The Bad Boy Neighbor

Chapter 7

 "What!" I shout out, ignoring the quietness I once wanted. She smiles and shrugs raising her hands with her shoulders. I sit there speechless, my mouth hangs open and my eyes are concentrated on Clara's. I mean I know girls at his school think he is cute, but now our neighbor? Oh this is bad, this is really really bad.

"Hello? Earth to Brooke!" She says waving her hand if front of my face. I must of zoned out thinking about how disgusting the thought of Daniel dating her would be.

"Sorry, I was just deep in thought." I said finally leaving my trance.

"And I think I know who it was about." Clara says moving her eyebrows up and down. I give her a quirky smile and lightly push her shoulder. We both start laughing and get up to go back and see the boys. We continue to laugh and playfully slap each other until we reach the front yard. The boys are looking at us like were crazy, but that's the irony......we are.

"What?" I ask them as they continue to stare at us. They shake it off and continue to play basketball. I notice Thomas keeps looking at me, but I think he's looking at Clara. We sit on the bench again looking on my phone. She doesn't own a phone and Thomas had a phone, but it got taken away...for good. So she is completely zoned into mine. It must be nice though, having a brother and sister that actually genuinely care about you. All mine does is call me fat and a looser. Reminding me of what I need to do. 

Always be good. Always get good grades. Never interact with boys. Never confess that a guy is cute or hot. Never get in the "Inner loop" of the popular people. Act more like a Tom- boy. Never be a girly girl. Always do what your parents told you. Never cry in front of no one. Never seem weak, always be strong. Always try to impress people. BE PERFECT.

That is my modo. I know it is long, but you get used to it after a while. And I've already broken a couple of rules, but only sometimes. I try my best.

"Hey, why don't we go and sit in my yard?" Clara asks breaking me from my train of thought.

"Ya, sure." I say following her to her house. We sit down on her front lawn. Shockingly the grass is soft considering the pine tree that sits on the right side of their yard. A driveway lines the left side we sit down in the center and she instantly starts talking. I love the way she is always perky, just not too perky... I think.

"So I'm dating this guy named Mason and I think it could work out. He's always saying that he loves me and when he hugs me he always squeezes just a little bit harder than other people do." She says the biggest smile spread across her face. She clearly is the type of girl that is totally in love with her boyfriend and when she gets dumped or dumps them instantly moves on to the next one. She continues with her boy drama and I actually listen, with not being used to listening to this stuff its actually quite interesting. I tell her my perspective and she listens even though my perspective is probably not the best considering that I don't have any boy experience.

"Wow, you actually brought sense into my life." She says standing up and looking serious with her hands moving up and down.

"I did? I mean yes I did." I say looking innocently at her with a cheesy grin on my face. She laughs and motions me to stand up. We go and play with the boys a little more, basketball and a little of tag. I know we are totally to old to do this but who cares. Soon we all get tired and go back to sit in their yard.

"So what should we do now?" I ask as they all put their thinking faces on and look up at the clouds. Thomas shrugs and Daniel just looks at me like he's the dumbest person in the world. Suddenly Clara jumps up from the ground and says "I know lets play would you rather!"

We all pause, I don't know why they paused but I don't know what that game is.

"What is that?" I ask clearly confused. They all look at me like I'm dumb.