by Morgan Caughran

Those Eyes

“Goddamnit, mom!” There she goes again. Even though she tells me to shut my mouth and listen, she just keeps rambling and continues to infuriate me.

“If you would just shut up and listen to me maybe I wouldn’t mistake you for being an idiot.” My own mother. I groaned loudly as my steps echoed throughout the house. I was going down the stairs and out the front door, most likely not to return home until the next morning.

“I’m going to the store.”

“Can you pick me up some-“

 I slammed the door in her face, enabling her from speaking in that smartass-wannabe tone of voice she always has. “I’m sorry, I thought I was and idiot.” I asked my mother, though she was no longer there. Placing my chilled hands in my pockets, I stepped up the rock path separating my house and the one next to it. Sometimes I wished that my part of town was more woodsy instead of streets and printed houses of the same copy all lined up in a row. But those particular thoughts could wait. I needed to get somewhere to clear my head. I sat down at a bus stop bench and took a deep, cold breath in. My left hand slid out of my pocket as I allowed myself to slowly nod off.

I awoke to a warm sensation on top of my left thigh. I was awake, but I didn’t open my eyes until I came to the conclusion as to what was happening. My eyelids slipped open and I tensed. My eyes shot open and I spun my head to face it, and whipped my hand around only to come in contact with the face of another human. The boys head sunk into his lap as he clutched the left side of his face. My face went red and I quickly turned to look down the street at the oncoming bus. I kept my head facing away from him as he recovered, and when I turned to check if he was okay, a pair of slim blue eyes met mine.

How beautiful.

My thoughts cleared and my eyes trailed down to the warmth emitting from my left thigh area. I slapped his hand away and raised my palm high to strike his face once more. His movements were so swift and smooth that I heard the sound in the crisp air of him grabbing my wrist to restrain me. Quicker than I could’ve imagined, his sleek forehead was pressed against mine. In a flash, I leaned all the way back and fell over the side of the bench, scraping both my knees in the process. Groaning, I watched as the boy peered over the bench and extended a hand to help me back up. I ignored it and propped myself onto the bench on my own.

“Sorry I, uh…” He started. “I kinda didn’t want you to bruise my face anymore than you already had…”

 Tch “You know,” I crossed my legs at my thighs and turned to face him. “Maybe if you hadn’t been trying to finger me in a public place I wouldn’t have hit you for it.”

His eyes slanted and he gave me a half-mouthed grin. “Feisty.” Was his only word.

With my face tinged pink, I stood up, ready to leave this pervert at the bus stop where he belonged.

“Hey, whats your name?” A slight look of confusion flashed across my face.

“Uh Scarlet? Why?” I asked, crossing my arms across my chest.

“Man, I could make that work for me.”

 Alright, now that alarmed me. I uncrossed my arms as if to brace myself and took a step back. “Excuse you?! Who do you think you are?! I only just met you and you try to perv on me while im sleeping?! And at a fucking bus stop?!”

Tch “Calm down, sweetheart, it was a joke.” He propped his arm up on the top of the bench and looked up at me.

I knew that. I thought to myself. I sighed. “I’m leaving.” I noted him as I started to walk away. I could sense he was following me but I couldn’t hear his steps. He slid his hand gently around my waist, and I let him with no resistance. What am I doing? Why am I trusting him? Was it his eyes? Did he know where I was going? Or was he just following me? I decided to test him. Instead of going straight, like I needed to do get home, I took a right turn, down into a neighborhood full of people I didn’t care about. Upon reaching the end of the street, the boy still hadn’t said anything about the wrong turn.

“Uh, babe?” I cringed at the pet name. “Isn’t your house that way?” He gestured back the way we’d come from. I shrugged like I didn’t know what he was talking about, and turned around, looping out of his grasp and leaving him standing at the end of a street unknown to me… one hand in his pocket and the other missing my presence.

I was surprised when he didn’t immediately rush back to meet me, but I didn’t think much of it until I was staggering down the rock and dirt shortcut to get back my house. I stopped at the bottom and brushed off the white sole of my shoes. But, looking up, I saw a figure lingering around my doorway. The only person who ever came to my house was either my dad begging to take custody of me and my brothers, or my best friend Grace. Assuming it was Grace, because there was no black mini-van parked outside, I kept my head down and walked over to the door. When I reached it, I pressed my back against the post next to the door and assumed she would ask me ‘why the long face?’ like she always does. As I turned to remove my zip-up sweater, two spots of a deep shade of blue caught my eye. Turning to face them, with my sweater at my elbows, I found the boy from the bus stop earlier.

He smirked with only half of his face. “Expecting someone else, sweetcheeks?”

The look of confusion on my face must’ve given it away, so I quickly switched it to one of slight disgust. “Not you, that’s for sure” I muttered, just loud enough for him to hear.

He opened his mouth to let out a scoff. For some reason, this boy was way too over-whelming for me to handle, so I made my way to the front door of my house. I forced myself to stop before reaching for the handle to go inside, but before I could ask my question, he interrupted me with one of his own.

“….Will I get to see you again?”

I was glad that I was facing away from him, because my face lit up like a firecracker and I was hoping he couldn’t hear the pounding in my chest through my back. I soothed my heart and begged it to slow down, and then began to respond.

“Sure…”

I slowly opened the door, stepped inside, and slowly closed it with a click. I remained at my doorstep for a few moments, and then dashed up the 14 stairs that lead to my room, slammed the door, and flew face first onto my bed and into my pillow. Why was my heart beating so fast? And over a boy I knew nothing about? Not even his name… but those eyes...

I had nothing to make of what had just happened to me, but the only thing that I had sorted out… was that that this summer, was going to be a rough one.

A Night To Remember

I awoke to the sound of the doorbell and the morning sun glaring angrily in my face. It took a minute for me to process exactly what I had heard. I turned onto my back, groaned and stretched, the feeling of fear residing in my stomach as it did every morning. I had a few moments of pure bliss before I opened my eyes, but when I did my stomach dropped and for a while I afterwards I feel like killing myself. So, I suppose you could say that I am not a morning person. I flipped the covers open and threw my legs over the side of the bed that was still too small for me. I was having a, very rare, okay morning… and that’s when the doorbell rang. Again. My eyes shot open and I ran down the stairs to the front door, ripping it open, figuratively hard enough to pull it off of its hinges. I stood face to face with the boy I’d met yesterday.

Watching him, he looked me up and down, and gave me that, dumbly attractive, half smirk.

With my eyes on him the entire time, I decided to speak up. “What the fuck are you doing here at-“ I lifted my arms and patted my sides trying to find my phone, only to come up empty “Whateverthefuck time it is!”

“Eleven.” The look of satisfaction on his face seemed to kill me inside.

Scoffing, I crossed my arms tightly at my chest. “What are you doing here?” I asked again.

“I wanted to see if you’d wanna go somewhere, but judging by the way you’re dressed you aren’t planning on going anywhere, are you?”

I raised my eyebrow; he glanced down at my lower body.

Looking down, I could feel my face begin to heat, for I was standing in front of this unnamed boy in a half shirt, no bra, and a pair of old pink and green panties I got from my cousin. Without looking back at him, I turned and ran upstairs once again, to put something more suitable, and anti-seductive, on.

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Making my way back down the stairs, wearing a white t-shirt and a pair of batman sweatpants, I found the door closed, but no boy…? I took a few stair steps back to check if I’d missed him, but he wasn’t there. Feeling rushed, I took the short hall to the dining room and found him standing at the grayish blue, granite island in the middle of my kitchen.

“What the hell…?” I asked, groggily.

“You left the door open-‘ He gestured toward the, now closed, door. “So I let myself in.”

Obviously. I shook my head , walked over to the opposite side of the island, and propped myself onto my elbows. The granite was cold from being exposed to the air overnight, and it hurt my rough skin there. The only sound in the room was me adjusting my position on the counter, I couldn’t even hear him breathe. “Uh.” I started, he didn’t move, not even to look up at me. “What’s your name anyways?”

I heard him scoff lightly. “I was wondering when you’d ask that.” 

"Well, that doesnt answer my question now does it?" I tried to be sassy, but ended up accidentally biting my tongue in the middle of my sentence, squealing softly, like a pig.

"My name is Ace."

I suppose that was fitting enough, but since my question was answered, that ment that it was going to go back to silence, so i improvised. "Oh, is that short for anything?"

He didnt reply right away, did he really need time to think about it? "What do you think?"

... Shut down

Letting out a few obviously fake coughs, I descided to try and make a recovery to cover up the bumbling fool I've made of myself. "Alright then... You, uh, wanted to go somewhere? That is what you said right?" Smooth, Scarlet, real smooth.

Ace let a little whisp of air exit out of his nose and looked up at me. Pushing his long bangs back out of his face, he smiled and began to speak. "It just a little place not far from here. I thought you'd like it there."

"Hmm..." I let my heart calm down a few beats before truly trying to decifer what he'd meant by that. Without thinking too much about it, i took a deep breath in and began to make my way out of the kitchen and back up the stairs. I turned around to find him leaning against the coat closet, arms crossed and expression blank.

"I'll pick you up at six then." His words were a statement, not a question and guessing by how he just got up and left after that, there was no changing them.

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 Both my heart and mind were racing every second from the time Ace had left to the moment he would return again, and most likely far after that as well. 

With everything planned out and my outfit layed down on the bed next to mine, I was almost ready for Aces' arrival. Knowing him, he would probably find a way into my house to stare at me while i was getting dressed or something... But would he really stoop that low? I tell myself i need to stop thinking about him, but when I relax or clear my mind for even a minute, his blue eyes and stunning physique are all i can think about.