Not Exactly What it Seems

I'm not sure how she did such a total 180 from the way she acted toward me in the beginning, but I was so glad to have her as a friend. There was something about her that made me want to be more than friends, but I would not push it. It was enough to be her friend for now. But how long would that last?

So my parents were cool with letting him stay at the house over break since we obviously did not have a shortage of rooms. He stayed in the room closest to my room while the relatives coming from out of town stayed in all the other rooms. Though his parents were a little more hesitant to let Hayden stay with us, my parents worked their magic and the arrangements were made.

I had seven really overprotective older guy cousins; they were all between the ages of 18 and 25 and seemed to have a little problem with Hayden staying at my house. Then there were all the guy cousins who were between the ages of 15 and 17, there were about ten of them who were just as protective. My cousins who were under the age of 15 did not care so much and neither did any of my girl cousins because I only had a few of those. With all the relatives I had, me, my little cousin Hayley, my cousin Angela who was 15, my cousin Frankie who was 17, and my cousin Joy who was 19 were the only girls of our generation. Some of my guy cousins were married so we kind of had more girls, but that was beside the point.

Frankie ended up staying in my room because we had always been really close. Plus, she apparently thought that Hayden was really cute. But she “would not get in my way of getting him” because I guess we just looked like the perfect couple. Nathanial evidently was not the only one to think that.

The night before Thanksgiving, Frankie and I sat in my sanctuary listening to Hawthorne Heights and talking about boys. We were teenage girls, okay? While we were listening to Rescue Me from their most recent album, Hayden came down which stopped our conversation because he was one of the boys we were talking about. He listened to the song for a bit and then scoffed.

“This is crap compared to their older stuff,” he commented. That was the wrong thing to say. Both Frankie and I loved that song. “I mean, where’s the heavy stuff they used to do? What happened to the screaming?”

We looked at him like he was stupid. “You seriously don’t know that?” I wondered incredulously. “The guy who did all the screaming and played guitar, Casey Calvert, died. That’s why their stuff isn’t what it was before. But I still can’t believe that they even put out a new CD and I give them so much credit. It takes a lot of guts to do that.”

“Oh,” was all he said. But he looked very thoughtful for a while so I knew that he was thinking about what I had said.

Frankie and I started talking about boys again, only minus Hayden, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. If he did, he hid it well. So we talked about random things trying to get a rise out of Hayden just for fun. And then Frankie decided to be obnoxious and kiss him. That one didn’t go over well, let me tell you. It was hilarious. His eyes nearly popped out of their sockets while he remained unable to do anything else until he found his sense and pushed her away. We started cracking up at him. The look on his face was just priceless. And then the look of confusion when he realized we were laughing at him.

“Why are you laughing at me?” he pouted. That stupid pout, but I was basically immune at that point. “I find nothing funny about that.”

“I’m sorry Hayden, I just had to do it,” Frankie gasped between laughing attacks. “You were so lost in your own thoughts that we had to think of a way to pull you out. You have to admit it was kind of funny. And if you would have seen your face! Oh man, I about died.”

“Well, thank you for the laughter at my expense,” he seethed. He was truly mad at us for doing that and I couldn’t imagine why. “I still don’t find it funny.”

“Would you have liked it more if Ny was the one that kissed you?” Frankie wondered. I smacked her in the back of the head for that one. But Hayden blushed and said nothing about that commented. Raising my eyebrows at this, I said nothing, didn’t know what to say. “Ha, I knew it. I rest my case.”

So it was kind of awkward between me and Hayden for a little while after that, but we got over it eventually. Then it just got worse later that night. Oh God, was it bad. Frankie, Hayden, and I were watching a movie down there when my cousin Mark, who was 18, came down to see what we were doing. Of course, not five minutes before that I got tired and just sprawled out on the couch with my head in Hayden’s lap where he started to absentmindedly play with my hair. Well, let me tell you, Mark about blew up over this because it was inappropriate and he was not good for his favorite cousin (though Frankie and I were tied for that title). I’d never seen Hayden so scared before, it was both hilarious and humiliating at the same time. I wasn’t sure what to feel exactly. All I knew was that having overprotective cousins was not always a good thing.