Chapter THREE

"Becca, you want a ride home?" Maddie asked me after school, later that week. "My dad's here."

   I usually walked home since it was only a few blocks, but I agreed to the ride that day. It was cool, and cloudy. It had rained a lot that morning.

   I jumped into the back of Maddie's dad's truck and said hello to him, dropping my bag by my feet. We were at my house within a few minutes, so I thanked him before hopping out again, then waved at Maddie.

   "Call me tonight," she yelled before I closed the door.

   Nodding, I watched them drive away, then turned and started to walk up the path to my house. It was raining again, lightly, so I moved quicker to get into the house before the downpour. But, somehow, I tripped on a piece of the stone pathway and hell, hard, onto the driveway.

   "Ugh," I said, loudly.

   Glancing around, I was glad no one had seen me wipe out, but as I got back to my feet, I heard a voice.

   "Are you okay?"

   My face went red immediately, but I looked over anyway. Parker was sitting on the front steps of his house. How had I not seen him sitting there?

   Finally standing again, I nodded. "Yeah, uh, the path is wet."

   "Your elbow is bleeding," he said, his voice monotone.

   I turned my arm to look, and there was in fact blood coming through my white sweater. Great. "Shit," I mumbled.

   "Do you have stuff to clean that up?" he asked, getting to his voice.

   Surprised, I managed to say, "Oh, yeah, I'll get a bandaid."

   He hesitated, but not for long. "No, come here. You need to clean it. I'll get you a sterile wipe, and..."

   I just stood there, shocked that he was even talking to me. Like we were friends.

   "Hurry," he said to me, then forced a half smile. "I mean, it's ruining your sweater."

   I followed him into the house, still in shock. I wasn't even sure how my legs were moving. I looked around the front hall area, just with my eyes. The house was similar to mine, but very different inside. There was stuff everywhere. Mess, clutter. My mom kept our house annoyingly spotless.

   "Stay here, I'll grab the stuff," Parker told me, then disappeared down the hall.

   I didn't move a muscle until he was back, ripping open a little package with a cleaning cloth inside. Then, I slid off my sweater and dropped my bag by my feet. Holding up my elbow towards him, I winced a bit as he dabbed at it.

   "It doesn't look too deep," he spoke, wiping it again. "Just keep this bandage on so it doesn't get infected."

   Now, he was opening a little square bandage package.

  "Are you, like, a doctor?" I asked, then realized how dumb that actually sounded. "I mean, how do you know all this stuff?"

   He stepped back after applying the bandage to my arm, so I pulled my sweater back on.

   "I just know," he replied, keeping a straight face.

   "Okay... so can I ask you about last weekend?" I changed the subject.

   He stepped back again, like he was ready to run. "What about it?"

   "Just that you showed up at my door on my birthday and asked my Mom for-"

   "It was your birthday?" he interrupted. I nodded. "I didn't know."

   "My mom wouldn't tell me where she took you," I went on, hoping he would elaborate.

   "That's probably best. And you should go..." He suddenly had this look on his face that I couldn't read.

   "Why?" I asked him, not moving.

   "My... parents will be home soon."

   "Oh. Well, thanks for the bandaid."

   He nodded, but didn't move, either. I turned around and opened the door to leave, hoping he would say something else. He didn't, so I smiled and turned away, feeling so completely strange.

   That evening, I again waited at my bedroom window, thinking he would be there. I wanted him to be there. Now that we had interacted, I thought maybe things would be different. But his curtain remained closed.

   Since I knew I couldn't tell my mom about any of it, I decided just to keep it to myself. The interaction had been weird, at best. It wasn't like something had actually happened.

   I went on like normal, but I still secretly thought about Parker all the time. When I was at school, I wondered where he was during the day. When I was at home, I wanted to know if he was home, right there in the house next to mine.

   For weeks after that day that I stood in his front entryway for all of five minutes, I only saw him a mere handful of times - he would get home late while I was on the front porch, talking on the phone. He would leave early in the morning, and I'd see him out the front window while I was eating breakfast. He never looked over to see if I was watching him and his bedroom window stayed closed.

   It was late spring, and starting to get warmer outside. The school days felt so long, and I would spend my evenings doing homework, or studying, and my weekends with Maddie and Teah.

   Everything changed one evening May. That was the day my life changed, really. Up until that evening, I was just a seventeen year old girl. There was nothing special about me, really, and nothing hard about my life. I knew this. I had I had it easy.

   I heard something hit my bedroom window. It was mid-week and I was in my pjs, after a shower, reading a book for my English class. I had a review to write by Friday. I had stopped thinking as much about Parker by this point. I no longer looked over at his house when I left to walk to school. He was just a boy who had given me a bandaid. Until he wasn't just a boy.

   Crossing the room to check my window - assuming it was bird, or even rain - I immediately saw that Parker's curtain was open. A moment later he appeared, a nervous look on his face. I wasn't quick to open my window, but I could tell by his face that I would regret it if I didn't.

   "Hey," I called over half leaning out the window. "You okay?"

   The warm evening air hit my face and I realized then that I wasn't wearing a bra. I crossed my arms across my chest. I mean, I was small, in general, but still felt a bit uncomfortable.

   He just kept looking at me for a minute before he answered. "Not really."

   "Oh?" I said back, surprised by all of this. He had intentionally ignored me for close to a year. Now he was initiating contact with me. "Can I help with something?" I offered.

   He looked so unsure, as if he didn't think he could trust me at all. I saw him raise his shoulders and drop them again. "No, sorry to bother you."

   "No, no. It's fine. I was just trying to read a bit of this book, for school... but it's boring as hell," I told him, hoping to get a reaction out of him.

   A car drove by the front of our houses, the headlights lighting up his face for a moment.

   "I'm sorry," he said again. "I really tried not to bring you into this... at all."

   "Into what?" I asked back, confused.

   "My... life."

   "Oh. Okay, well -"

   "I just need... a friend," he admitted, looking serious.

   "Okay," I said again, accepting the offer, just like that.

   "Shit... can I call you? I can't have my mom's boyfriend hearing me yelling out the window..."

   I didn't want to look surprised by this, so I quickly nodded. What would be the harm in giving him my phone number? I spun around and grab a pen and piece of paper and scribbled my number, then squeezed it into a ball. He looked surprised as I tossed it across to his bedroom. I watched as he picked it up and then nodded at me before slamming his window shut.