One of the things that occupy a rather high position on my priority list is sleep. Right there, between chocolate and music, is the thing I can’t operate without a regular eight hours dose of. You can take my phone, my laptop, heck! Take my whole wardrobe, but dare you wake me before I want to be awake, angry Gods will have nothing on me. So, when, the next day, a Saturday at that, I am woken by the sounds of pickup trucks piercing through my unconsciousness, I have the temper of a bull before a matador. It’s seven in the morning on a Saturday, for the love of all that’s great! Shut the heck up!
I bury my head in the duvet and squeeze my eyes shut, but my brain decides that this is the most apt time to go on overdrive as it tosses seemingly useless thoughts at me. After half an hour of staring at the ceiling, pondering over the advantages of a solar powered toilet that can disintegrate waste using the said solar power, I decide to get up and take a shower. I trudge my way to the en suite.
I step in and look at myself in the mirror. Shower is a great idea, because I look, for lack of a better term, horrible. My hair looks like a rodent family decided to make it their recreation centre. My eyes are swollen and I have dried drool on one side of my mouth. Damn, I pity whoever ends up with me. I wouldn’t wanna wake to this view every day, for sure! I turn the shower on, strip and step into the stream of water after checking its temperature. When I’m done, I wrap myself in a towel and dry my hair with another one. Bless Gail, only she could manage to make towels so soft that you wish to curl up and fall asleep on it.
When I’m satisfied that my hair is partially dry, I pick my toothbrush and quickly brush my teeth. I hold my towel with one hand and walk into my bedroom to take out something to wear. Comfort clothing, please, begs my I-have-been-clad-in-all-kinds-of-tight-clothing body. Still brushing with my other hand, I pull open the wardrobe. The nagging feeling when someone stares at you makes me look sideways at my window. And the sight I see before my eyes make me drop my toothbrush, which after trying to stick in my mouth for a second, gives up and falls to the ground with an audible clatter.
There, in the window of our neighbors’ house, which had been unoccupied for the past two years, stands the personification of male beauty, Dexter Maverick. His earlier impassive gaze lightens up and his lips turn up in a smile as he sees my reaction to seeing him there. So, like the idiot I am, I walk to the window, foamed toothpaste still in my mouth and stare at him for two more seconds before I draw the curtains. No ‘excuse me, I’ll be right back’ and no ‘Dexter, aren’t you?’ I am mortified by my reaction, and he is, no doubt, amused. I slump to the floor and close my eyes and his beautiful face dances before my eyes.
Dexter Maverick was the soccer captain of Greenwood High, a sister school of Presidency High, the school I go to. The two schools were basically branches of the same school, but were located at two corners of the city. I had only ever seen Dexter twice in my life. Once, at a friend’s party, to which he had been invited to by a mutual friend. During the infinitesimally short encounter that had followed, we had exchanged names. The second time was at an after party of a soccer match hosted by my school. He had been going out with Summer back then. Summer was –is- the editorial head of our school newspaper. She got around a lot, seeing as to how her position demanded so. I remember looking at the two of them being all lovey-dovey and wondering how it would be to have a boyfriend like him. We were friends on Facebook, but I wasn’t the biggest fan of social networking sites, and hence, my online interactions were limited to the few necessary people. I knew he was no longer with Summer, because she was one of those people who thought that all those people on social networking sites centered their life around hers and hence, would write long, elaborate, second-by-second detail of her life, uploading every five minutes. It gets tiring after a while, really.
The one thing that worried me though was the thought that he was in the house beside mine. Was his family moving in? Was he shifting schools? Damn, if he was. He’d just caught me in the most compromising situation. I face-palm and get up and pick my toothbrush. I wash my mouth and remind myself to Google the ill effects of swallowing toothpaste. I walk to my wardrobe yet again, and wonder if I should wear something pretty because there was this exceptionally hot guy in the building right beside mine. After contemplating for a minute, I decide on a blue camisole and grey sweatpants. Comfort clothing over-rules hot boys any day.
But, damn, that boy!
YOU ARE READING
Between The Both Of Us
Teen Fiction"Between the both of us, I think I like you", he whispered in my ear. "Well, between the both of us, I think I do too", I respond, and for once, I feel free, of lies, of deception, of hate, of pain, of everything except the only feeling that is over...
