Teal Moon

Chapter: 04

Chapter: 04

/

A bad kisser

I was sitting still, leaning my back against the headboard, after I arrived home about 10 minutes ago. My hand clutches the phone that vibrates from a message that supposedly came from Dale. My head is still spinning from the same thing that happened in the library room.

Dale's mother drove me home. She asked anxiously about my leaving the party when Maddox hadn't even blown out the birthday candles. I simply informed her that I had drank too much alcohol and was not feeling well, and that I needed to return home to rest. She didn't say anything negative and also mentioned that if Dale wasn't in the hospital, she might take me to their house for the night. Instead of living alone in my place like this.

'Carter, I don't think the jacket you're wearing was yours.' Suddenly, I remember those words of Esme when we were sitting in the car. Before I move my eyes over that unfamiliar jacket that is leaning on the desk chair in my room, I grip my hair with my hands tightly, irritable in my carelessness, before I pick up the pillow that supports my back and press my face down, vigorously rubbing my face against it.

Randall is wearing a brown jacket. And, yes, I alternately took his jacket and my own. I turn my face up to look at it; my messy face is revealed from fretfulness. His jacket had a dark brown color, almost black at the collar. Meanwhile, my jacket was all brown. That's because its colors are close to each other. But Randall's jacket's size is bigger than mine. The more I compare those jackets, the more I get frustrated with myself.

Oh, my, Carter. How am I supposed to give it back to Randall? Just looking at his face was hard. Just as I thought about it, the image of when we kissed showed up in my thoughts again. It's been driving me crazy with my sense that I remember every move he makes. I bit my bottom lip while still being tight-lipped. I couldn't help but blame the power of alcohol for making me brave and feeling no shame enough to kiss someone I'd only talked to for the first time in less than an hour. When I come to think of it again, it's beyond just kissing too far. I raised my hands to cover my face and shook my head slowly, then I moved to grab a large bottle of water and drink it in several gulps to stop the muddle in my head.

Now, this time it was a few minutes past 11 p.m. I'm in a small, completely silent house. My room is on the second floor; actually, the second floor has just one room. The bottom floor has another bedroom for my mom. It's a normal situation that my mom isn't here in the house all night. She went to work and has changed hundreds of jobs. I had no idea what she actually did for a living. But I don't want to ask her about it to start a quarrel. I didn't quite get the money from her for expenses. It's fortunate for me that I don't need to pay the tuition fee since grade 9, and I would get it until I graduated if I could keep up with my own study results. Some of the money for personal expenses came from the district, which gave me a monthly payment with a good student scholarship. Some of it is from my part-time job in the old camera shop in downtown, where I do it with Dale every Wednesday–Friday evening, and sometimes on Saturday if the owner needs us to help him. But during this period, he closes his shop to renovate, and right now he goes visit his daughter in Hawaii for a whole month. In two weeks, the shop will open again.

I glance at my sagged mattress from the hopping up of the large breed dog. He dove into my legs until I couldn't help but scratch its head in playful teasing. If I lived without him, I would be so lonely.

I'm talking about Barry. It's a Pit Bull dog that doesn't have fierceness according to breed instinct. Also cowardly and skittish, and even scared of dolls. Well... maybe the dog is like the dog's owner. And another thing is that it's very afraid of people; the exception would be me and the old man next door, Marco, whom I always leave Barry with.