Chapters On A Page

"All right, put it into drive," Alex urged gently, folding one of his legs under himself so he could turn toward me in the passenger seat. I could tell, just from peeking out of the corner of my eye, that he was struggling to keep from reaching out and doing it for me. It was hard for him not to be behind the wheel of his own car, watching someone else have trouble with it. I did as he instructed, gripping the gearshift, squeezing the button in with my thumb, and then attempting to slide it into place. The car made a grinding groan in protest instead of responding properly. "You have to have your foot on the brake when you do that," he reminded me calmly, biting his lip to keep from laughing.

"Your car's too big!" I shouted, taking my right hand from the gearshift and my left from the steering wheel to throw them in the air dramatically. My fingers hit the ceiling of the car and I winced in pain, hurriedly bringing them close to me again.

Alex didn't bother holding his chuckles in now. "The size of my car has nothing to do with your inability to remember the basics of driving!" he exclaimed in response to my disgruntled statement. He reached out though to twist the keys stuck in the ignition toward me, killing the idling engine.

"I don't want to do this today," I whined, leaning back against the headrest and pouting over at him. My puppy dog eyes always worked with him, I was learning.

He rested against his seat as well, but he was smiling lightly back at me. "You just want to go to Gwen's, don't you?" he questioned rhetorically, knowing that this was exactly what I wanted. I nodded eagerly, leaving out that our driving lesson was going to cause me to tear my hair out today. We hadn't even started. He definitely would never let me live it down if I complained for real before we had actually gotten anything accomplished. He reached out again, but this time, took one of my hands that I still held close to me with a few throbbing fingertips, and then he gave a dramatic sigh as if the decision he was about to make was against his better judgement. "Fine, we can go early," he announced. I realized then that he hadn't tangled his fingers with mine like I thought he was going to. He was still simply holding my hand, massaging my fingers where they stung only ever so slightly now.

This made me smile lightly, but it was his words that really had my lips stretching into a grin. I pushed aside the way our hands in each other's made my heart thump a little faster and pushed my way out of the car. I left the driver's side door wide open as I hurried to the other side, feeling like my parka and beanie weren't anywhere near enough to keep the cold at bay. Alex met me at the front of the car and I threw him a smile. But he caught me around the waist as if a smirk wasn't enough and pulled me close to kiss me before I had a chance to pass him by. There was no need to push away or protest. I wrapped my arms around his neck and let things carry out as they would, giggling when he had to pull away because I was shivering, my teeth chattering.

Once I had climbed into the passenger seat and locked the door, I pressed myself close to the sorry excuse for an armrest built in to it to stay until we got to my best friend's. It was New Year's Eve, which meant it was a little under a week since we had started these driving lessons. I could say that we had made at least some progress with it, though I still questioned each day why I had agreed to it. Sure, it was almost January, but I already missed my bike and was sure I was going to crack and decide it would be my transportation until the day I died. Alex and I were spending a small part of every day together, and I couldn't say that our relationship or friendship or whichever one it was at the moment was turning out the same way as the lessons. I had expected feelings to fade, for Alex to remember that becoming interested in another girl for a while was just a habit for him. I figured, by now, things would be back on track to being normal for the two of us. And with him uninterested, I could become just as impassive about his feelings toward me. But I knew he would beg to differ that progress had been made. Things were going just fine, according to him. He had obeyed my wishes for him to stay with Lisa, but I was afraid that he wasn't going to continue on with it too much longer. It was hard not to be okay with this.

We had been in the middle of nowhere, taking back roads and and long-forgotten ones to assist in both helping me get over my fear of the road and to ensure that no one might catch us when we felt compelled to celebrate tiny successes with kisses. But because of this, it was going to take longer than it should have to get us to Gwen's house. This was something Alex certainly didn't mind, and I didn't think I could say that I did, either. We were close to my grandparents' place -though I hadn't mentioned this to him at all- and I would forever love to admire the scenery, even in the dark as it was now. Alex was singing along to the CD he had in the stereo, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel he had them wrapped around to the beat and sometimes just the lyrics themselves. He grinned widely over at me when he caught me staring, and urged me to join in with a loud, "Come on!" to be heard over the song. With a chuckle at his enthusiastic request, I delightfully obliged, diving right into the lyrics to a Brand New song I knew well.

It was an enjoyable ride, and I was certain that the smile on my face wasn't going to come off all night. I should always know better. Even if nothing ruined it right away, there was probably going to be something later on. But for now, there wasn't anything that I could even think would cross my mind to dampen my fantastic mood during a night I knew was going to be equally as fun.

The driveway out front of Gwen's house was filled to the edge already, all of her parents' friends obviously antsy to start their partying just as their daughter's friends were. I spotted Murph's car down the block though, and I pointed it out to Alex, convincing him to park behind it by with several reassurances that walking a short distance wasn't going to be as bad as he was assuming. As we started down the shoveled sidewalk, our arms swinging out of sync between us, his hand caught mine when they met for that brief instance and he laced his fingers in between mine. I giggled and felt myself blush, but I still took a step to the left and let my hand slide out of his. Within a second though, I felt my legs slip out from under me on a patch of ice I hadn't even noticed -and which someone else had apparently also missed if they hadn't made any attempt to get rid of it. Thankfully, his reflexes were quick and his arms were around me, holding me up and helping me back to stable footing before I could fall flat on my ass on the concrete.

"This is why you should let me hold your hand," he whispered in my ear, holding me tight to him. As if to back up his words, he slipped his arm from around me and let his hand fall back into mine. This time, I couldn't deny that it felt better to have it there than to have us separated, even if I believed that we shouldn't be showing up to a party looking so chummy.

"You're a very determined boy," I pointed out plainly as we continued down the sidewalk, me keeping a keen eye out for any more ice. You should be determined to keep your current relationship going strong, I thought, but left it unsaid. Instead, I marveled at the colored and white lights twinkling on the decorated houses we passed on our way to the pool house where we were expected.

Alex shrugged and shot me a mocked bashful look. "What can I say? When I lo-" he began, but my free hand shot out and I slapped it over his mouth.

His breath was hot against my palm, making it sweat in the freezing air, and the expression he had pointed at me was shocked. The side of his face was colored in blue and purple and red thanks to the house we stood in front of, but I could see his cheeks reddening from the weather. I refused to think it was because of what he had been about to say. And I knew what he had been going to say. I knew the word, and I didn't want to hear it. Not when it had to do with me. Maybe I felt that way about him, but I was going to be more than tenacious when it came to making sure he didn't feel the same. I still didn't think we should be together. I didn't care if I didn't exactly have a reason for this. "Don't you say what I think you're going to say, Alexander," I threatened sternly, narrowing my eyes at him. I seemed to be doing that a lot lately.

He lifted his hand to mine, trying to work his fingers beneath my palm to pry my hand from his face. When I resisted, he dropped my other hand from his so he could use both to try to free his mouth. Only when he gave up and sighed, giving me a look that said he promised he wouldn't continue his original statement, did I take my hand away and take a step back. "Persistency is just something you need, I think," he told me after a second, which I assumed he had spent making certain that I wouldn't physically silence him again.

I heaved a sigh before continuing on our walk again, trying hard to ignore how awkward it felt between us now. These were the only times it felt this way, when I was adamant about how we shouldn't have feelings for each other. It might not even have been a blundering moment to him, for all I knew. I just knew that I didn't know how to act after I blustered on with my protests. But I did agree with him. "Well, I guess when you want to do what you want to with your future, being persistent to get there is a good thing," I commented, giving him a light smirk when I caught his eye. He snorted but nodded in agreement, and it was left at that until we reached the doorstep of the pool house that Gwen had claimed as her own years ago.

Nearly everyone was already there even though I had guessed we would be early, scattered throughout the living room -and the kitchen, most likely- talking and already drinking, it appeared. The house was surely well stocked for the night, so I couldn't say I blamed them. Alex and I were quickly spotted as the newcomers when we stepped foot into the living room, our faces pink from the cold and our body language a bit out of place for the time being from just arriving. We were warmly greeted though, shouts of joy coming to us over the music that was being piped through the large speakers on either side of the television. Like a child that was a hot commodity, I was passed around from person to person for a short time, smiling at everyone and hugging them. But I was happiest when in the arms of my best friends, and when I finally made it to Murph, I hugged him longest, burying my face in his chest like his embrace was the most comfortable place I had been in this long last week. I guess I couldn't argue that it wasn't.

After a few minutes, most of which I was sure he would have been fine without, he let out a chuckle. "All right. I know Russell Murphy is loved by all, but I think we need to let others have the opportunity to get my love," he claimed, patting my back.

"Don't talk in the third person. It's weird," I commanded with a light giggle. I attempted to detach myself from him then, pulling back and dropping my arms from around him. But I found my face stuck close to his chest, resistance presenting itself in the act of his sweater tugging forward with my face each time I moved. "Ah damn it. My nose ring is stuck to your shirt," I complained when I realized what was going on, stamping my feet as if I was having a temper tantrum. Truly, I was having a hard time trying to control my laughter.

Murph was laughing as well, but he was acting more controlled, like he could solve the problem by being the grown up in the situation. "Which one?!" he nearly screeched with a guffaw when I wouldn't stay still long enough for him to discover which it was for himself. I was laughing too hard to determine which, let alone to let him know. "Why did you have to get one side pierced twice?" he whined much like I had earlier in the evening, attempting to get me to stay in one place and picking at the front of his sweater at the same time to see if he could work my nose ring loose from the threads.

"Because I thought I was going to be a badass, obviously!" I exclaimed sarcastically. I was calming down ever so slightly, so I was able to hold still -while still chortling like a madman, of course- while I stared down my nose to figure out which ring I needed to unhook. It was still a struggle between the two of us.

I was distracted while trying to separate my best friend and I, so it took me a second longer than it should have to see the hand that had found its way between us, right under my nose, to help us out. "I'm here to save the day," Alex announced heroically just as he managed to get my nose ring unhooked from Murph's sweater.

Murph breathed a deep sigh of relief. "Thanks, man," he blew out, as if he had been terrified that we wouldn't have been able to do it ourselves and that we would have been destined to be stuck together for the rest of our natural lives. He clapped Alex on the shoulder with a grin.

Alex chuckled. "No problem, dude. And no thanks are needed from you, Valerie," he stated in a gentlemanly fashion, and he walked away with that. What Murph couldn't see was how Alex winked at me over my best friend's shoulder.

I was worried he somehow had though when I took notice of the way he was looking at me, his eyes squinted in a perplexed manner. "Are you not going to go kill him for calling you by your full name?" he wondered, dragging the words out slowly as if I would catch on sooner than I did. My own face had set itself into a confused expression as he spoke, but quickly jumped into one of astonishment. Murph was right that I should be acting at least somewhat harsh as a reaction to Alex calling me Valerie instead of just Val as I had insisted upon since sometime before I was five. He had just been doing it so often lately that I rarely even noticed anymore. I was also hesitant to admit to myself that I liked how he used my full name instead. It felt special when he did it, for some reason. But none of these things were ones I could reveal to Murph. "What's going on between you two?" he questioned suspiciously when I had chosen to stay quiet, and he twisted his torso around to find Alex amongst everyone else.

"What?! Nothing!" I replied defiantly, knowing I had perfected this response and that he wouldn't doubt it. "Excuse me," I said then, wanting to depart quickly so he wasn't able to ask anymore questions. "I need to go get a drink because I am parched," I lied, emphasizing the word dramatically with a chuckle. He shook his head at me, but I knew that nothing seemed out of place to him.

I made my way back through the room, and I noticed that Nic had left a pack of cigarettes lying on the coffee table. I slipped through Rian and my cousin to get to them, throwing them both another greeting as I did so. Nic was close by, easily found by her dark red hair, and I held them up when she saw me, shaking the box a little in a question if I could have one or not. Thankfully, she nodded. Smoking was a habit Nic had on and off, and one she had picked up from my big sister. It had always been strange to me that one of my best friends would take after my sister in something when it should always have been me. But Emma had been consistently austere that, if I was going to pick up this bad habit, it wasn't going to be from her. I was just glad that Nic had decided she needed it again at the right moment when I had legitimately decided to turn to it for the first time. I was also happy that she wasn't one to question it since she was used to the few times I had had a cigarette with her just to remind myself of Emma.

I folded one of the skinny white sticks of cancer into my hand, knowing it was hidden well in my fist despite being accompanied by a lighter. Walking down the hall to the front door, I felt like a fugitive on the run, trying to hide my face from every person that might take even the slightest bit of notice of me. But no one was there and it was a simple task to just slip outside and take a seat on the ice cold concrete. It was hard to determine where the smoke that left my mouth began and where the condensed air leaving my lungs ended, but I passed the time with trying to do so. My company was kept by Gwen's cat who had come to me the moment I sat down, excited to have someone to pet her in the cold weather that she had no doubt insisted on coming out in. Keeping my mind on petting her and on watching smoke and breath combine kept it off of how I should be shivering, but more importantly, how difficult it was getting to convince myself that I didn't want something permanent with Alex. But the times that I didn't want to think about him were always the ones where he, by some means, knew he had to find me.

The door creaked open and I made no effort to turn just to determine it was him coming out to join me. He seated himself next to me, so we were exactly as we had been on the morning of Thanksgiving. Except there was one more presence with us, and I was smoking, something he had proclaimed I shouldn't do on the day that had started this all. It made me shake just to think about. "Who's this?" he wondered, reaching to run a hand over the cat curled up on my lap. He had expressed to me many times that he didn't like cats, but he was making an effort.

"This is Mrs. Nesbit. She's Gwen's old lady," I enlightened him with a smile, and scratched her under the chin with my index finger. Her eyes closed in contentment. When I looked back up at Alex, his eyes were set open in both bewilderment and question, at which I laughed loudly. "She's like ten years old. Gwen got her for Christmas the year the first Toy Story came out," I told him, knowing he would feel much better knowing.

He laughed with me then, nodding to show that he understood now. He made absolutely no mention of the cigarette between my fingers, not even when I stubbed it out on the patio under our feet. I was sure his mind was overflowing with questions though and probably even some lectures that he surely was going to let me know. With my peripheral vision, I could see his hand stretching out to find mine, to acquire that comfort we both felt so neither of us got up in arms over what I knew he wanted to say. But the gate between the house and the garage swung open, and Lisa made her appearance.

Lisa and I had had our moment in the library where we had grown a little closer just discussing the tight friendship that had formed between her boyfriend and I. Without any suggestion or disapproval, she had sat there and told me how glad she was that Alex liked me. But at the time, she hadn't known just how he liked me and I hadn't wanted anything but what she believed to be true. The past few days though, she was constantly looking at me as if she just knew. As if driving lessons was some strange code for we're having raunchy sex behind your back that she could read like she had grown up on it. She was suspicious, and I didn't hold it against her. But I simply wanted her to stop acting like everything was a false pretense because it was making me feel even more guilty.

Having also noticed this about her, Alex hopped up from where he sat and greeted her with a warm kiss. Not wanting me to hear, she whispered to him that she wanted to get out of the cold and get a drink, to which he nodded and began to lead her to the door.

I leaned to one side as if it made more room for the two of them, and I saw Alex giving me an apologetic look. "You guys go ahead," I said in response, but hoping it sounded as if it was meant to stand on its own. "I'll just be out here with Mrs. Nesbit if you need me," I reminded to myself after the door had shut behind them. I needed another cigarette.