hey, everyone! sorry i've been MIA for so long. i've gone through a job change, started school, and a ton of other things since my last entry, but i'm back now, and plan to continue my story. thanks to everyone who reviewed chapter 1. i look forward to your feed back! so without further ado, here's chapter 2...that rhymed!
Maybe I should just lay here for a while, Roman thought from his prostrate position on the concrete. The collision had knocked him completely flat, an confirmed his belief that the universe was out to get him. It was barely 9:00 in the morning, and already he'd slept through his alarm, stubbed his toes on every piece of furniture in his house, burned his breakfast, spilled orange juice all over himself, and torn a hole in the seat of his favorite jeans. Now, he'd been hit head-on and thrown off his bike. Clearly, this was not going to be a good day.
As he pondered his extreme lack of luck, he realized it would probably freak the girl out if he didn't get up. Also,the likelihood of being run over by a car was increased when one lay still in the middle of the road. Roman sighed deeply, and opened his eyes.
He stared up and saw the person who had crashed into him. A beautiful girl stood over him. Roman's heart stopped beating for a second. Never before had he seen such a beautiful creature. Her skin was pale and smooth, a faint blush coloring her cheeks and her pale-pink lips parted slightly. A gorgeous waterfall of fiery curls cascaded down her back, and the most shocking green eyes Roman had ever seen stared down at him. She was a vision of loveliness. She was an angel. She was...completely freaked out.
The girl was staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed at him as he rested there on the pavement. Roman shook himself, and rose to a sitting position.
"Ummm," he said, not breaking eye contact. "Hi."
The girl didn't answer. Instead, she began to tremble softly, and slowly back away from him.
"Whoa, it's alright," Roman assured her as he swiftly moved to his feet. "I'm okay. No harm done!" He smiled a soft smirk, trying to calm the girl down. "Are you alright?"
Instead of answering, the girl turned around and sprinted back to the scene of the collision. She mounted her bike, and sped off, blowing past Roman in her haste.
Roman watched the back of the fleeing girl until she was completely out of sight. He stared after her, wondering what had made her so terrified.
"Just one of those days, I guess," he sighed. Gathering his bike, he made his way to school.
Roman sat in class, ignoring everything and everyone around him. This was nothing new; Roman firmly believed that the public schooling system was a huge waste of time and taxes. However his mind wasn't focused on this ideological stance. He was thinking about the girl who had crashed into him that morning. Roman wondered why she had looked so terrified when she saw him. Granted he wasn't the most friendly looking person(his vast repertoire of black clothing and his permanent scowl were very off-putting to most people). But didn't common courtesy demand that a person at least speak to you after running you over?
Roman looked down at his desk and realized that he had doodled a pair of seductive, half-lidded eyes on the worksheet he was supposed to be completing. Reaching into his pencil case, Roman produced a bright green pen and colored in the eyes to make them the exact shade of the red-headed hit-and-run girl. He admired his work, committing the color and depth of those eyes to memory. Surely he would recognize the eyes again if he ever saw them.
He glanced around the room and inspected each of his classmates-something he had never done before. There were many pretty girls, but none with a waterfall of red hair or emerald eyes; his assailant was not among them.
Sighing, Roman turned back to his desk and silently reprimanded himself.
What's the matter with you, he thought to himself. You just can't help falling for a pretty girl, can you?
This seemed to be true. Only yesterday, Roman had suffered the heartbreak of rejection when the head cheerleader, Rosalina, had spurned a gift he had given her. Roman deflated a bit as he remembered the hours of time and effort he had put into the gift. He had spent an entire week sketching a portrait of Rosalina, had filled his wastebasket to the brim with countless drafts that didn't quite capture the beauty Roman saw in her, and had finally produced a glorious portrayal of the girl. Roman had been so proud when he handed it to her. It had been the best drawing he had ever done. And Rosalina had blown her nose into it and thrown it in the trash.
Glancing to the back of the room, Roman looked longingly at the aforementioned blonde cheerleader. She was looking at herself in a small hand mirror and applying lip gloss before making kissing faces at herself. Roman frowned as confusion entered his thoughts. He had once thought Rosalina to be the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Blonde hair, amber eyes, and perfect bone structure. She had been his muse and his unrequited love. Now, however, he found himself comparing her to the red-headed girl.
His eyes were no longer staring with longing, but with criticism and scrutiny. Rosalina's straight blonde hair was flat and boring in comparison to the riotous red curls of the girl from the crash. And her sparkling green eyes made Rosalina's honey-colored eyes seem lifeless. In that moment, Roman realized that he no longer wanted Rosalina. In fact, he now thought she was a shallow, mean, elitist cow! All his former thoughts of beauty and longing were transferred to his red-head.
The bell rang and Roman snapped out of his seat and rushed for the door, mentally slapping himself.
My red-head, he thought, outraged. I don't even know her, and I'm calling her mine? I'm like Charlie Brown, falling for the "little red-head girl"! How cliche' is that?!
Roman stalked through the halls, trying to shake off these strange feelings when he was hit in the back of the head. He whirled around to see his best friend Marcus behind him.
"What was that for?!" Roman shouted, rubbing the tender spot on the back of his head.
"That was for ignoring me when I called you and making me run through the hallway to catch up to you," Marcus answered unapologetically as he fell into step with his friend. As they continued down the hall, Roman couldn't help but wonder why he had become friends with the other boy. Marcus was a bit taller than Roman, had tawny colored hair and golden skin from all the hours spent outside playing a ton of sports. He was quite popular, and always had ladies chasing him. He was in every way the opposite of the artistic, socially awkward Roman. But he was also a good person, and he was one of the few people who had never bullied Roman for being quiet and different.
"So what were you thinking about so hard that you couldn't hear me yelling at you from down the hall?" Marcus asked.
"Nothing," Roman answered mechanically. He usually didn't have a problem talking about things with Marcus, but for some reason, he didn't want to share his red-head with his friend. Marcus wasn't buying it, though.
"Nothing, huh?" he asked suspiciously. "By 'nothing' do you mean that blonde bobble-head you've been obsessed with for the last few months?"
Roman laughed. Although the bobble-head in question was constantly vying for his attention, Marcus didn't have much patience with Rosalina or for Roman's infatuation with her.
"No, I wasn't," Roman said. "I wasn't thinking about anything, actually. Someone crashed into me with their bike this morning and my head smacked the pavement, so I'm kinda scatter-brained right now."
"Oh," Marcus said, becoming serious. "Maybe you should go see the nurse."
"Nah, I'm alright. Or at least I was before a certain someone smacked me in the head," Roman said, jokingly.
Marcus looked chagrined for a moment and mumbled a quick apology.
"Anyway," he continued, changing the subject, "I wanted to ask you if you wanted to go to a bonfire with me and Benji tonight. It's on the beach after dark. Lots of music, tons of girls in bikinis...no chaperons." Marcus wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.
Roman rolled his eyes at his friend. He wasn't at all attracted to the peer pressure-induced rebellion Marcus liked to participate in, but he usually ended up right smack in the middle of it due to his friend's unbending insistence.
"If I say no and promise to let you bore me with all the details tomorrow, will you accept that as an answer?"
"NOPE!" Marcus smiled. "Don't you know how this friendship works, yet? The only reason I ask is to be polite; you don't actually get to decline."
Roman sighed. He contemplated pretending his head was really hurting him, so he could bail on this party. All he wanted to do was get through the school day, so that he could get home and start his new weekend project: sketching his red-head from memory. But, he knew there was no way out of this, so he gave in.
"Fine," he said, unenthusiastically. "I'll go."
"Of course, you will," said Marcus with a grin. "Maybe now you'll have something to take your mind off of Blondie."
Roman didn't bother telling Marcus that his mind was no longer on "Blondie". He knew that he would eventually tell his friend about his new obsession, but for the time being, he wanted to keep her to himself. His little secret. His "little red-head girl".