Light from the full moon shone down on my pillow in inconvenient rays. Rolling over, I checked the time on the small digital clock installed on my desk: 1:43 am. Tomorrow was a Tuesday, a school day, and the idea of suffering through my classes on an empty sleep battery was not the most pleasant of thoughts.
Sighing, I flopped back down on my bed and wriggled around until my body rearranged itself into a position somewhat resembling a starfish. Maybe I should get up and read a book? While I had never been particularly enthusiastic towards the literary world, I had heard they were good for curing nights of acute insomnia. Or perhaps some hot milk? Hot tea? Maybe I just needed to stretch my legs?
Thwack.
I pause mid-getting-out-of-bed. Night had the strange ability to play tricks on your mind. I had long since grown out of my fear of the dark but old habits always lurked in the back of my mind. Trees became skeletons, dressing-gowns became paranormal poltergeists and every shoe was an eight-legged hairy tarantula with an appetite only for me. Where did I leave my phone? What was the number for emergency services, again?
Thwack.
The noise sliced through the air. Was it coming from in the house or outside of it? Pulling on an oversized purple hoodie, I shuffled out from under my covers and did a slow scan of the room. Where was it coming from?
Thwack.
The window. It was coming from the window. Slowly, I approached the wide pane of glass like a wannabe-ninja preparing for their first fight. I pushed back the curtain just as a fourth pebble bounced off the glass with a fourth resonating, thwack. Looking down to the ground my heart stopped as I made out a lone figure waving at me to come down to him. It was Zach, tall, dark and unnaturally good-looking in the frosty air, throwing pebbles at my window. It was the classic scene in every cheesy teenage chick-flick that was only supposed to exist in the fictional world. And yet there he was, waiting outside in the cold, just for me.
A grin formed across my face and I slipped on my warmest pair of Ugg boots before attempting to escape through the house. Mum's room was at the opposite end of the house from my siblings' and Sadie had left the nest over six months ago. The only person I needed to avoid was loud-mouth-Michael who'd probably be in a deep sleep anyway.
After only a few small creaks of the floorboards, I managed to reach the front door and slip out into the night where my boyfriend - the novelty of his title had yet to wear off - waited for me. The night was cooler than I had expected and I shivered to keep warm. Zach stood in the corner of our front yard, waiting for me. As I entered into his sight, a wide smile of his own appeared across his face.
"Hey," he said as I approached.
"Hey yourself."
He grins and before I know it a warm arm snakes around my waist and pulls me in to him. A second later and my lips that had been frosty in the wind are covered with his own warm set. The kiss is soft and sweet and the perfect bait to wake up the circus of butterflies that are quick to swarm into my belly.
Apart from Joel Weaver in kindergarten, Zach was the first boy I had ever kissed. My first proper crush. My first boyfriend. Later, he would be the first boy to break my heart, but let's not dampen this memory with that. In that moment he was also the first boy I ever considered saying the 'L' word around. Maybe I did love him then. Or maybe it was only the idea of him I loved. Either way, that night was the first night I truly never wanted to end. I wanted to mentally film every moment so I could re-watch the film in my head over and over again when he wasn't around.
"I didn't wake you?" Zach asks, suddenly concerned after we part.
If it had been any other night it would be a surprise if he hadn't woken me. That night was different and I shook my head and truthfully told him I had already been awake.
"What are you doing here?"
For a second the ghost of a painful memory frosted across his eyes. I waited for him to tell me what was going on with him. He knew I had lost my dad to the promises of a supposedly better life from the one we could give him. He knew my family had its problems and I knew his did too. So I waited for him to elaborate, instead he chose to simply shake his head and present me with the one-dimpled smile I had swooned over many times before.
"Just wanted to see you," he says, pecking on another light kiss to my lips.
A part of me wanted to pressure him for more information but the bigger part of me was just glad he was there, on my front lawn at one in the morning. I figured he would talk when he wanted to and I didn't want to drive him away with irritating questions.
To this day I have always wondered what happened to Zach that night. He never spoke about it again I never found out. Maybe it really was nothing or maybe it was more than that. Less than a month later we would break-up and I would be left with the over-arching question of why. Looking back now he clearly had bigger fish than me swimming through his life and I did too. Maybe if we had let each other into our lives more the end result of a story could have been prevented? But maybe, just maybe, we were doomed to fail from the beginning?
--------
A/N:
It's surprisingly difficult to switch between writing about how Kaylee hates Zach to how much she loves him and then back again through these flashbacks. It's also kind of sad . . .
VOTE. COMMENT. SHARE.
YOU ARE READING
Misplaced (COMPLETED)
Teen Fiction|misplaced/mɪsˈpleɪst/adjective| 1. incorrectly positioned. 2. temporarily lost. So the story goes: a boy once loved a girl. The boy stopped loving the girl. The girl got over the boy . . . until a hundred kilometres from home said girl kept encount...
