Telescope Eyes

Micah turned the wheel and glanced over her shoulder to where the boy behind her was gaining speed. She slammed on her gas and weaved around the course, making sure to not slam into the black and yellow walls that surrounded her from the rest of the people in the building.

She made another turn and glanced over her shoulder again, noticing that he was now just behind her. She felt nerves pile in his stomach as she realized she was going nearly thirty miles an hour and was approaching the sharpest turn of the track.

She slammed her breaks and turned her wheel sharply, drifting across the floor and cutting off the boy behind her. She cheered, even as their cars were shutting off.

“I’m sorry kids, I told you no more drifting,” the attendant said over the loud speakers. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“God dammit, Crosby,” John groaned, pulling his car into the place they kept the go-karts.

She smiled guilty and batted her eyelashes, “Sorry, John.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you are,” he chuckled.

John wrapped his arm around her as they walked outside to his car. They jumped in and drove a few miles down the road to Micah’s favorite hamburger shop. They retreated inside from the patio where they had been sitting when it started raining on them.

Micah shoved the cheeseburger in her hands into her mouth, “I don’t care what you say. I won fair and square, John. Don’t be a sore loser.”

“There is no possible way. I was about to lap you, dear,” he laughed, dousing a fry in ketchup.

“You were behind me!”

“About to lap you!”

“No one is going to believe you when they tell them that,” Micah teased. “They’re going to think you’re using that as an excuse.”

John rolled his eyes and smiled, looking out the window. “I love the rain.”

She followed his eyes and looked out at the cloudy sky that was surrounding the entire Phoenix area that day. The smell filled her nostrils and the sound of the pitter patter on the window sills made her feel at ease. “I do too,” she sighed. “So, how is Addie?”

John smiled softly and looked down to his plate at his cheeks blushed, “She’s good. We’re officially back together. She told her dad that he would just have to deal with it.”

Micah smiled, “Good! When was this?”

“Late last night,” he grinned. “That’s actually why I couldn’t come over. We were uh…making up.”

She laughed, “Well, good for you.”

Micah felt her phone buzz in her pocket and she grinned as she read her new text message: So, my parents are not going to be home for the majority of the day tomorrow—both got called in on their day off? Fate? God? I don’t care. Be there please xoxo –Eric.

“Why are you smiling so big?” John commented, raising his eyebrows and smirking.

“No reason,” Micah giggled before answering her text.

Mmm, I think I’m busy tomorrow. JohnOh wanted to hang out…idk if I can say no (;

“I call b-s,” John laughed. “Eric?”

She nodded her head with a small blush, before placing her phone next to her tray on the table. “We should go to Sadies together, yeah?”

“You and I?”

“Yeah, do you think Addison would mind? I mean you guys went to homecoming together—she can take Eric,” Micah smiled. “It’d be fun.”

He chuckled, “That would be a lot of fun, let’s do it.”

Micah opened her phone and laughed when she read her boyfriend’s reply: Fuck you.

I’ll come if that’s a promise.

“Why the hell are you smiling so big?” John laughed, grabbing her phone from between her hands, ignoring her protests. She heard the phone vibrate and then he wrinkled his nose in disgust, throwing it back at her. “Ew.”

She laughed as she read the text: I promise you’ll cum either way…too far?

Sick-o <3

Micah closed her phone and placed it back into her pocket, “Sorry about that.”

“I guess you guys did it then since you’re sexting now,” John commented, staring down at his food.

It had been about a week since she and Eric had done the deed, and Micah still hadn’t told John about it. It was weird; it was normally so easy to talk to him about everything, but she didn’t have the guts to tell him that she and Eric had sex—she felt like he would disapprove.

Why would he though?

“Yeah we did,” Micah spoke up after a moment, suddenly feeling more confident. It shouldn’t matter if he was ‘disappointed’, he had no reason to be mad at her. She was just being silly—this was John, her best friend. He would understand…

“That’s nice,” he said simply, taking a drink of his strawberry shake.

“Uh yeah,” she stuttered. Why was he being so short? “It hurt, a lot,” she admitted. “More than I expected.”

John looked at her with his lips in a straight line, “I don’t want to hear about this. It’s disgusting.”

“Why is it disgusting? It’s not disgusting when Jared and Marissa talk about it,” Micah said, hiding the hurt in her voice.

“Because it’s…you,” he said shortly. John grabbed his keys and walked outside into the rain suddenly, Micah scrambling to her feet and following him.

Micah felt her heart literally pang. Was she really repulsing to him or something? Because just a few months ago he was the one taking her first kiss. He didn’t seem to find her repulsing at that moment. He had to be lying—about what though she wasn’t sure.

They drove silently down the road, nothing but the sound of The Raconteurs coming from the stereo. Her mind was racing and she kept her eyes set out the window so John couldn’t see the tears welling in them. They arrived in front of his house and she assumed this meant she was walking the short five minutes home by herself. What was so far up his ass that he wouldn’t even drive her home?

Micah slammed her door and turned her back on him, stifling a tear as she started walking down the road. She stopped when the boy called her name. “What?” She asked, barely heard over the soft taps of the rain.

“See ya,” he said simply, causing rage to fire in her stomach.

She turned to face him, her hands uncrossing and raising into the air, “What the hell do you mean because it’s me?” John’s eyes turned to his feet and stayed there as his shoulders shrugged. She scoffed, “Am I really that disgusting to you? Am I so hideous that it physically hurts you to think of me that way?”

“No,” John groaned, running a hand through his now wet hair. “Crosby, it’s just I don’t know I don’t want to think about you that way.”

“Why?!” Micah cried, feeling her chest explode. “I may be your best friend, John, but I’m still a girl. I didn’t realize I was so unattractive to you.”

“I just don’t think about you like that!” He yelled. “Sorry, Micah. Sorry that I’m just not physically attracted to you. Sorry that I’m in love with your best friend, and besides you’re in love with mine aren’t you? Why else would you have sex with him?”

He was lying. She knew him well enough to know that—his hands were fidgeting in his pockets and he couldn’t look her straight in the eye. He was lying to her—but why? Couldn’t he see that it was hurting her?

Why was it hurting her so much? She loved Eric…John shouldn’t even be making her wonder these things. She should have been relieved that he didn’t think of her in that way—but it was almost like she wanted him too.

“If I’m so repulsing to you then why did you kiss me that night?” Micah asked, placing her hands on her hips. She stared at him as his eyes widened; it was the first time either of them had brought it up.

“You don’t want me to answer that,” he whispered after a moment, his hands still fidgeting.

“Tell me the truth,” she said angrily, her blue eyes staring into his emerald pools.

He sighed and closed his eyes, turning his face to the sky before looking back at her. “You were a game—and Eric won…I-I don’t lose, and now I never will with you because I won; I got the kiss. I was the first boy to have your kiss and now you’ll never forget me.”

Micah felt her stomach turn and tears pour out of her eyelids, “Fuck you, John O’Callaghan.”

She turned on her heels ignoring his calls as she walked away to her house the only thing on her mind was his fidgeting hands and his flickering gazes; if he was lying then what was he trying to hide?

*

“Eric,” Micah moaned, closing her eyes and trying to catch her breath. The boy kept kissing body slowly and she wasn’t fighting him.

They were covered in sweat and his room probably smelled like sex since she had been there for a few hours now, but it was like a need now. Once she started she couldn’t stop.

And when she was busy with Eric, her thoughts about John would subside. She wouldn’t think about the way her self esteem took a major blow or how when she went home she cried herself to sleep. All she would think about was the boy hovering over her telling her she was beautiful over and over again.

Micah’s body froze as she heard a knock at the door. “Eric honey, I’m home early,” his mother’s voice said through the door. “Can I come in?”

“Fuck,” Eric mumbled, gathering his boxers from the floor and throwing Micah a shirt. She slipped it over her shoulders and combed her hair quickly to a bun on the top of her head. Eric pulled her into his arms and laid them on their sides as if to pretend they were taking a nap. She listened as the door opened and shut a few seconds after much softer.

“Holy shit that was close,” Eric mumbled into her shoulder, kissing it gently.

Micah flipped around in his arms and laughed softly into his chest, “That was almost so bad.”

“God I can’t even imagine…you probably wouldn’t be allowed over here anymore,” He chuckled, shaking his head. “My mom would freak out.”

“Do…do you think she’s right to though? I mean we are sixteen,” she said quietly. “If something happened—

“Nothing is going to happen,” Eric said shortly. “We’re being smart about it…and you’re starting the pill next week right?”

Micah nodded her head, “Yeah.”

He shrugged and pulled her in tight, “We’ll be fine, baby girl.”

“Eric,” she said nervously.

“Yeah, Micah?”

“Am I beautiful or do you just say that because you’re in the moment?” She asked, biting her bottom lip and making shapes on his chest.

His hand made its way to below her chin and forced her to look up into his pretty eyes, “Honey, you’re so amazingly gorgeous…the most beautiful girl I know. And I mean that every single time I say that, not just in the moment. Trust me.”

Micah smiled before she kissed him, “You’re the best Eric Halvorsen.”

“Mm, tell me again,” he laughed against her lips.

“You’re,” kiss, “the,” kiss,” best,” she giggled.

Eric chuckled before nuzzling back into her neck, “Sometimes, I really hate my mom.”