If You're Gone
By Lemony Apple
Yeah, and If your gone
Baby you need to come home
-Matchbox 20Maybe whoever told Danny about who had a crush on me was the person who does things 'accidentally-on-purpose'. But when Dan spilt the beans during fettuccini night, I chocked on a particularly long noodle and pea.
Mom just looked shocked. "Someone has a crush on our Libby?" Daddy looked annoyed.
"I had to beat that Skyscraperz boy off of you, to find you crying a few months later. Maureen, I'm despairing of this new teenage dating."
"Towerz, Daddy." I said, correcting him after Danny dislodged the pea-and-noodle offender by slapping me on the back a few times. My father had called my ex several nicknames that weren't quite right (Skyscraperz, Bankz, and for some strange reason that no one really understood in my family nor his, Attourneyz.) Then again, my father was never good with names.
Apparently he had called my mother Melissa for four months until she had the heart to correct him (he had even written a poem about her and published it in the university's newspaper. It was called 'Melissa Looks Into My Heart.').
"I just don't see why he can't use his Christian name. Gunther is a perfectly fine name."
We all chose not to comment on Daddy's statement. Indeed, Danny had found Towerz's real name so amusing that he had made one of his infamous fake Ids with it, and he still uses it to this day.
But I digress.
Instead of this itching, burning disgust of Towerz's real name, I pushed around my peas until they spelled 'I hate peas' on my plate.
"Oh, just eat them, Libby!" My mother said, sadly. Then with a distinctly more affable tone, she said to my younger brother, "now tell us which nice young man likes Libby."
Dan clutched his hand to his heart, then threw the other into the air as if he was reciting Hamlet. "I am sorry, my Maternal Parental Unit, but I cannot break the bonds of brotherhood. For brotherhood is a bond so strong, so pure, that no matter of banter and pleading may break it, for it is a force of such utter devotion for the fellow man-"
Everyone got a good roll-of-the-eyes with that one. Daddy just laughed though.
"Dan, that is a load of chicken-"
"Scott!" Mom cried, cutting him off. He blushed.
After dinner had finished, mom and dad had given up on the subject and had retired to the Den to watch old Dick Van Dike shows. However, I was not so easy to give up- I was going to find out, or die trying.
I barged into his room.
"Hark, what is knocking on my chamber door?" he said, not facing me. "Oh, 'tis just Lenore. Barge in Nevermore."
"Oh, shut it, Dan." I crossed my arms and leaned on his doorframe. "Now tell me who you were talking about at dinner."
"Not a chance, Lenny." He turned the page. "Who the hell is Pallas?" he said under his breath.
"The raven sits on a bust of Athena, goddess of wisdom, now answer the question!"
"Gee, thanks," he said, and jotted down the answer on his worksheet. "Now if you could tell me how Lenore croaked..."
"Not on your life, Daniel Van Zaandt unless you tell me about him!"
"Nooo."
"Okay, then I'm forced to tell Mom that: A- you pantsed JT Yorke, B- you run a fake ID business, and are getting very rich, and C- you helped purchase a penis pump for aforementioned male." Hah, can't pass that one up!
"Okay, okay." He said, as if calming a child. "Three guesses of the male persuasion. Make a list."
Toby.
Sean
Chris.
"They are all wrong." He said. "Now scurry along, I have The Raven homework to do."
That's when I hit him with his own English textbook. It is very satisfying, you know, hitting your brother with his own English book, and then hearing him squeal like a girl.
"Okay," he said. "I'll try to make him confess. But Libby, don't make me say his name."
"Alright, I always did like a mystery."
I smiled and retreated out of the room.
End of Chapter One