Sorry if my short story is actually pretty long, I'm not used to short stories. And I have no ideas for a title, so please, titles! Pleas, please, please comment and tell me how you like it. It just kind of came to me when I was listening to a song. OK, thanks!!!
I looked at him and immediately felt relief wash over me, he didn’t seem to have heard me. Instead, he went over and stuck a CD into his stereo and the silence was broken by Owl City’s The Saltwater Room. I looked up, shocked by his choice of music. I wasn’t thinking what some guy like him would be doing listening to these kinds of songs, but how did he know? How did he know that this was my favorite song? I must’ve only told him once, and I was sure he hadn’t been listening.
“How-“ I started to ask, but he cut me off by putting his finger to my lips. He bent down and was about to kiss me, and I was most defiantly about to kiss him too, but something wasn’t right.
“I love you too,” he said, he had heard me. Just as his lips were centimeters away from mine, I pulled away.
“You love me?” I asked, bewildered. Just two days ago he had been making fun of me, being mean to me, without mercy! It wasn’t the cutesy, flirty mean either, this was true snobbish mean. Yet, I had still been convinced that I had loved him! I should have known, he only started being nice to me yesterday when I came to school the way I was. I can’t believe I let Casey talk me into that group. I didn’t need a group to tell me how to act, or how to dress, or even how to eat just to get a boy’s attention.
“Of course,” he said, and bent back down to kiss me. I pulled away again. This didn’t feel right. it wasn’t right! What was I doing with this guy who I barely know? He doesn’t even know me either and yet he’s telling me he loves me!
“I don’t even know you!” I shouted, of course I knew who he was, I mean who didn’t? He was Bradley Furner for goodness sake! The most popular boy at school, but I didn’t know him past that. At once I had thought I knew who he truly was just from a look he gave me one day. But I now knew I was wrong, about a lot of things.
“I’m sorry,” I said and got up. He scrambled to his feet and turned his stereo to radio, loud rap blasted from a speaker. I hated rap. He climbed over his bed and grabbed me by the waist, turning me around.
“Come one babe, what’s wrong?” he said, he had a kind of harsh look in his eyes. He seemed mad at me, and I didn’t like it at all.
“You, that’s what’s wrong,” I said and pushed myself away from him. He stumbled backwards onto his bed and looked over at me. I must have looked mad because his eyes got kind of wide, as in fear. I didn’t blame him either, when I got mad, I got mad.
“That dork friend of yours was right, you are strong,” he said as he lifted himself up off of his bed and dusted himself of, wow. But wait, did he say something about Caleb?
“What?” I asked, I had frozen at the door, my hand reaching out for the knob. I turned around so quickly that I felt dizzy for a second. “What about Caleb?”
“Yeah, that’s his name,” he said. He knew he had hit something, now it seemed as if he were trying to figure out if it would benefit him or not. He eyed me, deciding to go on as if it were benefiting himself, when really all I wanted him to do was crawl under a rock and die. “Where do you think I had gotten all of this information from anyway? He told me that you were basically in love with me.” Wow, that’s all I could think. How stupid could he be? That just made me hate him even more. Using poor Caleb!
But that was just it! He got his information from Caleb! That means Caleb had been paying attention to all of that, he cared about me so much that he would tell Bradley that I basically loved him so that Bradley would want to go out with me after my whole Casey makeover. That’s so sweet!
Then I realized it, I wasn’t in love with Bradley, I was in love with Caleb!
I was in love with Caleb! I turned back around and walked out of the room, leaving a bewildered looking Bradley behind. But I didn’t care, because I was in love. This must really be what love feels like!
Caleb new my favorite song was The Saltwater Room!
Caleb new I would do anything to get Bradley to notice me!
Caleb got his sister to take me to that group so that Bradley would notice me and I’d be happy!
Caleb told Bradley about me so that he would know what to do when I came to school that day, because that’s what I thought was my dearest wish!
Caleb!
Caleb!
Caleb!
I was so busy thinking about him that I hadn’t notice myself subconsciously walking across the street. It wasn’t until I heard a honk that I was brought back from my small room inside of my brain. I looked over and saw lights, and then nothing.
I was swimming in darkness for a while. It wasn’t too bad, the pool must’ve been heated. The bad part was that I knew people were watching me, I could hear them talking. I tried to call out, to tell them to stop because I already knew they were there, but I couldn’t say anything. Then, out of nowhere, the lights were turned on and I had to blink a lot before my eyes focused. And when they did, I saw the best thing I could’ve seen at that time, a bouquet of sweet peas. They were from Caleb, I knew that for sure.
When I had first met Caleb, it was in a flower shop. I was there because I liked to smell the flowers, Caleb was there because his aunt owned it, we were eight. When I saw him, I thought it would be funny to jump out of the flowers and scare him, so I began to climb in between a bunch of flowers. Before I got all the way in there I heard someone give a little cough behind me.
“Ahem,” he had said/coughed. I froze and looked behind me slowly.
“What are you doing?” he had asked me.
“I was going to scare you,” I said, removing my leg from the flowers. As I did that, a bouquet of sweet peas fell out. When we both went down to pick them up we had bumped heads. We’ve been friends since.
Next to his flowers was a chocolate bunny from his sister, and my other friend, Casey. She knew I loved chocolate bunnies about as much as I had thought I had loved Bradley. It was a nice sight, but I wished Caleb had been there, it would have been much nicer to tell him right away how I felt about him. And as if God had heard my wish, I turned to look at the other side of the hospital room to find Caleb, fast asleep in one of the chairs. Next to him was Casey, her head on Caleb’s shoulder. In another chair I spotted my mom’s purse and my dad’s briefcase.
“Caleb,” I whispered hoarsely. He moved a bit, but gave out a large snore.
“Caleb,” I said again, this time a bit louder. I had a grin on my face as he opened his eyes. His eyes got really big and a smile was just about thrown onto his face.
“You’re awake!” he said. He was about to go out into the hall and call a doctor, but I couldn’t let him. I had to tell him right now!
“Caleb, wait. I have to tell you something,” I said and I waved him over. He looked puzzled, but he still kneeled down next to the bed.
“What?” he asked. I knew by his pained expression that he thought he should be calling the doctor in right now, but that wouldn’t stop me.
“All this time, I’ve been so foolish,” I started out. If he hadn’t looked confused before, he really did now.
“What are you-“ he tried to say, but I cut him off.
“For so long I thought I really knew who Bradley was, but I was wrong. The boy I thought I was in love with turned out to be a total jerk. And the guy who I really was in love with all this time had been here for me the whole time,” I said. Wow, my life is a total cliché I thought to myself.
“You’ve been out for a day or so, you’re confused, I should get a doctor,” he said and got up. He started for the door. Why was he being so difficult?
“Stop!” I shouted. Casey gave a loud grunt, but just started snoring again, she always was a heavy sleeper. He stopped and turned around. Man was he hot, how come I didn’t realize it when I could! His muddy blonde hair hanged down into his green eyes that looked a bit red and had some sleep on the corners.
“Caleb, will you listen to me? I love you!” I said, I couldn’t even believe it! He just stared at me.
“Really?” he asked, guys can be so stupid sometimes.
“Yes,” I said, exasperated. He just stood there with this silly looking grin on his face.
“Well,” I said after about a minute.
“Well, what?” he asked, coming closer.
“Aren’t you going to kiss me?”
