! Adrienne is the devil!" Adrienne Martinez was one of our classmates, a Cuban boy so absolutely evil that Eric considered him to be the devil himself. He fit in somewhere in Eric's crowded pantheon.
By that time I was even working on a Bible for my imaginary land, a place called Zekolabambaland. My Holy Book was to rival the apocrypha and various medieval grimoires and bestiaries as a listing of all sorts of real and imaginary beings.
"Let Satan take you, then! Go ahead and kill yourself then! Just remember - you only get one life."
She had called my bluff. I put the knife down.