Off Limits

Creeping

                    Damn it. I winced looking around, I knew there was a reason she always parks outside.

                    Grandma's garage was the messiest room I had ever seen in my life. It honestly looked like everything she owned from the last 50 years had been piled up in there. Even the floor was mostly invisible, only a small path leading from the garage door to the door entering the house. If this crucial piece of information had been included when my grandma asked me to straighten it up, I would've started pulling any excuse out of my butt possible.

                   "Yeah grams of course I'll clean your garage, it's not like I have anything else to do", I repeated the conversation I had earlier with her bitterly to myself. I wanted to help, I really did, but grandma was treating me more as a slave recently than her granddaughter. It made me wonder just exactly how much work my mother had to do during her childhood.

                   I sighed, rubbing my temples. I knew there was no point in standing there, staring at the piled up junk. No longer stalling, I walked inside. Instantly I was greeted with heat.

                 No air conditioner? Figures. Grumpily, I avoided the crap littering the floor and made my way over to the garage door opener. If there was no air conditioner, I might as well get some breeze.

                 It opened slowly, the stuff that had been leaning against it spilling out onto the ground outside the garage. A large crash made me grimace. Was that what I think it was?  I already knew the truth though.

                Almost scared to look, I followed the junk path up to where I had heard the noise. What I saw was enough to make any granddaughter freak out. The box was labeled "China Dishes" and it contents were spewed across the ground. This was bad, this was very bad.

               I started picking up random pieces of glass, pushing them together in vain. I was dead, so very dead. Looks like it's time to start picking out my headstone, I sighed miserably. What was with me this week and accidents? Mason's car yesterday, now this. I might as well live in a bubble the rest of my life just to keep myself from spreading my destruction around.

               "Honey, are you all right?" I heard my grandma calling from inside the house. "I heard something." Wide-eyed I quickly shoved all the broken glass back into the box. She couldn't see this. I couldn't upset my grandmother like that.

              "Don't worry grandma", I called back picking up the box, praying she wouldn't step outside, "Everything is fine." It hurt to lie to her, but I couldn't bring myself to tell the truth. Anyways, I doubted she would even miss the dishes. She probably forgot them ages ago when she buried them in the pile of junk.

              Shaking off my guilt, I moved fast, running the box down the driveway towards the trashcan sitting near the street. Once there I dumped the dishes, box and all, into it. Nobody is getting in trouble today, I smiled successfully my guilt taking backseat for awhile. It could come back later when I was feeling less proud of myself for hiding the evidence so well.

             "I'm pretty sure those don't belong there." A voice informed me. I flinched not expecting witnesses to my misdeed. Prepared to beg for them to keep quiet, I turned around. The first thing I noticed was the red car parked in my drive way, then the boy leaning against it. When did he pull up and how did I not notice? The word "ninja" floated in my head for a few seconds, but I quickly dismissed it.

             "Are you stalking me, Mason?" I asked, half joking half serious. An odd expression crossed his face for a second, but it was quickly wiped away by his regular smile. Creepper.