She is the Sunlight

Ch. 3: Painting and Parties

The next morning, Crispo biked over to CJ's house and knocked on her door. He didn't understand why he was so nervous. He'd hung out with her plenty times before- practically every day since kindergarten.

"Hey, thanks for coming!" CJ greeted him, opening the door. She gave him a small hug and urged him inside, "my parents just left, but Ronbie is here if we need any help."

"Okay, cool!" Crispo replied, trying to ignore the jolt of electricity he felt when she hugged him, "What color are we painting it?"

"I was thinking of doing a lilac-y purple, but then I decided on a pale yellow since it'll match my comforter and everything," she explained, "Why couldn't Fen come?"

"He figured that if he came to this, we'd make him come to Mindy's party with us tonight," he told her as they walked up the stairs to her room.

CJ laughed. Every year, Mindy threw a Beginning of the School Year Bash" and invited the entire grade to it. It was one of the biggest parties of the year, other than Mindy's "End of the School Year Bash." Fenwick hated parties and always came up with an excuse not to go to them.

"Wow, I've never seen your room look so... boring," Crispo joked when they walked into CJ's room. Her furniture and floor were covered in sheets to protect them from the paint and all of her decorations were in boxes in the hallway.

She wrinkled her nose, "I know, it sucks but it'll be pretty again once it's painted."

The yellow paint was already in the paint tray so CJ took a paint roller and rolled it in the tray. Crispo followed her lead.

"I'll paint this side of the wall and you paint the other. While this wall is drying we can move to the next one," she instructed.

After a few minutes of painting, they had fallen into a rhythm- when CJ was painting a higher section, Crispo was painting a lower one. When the first coat of the wall was finished, they moved to go to the next one, but Crispo accidentally hit the back of her legs with his paint roller.

"Crispo!" she cried, feeling the wet, sticky paint all over her legs.

Crispo smiled cheekily, "Sorry?"

"Sorry? Well I'm sorry too," she retorted and covered his arm with the paint.

Crispo gasped, "Oh you're so on!"

"Oh my god!" CJ squealed as Crispo flicked paint onto her face. She flung a glob of paint at him and it landed on his cheek.

Soonenough they were having a full-blown paint fight. Yellow paint was flying everywhere and the sounds of their laughter echoed down the hallway and through the house.

"I heard screaming! Are you guys-" Ronbie barged in. His facial expression went from worried to patronizing in seconds. "This is why you shouldn't let 13, almost 14 year olds, paint something by themselves," he sighed, turning and walking away.

CJ and Crispo looked at each other and burst out laughing.

After a few more hours of painting, they decided to take a lunch break at around 1pm. They sat on the floor of her bedroom with sandwiches and soda.

"So the dance..." Crispo began slowly. CJ felt her stomach lurch. Was he going to ask her?

"I really wanna ask someone, but I don't know if she'll say yes," he finished nervously. What if she knew he was talking about her?

It felt like someone had just ripped her heart out and stomped on it until it was shattered into hundreds of pieces. Of course he wasn't going to ask her! He only saw her as a friend, why would she get her hopes up?