Motorcycle Girl

Chapter 29: The Fuzzy Gray Blanket

Hey guys! This is ending soon! I'm going to do a sequel though. I'm not done with Nathan and Odeletta yet.

Chapter 29: The Fuzzy Gray Blanket

My bedroom door is thrown open.

"You need to-Jesus, Nathan, it looks like a tornado ripped through here!" Peyton snaps.

I ignore her. Maybe if I pretend I'm asleep she will leave me alone.

I know this room looks horrible. There's clothing strewn all over the floor, shards of glass, and pieces of drywall. It's dark because the light bulb to my ceiling went out months ago and I've just been using the lamp.

"Whatever." She says. "I know you're not sleeping, Nathan." She says. "Get up!" She stumbles over some clothes and shakes me roughly. I sit up, angry. The light seeping into the bedroom from the hall pisses me off.

"Dude, you have to go talk to Odeletta." Gabe says in the doorway.

Peyton grabs my wrist and drags me into the living room. Harper is still here. She's wearing a coat. Nights in Colorado can get chilly, in the high to mid fifties. Sometimes they can drop to the high forties.

"What do you want?" I bark at my family, all of them glaring at me. The only one I'm not related to by blood is Harper and Mason, but Mason might as well be family.

"Dude, it's eleven at night." Julian says. "And she's outside."

"Who?" I ask.

"Odeletta." Harper hisses. "I went to leave and she's sitting on the stairs in a tank top and shorts and she's crying!"

I shut the door in her face four hours ago.

"She's still outside?" I ask.

"Yes!" Harper snaps. "I went to go home and saw her. She's crying, Nathan, and she really doesn't know what she did. She came to you to solve it and you're being immature. She's sobbing now because she knows I came in here to yell at you."

Thinking about Odette sitting on the stairs crying and shivering makes my heart ache.

Without a word, I reach down and grab the gray fuzzy throw blanket off of my younger cousin.

"Hey!" He snaps. I ignore him and go outside, looking down the hall. She's there alright, sitting on the second step from the top, her arms on her legs and her head against them. Her shoulders shake as she cries, mixed with shivers from the cold, and I feel my heart flood with guilt. Silently, I walk over to her, draping the blanket over her shoulders. She doesn't look up. I sit down next to her, resting my elbows on my knees, my arms resting on top of each over. I look at her.

The night air is cold and it seems like tonight is one of those low forties nights.

I feel guilty. I knew what I was getting into when I asked her out. I knew she was going to piss me off, and I was okay with it. I accepted it, but the way I acted to her pissing me off is what makes me angrier.

I feel my heart aching as I watch her cry.

"Mon Amour." I murmur.

It's like my words make her break what little self control she had left. She starts crying harder than a child who scraped their knee after falling off their bike, or a hungry infant.

I scoot closer to her, putting my left arm around her shoulders, pulling her chilled body to my chest.

"No, baby." I mumble.  She turns her head so it's against my chest. Her arms are wet with tears. She raises her left hand to clutch my shirt in her fist. I rub her shoulder through the blanket, pulling it back up when it slips off her body. I press a soft kiss to her head, my heart aching because I know she's not really mine right now. She broke up with me.