Good Guys Go Bad

Mmm, he looks like he would be a Matt, Mark, or Taylor, maybe. I tried to think of the most zestiest guy names that appeared to fit the boy, but none sparked with any prominent hint of success. Either way, Red Shirt returned rather quickly from the wash room and as I had prior to this, I watched him return to the couch by his two friends without so much as even a glance in my direction. I sucked the straw that dug into the hot mocha I had gotten earlier as I replied to a few texts from friends; not putting them off anymore. As I did this, I contemplated on how I was to begin a friendship with the boy because well, Red Shirt had a very attractive and amiable vibe.

The girl with the teal summer dress sent provocative signs to both Mr. Red Shirt and Plaid Shirt, the guy they had met with. The girl had nice curves, but even though she had this crazy appeal to her character, her presence I thought of as unimportantt. Plaid shirt smiled at something Red Shirt said and Teal over there giggled as if what Red said had been the funniest thing she heard in her life. So, good-looking and humorous too, nice traits, nice traits. I won't deny I displayed stalker-ish facets as I examined the grinning trio talk amongst themselves, but what else could I had done?

Red Shirt had a long, thin smile and on the ends of it was a puncture on each side of his face, dimples. The light that the windows refracted shined through his blond hair, creating a golden aura around his head. I searched for something else to derail my attention from him, but every time my stare strayed away it rebelliously fell back on him. I don't know how long I stayed there, amazed and intent, and observing his every move, but to my unoccupied self it felt like hours had flown by right over the top of my head. I needed to quit my staring. I wanted to intimidate him, yes, but run him off? No. So, I buried my head into my arms that rested on the table.

I breathed in and out and eventually fell asleep. I woke with a small jolt when the girl's voice reached and octave way too high and I saw that movement had taken a hold of the trio, or at least a hold on Plaid Shirt as he waved goodbye to his friends, exiting the shop. My head pounded and the two were left alone, no longer the trio, but a couple. The sound of that as it resonated in my head, I disliked. With Plaid Shirt gone Girl took it as her chance to scoot closer to Red, her bare thigh smashed against his own I envisioned. I didn't get angry or even jealous, amused seems more proper to depict my feelings. Her attempts to get him to respond to her flirting ridiculed her and I saw right through to her desperation.

Red's smile I grew fond of in seconds fell flat and his discomfort was painstakingly obvious. His friend, ignored it and didn't heed the subdued glares he sent her way. She said something, inching close to his ear and his laugh returned for a moment, squirming even closer to him; something that looked impossible from where I viewed them. I shrugged her actions off because he nudged them away. I stood up, my legs tingling with the sensation of dots pricking me all over; they had fallen asleep and the circulation returning rekindled them to life.

I threw my mocha in the trash and went to the cashier, the bald guy saying the same thing before the prime time I ordered.

“What can I help ya with?” His Texan drawl overpowered his words and his brown eyes fawned me with impatience.

“Not sure, any recommendations?”

“Well, iced chai tea is a big hit, kinda spicy and milky, but great,” he suggested.

“Alright, I'll take one.” I payed him the amount that rang up on the old fashioned cashier. Another guy, who was in the back, he gave the order to.

“You're new here, aren't you?”

I chuckled. “Yeah, how'd you know?”

“Well, aside form the fact you're alone and that you didn't know what to get both times you ordered. You just have this look about you.. Here for college?”

I shook my head left and right. “No, just here for the summer with my dad. I actually got here yesterday from San An,” I informed him, not minding that he talked to me because my boredom begged me to comply and converse with the guy.

“Oooh, the Alamo, interesting.” He raised his eyebrows in mock delight and the guy that was once busy like a bee making my drink handed it to him and from his hand it went into mine.

It struck me as hilarious that San Antonio was known for a withering building, its architecture influenced by the Spanish conquistadores that once ruled and then lost Texas. But then again, what else would it be known for other than that and the Riverwalk?

“Very.”

A boisterous cackle distracted us from our exchange of words and our heads snapped to Red Shirt and the infamous Teal Flirt, who shook with laughter.

“They frequent customers,” I queried, unaware of what I had just asked him.

“Hmm,” he thought, digging through his mind. “The guy is, the girl not so much.” He rubbed his hand against his prickly chin. The guy needed a shave bad and I found it difficult to overlook.

“I'm off, see you around Tom,” I said as I glanced at his graffiti styled name tag.



“I had fun,” beamed Dahlia, her pearly whites bared as she checked me out.

“Me too,” I told her while I pulled the keys out of the ignition. She looked at me with such want it became even more nerve racking to be around her and detain myself. Dahlia was gorgeous, but I didn't like her that way and if I did I would ignore my feelings.

“Heath. . . I want more,” she emphasized the 'more' with dramatic boldness to where I looked at her dismally. “I-I really like you and I have since eighth grade. I wish you'd loosen up and trust me a little,” she frowned, her sight glued in her lap. Her fingers began to curl a thick strand of hair around her thumb and intertwining it in between the rest of her fingers.

I grimaced and felt the guilt settle on my insides. “It's not about trust, Dahl,” I breathed out and made the mistake of placing a hand on her shoulder, which by my touch ensued into an earthquake.

“I may be a flirt with other guys, but I'll change that! I do it to get you jealous, but you don't even seem to care!” She sobbed and the guilt in me augmented as I watched her tears fall onto the edge of her dress.

It was a reflexive move, the kind people experience when they duck on instinct at seeing a ball flying their way. It was automated, not thought out and I regretted doing it as soon as her lips locked soundly with mine. An honest mistake, yes. I placed no thought into what I did, but I did it. Her lips desperately kissed my own. I led her on and I shouldn't have; the result would be her brooding hatred and her broken heart months later. My hands went from her shoulders to where they ran up and down her arms. When we broke apart, she looked dazed and said bye, refusing to let me walk her to the door.

With one kiss like that I provided the start of a supply because after one, they always returned for another and then another, evolving into a chain of sexual events. I scolded myself as I drove home. The kiss brought no emotion to me and that angered me further. I had no feelings for Dahlia and my action initiated and presented her a foundation on which she would conclude I did. I parked my car in the driveway next to my mom's and grabbing the chai tea she requested from the cup holder, I stalked up the steps to the porch and into the house.

“Heath!” The shrill yell stabbed my ear as someone embraced me into the tightest of hugs. “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I have so much to tell you!” She screamed while hopping like a bunny. I had forgotten my cousin, Sayra would arrive today.

I hugged her back and kissed her on the forehead, noticing I no longer had a full foot on her height, but an estimate of six inches. I saw Sayra like a little sister and she looked up to me as her older brother. Our personalities helped us because I protected her and scared away the boys while she embarrassed me in front of girls. We always got along well since our toddler days. Even though we had fights when smaller we loved each other too much to let something as petty as that keep us angry at each other for longer than an hour.

“I missed you a lot, Heath,” she sighed, her blue eyes looking up at me with kin. And I missed her too, though I was too prideful to openly say it.

My eyes showed it though. I shared everything with Sayra. Shortly after her startling encounter, my mom joined us. We watched television with her for a while and later we both ran up to my room like little kids.

Sayra, relishing the sweet and sixteenth year of her life, lived four hours away with my uncle John and Aunt Maria. Her brown hair she's always kept extremely short, a tom boy like cut, but Sayra was anything but a tom boy. She had a hip and indie inspired flavor for her clothing; her style intrigued many and she stood out whether she intended to or not, which she didn't. Not only that, but every time upon an introduction to someone new, they stared, baffled by her name and people had created a book of variations on how they pronounced it. The most common and most incorrect Sigh-duh, the roll of the tongue, absent and unacknowledged, landing too harshly on the r.

Her soft blue eyes portrayed a set full of emotions that shrouded the orbs. The emotions varied from one to the other, but they stretched on a scale from the calmest to the haughtiest and eased one into the other, shifting like a rainbow, slowly bleeding into its other members. Also they were ordered in the fashion the crayons in a Crayola box lined up like soldiers in their crowded home. She was a hard person to decipher and the motives behind her doings remained unknown to me and her as well.

“Where'd you go,” she questioned as our bottoms collided with the floor, my back leaning against the towering bookcase behind me.

“With Dahlia and Case to the Brew,” I answered, forcing the feel of Dahl's lips off my mind.

Her face, subtle, she pursed her lips in thought, in habit, leaning them to the side. “Ohhh.” She marveled, knowing all too well that the story I had in store for her would be interesting. When I did tell her, all she did was look at me, clueless and confused and then she mumbled, “I don't think that was a splendid move on your part.”



The next day, being the only guy in the house or as Sayra put it “the man of the household” Mom pressured me into grilling chicken outside while she and Sayra saw it to make fun of how I clumsily handled the sizzling pieces of dead animal. The sun rode hard on my back and I swear I heard the sound of my own skin cells cooking beneath it. Sayra aided Mom in the kitchen as they both baked and decorated a cake, what kind I wasn't aware of at the time. I began to get ready, the approximated time of our guests ticking closer and closer.

I walked out of my room and followed the sound of acoustic music that wavered in the air towards the source: the guest room. I should have known. Knocking on the door, I stood there waiting for a yell to flow out of the room along with the music, but nothing of the sort happened. My hands sunk into my linty pockets I ran across the thought of entering, but her voice intercepted my plans.

“Looking for someone?”

I turned around, my cousin right behind me with gaiety stretching her lips out. She was clad in trouser like Santorini shorts and a top that graced out in an A shape that hung loosely on her shoulders. Her face remained natural, all except for a light swipe of mascara she added on her lashes and the sparkling bronzer on her skin. She crunched her nose, taking in what I was wearing: Shorts, a t-shirt and some sneakers.

“Hmmm,” she grabbed my hand and lugged me back to my room.

I stayed silent and didn't protest as she rummaged with zeal in her eyes through my closet, drawers and shoe boxes that stacked in columns of four against the wall. She tugged out a turquoise and tan, short sleeved plaid shirt along with my pair of white suede Sperry's, the laces in matching accordance with the tan skinny jeans she had picked out from my top drawer. She threw the garments on my bed and gave me a look that said, “You know what to do” and left without a single word. We had a channel of quiet communication like that and I appreciated it because words I thought in this situation had no necessity.

“You both look nice,” complimented my mom, stepping out of her own room. She remained skeptical as to how I looked and eyed Sayra with overt suspicion, who in turn only spread her smug grin out further.

“By the way, I just got a call from Karah asking if it was okay to bring her boyfriend's son with them. He's around y'alls age, so be nice and talk to him. He only arrived here yesterday, so he doesn't know anybody.”

Sayra looked at me and shook her head in approval, the both of us not really taking the fact as a significant one. As my mom exited the room, Sayra up and left along her side to set the table because 'our guests were due in a few minutes.' I thought about Dahlia far too much and tumbled the thought from hand to hand whether to text her and apologize for what I did yesterday and clarify my real feelings for her (none of which she wanted to hear about) or to leave things be. The first option seemed better and I decided not to send the explanation through a text because girls always complained about boys and their cowardly moves when they had the nerve to break bad news to them through a cell phone.

I ruffled my hair and placed my palms over my face. I'd never be able to understand the opposite sex and I didn't want to either. Either way, comprehensive or not remorse bit at me with poison-dipped fangs and an escapade from them was no where near possible. I did it because I wanted her to shut up and stop her effeminate weeping. I deserved no tears from her or any girls for that matter because I never felt anything real for any of them. I dreaded what she would say because all in all, Dahlia, I saw as a really good friend to rely on. Case liked her, whose first name was Andrew, but his last name being Case, many called him that while the girls referred to him as Casey (Next thing I'd know they'd be calling me Heathy). Since he liked her they could possibly get together, thus forcing her to get over me.

My name, which my father had chosen had the propensity to slice through the air with a hiss like that of a thin whistle. One verbalized it with an abrupt downward movement of the jaw and tongue and it had a sharp echo like that of a tea kettle. No one at my school had my name and I was thankful for that small detail because it made me feel unique among my classmates.

Then the door bell rang.

“Heath would you get that,” yelled my mom from the dining room.

I did as told like usual and made my way to the door. If only I knew how this upcoming moment would pretty much shape future, its significance overwhelming. If I would've known though, instead of answering the door like my mom has asked for me to do I might have bolted for my room and stayed there pent up until my mom's guests left. But I didn't know, so I strode to the door with a hand scratching the back of my head all too casually. As I opened it much to my surprise, I discerned those steel blue eyes from the day before and they looked all too excited. I showed no signs of shock, but on the inside my brain freaked, not knowing what to do with myself.

The outsider, this stranger as soon as he stepped into my house became an insider.

“You're Heath?”