Chapter 6, enjoy. and keep the reviews coming.
I judged my appearance in the mirror. My short dark hair was spiky. I was wearing a black T-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. I was also wearing my favorite leather jacket, just in case it got chilly. It may ve summer but sometimes nights aren't so warm here. Plus it just makes me look cool. I decided that I looked fine and was ready for my date with Lena. It was 7:30 now so I decided I better get going if I was to pick up Lena on time. I figured it might take me a while to get to her apartment. It was on the other side of town, and I'm horrible with directions. I hate going places I've never been before because I can never find them. I end up having to ask for directions and I suck at following them. She had told me how to get there and I had written the directions down, but it'd be a miracle if I could follow them clearly and get there easily.
I grabbed my keys and my cell phone and started down the stairs. I walked quickly past the kitchen hoping no one notices me as I go by. Unfortunately that doesn't happen adn my mom calls to me, "Oh, Yulia," I had already passed the kitchen doorway when she called my name so I back tracked until I was standing in the doorway.
"Yes, Mom?"
"Have you decided to join us?" By us she meant all of her friends. She was hosting yet another dinner party. She had always wanted me to attend her special gatherings and act like the perfect daughter so she could show me off to her snobby friends. When I was little she had told me that she couldn't wait until I was older so I could do just that. But her dreams were crushed. I hadn't wanted to then and I definately didn't want to now. She knew very well that I hadn't come downstairs to attend her party but she never gave up that dream, even when she realized taht it wasn't going to happen. She didn't want to admit it. She still hoped I could be the girly, intelligent, popular, perfect daughter that she had always wanted. She didn't have any other daughters or she probably would've given up on me eventually and pinned her dream on them. She looked me up and down, examining my outfit. "YOu should go get changed into some more formal clothes then you can come back down here and join us, OK?"
"Mom you know I don't want to join you," I said, annoyed that she never knows when to give yp. "I'm going out."
"Where?" she quized me.
"Just out, I don't know yet." I was getting tired of talking to her. I needed to leave now if I was going to get Lena on time.
"With whom?"
Now I was getting tired of her captious questions. I can understand her worrying about me, but I'm a teenager so naturally I'm gonna get annoyed when she does it.
I wasn't ready to tell her about Lena, yet. I'd tell her when and if we got extremely serious. I wasn't going to tell my mom I had a new girlfriend when we technically weren't really dating yet. We hadn't gone on the first date, adn I didn't know if we would actually want to date each other after we did. We know nothing about each otehr. We've never even really had a conversation. I'd only talked to her once. My parents don't even know I like girls. If I told my mom now she'd make a big deal out of it and I'd have no chance of picking Lena up on time. "No one, I'm just going out by myself."
Luckily she hadn't noticed I lied, and she wasn't suspicious of anything. She just persisted for me to join her some more, "Oh, come on, come join us. You can go out tomorrow night. The Snograsses son is here," she said in a sing-song voice. "You remember him don't you? You guys used to play together when you were little. He's only a year younger than you, and he's turned out to be a very handsome young man. I'm sure you guys would get along great."
This wasn't the first time she tried to hook me up with her oppinion of a nice man. "Mom I'm not interested in him. And I'm going out tonight. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get going."
She sighed in defeat. "Alright. Be back by midnight." I headed for the door, eager to make my escape. "And don't get into any trouble!"
"I won't," I said as I walked out the door.
"I love you!"
"Bye," I called in response before closing the door. I hadn't told either of my parents that I loved them in years. I sliped up one day in therapy and accidentally told Dr. Morty this. He wanted to discuss it, but I didn't so I changed the subject and it was never mentioned again.
I went to the garage and hopped into my '69 Corvette. That car is my baby. I love it. It was a present from my parents on my 16th birthday. It's vintage and in mint condition. It's extremely expensive and it's just as rare.
I turned on the radio and settled on a station with some rock song I'd never heard before playing on it. I pulled out of the driveway silently praying finding her apartment wouldn't be too hard. I had the directions next to me on the passengers seat.
I got there right on time. The directons had veen pretty clear. I'd only managed to get lost once. I stopped in front of the wrong apartment building. Lena's was on the next street over.
I got out of the car but not before checking the address to make sure this was the right place. I walked in and found the apartment rather quickly. It was on the first floor. I didn't go in immediately. I was really nervous so I stood in front of her door trying to calm down. "You can do this. There's nothing to be nervous about," I said to myself out loud. I poised my fist in front of the door to knock, but before I could the door flew open. "Holy -" I jumped back and hit the wall behind me. Apparently it was amusing to scare me because Lena stood in the doorway laughing her ass off. "It's not funny!" I protested once my heart rate started to slow down. "You almost gave me a heart attack!"
She kept laughing. "I'm sorry. I couldn't resist. I was standing right by the door when I heard you talking to yourself. I had to surprise you." Her laughter faded as she got the last chuckles out of her system.
My heart started beating at its normal rate again, so I got off the wall and stood next to her. "Jesus Christ. You scared the shit out of me." I let out a chuckle.
"I'm sorry. Come in. I have to get my shoes on and grab my purse." I went in and shut the door behind me. "Would you like a tour?" She asked.
I shrugged. "Sure."
"Right next to you is the bathroom. This." She spread her arms out and looked around. "Is the hallway."
"Really?" I said sarcastically.
"Yeah. Now if you take about five steps forward and look to your left you will see the kitchen."
I comically took exactly five steps forward. "I see a wall."
She chuckled. I liked how I made her make that angelic sound. "Take another step."
I did. "Ah. Now I see it." It was very small. There was barely enough space for two people to walk around in it.
If you continue walking forward you will enter the living room." The living room was about half the size of mine. It's only contents were a couch, a tv, and a coffee table. "Over here is my room." Her room was roughly around the same size as her living room.
It was very neat and clean. There weren't any clothes lying on the floor, or any clutter lying around. Everything was neat and in its place. The twin size bed was made. There was a desk with a laptop on it with a phone next to it and a clock next to the phone. On the other side of the room was a short long dresser. A mirror was set up on top of it and her makeup surrounded it. Her purse was also on it.
Lena had sat on the bed and started to slip on her shoes which sat next to the bed. I stood in the doorway because I always felt awkward coming into someone's house. I get really out of my comfort zone. Coming into someone's room is even worse for me. You never know what they don't want you doing or touching. "I hace a very small apartrment, but it's all I could afford so..."
"It's not small...it's cozy."
She scoffed. "Yeah, very cozy."
"It's not that bad. It could be worse."
She finished tying her shoes adn grabbed her purse. "I guess. Now let's get out of here before we get claustrophobic. I'm not sure two people can be in here without suffocating." I laughed.
She locke up her apartment and we were ready to leace. When we got to my car she stood frozen. "Whoa! This is your car? How did you afford this?"
"Both my parents are doctors. I got it for my sixteenth birthday." I opened the passenger's side door for her.
"Thank you," she said getting in the car. Then she got back on topic. "For my sixteenth birthday I got a few outfits and my driver's liscense. My parents could never afford anything this expensive. We've always been poor. Unlike your family. God you must be practically rich," she said while admiring the car.
"We're not that rich. Just in the upper middle class."
"Well you're a lot richer than me. I wish I had your kind of money. OK I'm going to stop talking before you think I'm a gold digger," she explained frantically. "Because I'm not. I liked you before I knew you had money."
"I've gone out with gold diggers before, and I don't thik you're one of them." I started the car, so we could get going, but before we did I had to know where we were going. "Where are we going for dinner?" I asked. "Your choice."
"Oh, I don't know. Do you like Chinese?" She asked after a moment.
"I love Chinese food!" I exclaimed. It's my favorite foreign food.
We talked the whole way there. We asked each other simple random questions like: What's you favorite color, food, animal, type of music, etc. There were a couple more personal questions too like: What's your last name and what's your birthday. By the time we arrived at Domo (The Chinese place. Even though technically it's a Japanese place. It was closest to the movie theatre, so I figured we'd eat there.) I felt like I had known her a lot longer than about half an hour. I found out her favorite color's red, she likes alternative rock, and she likes most animals. All of them except insects and snakes. Her birthday is October 4th which means she's only about five months older than me. My birthday's February 20th. Her last name is Katina - Lena Katina. Isn't her name so poetic? It's also Russian so we have that in common as well. My ancestors came from Russia, so my parents gave me a Russian name. Yulia Olegnov Volkova.
At dinner we talked some more. At first about random things again like if we've ever eaten sushi. She had I hadn't. I told her that I didn't find raw fish appetizing. She dared me to eat a piece but I said no. She called me a wimp and bet me five bucks I wouldn't eat a piece. Me being competative and not being able to turn down a challenge of course took the bet. I put it in my mouth and chewed. It tasted like crap but I was determined to swallow it. I eventually got it down and became five dollars richer.
As dinner went on we somehow got on the subject of past relationships. "Ive never actually been in a real relationship before," Lena explained to me. "In high school I went out with a couple girls but we only lasted a couple weeks."
I nodded. I understood that. I've been through that. "I've only been in one serious relationship. It was my last girlfriend. I thought we were perfect for each other, but then she cheated on me so..." I shoved more egg drop soup into my mouth.
"You mentioned that." She had remembered another thing I said. Awesome.
"Here you go." A waitress deposited our bill and two fortune cookies on the table, then walked off to take away used plates at another table.
"I love fortune cookies," Lena said grabbing one off the top of the bill. I followed suit and took the remaining one. She opened hers then laid the fortune facedown on the table while she at the cookie.
"You don't want to read the fortune first?" I'd never seen anyone do that before.
"Nope. I like the suspense of wondering what it says."
"Alright then." I put my fortune faced down on the table just like her, and ate my cookie.
She finished and picked up the fortune. " 'You will be blessed with good luck.' Sure I will," she said sarcastically. She threw the fortune onto her used plate at the end of the table. "What does yours say?"
" 'You will find love in your life.' And look at that, two of my lucky numbers are six and seventeen. What do you know, today's date is June 17th. I bet it's a sign." I winked at her, and she blushed. She looked even cuter when her cheeks were the same color as her hair.
"Are you serious?" She snatched the fortune out of my hand and studied it. "Wow you were. Maybe it is a sign." She smiled at me and tossed the fortune onto the used plate with hers. I gasped. "What?" She asked surprised.
"You don't throw away signs!" I reached across the table to retrieve my luckily unstained fortune. I slipped it into my jacket pocket.
"You're such a dork." She laughed.
"And you love it." I retaliated back.
She reached across the table and her hand found its way on top of mine. "Of course I do." I was paralyzed for a moment. Our contact sent shivers through my entire body. Once I was out of my hypnotized state I reached for the bill with my other hadn not wanted to loose skin to skin contact with Lena. I paid the bill and put a few dollars under the bill holder as tip for the waitress. Unfortunately this did require both my hands. "Wait. Let me pay for half of it." She reached for her purse but I stopped her.
"No, it's okay. I'll pay for it. It's not even twenty dollars."
She was stubborn. "Then let me pay for the tip."
It was no problem for me to pay for everything. "Lenok I already paid and go the tip out you don't have to pay for anything."
She finally gave up. "Fine." Or maybe not. "But I get to pay for the movie."
"You keep thinking that." I had no inhtention of letting her pay for the movie. She may be stubborn but I could be stubborn too. Over the phone I promised her that the night was on me.
"No, you keep thinking that. Come on let's go."
We managed to make it to the showing of One Missed Call. Turns out Lena had been wanting to see it too. She had insisted on paying for movie, popcorn, and drinks, but I wouldn't let her. I promised her she could pay for things next time. The movie wasn't as scary as we had expected, but it was still really good and we wereabsorbed in it. That was until our hadns touched in the popcorn bucket. Our contact once again sent shivers through me. I was even more stunned when she entwined out fingers, brought our hands out of the popcorn bucket, and didn't let go. I eventually got back to focusing on the movie. By the time I had I was confused about what was happening because I had missed something. I asked Lena what was going on, but she didn't know either. The fact that she didn't know meant she wasn't paying attention. Hopeful she had been focusing on me.
We left the theatre hand in hand. When we got the the car I asked Lena if she wanted to drive. She seemed to like my car, so I thought maybe she'd want to drive it. She'd also have more luck getting back ot her apartment than I would.
"That's probably not a good idea," she said "I've had my car for not even a year and I've been in minor accidents three times."
I was astonished. The thought of her crashing my baby terrified me. "You...are...never...driving...my car." I told her. "I mean that. I'm horrible at finding places but at least I can drive without crashing."
"You're terrible with directions? You can get me back to my apartment right? We won't end up in Nevada will we?" she asked.
"I make no promises," I said as seriously as I could. Then we both burst into laughter. Then we got in the car - me in the driver's seat, her in the passenger's seat. The ride was silent at first, so I tried to start a conversation. I asked her the first question I could think of. "Have you come out to your parents yet?"
"Hmm?" She said. She hadn't been paying attention. She had been looking out the window. I repeated my question for her. "No, I haven't."
"I haven't come out to mine either. I don't really plan on it. Do you think you'd tell yours anytime soon?"
"No."
"Why not?" I was just curious about her reasons.
"Can we please stop talking about my parents?" she practically begged as she looked into my eyes.
"Yeah, sure. I won't bring them up again." She relaxed and I noticed that she had become tense when I mentioned her parents. I wonder why she doesn't like them. Now that I think about it the only thing she said about them all day was that they were poor. I guess I shouldn't touch down on her past.
When we got to her apartment (This time I found the right one the first time.) I wasn't ready to say goodbye to her quite yet, so I walked her inside. "So when are we going out again?" I asked.
"Does next weekend sound good to you? Saturday night, Sunday night, I don't really care."
"I don't care either. I guess we'll decide when we get out of group, huh."
"Yep. Sounds good to me." She stepped closer to me and grabbed both my hands. "I had a really nice time tonight, Yulia."
"I did too."
She leaned closer to me, so I did the same. Our faces were just inches apart, but she quickly closed the gap as she captured my lips with hers. The kiss was so sweet. We pulled apart slowly not wanting it to end.
"Good night, Yulia."
"Good night."