MY NEW NEIGHBOR

Chapter 10

          "You throw down," Graham told me when I saw him a few days later. The pain medication, which I had absolutely no tolerance for, kept me in  a haze for the first few, only ending with me clenching my lips closed and refusing to take anything stronger than Tylenol.
         
          I smiled, which hurt a little but it was worth it just to see him. Most of the swelling in my mouth had went down but not all and my words were still a bit garbled and clumsy. "You too."

          "I'm sorry," he apologized softly, sitting on the couch next to me. His eyes were wide, one was black, and both were full of guilt. "I should have never left you."

          I waved his words away and shoved his shoulder. "Shut up and sign my cast asshole."

          Then everything was back to normal, except every once in awhile I would see him looking at my cast or my battered face with anger in his eyes.

          We spent more time together than ever, literally almost all of it, if not at his house then mine. In the rare moments where we were not in each other's company, there was a painful hole in my chest. I was more convinced than ever that this wasn't how friends felt for one another, not that I had anything to base it off. Graham was like a drug, the more I had, the more I needed, and if I ever lost him, the withdrawals would kill me.

          The summer was fast coming to an end, school right over the horizon and with each day that passed I knew our time together was short. Everyone loved Graham and with all the friends he would make, I found myself wondering if he would have time for me.

          My cast came off at the beginning of August, two weeks before school started, revealing my shrivelled, smelly arm. The doctors told me to make sure to use it as much as possible and I was doing exactly that, sketching out a picture of a horse that lacked slot of my former talent.

         "Wow...." Graham exclaimed as he came in, looking down at it with furrowed brows. "That looks.... Not good."

          I laughed, looking up at him. "I know right? Don't worry though. I'm getting it back."

          His eyes narrowed and he leaned close enough to make me squirm. "Huh, that's cute."

          "What?" I managed after a moment of my mouth doing that stupid open and closing thing.

           Graham reached out to touch my hair. "Your barrette."

           "Oh," I gasped, hand shooting up to feel the little clip. I hadn't cut my hair all summer and it had grown long and shaggy only taking a few moments of me pushing it back and flipping it out of my eyes before Alicia finally freaked out and pinned it up with a sparkly blue barrette. I started to unclip it but Graham grabbed my wrist.

          "No, leave it," he said, looking at me strangely. "It suits you."

          So reluctantly that's what I did and we sat there in an awkward silence, me embarrassed and him thoughtful. If my cheeks grew any hotter I felt as if they may catch fire and I was possibly for the first time ever happy when my mom walked in carrying two armloads of groceries.

          "Hey boys, little help here," she called out and we both jumped up to relieve her of the bags. "What are the plans for the day?"

          I pulled a few of the grapes off their stem and popped one into my mouth, chewing thoughtfully. "Well we could go skating," I offered, earning me a scowl from both Graham and my mother.

          "No," Graham said with an exasperated shake of his head. He had developed an almost smothering protectiveness since what happened at the skate park and I found myself taking risks I normally wouldn't just to invoke a reaction out of him. "How about something safer?"

         "Could just go play Xbox."

         "Negative," mom chimed in. "School's starting soon and you're not going to spend the last couple weeks indoors."

         Graham motioned for me to throw grapes at his mouth while she droned on, something about unhealthy couch potatoes. By the time her rant was finished there were grapes everywhere and me and him were wrestling, rolling around in the kitchen floor.

          "What the hell is going on in here?" Mrs. Morrison called out as she came in with Tasha and Alicia.

          We both looked up at four exasperated women, Graham trying to use the distraction to snake an arm around my neck and I bit him on the finger, eliciting a Yelp that made me burst out laughing. I was just starting to come out of the darkness where laughing came easy and I wasn't carrying a dark cloud of depression with me everywhere I went, so my parents let me get away with a lot more than they should. Perhaps I took advantage of it a bit more than I should, knowing they were afraid any chastisement could relapse me into the bleak shell I used to be, but Mrs. Morrison had no such convictions, walking over to snatch us both up by the ears and setting us to cleaning up the mess we had made.

          "Now both of you out, all the way out. Take your teenage pissing contest outside, somewhere far away from the house." She said in full mother hen mode, fully aware Graham was making faces behind her back and reaching back without looking to slap him upside the head. "And find something to do that doesn't involve broken bones and potential prison time please. Maybe go on a picnic or something."

          "Oh my God," my mom said, putting her hands over her heart, "that would be so cute. I'll make a little basket!"

          "But make sure you are back by five," Tasha added. "You have dance tonight."