Strawberries & Cigarettes

Chapter Four

            Ella hadn’t touched the plate of chili cheese fries Leighton ordered for her in the time it took for him to finish a double cheeseburger, a whole plate a fries, and a milkshake. Needless to say, it worried him a bit. Just as he was about to say something, Samantha, their waitress, stops by and starts chirping away in her ridiculously cheery voice.

            “Is everything okay?” Leighton absent-mindedly nods while he secretly waited for her to leave so he could speak to Ella. “Are you finished, sweetie?” Ella jumps as if startled and looks up. Before she has a chance to answer, Leighton interferes.

            “No, she’s still working on that,” he replies with a polite half-smile.

            Samantha straightens up, still with that smile on her face, and takes a small black leather folder which undoubtedly held the bill and places it on the table. “Whenever you’re ready,” she says and leaves with a smile. Once she was well out of hearing distance, Leighton leans forward on his elbows and asks, “Ella, what’s wrong?”

            “Huh?” She tilts her head slightly to the head in confusion, but Leighton could easily see through it.

            “You’re not eating.”

            “I’m not hungry.”

            Was she kidding him? Ella was always hungry. “You’re a fourteen year-old girl… when are you not hungry?” And Leighton wasn’t trying to be funny or anything, he was simply stating a fact; as this was what he was best at. His little sister was known for being able to finish a whole pizza by herself and looking around mock-inquisitively asking “what?” as if what she did was perfectly normal and the others were the odd ones for staring.

            “When I just don’t want to eat, okay?” She snapped. Ella never snapped; it was beyond her playful disposition. And she usually talked for hours on end whereas she hasn’t spoken a word to Leighton in the whole time they’ve been sitting there.

            “Okay, okay… you’re just acting very strange is all.” The conversation drops into a tense silence that stays throughout Samantha scurrying back to inquire whether Ella’s done, Leighton nodding yes, and both of them driving back to an empty house.

            One grapefruit, a few celery sticks, a water bottle, and a pat of peanut butter was what Moet found in her lunch sack the next day. She frowned; she always had a secret hatred for grapefruits even though Mother insisted on forcing them on her. She said they were a wonderful source of Vitamin C. Moet was always too scared to argue; afraid Mother would slip into one of her moods again.

            Peering into the dense crowds of the halls, she nearly smacked herself as she realized for the tenth time that she was trying to locate a certain head of messy brown hair or a specific pair of slate gray eyes. Closing her locker, she bent down to pick her stuff, looked up and saw him.

            He looked the same as she remembered with his walnut brown hair stuck up in every direction in a sort of hopelessly messy way, a gray hoodie a few shades lighter than his eyes covered his upper half, and perched on his nose was a pair of eyeglasses. Suddenly, Moet’s hands were quivering a bit. She was so nervous. She wasn’t a people person. What does she say? Should she even say anything? It was just a simple car ride; something anyone would offer! However, she knew if she didn’t thank him now, she’d never be able to let it go. Exhaling in defeat, she slightly shuffled towards his direction with her eyes glued to her tennis-shoe clad feet. Once his sneaker-clad feet appeared in her line of vision, she started to look up and meet his eyes.

            He looked at her curiously, then with a flash of recognition. “Moet, right? From last night?”  Paralyzed by the pressure of public speaking, Moet nodded her head wordlessly. She was quite aware that her eyes were about the size of saucers and her cheeks were flushed pink from embarrassment. “So… can I help you?” He didn’t ask it rudely, just in the same helpful tone that he offered a car ride to her last night.

            Moet opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She tried again and sound came out, yes, but at about the same volume as a mouse’s squeak… not to mention the horrible stutter that suddenly laced her words. “I-I just w-wanted to thank you f-for the ride…” She flushed even darker at how dumb she must sound. But he didn’t seem to mind. If anything, he actually started smiling.

            “Oh, that? No problem. Don’t worry about it.” Moet averted her gaze to her shoes as she found that staring at his eyes was like staring at the sun; it was beautiful, but you could only take so much before you started to feel uncomfortable and need to look away. “So, Moet--” The rest of his sentence was cut off when she dashed away. She’d done what she needed and had to flee before she did something horrible that would make him turn his nose up in disgust. Mother always said she had a remarkable talent at making others uncomfortable. She didn’t mind though because it was mostly true. However, as she dug her plastic spoon into her grapefruit, she couldn’t help but wonder what the end of Leighton’s sentence would’ve been. And whether or not, she would’ve messed things up with a wrong answer as always.

            She was strange. Very strange—almost stranger than Ella not finishing her dinner last night. A constant tremor almost seemed to go through her whole body and she couldn’t stop fidgeting. Her avoidance of eye contact also struck Leighton as odd. But there was something... sweet about her. Her whole deameanor seemed—if Leighton had to classify it in one word—lovely. However, it was a tragic sort of lovely; a damaged form of lovely. That was the best way he could describe Moet.

            Leighton was mulling over all of this as he sat in his room that afternoon solving a battered rubix cube he had solved millions of times before; ten times in the last twenty minutes. Ella’d gotten annoyed by the first five times he asked her to scramble it for him. Now, she was just plain mad. He didn’t blame her, but he really needed something to entertain himself with! He’d finished his homework for his A.P. classes in twenty minutes flat. What else was he supposed to do besides lay on his bed and think over the day’s events?

            Oh, right, feed Connor.

            Setting the toy in his hands down on the end table, he kneels in front of Connor’s tank and observes him for a few seconds. The palm-sized lizard was laying on his rock, asleep under the bright light of the table lamp that simulated the sun outside. It couldn’t compare, but it was close enough.

            “Connor,” Leighton calls quietly. He doesn’t move. “Connor,” he calls again slightly louder. Connor stirs and opens his eyes lazily. Leighton reaches into the drawer attached to the udnerside of table and grabs a box of crickets. The sound of crickets chirping has been the background music of his room for so long; he hardly even notices it anymore. Tipping out a few, he puts the lid back on the container and slips it back into the drawer. He watches Connor devour his dinner mostly out of boredom and retreat back to his bed. Closing his eyes, he removes his glasses and decides to take a nap for a bit, maybe disappear from the world for an hour or two.

            Within a few minutes, he was fast asleep.