Annilova

Adam

Who knew that the not-at-all-decent guy, Arnold's brother, would be our friend one day?
Oliver.
Ugh! He was a hell of a funny guy.

Flora decided to follow her elder sister's steps, and start crushing on guys at a really early age.
Her first crush...
Was Oliver.

She threw the huge responsibility of trying to get Oliver to notice her, over my shoulders. And well, I couldn't lift it off.
It wasn't hard to get Oliver to notice FLORA, as much as it was hard to get Oliver to notice anything at all.
He was sort of clumsy. He barely saw things; he only looked.
It broke the poor girl's heart so many times that she started to turn into one of those teen movie bitches, before even being a teen.

Such a pity...

4th of November,2011

One life-changing day, we were playing hide and seek with some kids in the neighbourhood, and Oliver was playing with us.
We spent 20 minutes looking for him before I headed towards his house to look for him there.

When I reached the house, some Arnold-looking, very tall guy, had a bucket of water in his hands and was heading towards the Miles' car, which was always parking right outside the house.

That's the brother Arnold has always talked about. I thought.

I started to approach him from behind with a smile.

"Where's Oliver?", I asked adressing the guy.
"You're the girl who came and asked to see him two weeks ago, aren't you?"
"Yeah, that's me."
"What's your name then?"
"Ummm... Noelle", I said with a gesture.
He seemed to be waiting for me to say something else. And it took me some seconds to realize that he was waiting for me to ask about his name.
"And you?", I said forcing a smile.
"I'm Adam.", he said splashing water over their car.
"So... Where's Oliver?", I said with my arms behind my back.
(Later in life, I realized I only did that when I was shy)
"He's hiding from you."

I didn't want to seem interested, as usual. So I just swollowed my curiosity and my surprise, and changed the subject.

"What are you doing anyway?", I asked moving closer towards him.
"Ummm... Washing the car?", he said copying the gesture I showed when I said my name.

I laughed under my breath, but I knew from his half smile that he heard me.
Up till today, I could never describe how I felt when he did that half smile thing. It was mostly...heat.
I felt heat climbing up from my chest, all the way up to my head.
My hand shaked as I pushed my hair away from my forehead, which was sweating.
I sighed so loudly that I had to cough right after it, so as not to seem awkward.

"What school do you go to?", he asked without looking at me.
"Astrapin. You know it?", I said waiting for a 'No'.

Usually, people from my neighbourhood had never even heard of Astrapin. It was too far away; by road and by social class.

"No!", he said confirming my expectations.

"NOELLE!", called Flora's voice. "Mum wants us to go home."

"Okay.", I said preparing myself to run towards her voice. "I have to go! Bye!"

I never knew if he said 'Bye' in a very low voice that I didn't hear it, or if he never replied at all.

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5:00am
5th of November

I hadn't slept a single second the previous night. It was the first time I had exprienced some of the things I only saw on television.
One of those, was the echoing of someone's voice in my ear.