Chapter Ten
"And then Bill screamed like a little girl-"
"Did not!" Bill refuted, throwing popcorn at his roommate.
I laughed along with them and then Win turned to me and said, "So, planning to go see your boyfriend anytime soon? Bill and Aaron and I would love to tag along."
I rolled my eyes. "So not happening." But I was lying. The plan was to sneak out in the middle of the night and go over to Brian's house while his parents were still away. If I got caught, I could just say that I was going to Amber's. It's not like I had a curfew or anything.
"Worth a try, right?" he asked.
I rolled my eyes and shook my head as I stood up. "Well, boys, it's time for me to go to bed. I'm exhausted."
"Me too," Aaron admitted. "Win, you win World's Toughest Coach."
I laughed and headed for the stairs. "Night."
"Night!" they called back.
Knowing that I had time to kill, I took a shower and sang while I washed my hair. Being with Brian seemed to make me a different person. One that apparently sang in the shower.
"He just takes his tractor another round. Pulls the plow across the ground. Sends up another prayer. Lord, I never complain, I never ask why; please don't let my dreams run dry. Underneath this Amarillo sky."
Brian liked to listen to pop and rock, but country was more my thing and that's the kind of music that I tended to lean towards. Although, I did kind of like Maroon5.
After my shower, I put my hair in a towel and changed into jeans and a T-shirt, along with tennis shoes. Then, I read my book for English for a while until all of the lights were off downstairs.
Then, as slowly as possible, I crept down the hallway and slowly down the stairs, careful to avoid the creaky steps (which was harder than it sounds because that's pretty much every single one). In the living room, I was confused to hear Bill snoring on the couch, with Aaron on the other couch, snoring too.
They fell asleep down here?
Shrugging, I continued on my way, being extra careful not to make any sounds that would wake Aaron or Bill. But I doubted that any noise form me could have made Bill wake up. His snores were going to bring the house down any minute, it sounded like.
I was just coming up on the door when I froze.
There was a shape on the floor in front of the door.
Smut?
No.
When I crept closer, I saw that it was Win.
No way! They were so suspicious of me that they were sleeping in the living room to make sure that I wasn't sneaking out to go see Brian! Did they not see how childish that was? Why couldn't they just accept the fact that I had a boyfriend and it just really wasn't any of their business who it was?
Angry, I whirled around and left the living room. I was going to sneak out. The front door wasn't the only way out of the house, it was just the most convienent way.
Once I was back upstairs, I went into my room and closed the door. Then, I pulled my hair up into a ponytail and headed over for the window. Brian had climbed through it and went back out through it, so why couldn't I?
I raised it as quietly as possible and then looked outside. Brian had said that the house was easy to scale, but the only way that I saw was to kind of edge over and get my foot on the gap in the siding. Then, it would be an easy jump.
I took a deep breath. "Here goes."
Then, I let my feet go out the window first until I was out. Carefully, I shut my window up until there was just a crack left, so that I would be able to raise it up to get in if I needed to. Slowly, I began to edge my way over and I was almost there when I felt my hand slipping.
No!
Too late, I realized that I could have grabbed the roof for a steadier hold.
But too late, I was already falling.
I landed on my feet, which I thought was a good thing at first, but then I saw the black dots.
They were everywhere.
When I tried to take a step, my knees cried out in pain and I had to grit my teeth to keep from doing the same. I must have twisted them when I landed.
"Stupid," I muttered to myself. "Stupid, stupid."
I began to curse everything. My house, for being so hard to sneak out of. The ground, for being too hard. My knees, for being too weak. My brothers, for being so unbearable overprotective that they felt the need to guard the exit so that I couldn't sneak out.
The pain rippled through me again and I considered going to knock on the door to tell them all what I had done.
But I couldn't. There was no way that my pride was going to let me do that.
So, I just grit my teeth against the pain and began to walk towards my truck. Each step was pretty near agony, but I held on because I was tough. I could do it.
"How am I going to hide this?" I whispered to myself as I took the keys out of my pocket to unlock the truck.
I got inside, started it up, and turned the headlights off to reverse. Even pushing the pedals hurt my knees.
As I drove, I pictured my brother's faces when they found out what I had done.
"They're going to attach me to a freaking leash," I muttered to myself as I drove. "Brain, you better come up with a damn good cover story for this incident."