Electric Blue

We pull up the driveway to our new home. This is house number eight in the last two years. It’s just my father and me and it has been for a couple of years since my mother and little brother’s death. We now live in Montana and I have added it to the list of places I’ve lived along with Georgia, Texas, Maine, California, Long Island, Arizona, and Louisiana in that order every time we move he insists on moving across the country. We now reside in Montana because my father claims that the open fields and distance between houses will finally allow us to start over and be happy. Yeah right that’s what he said about Arizona, Georgia and Texas. He has a different reason for every place, for Maine it was the way the leaves change in the fall but what he forgot about was that fall leads to winter, and winter in Maine is not fun; at all. Plus there wasn’t any dish or direct TV out where we lived and no TV meant no football. My father can’t breathe without his football he’s a huge Patriots fan we only lived in Maine for four weeks. He didn’t like the Texas heat so we moved. Long island was too crowded, California too famous and Louisiana was in his words too muggy. So again I have to start over with a new house, new school, and new people which meant a new life.

             I walk up the three short steps onto the porch and over to the front door unlocked it and stepped in. Only to be knocked back outside by a putrid smell and an oh so lovely sight. I look down and see a dead cat lying on the ground. It was probably able to pry open the doggie door built into the front door and wasn’t able to get out again. I heard a loud string of curse words and turned to see my dad behind holding his nose like I was. “Man smells like something died in here!” he said loudly. I looked at him then the dead cat on the ground; he’s not very observant, he only notices something if it hurts him. He took a step forward tripped over the cat and fell.                         

   “Oh, that must be it!” I said as I pointed at the dead cat my voice thick with sarcasm “for a second I thought they forgot to take out the trash.” He just gave me a look and said “Ha you’re so funny I should give you a medal!” He always said that, it was his catch phase. Then he picked up the cat by the tail walked to the back door and chunked it out. Then he yelled “Man that was nasty!” I swear on the inside my dad is eleven.

   While my dad was outside unpacking I explored the house which was a little bigger than what I was used to. It had three bedrooms a bathroom in each, a huge gourmet kitchen a living room and an office with a huge pine desk. There’s always an office.

   My father got a job as a restaurant consultant after the car accident that took my mother and baby brother’s lives. He took it because we can move where ever whenever we want, just as long as the restaurant was in better condition when we left than when we got there, and it pays very well.

   As we were unpacking the trailer I saw a group of girls walking into town wearing knee pads around their ankles and dressed in athletic gear. One of them saw me and waved but kept walking. I felt a pang of remembrance when I saw them because it made me think of junior high when I played sports and my mom was the coach. I pushed the thought out of my head and continued to bring boxes in the house.

    The next day I got to school half an hour late due to the fact that my car wouldn’t start and my dad always leaves buttcrack early ’cause he’s weird like that. When I got to the school I went to the admin office, got all of my paperwork done, and left to find my AP architecture class. I was walking down the hall looking for room 108 when I heard someone playing the guitar. They weren’t playing rock music or some dumb country song, but hard core classical music. They were playing like Ralph Macchio in the movie Cross Roads, it was awesome. I started to round a corner, moving towards the sound I looked behind to make sure that nobody saw me when I ran flat into a set of double doors. I cursed under my breath, then peaked threw the window to see a boy about my age sitting on the edge of a stage staring off into space while his fingers flew across the strings. He didn’t even seem to notice that he was amazing. I stood there staring in the window like an idiot watching this boy play like a boss. After about another minute of this he shook his head and looked around like he was just waking up, I couldn’t see his face well and his eyes were hidden. I saw him see me and my cheeks burned with embarrassment because I’d been standing there like a creeper watching him through a window. Wow what a great first impression I thought to myself. I gave him an embarrassed smile as to apologize for being a creep when he turned to face me completely and looked right at me. I felt his good looks punch me in the face he had one of those strong sexy jaws with shaggy jet black hair. He had a great build you could see the outline of a six pack through his dark gray shirt that fit him very, very nicely. His arms were well muscled but not too big and he looked to be about 6 foot 4, I wasn’t close enough to see his eyes clearly. So in other words he was friggin gorgeous and I was totally checking him out and maybe drooling a bit. I felt my cheeks get even hotter when I realized what I was doing. But he didn’t seem to notice he just smiled and turned around I was so embarrassed I turned to run but my shoelace was caught under my other foot so I fell, hard. When I opened my eyes again he was sitting on the ground next to me, I panicked and tried to get up only to be pushed down again by a wave of skull splitting pain, I gasped as I tried to catch my breath.  I couldn’t see anything but black and sprinkles of color I heard him talking asking me if I was alright but I couldn’t find my voice. All of a sudden I felt my weight being lifted off the ground I could feel him breathing as he carried me to the nurses’ office. I was silently thanking my clumsiness. Half way there my vision started to clear and I could speak again.