Forever in Grayscale

Forever in Grayscale: Chapter 6 Part 2

Chapter Six Part 2: Still Carmen’s POV

“M-my parents aren’t home right now, so just come on in and… yeah,” I said, staring at my feet. My God, this was awkward. Figures that even without trying, my parents manage to place me in the weirdest situation ever. Now I’m supposed to entertain the guy that saw me being an idiot, his little brother, and his parents. Great.

“You must be Carmen!” the mother said brightly. In my head, I sighed. Who else would I be? A stranger just randomly chilling out in a family’s home?

“Yes, and you must be…” I was going to retort, but I stopped. I didn’t even know their last name.

“Kim Danvers,” she told me.

“Right.”

“And this is my husband, Richard, my oldest son, Jace, and my youngest son, Peter,” she introduced everyone. Yeah, I knew Jace already. “I think you and Jace are around the same age, if I heard your mother correctly. Jace, why don’t you go to her room and hang out?”

Jace shrugged and smirked at me.

What the hell? What kind of world is this where a mother blatantly tells her hormonal, teenage son to go hang out in a teenage girl’s room?

“I wanna go too!” Peter all of sudden started wailing. I think he was around ten years old. Still, too old to be such a crybaby.

“Okay, well, um, my room is just upstairs,” I said, scratching the back of my neck.

“I’ll follow you,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Mm-kay,” I mumbled. I led him up to my bedroom and flicked the lights on. I plopped down on my bed and waited for him to say something. Because I knew he would have something to say about my incident at HyVee. But I looked over and he was just standing there, examining my light switch.

Err…

“Oh I get it. It’s one of those dimming ones.” He laughed and dimmed the lights so it was nearly completely dark. I figured, oh, he’s going to turn it back up, but no. He just sprawled out on my bed next to me. By now, I was feeling very, very uncomfortable.

“My eyesight’s kind of already bad, so do you mind if I turn the lights back up?” I asked, hopping off the bed a little too quickly.

“Ugh, fine. But it makes your room look so… yellow.”

YES, that’s what all lights do. I sighed, he was my guest so I just turned it up a little. Then I just stood by the wall, staring at the ground. Silence.

“So did you get your groceries home alright? I noticed you came on a bike,” he chuckled. Then I lost my mind momentarily and decided I would act like I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, even though clearly he remembered me.

“Excuse me, what?”

“It’s fine, you don’t have to be embarrassed. You were pretty funny at the grocery store. You did know Will, though, didn’t you?” he asked, sitting up and looking at me, all of sudden interested.

“I – um, well - ”

“Come sit down.” He patted the bed next to him. My guest was telling me to sit down. I sank down next to him and he leaned close to my face. I scooted away slightly, not trying to be rude, but to get farther away from this awkward situation.

“Do you know him?” he asked again. I stared at him. “Ahhh, I get it! You go to the same school as him, and see him here and there, and have developed a crush on him, but you’re too shy to approach him so you’ve been admiring him for a distance, that’s why he didn’t know who you were. Am I right?”