* * *

“ I can’t”.

“ Joanie, you have to”, I insisted.

“ You don’t know my grandparents! They won’t listen, Rob. They think I’m crazy, remember? If I just ask them to let me have an exorcism, they’ll ship me off to the crazy house”, Joanie argued.

“ I won’t let them do that”, I assured her.

“ How?”, Joanie and Uncle Marty asked at the same time. I shot Uncle Marty a look.

“ Robert, you’re only a nineteen-year-old kid. You can’t do very much in this case. Joanie is a minor and needs the consent of her parents or legal guardians in order to undergo an exorcism. If they won’t give the consent then there can be no exorcism”, Uncle Marty explained to me.

“ Which I know they won’t. And they’re very stubborn old dinosaurs. They like to think that reading the Bible will cure everything. My supposed insanity, my mother’s drug problems, and my father’s inability to show any emotion towards me or my mother”, Joanie added, tears in her eyes.

“ You’ve suffered great difficulties, haven’t you, child?”, Uncle Marty asked Joanie, gently.

Joanie just nodded, the tears spilling over. I reached out and wrapped Joanie in a hug.

“ My parents died when I was fourteen. They were flying back from a mission in South Africa. Their plane crashed in the ocean. No one survived”, I confided to Joanie.

“ Oh, Rob!”, wailed Joanie, hugging me back.

“ I miss them but Uncle Marty has taken very good care of me. I am really grateful towards him for taking me in. I trust him and think he’ll help you to get rid of Matthew”, I went on to say.

“ I must admit that living with my grandparents is easier than living with my parents but it hasn’t been easy as of late”, admitted Joanie.

“ Because of Matthew”, Uncle Marty stated.

“ Yes, because of Matthew”, agreed Joanie.

“ Well, I think I know the other reason to why he’s targeted you, other than that you look like the girlfriend he thinks caused his demise, but because you have so much depression in you that it’s like an aura, calling every negative entity within miles towards you”, Uncle Marty told Joanie.

“ So what are you saying? That she should try to be happy?”, I asked Uncle Marty.

“ It would certainly help”, said Uncle Marty with a shrug.

“ Okay, I’ll try. I think it’s going to be easy now”, Joanie replied, looking at me with a smile.

I felt myself brighten at the thought that I’m making her happy.

“ Now there’s one way to help you but I still think an exorcism is necessary. How do you propose we go about asking them permission?”, asked Uncle Marty.

“ They’ll listen to you because you’re a Catholic priest and they’re very devout. But they’ll insist that I’m crazy and an exorcism is unnecessary. So maybe you should say something along the lines of an exorcism will cure me of my insanity”, Joanie suggested.

“ That might just work”, Uncle Marty admitted.

“ For the record, I don’t think you’re crazy. I think you’re perfectly sane”, I declared.

“ Thanks, Rob. That means a lot to hear you say that”, Joanie said to me, smiling.

“ What can I say? I’m just a nice guy”, I replied.

“ That you are”, agreed Joanie, reaching up to kiss me on the cheek.

I froze. She had kissed me. A girl had kissed me. My very first kiss! I am not a loser!

“ Okay, you two lovebirds, let’s head over to Joanie’s place to convince her grandparents that she needs an exorcism”, Uncle Marty called over his shoulder as he headed for the garage, where his Toyota Camry was.

“ Shall we?”, Joanie asked me, holding out her hand.

I took her hand and said with a smile, “ We shall”.

************************************************************************

* Aww! Joanie & Rob are so cute! I hope her grandparents sanction the exorcism! Hey, I just used one of my vocabulary words. See, that’s what going to college does to you, you start using more fancier words when you speak and/or write. So if you liked the chapter, please leave me a review! Until next time, have a happy haunting!