Just a Little Luck
7
"What do you want?" Amanda spat and his lace-cap eyes grew dark and sad, like she'd hurt him with her words.
That's what he gets; she thought viciously and marched past him up the stairs. Not wanting to let him know she was home alone, she refrained from unlocking the door and instead faced him with a cold look fixed firmly on her face.
"Well?" she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest while she discreetly glanced up and down the street for either parent's car. The street was deserted.
"I'm…sorry," Ray said finally.
She stared at him, a rush of anger and disbelief rolling through her. He apologized. He apologized. After months of ignoring her, pretending not to hear the mean things they said about her, not even acknowledging her, he apologized. Her stomach seized, twisting violently, and she was horrified to feel her face heat up.
"You're sorry?" she repeated, ignoring the way her voice cracked, trying to enthuse her tone with as much malice as she could.
"Leave." Leveling her eyes with his, she was met with intense hydrangeas, pale blue, robin eggs.
His hand touched her cheek, icy, and she shivered at the sensation. Goosebumps pebbled her arms and legs and his hand dropped away to stroke the length of her bare arm. Her heart rate sped up as his cool fingers wrapped around her wrist.
"Amanda," he murmured, his voice like crushed velvet, seductive, and she jerked away, tripping.
How could she have fallen under his stupid, blue-eyed spell? Breathing deeply, she avoided looking into his eyes and said, "I'd like you to leave."
Her lips trembled and she could feel tears pool in the backs of her eyes. Her hands shook, so she buried them deep into her pockets. "Leave, Ray."
"Aman—" he tried, starting forward.
She turned her head away and shoved him, her hands touching his chest for a brief second—it was as cold as his hands had been—and watched him fall down the steps, landing in a misshapen heat, his feet up on the stairs. She thought of all bad memories that made her angry and her voice came out cold and vicious. "I said fucking leave!" she hissed. "Get the hell away, before my dad shows up and beats you up."
Ray hesitated; looking crushed, and then got to his feet, staring forlornly up at her. A slight beam of sun broke through the clouds and he hissed.
She watched on in mute horror as the skin of his pale arm bubbled and burnt within seconds, going from porcelain to charred. "I…I could bandage that, if you want me to," she offered weakly, trying hard to keep the hope out of her voice—she just sent him away, hadn't she?—and she wrung her hands.
"I'd love to stay and have you bandage me like a good, sexy nurse, but I gotta jet," he said softly and bolted out of sight much faster than she thought possible.
A few minutes later, her mom's suburban pulled into the driveway and Josh came out, sulking, carrying to white grocery bags.
Amanda gazed blankly at him and was jarred from her trance when Mrs. Benson shook her shoulder. "Sorry," she apologized quietly as she unlocked the door for her mother and brother, "I was thinking."
Turning away from where he'd been setting the bags down, Josh sneered, "You have a brain?"
Amanda rolled her eyes and headed down the stairs to help Mrs. Benson unload. On her walk, Josh passed her, and she made sure to bump him as hard as she could with the bags.
He cried out. "Mom!" he whined. "Amanda hit me!"
"I was carrying the bags. How could I have hit you?" she asked condescendingly from the kitchen as she unloaded the bags and began to put the groceries in the proper places.
"You cow," Josh hissed under his breath.
Amanda pretended not to hear him and gave him a wide berth when he came in. While he carried in the groceries, she opened pantries and cupboards and the fridge to place pop-tarts, soup cans, spices, milk, eggs, and butter in their proper places.
Amanda. Amanda. Ray's voice echoed inside her head like a broken record.
She put away the pop-tarts. Amanda, Amanda. His hands on her arm, tracing the veins.
She stacked soup cans on top of each other. His cold fingers on her cheek, cupping it gently, like she's going to break.
Teetering on a chair, she put the spices in the cupboard, praying she didn't fall. His lace cap eyes, dark and sad, turned down to his feet.
Balancing the eggs on top of the butter carton and the milk jug with her middle and ring finger, she opened the fridge. The crushed look on his face.
Amanda turned away and gathered the empty grocery bags. His skin blistering when the sun touched it, charring, bubbling and boiling like a burn from oil.
Kicking the door closed, grocery bags buried at the closet's bottom, she muttered something that sounded like an excuse to her mother and headed upstairs to think in the hot spray of the shower. His chest, cold and hard, under her fingers as she shoved him away, down the steps.
She stepped into the bathroom and stripped down. He lay crumpled on the pavement, staring up at her like a wounded puppy, his eyes looking like oceans.
The water hit her skin when she stepped into the spray, nude now, and she shivered against the frigid torrent. Amanda, he had sighed. Her name was like a prayer or a moan; it was hard to tell. Amanda, Amanda, Amanda, he had moaned/prayed.
She fumbled with the faucet and turned it to "hot" until the knob wouldn't budge. A scalding cascade hit her skin. She could still feel his hand on her arm, stroking, and his hand on her cheek. I'm sorry, Amanda. Amanda. Amanda. Her teeth chattered as she stood there, tilting her face into the burning water, sputtering when it ran into her eyes.
Amanda, Amanda, Am—
"Amanda, dinner!" Josh yelled as he pounded on the door.
Amanda closed her eyes. "Coming!"
