AWW! Mammoth chapter! I worked on it all vacation and I'm happy to say it's my longest update EVER (for any story with my one-shots aside). Hope you like it!
Chapter FOUR
The light of a new day, shining through my open windows woke me up the next morning. I laid in bed for another moment, basking in the warm feeling the morning sun left in the air. My mother was no longer in my room having crept out in the middle of the night once I'd fallen asleep. I hadn't seen her leave though so I could only assume.
The radio alarm clock by my bed told me it was just after nine in the morning. It was the first time I'd woken up before noon since Josh left. It was also the first time in the past few days that I'd woken up and not felt like crying and shutting the rest of the world out. Perhaps I'd finally gotten all the waterworks out last night.
I really, really hoped so - for my sake and everyone else's.
I stumbled out of my bed and went across the hall into the bathroom to prepare myself for the day. When I exited twenty minutes later with my towel wrapped me and my wet hair dripping down my back, the acrid smell of something burning wafted up to me from downstairs. I rolled my eyes at my mom's continued attempts to be a kitchen aficionado and hurried to get dressed and see what food product she had mangled this time.
"Mom," I said as I came down the stairs, "what's burning?"
There was a clang down the hall in the kitchen. "Ow. Uh, nothing's burning!"
"Ma, my nose says otherwise." She was in front of the oven, holding a skillet in one hand and a cooking spatula in the other. There was what looked like the scattered remains of an overdone pancake at her feet. I quirked my eyebrows and gave her my standard look when it came to her escapades with food preparation.
She sighed. "I didn't think you were up yet. I was going to bring you pancakes in bed. I thought you might appreciate after last night."
The smile I gave was wobbly but genuine. "Thanks," I whispered.
She smiled back at me. "Just doing my job."
"Now, let me do mine." I nudged her out of my way and took over at the oven. Last summer the cook at Bucky's, Louis, had gotten fed up with some of my more interesting eating habits and taught me a few things about cooking. I was now the proud champion of breakfast foods. I rocked a mean omelet.
Ten minutes later, Mom and I were both seated at the table, wolfing down a pile of syrupy pancakes. Personally I was a bigger fan of waffles, but our waffle-maker had broken a month ago and we hadn't gotten around to getting a new one.
Mom took a breather from eating to grab us a couple of glasses of ice water. "Thanks for the food."
"Thanks for the water."
And that was all the conversation we had. She didn't ask me about last night like I know she wanted to for which I was eternally grateful for. That was the thing about my mother - while she was always there to offer her own special brand of tough love, she never pressed too hard where it hurt.
She finished up before and left to finish some paperwork at the school, saying she'd bring take out home for dinner and then I was home alone. I thought about calling up Bex to see if she wanted to come over and watch a movie but decided that I'd been lounging too much these past few days. Instead, I grabbed a pair of mismatched socks from the laundry room, slipped on my sneakers, and grabbed my iPod on the way out the back door.
It was a nice day out - not too humid or hot, with a gentle breeze that kept you just cool enough. I headed across the lawn to the path in the woods that the new neighbor, Zach, had surprised me at a few days ago. It didn't just loop back around to his backyard but branched off into trails all through the woods in town. Most people didn't know their way around them, but I used to run for hours with my dad on them. When I got tired he would let me climb on his back, and we would just walk around, taking random trails to see where we'd turn up.
Those were some of my happiest memories with my dad and the woods were still one of my favorite places to run. The way the light slashed through the leaves and dappled the ground was so magnificent, it was almost like another world.
I'd been jogging maybe half an hour, listening to my go-to Running Playlist to keep me pumped up when someone appeared around the corner on the path ahead of me. I slowed down because the path I was on was too narrow for two people to pass by each other without a collision and moved off to side. Instead of passing me like most people did, the runner slowed their own pace and came to stop in front of me. It was the new neighbor boy jackass, Zach.
He gave me a small smile and said something but I couldn't hear him over the volume of my music. I pulled my earbuds out. "What?"
"You listen to CCR when you run." He gestured at my iPod.
"Uh, yeah."
He showed me his own iPod which showed the album artwork of Creedence Clearwater Revival's greatest hits album. "I do, too."
My eyes met his in surprise. "Really? Not many people in town have even heard of them and the ones that have don't like them."
He shook his head in mock shame. "But the classics are the best!"
I nodded in agreement. "I know! There's just...more emotion than in the music on the radio now."
"Well at least there's one sane person in Roseville."
He was smiling at me, and for some reason it made me blush. Thankfully, my cheeks were already red from the exercise so I doubt he noticed.
"So are you strictly CCR or do you love all oldies?" He asked.
"I listen to whatever." I said quickly, suddenly feeling self-conscious. "My oldies collection really isn't that big. Just CCR, Fleetwood Mac, and the like."
"Cool." Zach said. He rubbed the back of his neck. "Listen, would you - "
I cut him off. "I should probably get back to my run."
"Right." His hand dropped and he looked at me for a moment. I shifted my weight from one leg to the other. I don't know what it was about Zach that made me feel so...edgy. All I knew was that one minute we were having a comfortable conversation about music and the next I wanted to run the other way.
Like he was dangerous.
He moved out of my way on the path. "Have a fun run, neighbor."
I put my earbuds back in. "You, too."
I started moving again and was soon jogging my normal pace, but suddenly, John Fogerty's voice didn't feel quite the same to me as before. I couldn't put my finger on why, but it still seemed wrong to listen to the music anymore in my peaceful woods.
I switched my playlists.
~.~.~.~
That afternoon I met up with Macey at her house. As the political alpha of our small town, Mr. McHenry was a true patriot and fan of Capitol Hill. He and his wife had designed their home in a style reminiscent of the grand white one on Pennsylvania Avenue. When I arrived, the live-in butler escorted me to the parlor where Macey was sitting on the persian rug in front of the mammoth, unlit fireplace.
"Good, you're here." She said. She was paging through a Cosmo but set it aside as I sat next to her. "I wanted to talk to you in person. Now, I know you've been having a hard time adjusting to Josh being gone and I don't blame you, but I also don't want to lose you."
I grabbed her hands in mine. "I know. I've been a little lost in outer space, but I promise I am not going to go all crazy. I want this summer to be fun." I raised our joined hands and yelled, "Senior year!"
She laughed. "Hell yeah, baby!"
Her grin dimmed a little and she got serious again. "Are you sure you're going to be okay?"
"Yes." I said, almost believing myself. "I feel more like myself again every day."
She looked at me intently for a moment before sighing and moving on. "Alright. Anyways, I called you over here because we have to start planning our summer getaway. I'm thinking this year we'll camp out a nice spa for a few days. We can get steamed and massaged and waxed and all zenned out. It'll be great!"
"I don't think I'll be getting zen if there's waxing involved." I commented, but Macey just rolled her eyes at me. Though she had been born in the same small town I had been born and raised in, she was clearly meant for city life. Her attitude and mannerisms screamed of a certain sophistication that Roseville, for all its wonderful qualities, just couldn't equal. Where I was scared of a little extreme grooming, Macey rushed head on into them. Where I got along with all of my neighbors and knew just about everyone around town, Macey disliked anyone that couldn't tell their satin from their taffeta.
"Oh, hush," she said. "It'll only sting for a minute and then you'll be good as new. Like pulling off a bandaid."
"A really heavy-duty bandaid." I muttered. She made a face at me and I laughed. She and I might never see eye to eye on the intensity by which we groomed, but I knew that she would always be there to be a rock for me just like I would always be there for her.
I pushed myself up from the floor. "I'm hungry. You got anything good to eat?"
She stood up as well and led the way to the kitchen. "Lola," she called for the McHenry family cook, "did you go to the store yet?"
There was no response and when we got to the kitchen, no one was there to greet us and there was no signature aroma of some fresh-baked good coming from the oven. Macey shrugged. "She must be out getting supplies right now, which means..." She pulled open the giant freezer door and pulled out a plastic container. "All we have is ice cream."
I smiled mischievously at her. "I think we'll manage just fine."
When Lola got back from the grocery store a half an hour later, Macey and I were sitting at the kitchen counter licking our spoons, the ice cream having mysteriously vanished. The white-haired woman just shook her head at us and said something about the wonders of youthful metabolisms.
It was the happiest I'd been in days.
~.~.~.~
As I turned back into my neighborhood that night, my Subaru had a tantrum. The poor car had seen so many days that it was officially classified as a VIP senior citizen by all the other cars in the school parking lot - seriously, my friends joked that I should be allowed preferred parking.
Now, my car was giving me no choice but to park. I pulled off to the shoulder of the road and powered down my baby. I dialed my mom as I got out and popped the hood, but there was no answer.
Looking down at my car's engine, I heaved a great sigh. I knew nothing about engines, and the local mechanic had closed up shop for a family reunion in South Carolina. He wouldn't be back until next Monday. I was too afraid to tinker around by myself and mess anything up and couldn't think of anyone nearby who could help me.
I was just admitting defeat and preparing to leave my mom a voicemail about my predicament when a pair of headlights blinded my vision.
The car came to a stop in front of me, and the lights turned off. The driver's door opened, and the person said, "Is everything alright?"
It was a voice that I recognized though I'd only heard it a couple of times. Neighbor boy jackass.
"My car," I said waving my hand at the upright hood. "It's finicky."
He came over and took my place in front of the hood. There was a little bit of steam leaking out now, and it was making me panicky. The last thing I needed was for my car to blow up the new neighbor. My mother would never forgive me. "Look, there's really no need for you to do that." I said. "I'll figure it out."
He stood up. "Good, because I know shit about engines."
"Then why..."
He smirked and shrugged his shoulders at me. "It seemed like the neighborly thing to do."
His phone rang, and he grabbed it from his pocket, turning away from me. I returned to looking mournfully at my car, wishing I'd taken some sort of mechanics class in school. Zach was saying something to the other person on the line, but I wasn't focusing enough on his words to follow on to the conversation. I heard him say goodbye and snap his phone shut, and then he was next to me.
"Don't worry. I'll get your car fixed for you."
I looked up at him. He was a good few inches taller than me so it was a bit of a stretch for my neck when he was this close. "Thanks for the chivalry, but I don't know how you can help."
Just then another car pulled onto the street, pouring light onto my and Zach's cars. It slowed down and then stopped dead in the middle of the street next to Zach's car. A woman popped out of it and walked toward the two of us.
"What happened?" She said. "Did you crash the car already, Zachary?"
He laughed. "No, this is our neighbor. Her car broke down."
She tilted her head at him. "You expect me to believe that you stopped to be gracious? Come on, Zach. I know you better than that."
She said it with humorously and was smiling at him so I took it that she didn't actually believe him to be a narcissist. She turned to look at me and I immediately noticed the resemblance between her and the boy next to me. They both had dark eyes and angular jaws (although there was something hers that made it distinctively feminine) and they both had the same olive skin tone that I had always envied. She looked too young to be his mother, though.
"Nice to meet you," she said. "I'm Abby, Zach's sister."
That explains it.
"I'm Cammie." I replied in a small voice because even though she was the same height as me, she was decidedly more intimidating than I could ever hope to be.
Abby smiled brightly at me. "So what seems to be the matter with your car?"
I motioned toward the engine. "It was running weird and then it stopped. Now it's smoking."
She walked over to my car, pushing Zach playfully out of the way. Her head disappeared under the hood as she inspected my troublesome engine. I bit my lip as I waited for her to finish. After a minute or so she looked back at me and slapped her hands together. "It looks like a simple case of overheating. Just let it cool down for awhile. I can look at it again for you tomorrow morning if you'd like though."
"Really?" I said surprised. "Nothing's broken or loose or anything?"
She laughed a little. "Nope. I can check better tomorrow for you though."
"That would be great! Just let me know how much you charge." I grabbed my purse off my seat through my open window and pulled out my wallet, but she pushed it away.
"Don't worry about it. I'm not a mechanic." I knit my eyes together, and she quickly explained. "I dated a guy once who was totally into cars. Most of our dates were in his garage, working on these old cars that needed every single kind of work done on them."
"Oh."
"It was a long six months, but I learned a lot!"
She laughed and I could hear Zach chuckling behind me. I could kind of see the humor in it so I smiled. "Anyways, thank you. I guess I'll just wait for this to...cool down."
She shook her head. "That'll be awhile. Why don't you let Zach drop you off at home and I'll go and make sure it's okay to leave your car parked outside of this person's house overnight."
I hesitated for a second, feeling like I should be the one to check on that sort of thing but she looked so earnest, and then Zach was behind me saying, "Come on, it's not like your house is out of the way or anything."
So I thanked Abby again and made sure my car was locked up before I headed over to Zach's car. When I got in, I was hit by that wonderful new car smell and instantly relaxed against the smooth, creme-colored leather seat. Zach was already in the driver's seat and once I got in he was off, the car gliding across the pavement like we were on satin wheels.
It was silent on the short drive and when he parked in his driveway and didn't get out of his car right way, I started to feel awkward again like I had this morning. "Thanks for the ride."
"No problem." He said. He took a deep breath. "There's something I wanted to ask you this morning - "
"I have a boyfriend."
I don't know why I said that. I felt awkward and shy and altogether not myself around Zach. All I knew was that sitting there in that car with him in the dark felt like I was deceiving Josh somehow, like I was taking advantage of his absence.
Zach had a slightly confused expression on his face. "Okay?" He shook his head. "Anyways, - "
"It's just," I said apparently not done embarrassing myself, "in case you didn't know. I'm taken. I have a boyfriend that I love, and I'm not going to do anything to hurt that - him. Hurt him."
He nodded like he knew what I was talking about which I'm sure he didn't because even I was confused as to what exactly was coming out of my mouth. "Great. I'm sure he's a keeper."
"He is."
"How charming."
It was quiet in the car again. I looked down at my hands. "What were you going to say?"
He laughed a little. "Are you sure you can keep yourself from interrupting me this time?"
I nodded and ran my fingers across my lips like I was locking them up and throwing away the key. He turned in his seat so he was looking at me more straight on, and I automatically shrunk back in my seat a little.
"I was hoping you might be willing to go running with me sometime."
He was looking me right in the eye, and for a second, I almost forgot to respond. "You want to go running with me?"
"Yeah, you seem to know your way around those freaking woods, and this morning when I ran into you, I'd been running in there for two hours. I couldn't find my way out."
I laughed out loud imagining him running in circles with a big question mark sign hanging over his head. "It isn't funny!" He yelled but he sounded like he was holding back a laugh, too. "It was damn nerve-wracking!"
I struggled to get my laughing under control but another giggle leaked out. He was shaking his head at me, a smile on his face. I leaned against the back of my seat. "Alright, I'm sorry. I'm sure it was a very traumatic experience for you."
"It was."
I nodded, still laughing in my head and decided to take a risk. "I'll meet you by the swing-set tomorrow at ten." I said and before he could respond, I opened up my door and slipped out.
I hurried across the lawn to my front door. When I turned to look back at him in his car, the driver's side was empty. He was at his front door, too. Looking at me. I smiled and waved and then went inside.
It wasn't until I was halfway asleep that I realized I hadn't talked to Josh that day. I sat up straight and grabbed my phone where it was charging on my desk. I had a number of unanswered texts from my friends because we were planning our summer getaway and two missed calls from Josh. They were around the time I had run into Zach and Abby.
I hadn't even heard it ring.
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