The Boy Across The Street, page 3
He saved me that night (and saved the little girl too, as I was ready to rip her eyes out). He helped me entertain the bratty girl and we all ended up having a lot of fun that night, and the bear did become my distress signal to Dmitri. If I put ‘Brokenhearted’ Bear in my window, Dmitri would know I was sad and needed him. He would climb to my window and comfort me. Always. It was easier sometimes than sending a text to him. It didn’t require words, or an explanation. He would just show up and know I needed him.
Of course all of that stopped when Dmitri dumped me. I never put the bear in my window again. Ever.
… Well, except this one night.
See, last year a boy died on my sidewalk, right in front of my house. I didn’t know the boy very well, he went to my school and I had tutored him once, but I had stopped because it was clear he had a crush on me, but I had a boyfriend and it was awkward. I didn’t know how else to handle the situation except end the arranged tutoring sessions. It’s not like the boy needed them anyway. He was a year younger than me, but he was really smart. Way smarter than me. So, it was pretty clear he had only used my tutoring service as an excuse to make me be around him, but like I said—it was awkward.
But then he died in front of my house. I learned later he’d had an allergic reaction to peanuts. The weird thing is, I’m allergic to peanuts too, and I have a shot that I carry with me always. It could have saved him. That’s the most haunting tragic thing—I could have saved him if I’d known he was out there—dying. The thought gave me chills and made my heart fill with despair and I had to take medication for depression for months. I mean, a person you know dies in front of your house and you are filled with the acute awareness you could have prevented his death—it does damage. To your spirit. And other’s spirits too, apparently. Because only a few weeks after his little brother died in front of my house, his older brother, Calvin, showed up in my bedroom. It was right after a school dance. It was late at night and my parents were gone for the weekend, and when I got home from the dance, there was Calvin sitting in the dark in my bedroom, crying. He had come through the window. He was drunk and wiped away his tears and started telling me how much his little brother loved me, and he had read his brother’s journal and now felt like he loved me too. “You don’t even know me,” I had told Calvin. I mean, Calvin ran in a different crowd than me. He was popular, but a partier. We didn’t have the same classes or same friends. The only reason we had ever even talked to each other ever before was because we were once in a school play together. We had a kissing scene, and he would flirt with me before and after practices. But like I said, I had a boyfriend. And after only a few weeks of rehearsals, Calvin had dropped out of the play, and we never spoke again—until he showed up in my bedroom, drunk and grieving for his little brother.
“My brother loved you—and I love you,” Calvin had told me.
“Calvin, you don’t even know me,” I reminded him again.
“I feel like I do. My brother wrote in his journal about you constantly—obsessively. I didn’t even know until after he died. Now I’ve read his journal and know so much about you, it hurts.” He cried, “It hurts so much.”
I knew he was hurting over his brother’s death. I wanted to comfort him … but at the same time, I was afraid of him. He had been flirty and charming at our few play rehearsals, but like I said, I really didn’t know him. At all. And he was drunk and he had broken into my room.
He put his arms around me, crying into my shoulder. As he held on to me, I slipped brokenhearted on my windowsill. I didn’t figure it would do any good. Dmitri and I hadn’t spoken in years, and the few times we were forced to have conversations together they were usually met with him looking like he wanted to bash his head through a wall rather than talk to me. So, I was pretty certain Dmitri wouldn’t show up. But still, I had done it—put the distress signal out. Because I was completely desperate. My phone was downstairs in my coat pocket, and my parents were gone and I was home alone with a distraught drunk teenage boy that I had no idea how to deal with. Especially because he had broken into my room and was telling me that he loved me. And also though, he seemed to be blaming me for his little brother’s death. He wasn’t exactly coherent, and I wasn’t exactly able to cypher through what he was uttering as I was traumatized and terrified.
But then, Dmitri showed up at my window. He had eyed Calvin, then sighed, like he understood the whole situation just from the sight he was witnessing in that one fleeting second. He climbed through my window and gently hauled Calvin to his feet, prying him away from me, driving him home, only once uttering any words at all, which were, “I’m so sorry about your little brother.” Which just made Calvin bawl harder.
But then Dmitri led him away, out of my room, and out of my terror. He had answered my distress call—without saying one word to me.
***
I stare at Dmitri’s jacket that I took off an hour ago. Groan, face it: I keep staring at it. Longingly. But I refuse to sniff it. I mean, well, again. Nope, not gonna do that … no matter how tempting it is. Ugh!! I’ve got to get rid of it—fast. Before I do something tragic, like curl up in it. Take a nap in it. Dream in it.
No, no, no.
I snatch it up determinedly, holding it out from me like it is a scary snake (belongs to one). On my way out the front door with it, I sigh then grab the plate of fancy cookies sitting on the kitchen counter. They are from Ally, who is always baking me heavenly treats. It is a perk from having a best friend who bakes nonstop—I always have a tasty (but in this case, token) gift on hand to dole out when unexpected gift-needing occasions arise. This occasion being: I don’t want to be in emotional-debt to the person I am giving them to. So, here I go—going to give them to my sworn enemy. The things I do to not be in emotional-debt, I tell you. It’s sad, since Ally’s fancy cookies are the best.
Sucking in my breath, I knock on Dmitri’s front door, kicking myself for not just doing what I had planned: Leave the jacket and cookies on his doorstep. I mean really, there wouldn’t have needed to be any words said, or even a note written. The jacket would say it all. It would let Dmitri know who the cookies are from and also why he is getting the delicious treats very dear to my heart. But too late. Dmitri opens the front door.
“Hey.”
He says it like he’s not too terribly surprised to see me at his door. Which is weird, since I had vowed never to come near it again. Ever. And I haven’t in four years.
“I have something of yours,” he says as I stare at him awkwardly. (This isn’t weird to him? Being here like this?—like we used to be every single day of our lives, but haven’t for four whole years?)
I narrow my eyes at him. “I have something of yours too,” I inform him.
“I see that,” he says. You know, since I’m holding his jacket. He eyes the plate of very fancy delicious looking cookies in my hands. “Are the treats for me too?”
With a sigh, I nod. “Just because I don’t want to owe you anything.”
“Right,” he drawls out the word, which makes me feel stupid. He grins weakly, “Are they laced with poison?—since for the past four years it seems you’ve wanted me dead.”
“Very much so,” I tell him.
He raises an eyebrow. “Very much laced with the poison, or just very much you wanted me dead?”
“The wanting you dead part. The cookies weren’t even made by me. They were baked by Ally.”
“Whoa, you’re giving me cookies baked by Ally? You must really be worried about owing me.”
I nod. “Yep, it’s hard to part with treats baked by Ally—and yep, I really don’t want to owe you.”
“But …” he coaxes with a tiny (adorable) grin.
I sigh. “But thank you,” I mutter.
We stand for a moment looking at each other. Thoughts of our kiss are flashing through my mind like a steamy movie. I have no idea what’s going through his mind though. Surely not our kiss, since he’s been kissed a lot. By people way more experienced in such things. Whenever he and Lola fight, they reach for college students—with their lips.
“You said you have something of mine,” I inform him.
“What?” He blinks out of his daze. “Right. Here,” he hands me my English notebook. It’s open, right as I left it, with my scribbling on and on about Window-Boy (Calvin). “You left it in Biology class.”
I stare at it, bile rising in my throat. I feel so sick. “You read it?”
My writing is so private to me. Especially this. My thoughts about that night. About the whole incident, everything that happened. Yet I had poured out my soul into that notebook.
Dmitri hands me the notebook without answering. Instead he says, “Look, don’t romanticize it. The guy shouldn’t have been in your room.”
I blink. “Right. I know that … and I wasn’t ‘romanticizing’ it. Not in anyway.”
“Okay,” Dmitri rubs the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable. He mutters, “Lola said you were, and it made me worried.”
I see red. “You let Lola read it?!”
Dmitri gives me a patronizing get-real look. “No, I didn’t let her read it. I just told her a long time ago what happened—with the guy showing up in your room. She said something about it being romantic, and that he’s hot or whatever.”
A chill runs through me. “It’s not romantic!” I insist.
“Okay, that’s what I said,” he grumbles. “And I didn’t read your paper, okay? I have no idea what it says. I just saw that it’s about the guy … and I was worried.”
“No! You have no right to worry about me. I mean, since the only reason you were ever friends with me in the first place was because of my humungous chest—which yeah, I don’t have. Yet that’s what you told your friends.”
He tilts his head. “What?”
“In eighth grade. When you dumped me as your friend. I heard your cool new friends ask you why you ever hung out with me and you told them it was my chest. But you know what? I wore a padded bra back then.”
He looks slightly amused by my anger and my hostile-y spewed information. His lips twitch. “I know. You told me.”
Confusion fills me. Puzzled, I squint at him. “Then why did you tell them that?”
Dmitri rubs his forehead like I’m giving him a headache. “I don’t know. I had to tell them something. And they were jerks. I didn’t figure you cared what they thought, so what did it matter? Besides, you wore the padded bras. I thought you wanted people to think you had a big chest.”
My cheeks go up in flames. Worse yet, for some reason I can’t shut up. “Well, I do now. I mean, bigger. I mean, it’s real now. I’m not wearing a padded bra.”
Dmitri leans against his doorframe. “Believe it or not, I don’t care about your chest.”
Or anything else about me either, obviously. At least that’s the way it appears from the way he said that.
I tell him crisply, “Fine, here’s your jacket. Enjoy the cookies.”
As I start to stomp away, I hear him say, “What? Now you’re mad that I don’t care about your chest?”
With a glare, I turn back to him, though yes I’m mad about that. Or hurt. Or something that is leaving an unpleasant feeling in my heart.
His eyes twinkle. “Would it make you feel better if I told you I’m interested in your chest?”
I grit my teeth. “No, I’m just wanting to go back to our mutually ignoring each other.”
“Kind of hard to do when we’re lab-partners,” he points out.
“Well, I don’t see how that makes it necessary to kiss me whenever you feel like it.” I glare at him harder.
He squeezes his eyes shut. But he does it around a tiny grin. “Fair enough,” he says.
I grumble, “I’m sure it had its desired effect: making Lola re-think setting you free.”
He does this half between a grimace and a tiny grin. “I swear I didn’t do it to get her wound up. In fact, she wasn’t even on my mind at that moment, which was astonishing. But yeah, it did get her re-thinking the break thing. It’s officially over—the break. So if you came over here secretly hoping to get another of my glorious kisses, sorry. Can’t happen.” His lips curve in an adorable grin even as he smirks playfully, “Sorry.”
He says it as though mock consoling me, like he knows he’s breaking my heart by not planting another of his (stolen) magnificent hot kisses on me. However, he’s only playing around, trying to make me fume. Unfortunately, what he accomplishes is worse—it makes me squirm, big time … because he’s right. I had enjoyed the kiss. Way too much for comfort. I mean, it’s hard to properly hate someone when you find yourself longing for another hungry kiss from them. Unfortunately, the word hate is not what comes to mind as my eyes involuntarily zero in on his tempting lips.
I swallow and stammer out, “Good. I’m glad you’re back together. Hopefully you’ll be able to resist me now, and keep your lips off me. After all, what you won’t be getting in quality you can now once again get in quantity. It’s just really too bad you had to find out what you were missing though. I mean since you will never, ever get to put your lips on mine again.”
Dmitri rubs his chin with a slight grin, his eyes glimmering.
Many, many sparks.
He makes the tiniest little moan noise as I sashay away from him.
Yeah, yeah, it’s all just a big show. But the dude broke my heart. Okay, it was four years ago. But it had HURT! And so has his avoidance of me ever since. So I strut, a satisfied feeling going through me that I can still feel his eyes on me. It’s lame that I care. And pathetic. But I do care. Sadly. It is like the few times I caught his eyes on me in the past four years, his involuntary gaze seeming to find me worthy of his utmost attention, even if his words and actions said the complete opposite.
Right now there is no need for words, I have his attention. Sadly, it’s glorious.
However, Lola pulls up in her expensive fancy car and immediately I know I’ve lost it once again—Dmitri’s attention. He blinks out of his daze and probably immediately falls under his usual one: Lola. Meanwhile, Lola is glaring at me, under no daze at all.
“Are you trying to steal my boyfriend—since yours is chasing a cheerleader?” she snarls.
Ouch. Even she has noticed Branden is paying loads of attention to Sabrina?
I hide my wince and instead tell her, “Nope, just returning your boyfriend’s jacket.”
Okay, I taunt her with the words. But how hurt can she possibly be? I mean, she had asked him for a break just this morning.
… yet she looks hurt.
“Look, he just let me borrow it because there was an emergency,” I tell her.
Lola actually snarls. “Like I need to hear an excuse from you. He’s my boyfriend—and completely devoted to me. I have no jealousy—especially not towards you. I trust him, completely.”
Curiosity as well as anger shoots through me at her smug confidence. “Yet he kissed me,” I remind her.
“To prove a point,” she reminds me.
But she does it through clenched teeth.
Still, it’s true—obviously. Since they are back together. And he had told me with a smirk that there would be no more kisses coming to me from him. Bleck.
Yet what really makes me weary is knowing I’m going to dream about that dang kiss.
Dang it.
CHAPTER 6
**Present Day**
**PRESENT DAY**
All that stuff happened last week—the jacket and the kiss (THE KISS!!). It was a whole week ago. I don’t want to still be dreaming about it. Especially because obviously Dmitri isn’t. He got back together with Lola the very day it happened. Or for all I know, the very next class period. Curiously, what is just as painful (almost) is he has gone back to not looking at me. So, I really don’t want to be stuck still dreaming about his stupid (glorious) kiss. I would like to focus on something else. Such as Branden.
However, when I got to school this morning I saw him and Sabrina close, close, close together, talking in an overly intimate way. I mean, overly intimate for a person I had planned to give my first non-Willis kiss to this Friday night. Seeing them together I froze, and my heart died. When Branden saw me standing there, frozen, he re-directed his flirty attention to me immediately, saying, “Piper, you’re here! I’ve been waiting for you, so I could give you this song I know you’ll like. It reminds me of you—and how you sang so heavenly in the school play.” He said it all I-adore-you like, and stroked my hair that way too, which made Sabrina frown and give me ice-daggers with her evil beautiful eyes. But still, that didn’t make me feel much better—not at all, actually. I mean, I didn’t want to be in some sort of competition with Sabrina. Or with anyone. I didn’t want to have to compete. At all. I wanted to be special. Number one. I was used to that. Willis had always made me feel that way: Cherished. I yearned to feel that way now. Needed it. I wanted to feel secure and assured I was “the one” to him, with no one else waiting in the wings, maybe in the position to swoop in and steal the heart I was trusting my heart with.
Okay, it made me feel lame and pathetic to feel insecure, but at that moment—after seeing them so intimate together—I was. Deep in Insecure-city. And face it: I had felt that way the whole week I was away on vacation too. It was horrible. Distressful. What I’m saying is: I didn’t like feeling that way. At all. Even now it makes me cringe and tremble, both at the same time.
