Everything I Hide From You

Chapter Twelve: Leather Shine and Lemon Drops

Hey readers there are edited versions of chapters one and two and it is better if you read then because some events change.

Sitting on my school's front steps I wait for Jamie to show up. But, once the waiting hit the second hour I started to maybe think she had no intentions of showing. I don't take her absence personally because it would have been weird if Jamie showed someplace she said she actually would be. For her its just unheard of.

"How long is she going to be?" Liam groans leaning out his car window. I look at him and roll my eyes as I kick some pebbles with the toe of my shoe.

"I told you to leave a long time ago. Like around the time school got out," I sigh as the school door opens but its not Jamie - just a leggy blonde with highlights.

"I don't take irrational commands, ma'am," Liam smirks at me. "Plus what type of man would I be if I just left the girl I like sitting alone?"

My heart flutters before I roll my eyes again. I look to my left and then to my right to the empty steps beside me and then I look at him hanging halfway out his driver's side window. "Technically I'm still sitting alone."

"And who's fault is that?" Liam laughs.

"Could you just shut up?" I ask rudely and he just shrugs at me.

"The longer we wait the lounge I get to stare at you." He settles his elbows on his car door and smiles.

"Are you sure you're not diagnosed with something?" I ask him.

"Nope that's just you," Liam says back and my mood immediately sours. My stomach drops and my glare deepens into something dark and unforgettable. I knew it, I knew he saw me like everyone else does; he sees me as someone with an issue and that's it. I'm just a fucking disorder compared to his clean-cut personality.

"That's not funny. That's really not funny. How could you- " My voice breaks off and Liam decides to fail the empty void.

"How could I what? Want to be your friend? Want to be more than your friend actually? How could I simply talk to you about something that troubles ypu everyday?" Liam's face is harder and a little pinched in anger. "What do you want from me?"

"I just want my cat," I whisper. I'm at the moment where I'm on the brink of tears but something inside of me keeps a tight grip om this tears in front of Liam.

"If that's what you want; let me take you to her," Liam coaxes and I begin to feel so much smaller than everything around me. I feel younger and everything suddenly feels older - like how a four year old views everyone bigger than her as an adult.

Those tears threaten me and so does Liam. The tears with their aftermath and Liam with his relaxing eyes.

I find myself standing and walking towards his car. He watches me as I walk around the hood and then he slaps his hand down hard on his steering wheel which causes a blaring horn to shoot out.

I scream in shock and Liam laughs and leans his head out the window. "God you're so slow. Get in the car already, Rose!" My feet shuffle across the asphalt andb I slide into his passenger seat. His entire car smells like leather shine and lemon drops. it reminds me so much of my father when I was younger and undiagnosed and Jamie was just a little toddler. At the kitchen table every morning my dad would bring out a pair of his dress shoes, place them at the edge of the table, grab Jamie out her high chair and balance her on his knee, and then he'd teach me the best ways to give a shoe "that good bald shine" which is what he liked to call it. Those days are long gone-poisoned by the image of my mother and my disorder.

"Am I getting introduced to this little kitten today?" Liam asks putting his car into drive and whipping it out the school parking lot. I look back to make sure Jamie doesn't just spontaneously appear out the front doors and when she doesn't I look back out the windshield.

I sigh. "Not today. I just need to be alone."

Liam's hands pat out the beat to an old Lionel Ritchie song. "Hm, I'll let that excuse slide this time, Rose. But, after awhile I'm going to start ignoring this while dark and brooding temperament you j ave going on. I know you like being around me."

I laugh and I realize how much tension I lost since that car horn. Almost like I've been woken up. "Whatever you say."

After Liam drops me off I immediately go in the direction of my room to cuddle with Hayes. I hand reaches and wraps around my elbow. I wheel around to face my father.

"Hey sweetie."

"Hi dad." I look into his identical eyes that seem shadowed with anger. "What did I do?"

"What?" His expression turns confused. "Oh it's not you, Rose, it's um," he takes a deep breath. "It's your mother. But it's okay I'm handling it. How about you go out and find your sister," he suggests.

"What is mom doing?" I question.

"Nothing to worry about." He gives me a small shoved back towards the front door but not before a see a flash of a man and my mother hunched around the kitchen table speaking in low whispers and pointing at papers.

"Dad-"

"-Go Rose!" His voice tee raises.

"Not without Hayes." I stand tall. His gives me the one-minute finger and disappears down the hall. In a few seconds Hayes is in my arms and I'm out the door feeling better. Jamie always says that out house drains you of life and I'm starting to think she's right when I take one glance at my dad. But, one glance at my mother and I knoe it's not the house stealing life - it's her.