.....

Thanks, the very first draft of the first four chapters was just...too premature, so in the revision I tried to draw the romance out more, but since the novel is more about Bobby's own family history and mermaids, I figured I'd let the romance happen in the beginning. But wow, is that really the first experession that this gives? Bland? I guess I need work. It's nice to have feedback from someone who isn't in love with me or, blood related, or my best friend. Thanks.

UnderTheGun wrote:Chapter One


With only one more year of high school remaining, an Early Acceptance from Columbia University and a timetable for when I’d be able to make my great escape to New York, I stepped off the bus feeling great that morning. It was the first day of my senior year and my mind was all over the place, mentally sifting through the thick pages of the course catalogue that had come in the mail the day before, and jittery from all the caffeine that I had drank since waking up at 5:00am. I could sense the presence of something wonderful in the air, and I took several absent-minded steps in the direction of the high school with no regard for the mess that my long legs could create . And then, with the same unpredictability of lightning, WHAM! She collided with me with such tremendous force that it caused my latte to fly up into the air and land in my lap, uncooled by its brief exposure to the air. I screamed and lamented, the pain not the cause for my exclamation but rather the shock of the blow. I looked up, and my attacker was stretched horizontally across my legs, her face obscured by a mass of thick amber curls.
“I’m so sorry,” she said as she struggled to collect her fallen books from the pavement. She looked embarrassed. I helped her retrieve the books that had fallen out of her hands, avoiding eye contact until I knew exactly what to say.
“Thank you,” she said, waiting for me to hand over her books.
“You’re welcome,” I responded in an attempt at sounding unaffected by the collision. She smiled a warm smile at me, blushed, and tucked an unruly curl behind her left ear, exposing a collection of beauty marks beside her left eye. I couldn’t help but notice how tall she was in comparison to my six feet four inches. She wore very little makeup, but her skin seemed to glow; a natural beauty. My hormones, those biological traitors, caused me to perspire. My attacker extended a hand in my direction and like an idiot, I slapped her five. She played along, laughed a very honest laugh and breathed a final apology with a ‘thank you’ tucked in the middle before running full speed in the direction of Eureka high.

* * *
Ninety minutes of homeroom were avoided thanks to the morning’s accident and the latte that soiled my blue jeans and scarred my inner thigh. I walked home in a daze, unsure as to whether or not my legs and feet had actually moved since I turned to watch my beautiful attacker sprint away from me. That fortunate incident filled my mind with fickle thoughts that would last less than a second, all revolving around who that stranger was, and what act of fate had kept her out of my sights for so long.
I never noticed the color my jeans were when I pulled them out of the closet to replace the ones that had been ruined by my latte. I only wanted to get back to school and search for the angel who had been consuming me for the length of thirty-two minutes. I could remember perfectly how buoyantly her strawberry blonde curls bounced off the exposed skin of her back in the white tank top she wore, and the coolness of her hand that I experienced for only a fraction of a second.
I made it back to school in the middle of the transition from homeroom to first period, and she was all around me. I’d catch glimpses of her curls rounding a corner, exiting a door, or standing out in a throng of students, perhaps confused about which direction her next class was in. I knew that it was her even without seeing her face, but every time I tried to make my way over to her, she would disappear, finding her destination before I could reach her.
My teachers couldn’t hold my attention. I didn’t flinch when Kevin Garner tossed a paper airplane at my head, or when Vic entered my U.S. Government class sporting a micro miniskirt and incredibly tanned legs, or when I saw on my program that I had a free period in the middle of the day instead of at the end like I requested. My mind could focus on nothing but the events of that morning, and I kept mentally replaying the scene in my head, wondering if I had made a good impression, or if the stranger was even thinking about me the way that I had been thinking about her. I was wild with thoughts of that girl, that strangely whimsical, oddly polite, beautiful, girl.
My last class of the day was Advanced Placement Music Theory; an hour and a half of the most technical and philosophical musical ideas known to man, and when I arrived late after spending my free period arguing with Mrs. Freeman about placing me in the third and fourth block Theory class and leaving my free period for the end of the day so I could leave right after lunch, she was there. Much of her hair was in her face, but she must have noticed me because her body jerked a little when I entered the room. She sat up front despite the fact that the whole third row was empty. I was reluctant to sit so near the board and the watchful eye of Mr. Reginald, but I had no choice, the decision was involuntary. I claimed the seat beside her, half-crashing into her desk as I struggled to find a comfortable position for my longer than long legs. I was such a blundering idiot, a bashful shell of a man, I couldn’t even look at her, but strained my eyes to get a glimpse of her from my peripheral vision, and she was smiling to no one in particular, doodling away in a leather bound journal, oblivious to my presence beside her.
Reginald entered the room gaily. He thumped his bag against the hollow wood of the old desk and proceeded to organize the day’s handouts before inviting the class to come up and take one of each.
“Hey. Remember me”, she asked as we headed to the desk for the handouts. Her voice was like wind chimes in the country, a reminder of pleasant things. Somehow I mustered up the courage to respond.
“Yea, from this morning, right” I said, careful to stare past her eyes.
“Yep. I’m still sorry about that. I didn’t even see you coming. I guess I’m still getting used to this place.”
“You’re new here”, I asked, realization dawning on me.
“Yea, my family and I just moved here from San Francisco. I’m Rosemarie Borges.”
“I’m Bobby – Bobby Doyle.” We reached for the same handout on the Diatonic Scale and our hands touched briefly before I pulled back. She left hers there and her full lips formed a smile. I tried to smile back, parting my thin lips while evermore concerned that she’d be disgusted by the chipped tooth that detracted beauty from my otherwise decent smile.
“I think I’ve got them all,” she said, turning to walk back to her seat. I turned too, shell-shocked at all of the eyes that had just been watching us, or rather watching her, the tall, statuesque newcomer flirting with the strange misanthropic boy who always sat in the far left corner of the room.
“O.K. class,” Reginald began, “I want you all to turn to the handout on rudiments and elementary music terminology.” I tuned out the rest of Reginald’s instructions and stared at Rose instead, as she carefully studied the handout, I inspected the cluster of beauty marks scattered beside her left eye, beguiling and enchanting. They added ornamentation to her face and their pattern seemed to have changed since I last glimpsed them. I wondered if I’d ever have the pleasure of memorizing their precise number. The rest of her face was equally as impressive. Her nose was less than elegant and rounded at the tip, but it was perfect, as were her eyes. They weren’t blue, but hazel, almost the same color as my latte with a hint of green in them. Her cheeks rested well in a neutral position but were round and doll-like when she smiled and were dusted with a pale shade of pink. Her cheeks contrasted with the vibrant red color of her lips, full and no doubt soft to the touch. Her chin, perhaps my favorite feature, was characterized by a tiny cleft and gave her a pouty, come hither look, making it impossible for me to concentrate on anything Reginald had been saying.
“Mr. Doyle! Mr. Doyle!” Reginald must have shouted my name ten times before I came to and realized that I had the attention of the entire class, including Rose.
“I was just telling the class about your audition with George Lewis, and we’re all pleased that you’ve been accepted into the very prestigious music program at Columbia University,” he said. I wished that he hadn’t taken class time to announce something so personal. My acceptance had nothing to do with rudiments and elementary music terminology.
“Yes, I’m very excited. Please excuse my being distracted, you have my full attention,” I said, nervously. My voice was barely audible. They clapped for me, and it was strange, applause in the middle of class, applause for me. It reminded me just how important I was to that class, and Reginald in particular even when the rest of the student body regarded me as no more than a phantom. I didn’t need the recognition of my peers in order to feel complete. Oblivion was more welcomed than popularity because it didn’t come with responsibility. I didn’t have to care about or maintain an image. I didn’t have to be social on days when I just wanted to crawl under a rock and die. I longed for the companionship of someone trustworthy, someone just as alone in this world as me who didn’t feel a need to fill each silence with tidbits of nothingness just because. I desired someone who would be herself regardless of who was watching. I didn’t want the world to notice me, because the world could not compare to the beauty and simplicity of just the one true friend that every person on earth ought to have.
Reginald continued with the lesson, his eyes shining brightly with pride and his voice tainted with the high-pitched excitement that rang throughout the small music room. Rose looked over at me, not hesitant to make eye contact, and I looked away, pretending to take notes. At the center of my heart, a gaping hole festered, and I slowly began to notice the effect that it had on me. This unwelcomed guest was engulfing my entire being, pushing me further away from the world than ever before. It was a great pain, physically and mentally tearing away at my frame. My appetite was scarce, I was reluctant to talk about any of this with Gammy, and all the while, my music was gradually taking on the form of the hole. I was surprised that I even made it through my audition with George Lewis. Morose melodies and cryptic motives made me doubt my musical prowess. Everyone expected me to make it, and when I did, it was bittersweet. I didn’t believe that my performance merited acceptance into such a prestigious program. On the day of the audition I had been up for 36 hours straight. I had forgotten some of the notes that I was supposed to play in the middle of the piece, but luckily my virtuosic abilities saved me. My issues were more recondite than any basal insecurities that I had regarding my music. I was chronically sad, and it amazed me that a stranger could compel an introvert like me to assume a desire to change and begin living a life different to that of a hermit by merely existing. I was determined to triumph over the hole. Conceding to it would leave no room in my life for anything worth holding onto.
My eyes darted from Rose to Reginald and then to my scant notes. I couldn’t concentrate. Something had been eating at me and something was breathing life back into me. It was a war between good and evil, light and darkness, but it was nothing like Hollywood made things out to be. My condition wasn’t the least bit thrilling, and there was no guarantee that the goodness of light would conquer the darkness of evil.
I left myself to my thoughts for the remainder of the afternoon, drifting to my favorite spot in all of Humboldt County; a bed of cliffs wedged in near the coast. I’d sit quietly, sometimes jamming on my guitar, or just eating fresh baked bread from Morton’s Bakery. I couldn’t hear anything but the wind and the water, and even the bike ride over to Samoa was exhilarating. I’d stare into the expanse of the ocean and wonder where my mother’s body had washed up all those years ago, or if it had been consumed by oceanic beasts as sweet carrion. Sometimes it hurt so much to look in the mirror, to remember her by my own face rather than memories. Most memories that I had of my mother were a blur. I could recall her scent, sweet and aquatic. She spent most of her life on the water, and even when she was alive I didn’t see much of her. She’d leave me with my paternal grandmother for months at a time, kissing me gently on my forehead before each departure, and whispering three magic words that I hadn’t heard since the last time I saw her over seven years ago. She would return bearing seashells from beaches all around the globe as gifts, and we’d sit in Gammy’s timeless living room on the white carpet making crafts out of the seashells. Her eyes were big and green, almost unreal, like my own. We both have round, delicate faces with elegant features; thin lips, sternly straight, pointed noses, dark, loose curly hair and piercingly bright eyes.
There’s but one picture of my mother in the entire house, and it’s a picture of her and my father swaddling my newborn body. In the picture she’s looking down at me, her jet-black locks obscure her face and only her nose is visible as it peeks out behind the veil of thick hair lightly brushing my baby blanket. In the photo, my father appears very unhappy. His eyes are trained on my mother, love and pain behind them, he smiles weakly for the camera. That photo was taken on the day he left for the naval academy, and he’s had the very same sadness behind his eyes ever since.
As the waves of the Pacific crashed against the rocks thirty feet beneath me, I wondered what the fall would be like, and then I tried to guess at what the impact of my emaciated frame hitting the water from the top of the rocks would feel like. It was just an errant thought. The hole hadn’t made me suicidal. The black water was menacing and the waves growled at me from below. It was more satisfying to imagine freefalling into the water than actually going forth and doing it. My thoughts were safe while anything could happen out there in the water. I could be devoured by sharks, suffocated by the current, or worse, I could spend an eternity adrift the ocean, my screams echoing off the waves, lost to the world, dismissed as another victim of the current. I found myself thinking this way all the time, trying to come up with a plausible reason for why my mother always had to be away from home, on the water, away from me, her son. She’d still be here if she hadn’t been so selfish.
I knew that anger wouldn’t bring her back to me. It wouldn’t allow me the chance to get to know her outside of being the nice lady I called mommy who brought me pretty seashells twice a year, to have a relationship with her, or to love her any less. It just hurt so badly to love a stranger, and to want her around even when I knew it was impossible. I just couldn’t help feeling like the hole in my chest wouldn’t be there if she were alive, and loving her was so natural that the anger hurt more.
I improvised something morbid on my guitar, closing my eyes and envisioning a world where music was my greatest concern. I could live with that. I never understood why some musicians felt more at home composing than performing, and why some performers never composed. My mind perceived them as two halves of the same whole, both equally as important to me. How could one compose if he were ignorant to the peculiarities of the instruments he wrote for? And how could one play the works of others without being overcome with an urge to challenge himself to create his very own masterpiece? Music would be a welcomed problem, but that simply wasn’t the case for me. I could complain about the parasite invading my body, draining me of every ounce of energy and enthusiasm and turning my music into something even Hemingway would find depressing, but it, the hole, wasn’t interfering with my ability to compose. My latest music was simply a reflection of what was happening to me internally.
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I opened them and beheld the thickest strawberry blonde curls fifteen feet below me. She was staring up at me, wearing a skin-tight wetsuit, waving to get my attention.
“Hey”, she called. Her smile was still a thousand watts even with the distance between us.
“Hey”, I echoed. My voice sounded gravely after having been silent for a large portion of the afternoon.
“What are you doing all the way up there? I was just going for a swim, come join me,” she said. My mind began to race as I struggled to arrive at an acceptable excuse to stay on the top of the rocks. Rose just kept looking up, the wind tousling her hair ever so subtly, the wetsuit fitting her form like a glove. I really wanted to be closer to her, to have a better view of her face and the features and quirks that I only recently began studying. To count the number of beauty marks beside her left eye and see if the number had remained the same as it had been earlier. I wondered if fate had brought her to Samoa that afternoon.
Her smile began to fade with each passing second that allowed her unanswered question to linger in the air, and I could sense her disappointment. She smiled again, a forced smile, and waved a dismissive hand in my direction before plunging into the water. She had been closer to the water than me, but it was still a high jump. I wondered how much thought she devoted to the jump. She made it look effortless.
I stood up on the rocks and craned my neck for a better view of Rose in the water. I couldn’t see her. I heard her body hit the water, but the waves muted any noise she may have been making in a haste to reach the surface. My heart began to beat abnormally, and I felt a surge of heat manifest itself right where the hole was. I felt a growing panic beginning to build within me, and I struggled to figure out why Rose had dove off the rocks from such a dangerous altitude.
Maybe it was my own thalassophobia amplifying things, adding excessive worry to a situation that didn’t call for it. Still, my concerns wouldn’t dissipate until I knew that she was safe.
The wait burdened me with a sense of timelessness, and my head began to spin with the increased anxiety. I found myself pulling off the t-shirt that hung loosely from my body, planning to rescue her from the treacherous waves. I broke out into a shiver, suddenly chilled despite the warm weather, and I began to feel my balance slip away. I felt myself teetering on the edge of the rocks, shirtless and cold, disoriented and afraid. Suddenly I felt wet and warmer than I had been feeling. I thought that I had jumped or fallen from the rocks, but it didn’t feel as though I had moved. Realizing that my eyes had been closed, I opened them and Rose was behind me, her body pressed against mine, her arms wrapped tightly around my waist as she tugged my body away from the edge of the rocks.
I hadn’t taken the plunge after all, I was tripping over the rocks, seconds away from a fatal fall, and Rose had saved me. I pretended to be disoriented for a few seconds after realizing what had transpired so that I could enjoy the moment, inhaling her unmistakably aquatic scent, it was more potent than the ocean itself. She pulled at my waist with more force than I’d ever predict her to be capable of, and we both fell down on the flat surface of one of the larger rocks, colliding for the second time that day.
“Are you OK”, she asked, moving my body so that I lay flatly on the mass of cold stone.
“What happened? Are you OK?” I asked.
“Me? I’m fine! You’re the one who almost plunged to his death. What were you thinking?” Rose was almost angry, her voice was soft with an edge. I was beside myself with gratitude and amazed by her beauty. Her features were even more beautiful close up.
“I – I thought that you had been hurt. I was trying to help”, I said, propping myself up on my elbows.
“Hurt by what?” She placed her small hand on my forehead, measuring the difference in our body temperatures, checking to see if I had a fever.
“I’m fine”, I said, pulling away from her.
“You don’t seem fine. You’re freezing. What happened to you?”
“You…you scared me. I saw you jump and I panicked.” Rose began to laugh uncontrollably. Her hysterics made me self-conscious, and suddenly very aware that I was shirtless. I hoped that she didn’t find my bird-chest hysterically funny.
“What’s so funny?”, I asked.
“It’s just that you…you thought – ,” Rose could barely coke out an answer past her giggles. I left her to her laughter and searched for my shirt. It was a few feet below where we were, but much too far to retrieve.
Rose had regained composure and was standing perfectly still and at ease, looking at me with bright eyes reflecting the tiniest glimmer of humor.
“Are you done?”, I asked, sounding more hostile than I intended.
“I’m sorry, that was rude of me”, she said while blushing. “You have to admit, that was pretty ironic, and funny too,” she giggled some more. I understood then why Rose had been laughing so hard. It was funny, to an extent, but more than anything, it was a relief to know that she was safe, and close enough for me to catch the soft shades of amber that flinted off her eyes whenever the overcast sun shone off them.
My mind shifted to concern for the whereabouts of my guitar, somehow forgotten in this mess and confusion with Rose and the jumping.
“What are you doing?”, Rose asked.
“Looking for my guitar,” I responded. She started to scan the rocks for it. She was so light on her feet, so impossibly comfortable on the rocks that I had nearly fallen from just a few moments ago that I felt intimidated by her.
“There”, Rose shouted, pointing to my guitar further down the rocks and past the point of salvaging.
“Man, it’s pretty beaten up,” she said, her eyebrows furrowed with concern.
“Better it than me. I have others,” I said, pretending not to care.
“Yea, but aren’t you attached to your instruments?”
“Do you play anything,” I asked, taking the focus of the conversation off of me, spotlighting Rose.
“Just a little violin. I’ve only been playing for three years.”
“Three years and you’re in AP Theory?”
“It’s a filler class. Double the credits double the chance that I’ll be able to get out of my parents’ house a year early.”
“So you’re a junior?”
“I should be, but why spend four years in high school if I can graduate in three?” I was impressed and wanted to know more.
“So where are you headed next fall?”
“Vassar, or maybe NYU. I haven’t decided yet. Of course I have to get accepted first, but I’m not too worried about that part. I wish I could just skip college altogether and just travel. The world teaches life’s most valuable lessons.” I nodded my head, still amazed that there was so much depth to her. Her voice trailed off as she stared into the ocean. Her eyes were so intense, incredibly focused and thoughtful. Her face was peaceful. I imagined that my mother must have had the same look in her eyes whenever she gazed into the infinite range of the ocean.
“So what are you doing all the way out here? Are you some kind of swimmer?”, I asked.
“I guess you could say that. It’s just what I do, in my free time,” she said, smiling a familiar smile.
“You swim in the ocean in your free time? Eureka has a community pool, ya know. It’s heated and all. Maybe you should try it some time.”
Rose looked at me strangely before fixing her gaze on the water.
“It wouldn’t be the same…swimming…through chlorine. Besides, I’m blonde, I wouldn’t want my hair to turn green,” she said, pulling her damp locks up to her nose.
“A public pool could never compare to the way my hair smells after a good swim,” she said, smiling again. I didn’t respond. I didn’t want her to know that I was a coward, afraid of the ocean and attached to the security of terrestrial life.
“I think I’m gonna head home now. Want a ride?”, she asked. Her eyes were locked on mine and her face seemed to glow as the sky began to darken with the approach of evening threatening.
“You drive?”, I asked.
“Of course! Don’t you?”
“No. My grandmother won’t pay for lessons.”
“You live with your grandma,” she asked with veiled curiosity.
“Unfortunately.” She laughed at this.
“And your parents…”
“What about them?”
“Where are they?”
“My mother is…deceased…my father’s in the Navy.”
“Oh, deceased. I’m so sorry to hear that. I don’t mean to pry, I’m just curious. You seem….different.”
“Compared to who?”
“Everyone. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you.”
“Is that good or bad?”
Rose chuckled and shook her head from side to side, looking at me with almost golden eyes.
“So far so good. So, about that ride, are you coming,” she asked, dangling a set of car keys in the air.
I smiled. She was too damn cute for her own good.
“Yes, thank you,” I said, stepping aside to allow room for her to pass.
Her car was sleek and simple; a five door, red hatchback with all-black leather interior. She popped the trunk and assisted me in loading my bike, doing most of the work herself. Afterwards she walked over to the passenger’s side door and opened it for me, reversing the roles of convention. Her car smelled just like her, and I was overpowered by the combined smells of strawberry scented shampoo and the beach. I climbed in, inhaling the sweet aroma drunkenly, as Rose made her way to the drivers side. She slid in and checked her reflection in the rearview mirror, puckering her lips as she iced them with lip balm. She wound her damp hair around her hand in a lucid motion, quickly securing it in a loose bun, and motioned for me to fasten my seat belt.
“Do you mind if we stop at the bakery?”, she asked.
I shook my head ‘no’ and sat back as I took in the smell of her car. She didn’t play any music, but rather hummed to herself as she drove. Her driving was more aggressive than I had expected.
“You drive like a man,” I mused, half smiling at her.
“I hit like one too,” she joked, pulling to the curb to park. I didn’t have time to respond to her latest absurdity. She zoomed out of the car into Morton’s, barefoot and beautiful. Her steps were graceful but fast, and her feet boasted better arches than Julliard trained dancers. Every aspect of her physique was perfectly arched in all the right places; the small of her back, the curves of her hips. She was intoxicating. I looked down at my pale, bare chest, almost afraid to see the imperfections of my untoned body in the meager light that shone through the windshield. I was unimpressed and ashamed. I yearned for an article of clothing to wear, a shirt that would cover up my disgusting canvas of youth.
Rose ambled back to the car. She was so poised and aware of herself. Her smile stifled me and pushed the hole to the deepest corners of my heart, burying it with her radiance.
“Morton’s has got to have the best scones in the entire country,” she said, her mouth full as she loaded the bread in the backseat of the car, grabbing another scone before getting in.
“I know, I eat there everyday,” I said.
She assumed her place behind the wheel of the car, still chewing. We were about five minutes from my house and I didn’t want the time to pass in idle silence. I quickly thought of something to say.
“That thing you said about traveling earlier, where would you go if you could take a year off from school?”, I asked. I kept my gaze on her, confident when her eyes weren’t on me, and waited for a response.
“Everywhere. But nowhere hackneyed or too traditional. Like, I think I’m the only one who thinks that the Coliseum looks its age, and frankly I think the new Yankee Stadium is more impressive, but I guess it’s not my call to make. The pyramids are beautiful but Egypt is a bit too dry for my taste. I’d consider the Middle East, but again, I hate dry, arid places. So…I guess Brazil, or maybe Peru. Actually, anywhere in South America, or even the Philippines. Yes, the Philippines.”
Just then I could picture it, everything that she had been describing. It all appeared in my head like snapshots from a brochure, but I had never been to the Philippines or to South America or the Middle East. The images felt more like a recollection of some sort than just a psychological attempt to ‘visualize’ the places that she had been talking about. I could see the white sand of Roxas City, and the tight waves and beautiful crags of Playa de Reñaca as if I were there, in both places at once all while remaining firmly planted in Eureka.
Everything seemed perfectly normal, but something was amiss. Those images were too real, too lifelike, too personal for me to believe that they were nothing more than a figment of my imagination. Rose seemed more like she had been waiting for a reaction than a response, and things only became stranger after that. We rode in silence the rest of the way, and all that was audible was the sound of her heart beating rebelliously through her skin-tight wetsuit. It was an irregular pulsing that drove me wild with anxiety as I fought the urge to press my ear to her breast and count the beats closely. It was a torturous kind of beating; perfect for music but too irregular and unpredictable to build on. I felt inspired by her heart, and its beating seemed vaguely familiar. Thump. Thu-Thump. Thuuump. Thump. Thump. Thump. THUMP. DA. DA. UMP.
“This is you,” she said. She hit a control that unlocked the trunk. I was reluctant to leave. I listened to her unreal heartbeat for an agonizing three minutes, struggling to recall where I had heard its irregular melody before, casually waiting for an explanation for why it was so obviously audible to me and so perplexing in its sheer irregularity. I wanted an explanation.
I exited the car after just a few awkward seconds of unexplained idling and walked over to the trunk to retrieve my bike. I walked around to her side and leaned my head in through her window, politely thanking her for the ride and the day’s experiences. Her eyes seemed to flirt with the starlight and ambivalently shine like strong black coffee and the soft buttery brown of a latte, changing each time I blinked.
“I’m sorry about your guitar,” she said. Her breath smelled of mint and aroused goose bumps on my skin.
]“Don’t be. It was no one’s fault. Thanks for everything, Rose.”
It was difficult to turn away from her. She was both strange and alluring, a novelty and a mystery, but I knew that I had to leave. I whispered a grateful ‘goodnight’ and ducked my head out of her window, careful not to hit it and ruin whatever reputation I had built with her.
The soft chill of the evening air wafted over my body and cleared the goose bumps. I watched Rose back out of my driveway and fell to my knees on the lawn as soon as her car was out of sight. Gammy’s station wagon wasn’t parked, and I hadn’t the slightest idea where she could have been, but I was glad for the opportunity to be alone with my thoughts. I lay back on the grass, bare-chested and vulnerable, clenching my jeans, gritting my teeth to keep from screaming her name. Soft drops of water began to hit my face and chest. Some collected in the coarse denim fibers of my jeans. I closed my eyes and listened as it began to pour on the tin roof of my house. The weatherman had accurately predicted evening showers, but nothing could have prepared me for Rose’s arrival.[/color]