Chapter Five: Explanations (But Do We Believe Them?)
That Saturday night, my mom and I were having a girls' night out at the mall, y'know, normal girl shopping stuff.
We both were avid readers so a major stop was Borders Books and Music. My mom browsed the books in the adult section while I stayed in the Teen's.
My finger skimmed the shelves, searching for the perfect novel when a hand reached out across my mouth and pulled me behind a bookcase. I yelped but it was muffled by my captor's hand.
Angrily, I turned around, ready to start screaming, when I saw my capturer's face. It was Michael.
"Michael?" I gasped.
He grinned. "Nice to see you too."
"Where have you been? It's like, after Lay-Z Bean, you just quit yourself out of my life. I really missed you." The last sentence poured from my mouth unwanted.
"You missed me, huh?" He grinned even larger.
"Oh, I didn't me-, well, yes, but –," I flustered.
"It's okay," he said softly. "I told you there was something, a connection between us. We were meant to find each other."
"Michael," I began. "I don't know a thing about you, or you much about me."
"Still having doubts," he acknowledged. "That's okay, it's cool." He raised his arms in a defeatist gesture.
"No, I didn't mean that. Michael, I-I think I love you."
"Jule," he whispered.
"Yes?" Tingles ran down my back.
"I have felt that way ever since I saw you at the Bat Mitzvah."
Now this would be the part in all those cheesy movies where the hero and the heroine would clash into a fierce kiss, but we just grinned silly grins at each other.
At that moment, I noticed an orange scarf tied around his neck. I fingered it lightly.
"Funny, I never thought you'd be the type of guy to wear scarves."
He gave a wry smile. "Actually, I'm not. My grandmother gave me a 'present,'" he made air quotes, "and I felt that I should wear it at least once."
"Ok," I said, accepting his answer.
"Julia? Are you ready?" I heard my mom calling.
He sighed. "It seems as though we are always being cut off." Then his face lit up. "Tell ya what, why don't we get together tonight at the Big Park? We'll have it all to ourselves after midnight. 2:30 okay?"
I squirmed. "Um, I don't know about you, but that would require sneaking out of the house for me. But I'll do it. 2:30."
As we stood up, his scarf drooped a little and a long scratch was revealed. It looked familiar somehow but I couldn't place it. He inconspicuously pulled the material back to cover the wound and acted as if nothing had happened.
"See ya," I whispered and found my mother.
At 2:15, my alarm beeped and I awoke. Silently, and cautiously, I heaved up my window. Taking quick glances out to make sure no one was in view, I wrapped one ankle around the side of the tree right outside my bedroom window. I climbed down and soundlessly dropped to the ground. I winced. In the short fall, I had landed badly and sprained my ankle. I hobbled to the sidewalk, testing if my leg would be able to carry my weight. It seemed fine. I arrived at the Big Park and spotted him sitting languidly on a bench – my Prince Charming. I limped over toward him.
He looked genuinely glad to see me. "What happened to your foot?" He asked, concern etched over the finely chiseled features of his face.
I grimaced. "Sprained it, but it should be fine."
"Hope it gets better."
"Thanks."
There were no awkward silences between us, no uncomfortable coughs. We talked the night away, each of us only wanting to be close and knowledgeable about the other.
Oddly though, he didn't say a thing about himself, nothing about his home life, just kept the focus on me. I didn't mind it. I wanted him to know everything about me. So I spoke about my family. How my dad had mysteriously died four years ago – we were still all reeling from the shock – leaving no family other than us behind. How my sixteen-year-old sister Melanie was barely ever home, always out partying and drinking. When she was home, she was seldom sober. How Mom, also, was rarely with us; she would usually work until the late hours, leaving me to act the part of a mother to Daniel, my clingy five-year-old brother. I talked about my friends; how sometimes I felt like I never fit in and how sometimes I felt I couldn't fit in more, they were like family. How I constantly felt the burden of living up to my A-student status...
We (well really I) talked the whole night, promising we would meet each other here again next week, and eventually we fell asleep, me on his shoulder.
I woke up to the bright rays of dawn. I gasped, horrified. I've been here all night. Mom's going to murder me. I quietly lifted Michael's hand from around me, careful not to disturb his light snores. Quickly, I wrote a note on a scrap of a candy wrapper, apologizing for leaving before he awoke, and tiptoed out of the park, shoes clutched in hand.
Barefoot, I climbed up the tree and slipped into the house. I crept silently through all the rooms, and realized with relief that no one was up yet, no one had realized my absence.