Status: Active

Never Thought I'd Take the Fall

Disheveled

I opened my eyes and blinked a few times. My head was rested on what I assumed to be my brother’s chest and I was wrapped in both a fleece blanket and a pair of muscular arms. I sighed, staring out at the window and counting the leaves on the tree. I figured I‘d be there for a while.

I don’t even remember when I’d fallen asleep the night before. I guess we all pretty much passed out. After me and Rob’s water fight, we’d gone inside and actually did some math after getting in our warm pajamas. After he talked with Clayton, we all settled in the den to watch Harry Potter, and I guess I just fell asleep right away. That’s all I remember. It’s like I had been drunk, but I was sure I hadn’t had a sip of anything besides water.
Everyone was sleeping so soundly, so I attempted to do the same. As my breathing slowed, a familiar, but not so familiar scent made its way to my nose. Had Clayton gotten a new cologne? It wasn’t the usual one I smelled every morning, but it still wasn’t exactly ‘new’.

His body shifted and his arms tightened around me as he let out a muffled groan. Figuring he was awake, I spoke. “Clayton, can you make me breakfast?” It came out raspy and barely above a whisper.

There was no reply, only a yawn.

I heard Rob sit up, but decided to pretend to be sleeping. I was still kind of tired. “Sure, squirt.” I heard my brother say.

Wait, what? The body below me was still breathing slowly and didn’t feel as though it had just spoken. I shot up and off of whoever I was laying on, a sudden burst of energy traveling through me. My breathing became heavier and I felt weird. Really weird.

My brother sat a few feet away, looking at me, his eyebrows knit together in confusion. “Whoa, what happened?” Rob rubbed his eyes. He was directly beside me. That made me feel even weirder.

“Are you okay?” Clayton inquired, walking over and feeling my head with the back of his hand, “Your face is flushed. You’re not too warm. I’ll go make breakfast. Pancakes alright?”

“Yeah,” I said, letting out a sigh.

As Clayton walked to the kitchen, Rob glanced at me with worried eyes, “Will you be okay for the movie?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I replied, keeping my eyes on the carpet. I don’t know why I was feeling so awkward. I’d been that close to Rob before. We hugged more often than normal friends should, but sleeping practically…on top of him? That was beyond that.

And with his arms around me, tighter than when we hugged, well that just made me feel even more strange. Without another word escaping my lips, I stood and went to help Clayton in the kitchen.

To my dismay, Rob followed. “What’s wrong? You still look pale. Are you feeling light headed? Maybe you should just stay sitting down. Do you want me to get you a drink--” He seemed to ramble on and on.

“I’m fine.” I abruptly cut him off and he stared at me for a moment.

“You don’t seem fine.” He murmured.

I didn’t answer. What was there to say? I could barely understand how I was feeling, let alone explain it to Rob, who caused me to feel like that.

But what was I feeling? Embarrassment? Discomfort? No. The only way I could describe it at that point was ‘weird‘. Only because I wasn’t expecting to wake up, wrapped lovingly in my best friend’s arms. It really wasn’t every day that that happened. Especially not to me…especially not when I’d actually remembered falling asleep quite the distance away from Rob.

I padded across the hard wood floor to stand beside Clayton as he poured batter onto a skillet. He didn’t even glance at me, but it hadn’t been long before he started to take on his protective, brotherly role.

“Just sit down and take a breather.” He spoke sternly, but soft, as if he was talking to a child, “I’ve got this covered. I’ll get you medicine in a minute.”

“I’m feeling fine, don’t worry.” I tried to sound as chipper as possible without overdoing it. He just continued flipping the pancakes, showing now intention to reply. I watched blankly, trying to straighten out all of the thoughts coursing through my brain.

“Just sit down,” Clayton finally looked at me and broke me from my trance before I could even start figuring everything out. I looked at him with narrowed eyes before turning around. Hesitantly, I made my way over to the table, where Rob was sitting and eating a bagel. He’s acting way more calm than you are, I told myself. I needed to calm down. There was nothing to worry about.

“Um…” I pulled the chair out and took a seat, “aren’t you going to have pancakes?”

He looked at me, bagel half in his mouth. A smile grew on his face slowly after he took a bite. “I couldn’t wait, I was starving.” He said with his mouth full, and I noticed a bit of jelly smeared by his lips as he spoke. I laughed lightly and he glanced at me, seeming self-conscious, “Don’t even say it, kid. I know I’m a fat ass!”

Like I’d been doing a lot that morning, I didn’t respond. I grabbed a napkin and dabbed the sticky, strawberry substance off from the side of his lip with a smile. Miraculously, all of my awkward, tense feelings had disappeared for that split second. It wasn’t until his uncomfortable response of a quiet “thanks” that I began to feel like that all over again.
I grinned lightly and Rob sighed, opening his mouth, as if to say something. Before any other words could be spoken between us, though, we were interrupted by Clayton, coming over and setting down a steaming plate of pancakes and a few extra plates, sliding a chair out and sitting in the process. “Hot off the stoooove!” He laughed, taking some for himself.

I glanced at the pancakes and noticed small brown specks in them. “Chocolate chip?” He nodded, “Thanks! I didn’t even know we had chocolate chips!”

“Yeah, well, I got some at the store last weekend.” He shrugged.

In case you hadn’t caught on, my brother had taken on the motherly role in my life as well. After our parents split and my mother surprisingly got custody, Clayton had begun helping out by doing things like grocery shopping and cleaning. After a while, my mom started to expect it out of him. To her, they weren’t acts of kindness anymore, it was just his job. She started going out more, and leaving us home by ourselves, too. We were annoyed at first, but I guess after some time we just got used to it.

“So movie at…” Clayton stopped to think.

“Noon.” Rob reminded him. He had a thing for talking with his mouth full of food, I noticed.

As if on cue, we all looked at the clock glowing above the oven. It was 11, but it felt much later than that. We all breathed a sigh of relief and went back to eating. “Do you want to call Kevin and make sure he and Baldwin or Barney or whatever are awake?”

“Brian.” Rob laughed, “You losing your memory dude?”

“At least he remembers how to make great pancakes.” I joked, taking my last bite and getting up from my seat to put my plate in the sink. “but yeah, sure, I’ll call him.”

Leaving the kitchen, I ran up the stairs to my room to get my phone. When I sat on my unmade bed, I noticed I had four missed calls; three from Kevin from the night before and one from my mom. I figured my mom had also texted me, but I wondered why in the world Kevin had called. I found his number in my contacts and hit send. As it began to ring, I tried to disentangle my thoughts again.

I wondered what it would really be like to date Rob. It was such a silly thought, but we already basically acted like a couple. The connection was there, at least. And we did hang out and joke around a lot. He would often call me cute, too… Wow, I had only just realized how much it seemed like we were dating. But…what would it even be like to kiss him and stuff? I shivered at the thought. It was too weird. Rob and I wouldn’t even--

“Earth to Kristy……Hellooo?!”

“What?” I jumped at the voice, my trance being broken for the second time.

“I said, how did your date with Rob go?” Kevin enunciated each word slowly, adding on an awkward laugh. “Must have been pretty good if you got caught up thinking about it…”

“Or bad!” I heard a voice call out to reassure Kevin in the background.

“Shut up, dude!” Kevin whispered, “Yeah, so was it awesome, did you guys make babies all night?”

“You’re a freak.” I giggled, “I told you, there is nothing going on between me and Rob. I don‘t even like him like that.”

“I’m sure.” I could tell he was wearing a smirk. I didn’t understand this sudden thought that Rob and I were a “thing.” We’d hung out on our own multiple times before and, like I said, we had often acted like a couple for the longest time. “So are we going to the movies soon or what?” He finally changed the subject.

“Yeah, at noon. Are you guys ready?”

“Yup! See you later alligator.” He laughed.

“After while crocodile,” I hung up and decided to get dressed for the day. I slipped on a simple tee and skinny jeans and put my phone in my pocket, heading out of the room. I’d left just as Rob was making his way down the stairs and curiosity got the best of me. “Aye, Roberto. You come up for something?” I asked, following him. It was odd to me, only because I knew none of his stuff had been upstairs.

“No,” he mumbled, “I was just, uh, brushing my teeth.”

He scratched the back of his neck and I lifted an eyebrow, “…Kay.” I shrugged and pulled my phone out again, realizing I hadn’t checked my text messages. Just as I’d suspected, my mom texted me around 5am telling me she was staying the night at her friend’s house. I walked into the kitchen to find Clayton reading the newspaper. “Clay,” I sighed, “mom’s out fucking another guy.”

He laughed lightly, annoyed, flipping to another page. “Awesome. How old is he this time?”
“Dunno.” I grinned. My mom had a thing for younger men. It was repulsive, but funny. At least she didn’t bring them to our house.

I looked back down out my phone. There was a new text message from Joy, most likely about my night with Rob. I opened it with a roll of the eyes but much to my surprise, it wasn’t about that.

“On mah way bbyz. See you soon.” It said.

I was a bit confused, but before I could answer, a voice rang out in the living room.
“I am heeereee.” Joy sang, “Rob you look disheveled.”

Clayton looked up at me from the paper, caught off guard. I gave him a look that said ’I have no idea’ and followed the sound of her voice to the family room. She must have come through the side door, for some reason. I walked in to find her and Rob arguing already.

“That’s not exactly the first thing I want to hear when a person sees me.”

“I was being nice.” Joy crossed her arms.

“By telling me I look disheveled?”

“Personally, I think you look like shit. But I didn’t say that, now did I?” Joy shook her head and looked in my direction. They both finally noticed me and put on happy faces. “Great to see you.” She muttered to Rob, uncrossing her arms and smoothing down his hair that was sticking up all around his head.

“Yep.“ He said, rocking back and forth on his converse.

I didn’t even understand how they called themselves friends, but I guess they got along sometimes. It was just that Rob could get a little too sensitive and Joy could get a little too harsh. It wasn’t the best combination out there.

“What are you doing here? Weren’t we supposed to pick you up?” I asked.

“I got bored and walked.” she shrugged, “Can we go soon, so I can talk to Kevin and not that wimp who apparently can’t take any constructive criticism today.”

“DISHEVELED IS NOT EVEN CLOSE TO CONSTRICTIVE CRITICISM!” Rob yelled from the kitchen. I didn’t even notice him walk away.

We both laughed and I checked my phone to see if we were running late. 11:45. It hadn’t felt like it’d been 45 minutes since I’d last looked, but I guess Joy had made it right on time. “Time to go!” I called out, slipping on my shoes at the front door.

Clayton came from the kitchen, his keys in hand and Rob following suit. “I’ll be out in a minute, I’m gonna get dressed. Go get Kevin and Brian.” He got the name right this time, running up the stairs.

Blinded by the sun, I opened the door and we all walked out into the heat. Kevin and the blonde from Biology were waiting for us on his porch. When we met halfway, stopping by Clayton’s car, I actually got a good look at Brian. Besides his bright blonde hair, he had a nose ring and really pretty blue eyes. He a lot of the same features as Rob, but gave off a different vibe. I was attracted to him already without exchanging a word.

I extended my hand with a smile, “Hi, I’m Kristy.” I introduced myself. We shook for what felt like an eternity, as cliché as it sounds. When we’d finally let go, he smirked.

“Brian,” He said with a wink, “Nice to meet you.”

Joy shot me a mixed look of jealousy and shock as Clayton came out and we got into the Cadillac. I already felt giddy, even though I knew he probably acted like that with a bunch of girls.

This was going to be interesting.
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I like the beginning. I was really in the mood to write at that point and knew exactly what was going to happen and how it was going to happen. I got really bad writers block near the end, but I hope you like it! :)

Comments would be really nice!