Finding Heaven

I was not surprised to see Alex waiting for me outside my Algebra II classroom, leaning with his back against the wall impatiently. His strawberry-blonde hair was still wet and tousled—an evidence that he hurried like hell this morning.

I knew he’d be pissed.

“We had a science test first period,” He gritted his teeth and his electric blue eyes fixed resentfully at mine. “I missed it.”

Ha ha, loser.

“And?” I scoffed.

“You didn’t wake me up!”

“So?”

He was scowling at me now, “A little ungrateful, aren’t we?” I raised an eyebrow. “After dad helped you enter Fortsworth, this is how you repay him?”

“He asked me to be your friend, not your damn slave.” I snapped.

“A friend helps a friend,” He sneered.

HAHA. I’m mentally laughing in a sarcastic way now.

“Oh, well, let me see,” I said as I shifted my weight to my left and smirked at him. “I hate you. I hate everything about you. I hate you, friend.” I emphasized the words like I was teaching alphabet to a baby. “Do you understand now?”

Emily suddenly popped out of the blue, “Let’s grab a—“ She bracketed her hair out of her eyes when she noticed Alex, whom in turn, smiled at her. “Hey, Alex.”

Alex’s evil face slowly faded into a fake angelic one, “Hey.”He greeted Emily.

I elbowed her slightly, gesturing for us to leave this retard. She ignored me completely.

Right. Girls tend to do that around sweet ole Alexandre Alden.

I’m completely immune to it though.

“Em, let’s go,” I tugged her sweater and then shot Alex a glare I exclusively invented for him. “Excuse us.”

Before I had a chance to go, he blocked my way. I moved to the left, so did he. I turned to the right, that’s what he did too. You get the picture of what he’s doing.

I irritably looked at him, “What now?”

“Have lunch with me.” He said, smirking.

I smiled at him sarcastically, “No thanks.”

He shrugged, “I’m sure Emily wouldn’t mind having me with you guys,” He glanced at Emily briefly, and for a moment, I thought she was going to faint.

“Sure!” She nodded excitedly.

Emily was hopeless at times like these, so I made the move for our own good. Alex always brewed trouble, and this was probably one of his revenge pranks for me.

“Alex, move.” I said tiredly.

He leaned closer to me, his face now inches from mine. “No.”

I recoiled away from him—if I didn’t, well, you get the idea—and felt a sudden urge to punch his lights out. But there wasn’t going to be an end to this until someone gives in, and knowing Alex, he wouldn’t budge until the bell rings. “Whatever,” I finally agreed. “Don’t you dare pull a prank on me, Alex. I’m warning you.”

He wrapped an arm around my waist, and I could feel Emily tense beside me. I shoved Alex’s arm away and the three of us fell into awkward silence.

~

There was some sort of tumult at the canteen when we arrived—some freshmen picking a fight with the seventh graders, I think.

My eyes widened when I saw Max—with spaghetti dumped on his clothes.

“Alex,” I began anxiously.

He didn’t say anything.

“Alex, Max’s being bullied,” I tugged him.

“Let him be,” was what he said. “He’s all grown up now, he says.”

“You idiot!” I retorted. “He’s your brother!”

His blue eyes looked straight into mine, and I somehow got the feeling that as much as he wanted to help Max, he couldn’t, for some unknown and trivial reason.

So I did the job for him.

I walked straight into the tumult, not really sure of how I should settle this. I could hear Emily shouting my name—possibly warning me not to join in. I didn’t hear any reaction from Alex though, and he didn’t even bother stopping me.

“Hey!” I shouted, catching the attention of the ugly-looking sophies. “What are you guys doing? Bullying a kid?”

“Beat it, bitch.” A guy who had a tall basketball player’s features snarled like a dog.

Max looked at me sheepishly, clenching his fists, and averted his eyes. Three sophomores looked down on me, just because they were a little taller.

“Don’t you have any shame at all?” I said, acting all brave and badass. “I mean, hey, it took three of you to bully a younger kid? That’s awfully gay.”

“Whadja say, girlie?” Another buff guy said, smiling threateningly at me. Yeah, like that was enough to make me cry and run.

“What, is your brain having jetlag or something? Do you want me to repeat what I’d just said—oh, I get it. You can’t process everything I say unless I slowly say it, word per word.”

I didn’t expect him to raise his fist, ready to punch me, since guys back at my hometown never raise a hand on a girl. I guess city boys like him do.

I tried my hardest not to flinch, so my eyes were wide open when I saw Alex grabbing buff boy’s arm and gripping it tightly like he could break it—which was impossible, unless he was some sort of martial artist or something.

“Not only do you bully a younger kid,” Alex smirked. “But you also plan to hit a girl?”

The other two guys gritted their teeth and prepared to lunge for Alex. Good thing Mr. Fletcher arrived just on time to stop them.

“What’s this about?” He redundantly asked. It was pretty obvious what this was about.

“Making trouble again, aren’t we, Mr. Cross, Mr. Mitchells, and Mr. Sanders?”

The guy whose surname was Cross, the buff boy, complained, “But it was him—“ he pointed an index finger at Max, “—who started it!”

Mr. Fletcher looked at Max and scoffed at the three guys, “Nice try, Cross. You guys come with me to the office and let’s have a little talk.” He eyed Alex threateningly, “I’ve got my eye on you as well, Mr. Alden.”

You stupid teacher! Alex helped us! I wanted to shout at his face.

“Are you hurt somewhere, Ms. Roth?” He said shortly in a disgusting tone, after he had noticed me standing there. “Do you need to be taken to the clinic?”

I smiled half-heartedly at him, “N-No need, sir.”

He nodded before he left with the sophomore bullies.

I turned my attention back at Max and Alex, who were now silent.

“So,” I began. “You guys okay?”

“You’re an idiot,” Alex mumbled. I wasn’t sure if it was meant for me or Max, since he had his eyes averted.

~

Emily and I walked back to the dorm together.

“Thanks,” I said. “You called Mr. Fletcher over, didn’t you?”

Emily nodded. “I was worried about you, you know. I thought he was going to hit you for sure!” She exclaimed.

“Yeah, I thought so, too.”

Back at the dorm, I did what I routinely did for the past few months I’d stayed here: took a shower, brought my dirty clothes to the laundry room, studied and did my homework, ate dinner, checked my email before I slept.

The usual things teens do when they lived independently without parents barking reminders at them.

I opened my email account, expecting a new message from my parents.


To: dktforthsworth09@yahoo.com
Fr: kaithlynroth@yahoo.com
Subject: Hi

Hey, it’s Joshua.

Don’t worry, I told your mom I’d borrow her email since I don’t have one yet. How’s it going there? Your mom told me you were doing okay. I hope you really are.

I miss you so much. And don’t worry, I’ll delete this on your mom’s sent messages, so no need to be embarrassed. *grins*

Soo. Have you met someone to replace me with recently? Naw, just kidding. Haha. I really hope you haven’t, though. Cause believe me or not, you’re still the only one for me. *blushes* Hehehe.

I miss you, Dakota. I hope I’ll be able to go visit you there someday. I miss your smiles, your silly laughs, your beautiful eyes, your soft hair, your absurdly baggy clothes… I miss everything about you.

And yeah, once you come back, I’ll tell you something important.

- Joshua

I smiled as I read his email. I would reply next time, or maybe tomorrow, since I was feeling a bit sleepy now.

I looked at the balcony and suddenly remembered the day I met Alex and Max. It was a pretty interesting meeting, to be honest.

I went outside for a moment and noticed that the lights were on. Suddenly, I heard Max shouting almost inaudibly inside. Alex was shouting too, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.

I know I should respect other people’s privacy, but this really made me curious. I carefully jumped off the ledge of the balcony and hopped onto the other side. I felt like a thief, for heaven’s sake, hiding with my back flat against the wall and eavesdropping.

“I could’ve handled it myself!” Max was saying, “But no, you just had to let Dakota join in when you know you should’ve stopped her!”

“Hey, don’t pass the blame on me,” Alex snapped. “Why did you even start a useless fight anyway? To get attention from someone?"

There was silence for a moment, until Max denied, “No!”

“Come on, Max, I know you.”

“This time, you don't.”

“Max—“

“And I didn’t do that to catch anyone's or anything. I did it because they pulled a prank on my bestfriend. I figured that if I acted like their victim, they would be suspended. But that damn Dakota jumped in and almost got hurt.” Max said gravely. “I’m going over at Carter’s.”

I heard a door close.

I slowly took a peek through the sliding glass door and saw…

Alex.

Alex—half naked—with only his shorts on.

And he was looking straight at me.

He opened the door, eyes widened in surprise. Frankly, his expression was priceless.

Although I bet mine was twice as priceless as his now.

I’ve never seen a shirtless guy’s body before—except for my fat dad’s.

And don’t even make me describe Alex’s body. It was hot, okay? You get the picture. I don’t have to elaborate everything, right?

“What the hell are you doing, Dakota, playing stalker-ninja?” He teased smugly.

“Yes—I mean, no. No!” I stuttered. I mean, when you’re a country girl like me and you've never seen an actual guy’s hot body before and suddenly it’s in front of you, you would've acted worse. Good thing I had powerful inner strength within me to fight the shock off.

“Would you like to come in?”

“No. In fact, I’ll go back to my room now—goodbye.” I quickly walked away from him and was about to jump back to my own safe haven when he grabbed hold of my wrist. “W-What, is there a-anything you need? Shampoo, vinegar, detergent soap?” I have no idea what I was talking about.

“You heard something, haven’t you?” He asked in a playfully seductive tone. “I know you did, and I bet you’re even more curious.”

“Ha ha.” I said sardonically. “I didn’t. I jumped on your balcony the same time the door closed.”

“I won’t bite, you know. You can come in.” He gestured towards his room.

Okay, maybe just for a little while. Maybe I could pick something up about them inside or something.

I stepped into the blue, completely boyish room of theirs. Clothes scattered around their room and—ewe, boxers—all their stuff was in a mess. I noticed that their room was large enough to have two unmade King-sized beds fit.

So, they have a larger room, huh.

I looked at the picture frames—the only things that were fixed neatly—on top of their desk, and saw a beautiful woman who had the same eyes as the two of them. She had strawberry blonde hair—the same color Alex had—tucked behind her ears.

“This is your mom?” I asked without thinking.

“Mmm hmmm,” Alex answered, his voice muffled. I turned towards his direction and saw him sprawled on his bed.

“Tell me something about her.”

Alex remained silent.

“Come on, you can’t keep this inside forever,” I blurted.

“I can.”

Okay. So that was an answer I didn’t expect. I gave up on that one. “Tell me something about yourself then.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because I want to know.”

He sat up lazily, and fixed his eyes on mine. “What do you want to know?”

I thought of a topic that would give me more than one answer, since I probably have one shot at this—if he does decide to say anything at all.

A few seconds later, I got it.

“Why do you keep so much to yourselves?” I asked.

“Pass,” He smiled half-heartedly.

“No fair!”

“Do you really want to know because you’re interested?” Alex raised an eyebrow. “Or is it because our dad asked you to find out more about us just cause he can’t do it himself?”

“I want to know—“ I began tersely. “—because I actually give a damn about your lives. And no, it’s not only because your dad wanted me to.”

Bloody hell, I can’t believe I just said that.

He approached me slowly and cornered me onto a wall. I gulped.

“Okay,” He said shortly, a mischievous smile curling into his lips, “I’ll let you find out more about us—if you agree to my condition.”

ANOTHER CONDITION AGAIN?! MAN, I FEEL LIKE MY LIFE REVOLVES AROUND CONDITIONS AND DEALS AND OFFERS! I mentally shouted inside my head.

I desperately tried to ignore the fact that his arms were on either side of me, and asked shortly, “Okay, what is it that you want, then?”

He smiled again, “Be my personal slave.”

I don’t know why, but I’m a magnet for weird occurrences that only seem to happen to T.V dramas and corny teenage movies.

Like now, for instance.

A topless, radiant guy cornering me onto a wall, asking me to become his slave—and by slave, well, I dunno what he meant.

I laughed awkwardly as I tried to shove his arms away and failed, “You’re kidding.”

He raised an eyebrow, like he was saying,“Do I look like I’m kidding?”

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t.

“Maybe you want to explain or something,” I blurted.

“Simple—just be my personal slave and I’ll give you a chance to get to know about us.”

Seems easy enough.

“Fine,” I agreed finally.

He smiled seductively, and leaned closer until we were a few inches face-to-face. For a moment, I thought he was going to kiss me because his eyes were somehow focused on my lips.

Instead, he whispered, “No backing out, babe.”