-10
Apparently, Courtney's objective is to make Heather and I break up.
We've barely even just started a relationship. That just proves that Cress is a small town if somebody like Courtney already knows about Heather and I becoming a couple and then has an evil mastermind plan to thwart it by Monday morning, two mere days after we just started dating.
I've never felt more helpless in my life than I did surrounded by those girls. They were pressing me to my locker, way too many of them. Now I can truly sympathize with celebrities that have fan girls clinging to their arms, trying to romance them when they aren't interested. The fan girls weren't the worst part. It was after that portly girl kissed me and Heather looked at me, on the verge of tears. She's never looked so devastated and it broke my heart to pieces in my chest. She didn't even ask me for my side of the story...she just went ahead and assumed. I didn't even get one word out. Nobody would listen to me.
Things did work out, but Heather hasn't spoken to me all day. I'm furious at Courtney and I'm so depressed. For the first time since Jose went off to college, I'm locked in my room, completely disheveled, with my stereo turned all the way up, playing metal music, a genre I only listen to when I'm angry or upset. For the first time, I'm deliberately skipping work, sitting on my bed shirtless with my head buried between my knees.
Heather's words keep running through my head, injecting me like snake poison. Yes, some of what she said was true, but that's who I was before I met her. Now I want to be evil with her, not against her. As I sit there, I can't help putting Courtney at the forefront of my revenge plans. So many different ideas and options. It's giving me something slightly productive to do...
There was a loud knock on my bedroom door. "ALEJANDRO!" my mother screams. "¡Subes el sonido! ¡Ahora!"
Rolling my eyes, I climb across the bed and turn down my stereo. Just as I'm waiting for her to come in and demand to know why I'm not at work, I hear an unexpected voice out in the hall. There's some quiet conversation, then the sound of the door knob jiggling as the door opens.
Heather stands there and I'm not sure how to react. Part of me is burning with absolute fury while the other part desperately wants to wrap my arms around her and kiss her forehead. As she walks in, her hands behind her back, I just give her a steely look, try to appear emotionless.
"What do you want?" I ask, looking at her and frowning.
Heather sits down next to me and pulls something out from behind her back: a small box. She looks at me earnestly and opens it, revealing a gaudy piece of jewelry, a silver ring with a bull's face on it. I'm really touched that she took notice of my favorite necklace, but it doesn't quell my silent fury as her nasty words ricochet through my brain.
"Alejandro..." The tone of her voice is begging and she's biting her lip.
I refuse to be taken in by a puppy dog look. No matter how adorable she is. Closing my eyes, I turn away from her and fish around the top of my bed for my shirt.
"I'm really not good at stuff like this..." She says as I pull on my shirt, still turned away from her. "Can't we just rewind to Saturday night again? Please?"
As much as it kills me, I remain obstinate, not even sneaking a peek at her.
"Alejandro..." Her voice is soft. "Lo siento...Yo sé es temprano decir este, pero...me encanta tú mucho. Estuve mal. Mucho mal. Lo siento..."
It really warms mi corazón when she tries to express how she feels, especially in taking the extra effort to say it in Spanish. There's no way that I can resist her or continue to be silent after that. Trying not to smile, I turn to face her.
"I believe you're looking for the words 'Te quiero'," I tell her. "Other than that, you're getting better. Much better."
"Te quiero," she repeats, smiling at me, knowing that I forgive her. The words make my heart pop like a firecracker.
She loves me! I lunge at her and kiss her, holding her close and tight. When I pull away, she smiles again and I loosen my grip on her. I'm surprised when she reaches out and tugs my shirt down, making me realize that I hadn't pulled it on all the way. Then she reaches out and grabs my hand, sliding the ring onto my finger-
"ALEJANDRO!" My eyes snap open. Ever since I got home from school, I've been buried under the covers, sleeping. Groggily, I sit up and piece together that I was just experiencing an extremely pleasant, but unrealistic dream. Let's face it: Heather knows enough Spanish tests, but she's far from forming even a semi-coherent sentence in Spanish.
"Alejandro..." My mother bursts in, alone, looking at me bewilderingly. "You're supposed to be at work. Your manager's called at least seven times now, hijo."
Irritated, I roll my shoulders and yawn. "I think she has a crush on me..."
"You can't take advantage of her feelings like that!" my mother cries, horrified. "I raised you better than that!"
"I'm not..." I reply, realizing that I'm not wearing a shirt.
"Hijo...is something wrong?" She comes towards me, extending her arms and puckering her lips like a fish, that silly little way she does whenever she's concerned about me.
"I'm taking the day off," I tell her. "I need to go talk to my girlfriend..."
"Girlfriend?" Mom looks at me, confused.
She knows me like the back of her own hand. My brown hair and green eyes may have come from her, but the rest comes from my father. All these years, I saw the way las mujeres looked up at him with such longing and lust in their eyes and how devious he was, using that to his advantage, but he always stayed faithful to my mother. I never understood why and as soon as I started taking after him, I laughed at the thought of falling in love like he had. That a relationship was a ball and chain that I didn't want or need.
Then Heather showed up.
"Yes, I have a girlfriend," I say, smiling a little and loving the image that filled my head.
"Oh...I recognize that look!" My mother was getting a bit too excited. "Ignacio looks at me just-"
"I'll be back by ten," I say, finding where I put my shirt.
I pull it on just as I'm walking towards my bedroom door and Mom points at my shirt, shaking her head and stifling a laugh. When I look down, I realize that I haven't pulled it down all the way.
Deja vu.
My manager's worried about me. Much to my dismay, she actually brought up that she knew I was dating Heather and told me I could talk to her about it. As soon as she attempted to coerce me into discussing my 'feelings' with her, I cut her off by saying I'd pick up a shift tomorrow and hung up.
After today's disaster, I know that it will take a lot to get the passion and heat of the weekend back. It took so much tiempo to get it there in the first place and my heart keeps panging at the thought that tonight probably won't be enough to recapture the emotions and patch everything up. But I'm going to try my best, no matter what sort of effort it takes.
My dad gave me the keys to his fancy silver Carola and let me borrow his guitar. As I drive to Heather's house, I cast glances at the single red rose I picked up for her at the florist's. Fingering the velvety petals of the rose, I can't help of thinking how similar Heather is to a rose: She's absolutely beautiful, but she has a lot of thorns.
Tentatively, I pull into the driveway of her mansion, unannounced. There's a bright red convertible parked just ahead of my car that seems eerily familiar. Usually, her drive way is vacant with the exception of her parents' matching purple Porsches (which are conveniently absent now, too). The presence of this red convertible is bugging me, making my insides prickle.
Feeling my adrenaline spike and my heart knock into overdrive, I try to ignore the feeling of unease and the uncomfortable memories that follow it. All of my self-control runs down the drain when I see a familiar figure walk out the front door. I can feel my anger rising, my animal instincts going into overdrive. The very first thing I want to do is run out of the car and tackle this guy to the ground, punch him until he begs for mercy.
Jose. Standing there and looking so smug with that aura of condescending confidence. He's wearing a black silk shirt, tan pants, shoes that look just as expensive as his convertible. His brown hair is cut short like always and his green eyes look as alert and deceptive as ever. Of course, he's managed to become a millionaire in his first two years of college, on top of being valedictorian, MVP of the football, soccer, basketball and swim teams, in his high school. And oh, I can't forget his stupid IQ of over 200 that he never stops bragging about.
Jose. Jose. Jose. Dad's favorite. The most popular kid in every town he's ever lived in. The very bane of my existence.
As if his mere presence weren't enough, Heather walks out, looking drop dead gorgeous in a tiny black dress and high heeled shoes, her long hair tied into a bun on her head. Like the stupid gentleman that he is, Jose extends his arm to her.
Without waiting a moment more, I push open my car door and run full tilt towards them, huffing and puffing. When I'm practically inches away from Jose, I glare heatedly into his face, shooting daggers at him as I pull up the sleeves of my shirt. Every fiber of my being is radiating with anger. That's what Jose does to me; I don't think logically around him, I think with my fists.
"Oh...baby brother Al," he says coolly, using the dreaded nick name. "What a surprise...! Now isn't a good time, you see. I'm about to take this lovely lady out on the town..."
That condescending tone. The way his eyes narrow. The way he smirks at me as if I'm an inferior insect in comparison to him.
No more talk. I launch out with my fist, but he catches it and I catch the fist he tries to launch into my solar plexus. Then we both lash out with our feet, knocking each other to the ground. Of course, he's as well practiced and reflexive as always. I leap to my feet and hop out of the way just as Jose climbs to his feet, clucking with distaste at the grass stains on his pants.
While he's thoroughly distracted, I recoil and launch myself at him like a spring, knocking him to the ground and pinning him. He's wearing a victorious look and I'm wondering why. Then he kicks me off, planting his shoe right in the middle of my chest. The air is knocked out of my chest, I fly back and land on the ground again. Feeling like a deflated balloon, I watch as Jose looms over me like a dark, imposing shadow.
Adding insult to injury, he plants the heel of his shoe into my cheek and presses down. Hard.
"You need to leave," he says in that steely tone he's so good at.
He glares down at me and presses his shoe down harder, just making my fury intensify. Underhanded as I am, I sweep one of my legs out and make Jose topple. I climb to my feet as he regains his balance, wipe the dirt from his shoe off of my cheek.
It's just now that I turn to look at Heather again. She just stands there, with her arms folded across her chest, trying to look innocent. Those eyes are deceptive and when she notices I'm looking at her, she smirks a little and something inside me snaps. I can feel my heart bursting and breaking like glass, shattering into a million pieces.
Jose's in my face again, smirking. With lightning fast reflexes, I avoid three of his shots at my solar plexus. This is getting nowhere. Fast.
I launch out and knee Jose in the crotch, smiling as he crumples and winces. He falls to his knees, tears welling up in his eyes. Jose glares at me and continues to launch out, resisting the impulse to fall all the way over. At first I easily dodge him, but soon enough, he's back on his feet and has his bearings. Relentlessly, he lashes out at me with an endless volley, actually hitting me in the side, the neck, my cheek.
Satisfied, he recoils and then we're both standing there, staring at each other, breathing hard.
"What do you want, Al?" he barks at me.
"To destroy you!"
"Well, I'm here to obliterate you, hermanito," he spits back at me, grinning.
Before I can say anything else, I watch Heather walk up out of the corner of my eye. I grit my teeth and clench my fists, ready to launch forward and start fighting again.
Jose looks up at her and flashes his trademark "lady killing" smile. Desperately, I feel my heart throb and break again. I don't know how Jose came here and entered the picture, but of course Heather would choose him over me. Jose has a way with all women. He can date sixteen women all at once and every one of them would be okay with sharing him with the others. It's just natural that Heather fell in love with him as soon as he-
Heather lashes out and kicks him in the crotch, watching as he falls to the ground, weeping. Casually, she looks at her fingernails, then kicks him again in the leg, making him squawk in pain.
"Dios mio!" Jose complains. "Mierda! Shit! Shit! Mierda!" Then he looks at her and grits his teeth. "Bitch! "
Heather walks over to me as I just stand there, feeling a huge mix of emotion. Looking at Jose being in so much pain, I can't help feeling some modicum of delight. To keep from confronting Heather, I look at him, letting myself grin as he glares at me.
"You're a bastard, Al," he declares. "You know I can't resist the ladies...You know what?" He flings his middle finger up at me as he continues to writhe in pain. "You're gonna get it! You're really gonna get it next time, you little shit!"
He continues to cuss and use colorful language, because he's in so much pain and because he thinks I actually beat him for once. I just keep smiling until someone grabs me by the arm and drags me towards my car. When I'm standing by the driver's side of my car, I'm face to face with Heather, who looks way too smug and satisfied right now.
My brain pieces together exactly what she was up to. Part of me is angry while a larger part of me is impressed and if it's possible, I'm just more in love with her than I was before.
"You got to have all of those girls all over you today..." she says, smirking. "I met Jose at a college party Justin dragged me to a week or so ago. He looked so much like you, 'cept with shorter hair...I went up and started talking to him out of curiosity and found out he was your brother. The idiot gave me his number and I've kept it until now..."
I watched as she pulled a slip of paper out of her purse with his phone number on it. She held it up for me long enough to memorize the number and then ripped it to pieces.
Feeling the pieces of my heart fly back together, I reached out and wrapped my arms around Heather's waist, pulling her towards me. Before she could say anything more, I pressed my lips to hers and kissed her, strongly and passionately. It was so powerful; I could feel her melting into me, returning the same amount of force and emotions.
When I pulled away, she looked at me with wide eyes, taking deep breaths as if her breath had been torn out of her lungs. We stared at each other for a minute and I wanted to kiss her again so badly-
"Move your piece of shit, Al!" Jose yelled, honking his horn.
Smirking, I opened the driver's side door and waited while Heather climbed in. Then I got in after her and pulled out of the driveway, deliberately looking away from Jose's laser-beam eyes. Just as I was driving away from Heather's mansion, I rolled down my car window.
"BASTARD!" I yelled at Jose, not even turning back to see his reaction.
Before that moment, I'd never uttered a curse word in my life.
"Don't tell me you were going to sing love songs." Heather's looking at my father's guitar as if it's a poisonous spider.
"No..." Yes.
"Ow!" Heather fishes the rose out from under her and I feel like slapping myself for leaving it there.
She fingers the rose carefully and furrows her brows as I turn down another street. "Nobody's ever given me a rose before..."
"Are you sure Jose didn't give you one?" I'm still feeling a little bitter inside. Even if I did kiss her, I'm still muddled up in how to feel about all of this right now.
"I'm not wearing this dress for Jose. I'm wearing it for you," Heather says in reply, still looking at the rose. "I knew you were coming..."
Her comment makes my heart leap a little despite itself, but I remain silent, focusing on driving. But I can't help stealing glances at her every now and then. For a few minutes, both of us are silent; me driving, Heather lost in her thoughts while she stares at the rose.
"I...I don't know why I did it..." Heather is speaking more to herself than me. "I think from the first moment I saw you, there was something about you that interested me. I guess I was lying every time I said I wasn't interested..."
She looks out the window. "I...I..." She turns and rests her hand lightly on my wrist. "Stop the car."
Confused, I pull into the parking lot of a nearby grocery store, as far into the lot as I could get. It felt like Heather wanted privacy.
We sat there silence. The bright wash of orange, gold, and purple of sunset painted the sky outside above the ice cream parlor next door. Next to me, Heather looks peculiarly stunning, bronze in the evening sunlight, her face drawn as she frowned and swam in her own personal thoughts. For some reason, the way she kept absentmindedly poking at the rose seemed symbolic.
Today had been so strange and strenuous. Not for the first time, I was pondering my feelings towards Heather, why I felt the way that I did. After her stunt with Jose, the thing with Courtney felt like it had happened a million years ago rather than earlier today. I look at her and wonder what she's thinking, whether or not she's as confused and faraway as I am right now.
The minutes pass like hours and I stare at my watch, the hands of it moving like turtles to me as I wait impatiently and anxiously for something, anything to happen. I feel like Heather's going to say something significant to me. It's not going to be like the short, clipped conversation we were having mere minutes ago, but actually something intelligent.
Another minute passes and I start to consider going into the grocery store to buy a candy bar...just for something to do...
That's when Heather lightly touches my chin, sending shivers down my spine. Gently, she turns my face towards her and I look at her and she looks at me, both of our facial expressions blank and uncharacteristic. Realizing that she has my full attention, a spark enters Heather's eyes and she smiles a little.
"I've been thinking quite a lot about something..." she confesses, stroking my cheek. "I know we just started dating, but I feel like you know me better than anybody. Even Lindsay and Beth and they've been my best friends since fourth grade."
"And when you started flirting with me, I thought you were just another guy who was using me to take Justin's place or just pretending to like me to aggravate me," she continues. "Even then, I started liking you, despite myself. I just kept denying it. I didn't realize it. But after you started tutoring me in Spanish, I knew you were genuine about being interested in me. After that, I really started thinking about you. A lot."
Heather took a deep breath and pulled my face closer towards her.
"I'm not sure if it was obvious or not, but I fell in love with you right after that. From then, all the way to now, I've been in love with you and I still am." She pressed her forehead against mine, found my hand and laced her fingers through mine. "I love you, Alejandro."
"I love you, too," I reply automatically. "Te quiero mucho."
She sighs and lays down, pulling me with her. Then she starts kissing me, and I start kissing her back, reaching up and pulling the bun out of her hair, wrapping my fingers through the loose strands of it and pulling it free. Lightly, Heather starts running her fingers through my hair.
Taking a risk, I stick my tongue into her mouth and she sticks hers into mine, quickly turning the kiss French. Ooh la la, her tongue is a graceful snake that knows how to tango; it feels like I just swallowed a whole bottle of hot sauce. My body temperature keeps rising and the shivers running down my back are endless. There's so much heat and fire, we're a pair of exploding fireworks. We continue kissing for several minutes and things just couldn't be any better than right now. This moment.
Finally, Heather pulls away and I sit up so that she can sit up. Her hair is a bird's nest and she scowls playfully at me as she tries to smooth it. Smiling, I join in her attempts, running my fingers through her hair again and relishing in how silky smooth and beautiful it is.
"Technically, we are on a date," Heather says, smiling at me.
"What do you have in mind?" I ask, still feeling her tongue in my mouth.
"Don't take it for granted," Heather warns. "I'm treating you to dinner."
It feels kind of strange that the night is far from over after Heather practically made my entire world spin by telling me that she loved me.
It was all I could think about as we sat in a fancy restaurant with a golden chandelier overhead. She put her hand over mine and smiled at me. We were surrounded by other tables where older couples and rich people taking their parents out to dinner and various others were. Everything was lit only by the soft subdued light of candles.
The rest of the night went by in a happy blur. I remember eating steak, Heather's breath smelling like lobster, the generous tip Heather left for the waitress and her startled reaction. Our conversation was pretty much clipped or just clever flirtatious banter. A few times, much to my delight and surprise, Heather even tried to speak a little bit of Español.
My mind was still in my truck, on her words, our first French kiss. All night my heart was in hyper drive and from the way Heather kept looking at me, I could tell that was all that was on her mind, too. Neither of us were hungry for food, we were hungry for each other.
When we were driving home from the restaurant, both of us were silent. For some reason, when we drove past Heather's mansion, I drove a bit more slowly, but I didn't stop. I just ended up driving right past it and Heather didn't protest.
We ended up going to my house. Mom and Dad were asleep, the light in their room was off. Luckily, Jose had decided against any last minute visits. Silently, the two of us went inside and right into my bedroom. Without asking, we both lay down on my bed.
It was silent and dark, just past ten o' clock at night. After such a tumultuous day, the calm and tranquility was exquisite and inviting.
Nothing really happened. The two of us were simply exhausted. We just fell asleep, turned away from each other.
Tonight, I didn't really dream, I just had a dreamless sleep. It was peaceful, pleasant. When the next morning came, I woke up by rays of sunlight pouring in through my closed eyelids and making it painful to keep sleeping. When I opened my eyes, I saw Heather lying a few feet away, struggling to open her own eyes.
Once we were both actually waking up, we continued looking at the other and smiled. My heart was filled with the morning sunshine. If I could, I want every morning to be like this when I wake up.
"Good morning," Heather says.
"Buenas tardes," I reply, reaching out and touching her hand.
Today is going to be a good day.