Midnight Kisses| ✓

Chapter 4

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Emily and I met in third grade when she moved in next door. And also maybe it have something to do with the fact that back then she was the only non-white person in the neighborhood. So we kind of fell into the same set.

"Hey," she had asked me one afternoon as I had set in the park making sandcastles. Two of her front teeth were missing but she smiled like the sun. Blinding. I knew immediately I would like this pigtailed, a bit on the chubby side girl, who had eyes so small they were invisible and a button nose, all put together it made her look like a cute and kind fairy.

And she was the first person that didn't look like the other kids, different, like me. We became friends almost immediately spending all our free time together, building forts, pretending to be pirate princesses, defending our ships from the boys who threw stones at it.

Over the years I stayed pretty much the same, the dark and awkward girl while Emily became prettier as she grew into her height and body, like a beautiful, blossoming flower, graceful and beautiful. We were like the Dark Swan and White Swan, but only if they were best friends forever.

In seventh grade our fort turned to a place where we could sneak away whenever we were mad at our parents. I always was. My parents were almost always fighting, but some nights this weird noise would come from their room which was just adjacent to mine. I later realized this was them doing the nasty. I am not blaming my parents. They are good people and made certain I was asleep before they got started, but I still could hear them, through the paper thin walls.

AW-K-WARD

When what happened I would climb up the fort on the tree in Emily's backyard and she would be sitting there with ice-cream and we would sleep up there with our blankets, the hard wood not bothering us the world at our feet and the stars above which would peek at us through the gaps in the wooden ceiling above.

I know it is Novahk even before he knocks on the window. I have been staring up at the ceiling for hours now, the way I do most nights. There is the unmistakable sound of twigs breaking and the scrapping against the tiles and a small, dull thud and there comes the knock.

I am out of my bed and at the window before he knocks the second time and when I pull the shutter up, there he is, grinning at me. This is so unreal.

"I am sorry, I am disturbing you again. You must think I am totally cuckoo," he jokes.

"No," I reply. He's not the cuckoo, I am.

"Here you go," I say handing over my phone and he takes it without looking at me. He stares at it for a while before typing the number in the keypad, like even he's not certain what he's doing.

I am tempted to ask him why he comes around asking for my phone. Surely he must have his own and how many times does a phone get lost? He's rich, I can tell that from the pale blue Victorian designed house with ivory running along the edges. It is twice as wide as ours and has a swimming pool behind, and two cars with separate driveways.

He has the type of house which people stop and stare at.

He presses the phone to his ear and I move away to give him privacy. But whoever he's calling doesn't pick even on the third time he calls and he stands there awkwardly waiting for whoever it is to call him back.

"You can come inside," I say. I don't want him freezing to death. The weather has been brutal the last few days, with the temperature even dipping below twenties now and even with two sweatshirts and my comforter I can feel the chill in my spine and my bare legs. And that is in my room. I can only imagine how cold it is outside.