Trapped in Forever

2 ~ The Hazel Behind his Sunglasses.

We, me and Roxanne that is, met Orion last summer.

It was one of those things that just happen, like fate or destiny or God planned it all to happen. One day, everything was normal and regular, safe, and then one day in the summer, riding in her car with my feet propped up on the dashboard, Michael Jackson blasting out the speakers, and the windows rolled down making our hair fly and whip around dangerously in our faces, things suddenly shifted .

He drove in front of us in a green station wagon, with big, fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. His license plate was dented in the back, a corner curving into the letter 7, and on the edges of his windows were soap suds. The windows in the back were cracked just a touch but the driver side window was rolled down halfway, and resting on the green metal was his arm as he drove in front of us.

Its strange now, thinking that just one mere car in front of us could change so much. Maybe if Roxanne had just driven a little more carefully or if he had made a left turn instead of a right, things would’ve never changed.

“I love this song,” Roxanne said, leaning over and grasping the volume knob, turning it up so high that the hula girl on top of her dashboard danced from the vibration. “I swear, every time he says my name, I get Goosebumps. Literally. See?”

I rolled my eyes at her outstretched arm, Goosebumps and all. “Your name,” I told her flatly, “is not Annie.”

“It’s Roxanne,” she clarified, as if there was barely a difference, rolling her own eyes. “Drop the Rox part of it and then I’m practically Annie.”

It was useless to argue with her about it. She was adamant that Smooth Criminal could be about her, which I couldn’t really see as a good thing since half the lyrics are Annie, are you okay? But she never seemed to notice that part when she sang along to the lyrics and to Michael at just about every chance she could.

When the song ended, like always eventually did, despite her dismay, she reached over, taking her eyes off the road, just for a second, to press the replay button. And then, the car jerked forward, fast, something vibrated strongly under our feet, and the sound of metal colliding rang in our ears.

I blinked just as the car jerked again, backward this time, and our shoulders banged against the firm seats. The car in front of us was the green station wagon, stopped in front the intersection as the stop light flashed from orange to pixelated red. For a moment, it looked completely empty as the arm resting on the door had disappeared. And then, just when I least expected it, the door pushed open at lightning speed and a bare, hairy leg slipped out, wearing black shoes and dirtied white socks.

I glanced over at Roxanne, her gold hoop earrings swinging from the impact. “Oh, crap,” she breathed, eyes wide. “If there’s a dent, I’m dead.”

I watched as another leg fell onto the pavement and then an entire body emerged from the car and slammed the driver side door with a bam! as I murmured, “I think you might have other problems.”

She turned her head to the windshield, watching him as he leaned over to glance at his bumper and we could just barely hear him swearing when he touched a dent the shape of a football under his taillight, scraped red paint on the edges. His fingers brushed against the metal and then he glanced at our car with this look. And then, he crossed his sun kissed arms over his chest, the sun illuminating the golden hairs on his arm, and waited.

To me, he looked exactly like the kind of guy I’d hate to bump into, literally. His hair was a golden blond and tousled, as if he had been running his fingers through it, and sunglasses hid his eyes, which was what I thought was most threatening about him. On his face, two dark freckles on were the side of his face, by the arm of his sunglasses and his ear. He also had high cheekbones and a long neck, like a seriously long neck. His lips were a rosy shade but not so much so that it looked like he had been applying lipstick in the rearview mirror. Thick lines ran down his tan arms and muscles bulged lightly under his brown T-shirt with a faded logo over the chest and under his arms. And, he looked older than us. A lot older than us.