Chance Encounters

I felt like I was floating. I don’t mean in that dreamy way you hear about in cheesy novels and TV shows. It was more like I wasn’t connected to the ground, or even my body. I’m not sure how you would exactly explain it. Poetry was never my strong suit and words aren’t quite my thing either. I work in pictures. The best I can say is that I did feel different. I hadn’t expected to though. I had always assumed that all of that was just something people said to make you cherish it more.

Not that I didn’t cherish mine. I had waited for the person I was sure was the right guy. But I hadn’t been set on maintaining it till marriage or for the rest of my life. I wasn’t that type of girl. My parents had tried to sell the celibacy thing to me but I had never really been sold on it.

I had thought the part about feeling changed when you lost your virginity was made up. That that whole dreamy self-discovery new found maturity part was just nonsense. Some of it was. I didn’t feel more mature that was for sure. I didn’t feel any more mature than I had the day before the beach, or a month before it either. I wasn’t soul searching, nor did I start trying to figure the world out. But all though the day I felt like I was drifting along in my thoughts. I was staring at my hands a lot, I did notice that.

Mary had gone to work before Luke and I had gotten home. Part of me was really happy about that. It meant that I had a couple of hours to think of a good excuse. I also knew that the time gave her more time to get angry. If she was anything like my mom, she would use that tie to get even more pissed. I hoped she wasn’t like my mom.

While we waited for Mary to get home from work Luke and I had just hung around the house. For most of the day we were curled up on the couch together. Some of the time we watched TV and part of the time we made out. Well if I were to be honest we mostly made out. Now that we were official we didn’t feel insecure about acting on what we wanted. As long as Mary didn’t come home that was. We jumped at every noise we heard, most of them we quickly figured was the tv but the ones that weren’t we separated and waited. We were really paranoid. My friend had told me that how you get when you’re stoned. Paranoid that is.

Neither of us was talking about what happened on the beach. I don’t think we needed to. We both knew what we did, and I hope neither of us regretted it. I was pretty sure Luke didn’t at least, at least not the way his hands were moving around. I guess once a guy gets a taste of something he wants more? I didn’t particularly mind to be honest. I wanted it too.

***

The couch was firm and uncomfortable underneath me, not that I was in any position to complain about it. As Luke’s mouth hungrily met with mine all I could do, or even think of doing was to meet his lips back with that same hunger. Not that I wanted to do anything else. I clutched at his shoulders as he was bracing himself up on his arms each hand on one side of my head, I’m pretty sure his left hand was leaning on my hair since when I tried to lean up towards him. I was caught in between laughing complaining and not caring because his mouth was very distracting. I wanted to be on my bed or his bed somewhere with more room? Somewhere IN a room?

I pulled my mouth away for a second to get some air. And Luke moved his to my neck and I shivered.

“What’s wrong?” He asked and looked at me.

“Huh?”

“You stopped?”

“So did you.” I muttered trying to pull my hair out from underneath his hands. “Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch.” he quickly moved his hand to help.

“Sorry,” He grinned at me and leaned down kissing me again. He licked my lips and lowered his body down on top of mine still supporting himself with his arms.

“Mnn wait.” I said turning my head

“Yeah?”

“Can we go to a bed or something? It’s kind of cramped here.” Luke looked down at me and arched an eyebrow, slowly he pulled himself up off of me and got off of the couch. I pushed myself up and off of the couch and he wrapped his arm around my waist pulling me close as he led the way into his room. He closed the door behind us and I felt myself feel a little better. I wrapped my arms around his neck and stood on my toes to kiss him. His lips were warm and soft and the touch of them made me feel like I was melting from the inside out. We both sunk onto the bed and he ended up on top of me again. I had pulled his shirt off somewhere in the transition between standing and laying down. He didn’t look as small and unhealthy as he once had. He was starting to have a nice body too. There was definite muscle definition happening, though I don’t know how.

He kissed me, our tounges exploring each other’s mouths as if we hadn’t been doing the same thing all day. I tangled my fingers in his hair and he was sliding his hands up my shirt. His warm fingers tracing my skin and moving upwards still until he was fumbling with the front clasp of my bra. He was about to get it unclipped and I was about to offer my assistance in the removal of all clothing when I heard a clicking sound come from downstairs. My heart sank and I saw the disappointment in Luke’s eyes too. He looked down at me as if considering something then rolled off of me. We knew what that sound was.

We both looked towards the door and I quietly walked out of Luke’s room to go peek down the stairs. When I rounded the corner sure enough it was Mary I saw throwing her keys on the kitchen counter. I wanted her to go away. I wanted to finish what I’d started upstairs!

“Hi Mary!” I said bounding down the stairs as if nothing was up. As if I didn’t just leave a hot half naked boy back in his room. As if I didn’t have one of the hooks of my bra undone underneath my t-shirt. Nope everything was perfectly normal and fine. There was nothing suspicious at all.

“So what happened to you two yesterday?” Mary asked pulling ingredients out of the fridge probably to prepare it for dinner.

“It started raining and we had to wait it out,” Luke said walking into the room and grabbing his school bag as if he were about to do homework.

“Wait it out?” Mary looked at us strangley SHE KNOWS! that paranoid part of me shouted aand I tried to ignore it. “Why did you have to wait it out somewhere, Why didn’t you just come home?” She asked putting the celery she was washing down in the sink.

“I had my camera.” I said before Luke could provide that part of the excuse. I took it with me outside of its case since Luke said we were going to the park, but when it started raining we were too far away from the car to make it back without ruining my camera.”

Mary looked at us skeptically and I could tell she was doubting slightly but she shrugged picking up the celery and chopping it and ignored it then. I internally sighed with relief. Thank god!

“Alright well wash up dinner will be ready soon.” Mary said taking the knife and gesturing out of the kitchen. She didn’t like being disturbed while cooking. Luke and I went upstairs and He opened and shut his door, then we snuck into mine.

I collapsed onto my bed and Luke sat down on the edge of it.

“Tell me again why we aren’t telling Mary?” Luke said looking down at me with a sad look on his face. I looked up to him and cupped his face in my hands and kissing him softly.

“I’m sorry you don’t like it.” I muttered before brushing another kiss on his lips. “But I don’t know how she’ll react, or if she’ll call my parents. If they knew they would definitely make me leave this house. And if ary knew she might make you leave.

“But Ellie these are all just what if’s. It doesn’t mean they will happen.

“I don’t want to risk them happening Luke.”
***

Luke was sad and Mary was looking at a catalogue for her work. I sat there switching my time between staring at Luke and looking down at my food. I wasn’t hungry. I felt bad for not telling Mary the complete truth and for making Luke feel sad. I finished eating most of my plate remained un-eaten, and washed my plate muttering about homework before Luke and Mary were even close to finishing their food.

I know it wasn’t very mature, but I locked my door. Talking to the people I was upsetting didn’t sound like something I wanted to do. I crawled under the blankets of my bed and buried myself under the pillows. I probably fell asleep. I say probably because I know there was a lapse of time, and there was a knock on my door. I didn’t answer. It was probably Luke, I wanted to answer it, but my body was rebelling. I felt like a stone. Which my fuzzy mind thought was funny since I had been floating earlier in the day. There was another knock, but I still couldn’t move. There were no other knocks on the door. At least I don’t think.

Morning came around and I didn’t want to get up. There was school today. Not that I hated school anymore. Since I could hang out with Luke it’s not like I was lonely in school. And I had an okay amount of people to talk to. I wasn’t popular but that might have been my fault for not trying to meet people.

Luke and I went to school and we went through our day almost like normal with the addition of some teacher disapproved PDA here and there. Though the P.D.A did get us some dirty looks from other kids too. Im not sure why though, maybe they still thought that Luke was the reason I came in so cut up a while ago. Or maybe Luke had done something before I came here that made the others dislike him. It sounds slightly conceded but I was sure it wasn’t me. I had yet to ruffle feathers here.

The end of the day came around, and photography class was amazing. Therapy. Alec was showing us cool tricks to add filters to your photos without changing your camera settings or if you even had one of those two dollar disposables, a lot of the time we were using fun things like magnifying glasses and stockings. Some were really fun and others looked absolutely terrible. In the middle of class though before I had a chance to see what a baby food jar would do to my camera I got a note from the office.

“Hello?” I asked talking to the person on the other side of the phone I had been told to pick up.

“Ellie?” I smiled

“Hi daddy!” I looked away from the desk that the receptionist was glaring at me from. “Why are you calling me here?” I looked at my cellphone I didn’t have any missed calls.

“Your number is programmed into my phone but it’s broken so I asked your mother what your schools new number was.”

“But daddy you could have just asked her for my cell number.”

“Oh yeah…” He muttered. “Well anyway your birthday is coming up soon. So I was thinking your mother and I were going to come up soon”

“Oh really? But it’s during the week don’t you have to work?”

“Yes but it will be on the weekend not the actual day. You don’t have any plans that weekend do you?”

“No I don’t actually.” Not like I had many friends to plan with.

“Well that’s good. I think I should let you get back to class though. Before you get into trouble.”

“Okay daddy I love you.”

“I love you too honey.”

“Bye.”

“Talk to you soon, bye.”

By the end of the phone call class had already ended and last period was about to start. I had to rush back to photography class and I was rushing past dozens of teenagers. I was being pushed and shoved all over the place. A feeling that wasn’t very pleasant. By the time I got back to the photography class, Alec was looking at my Camera, He had it hooked up to his computer and was staring at the picture of Luke and I at the beach.

“Excuse me sir…” I muttered walking into the classroom. “Could I have my camera back?” I looked at his computer screen. What the hell? Shouldn’t that be illegal?

“This is a really good picture,” Alec said typing something on his computer and then unplugging my camera. “Is it an assignment?” He asked handing me my camera.

“Uhhh….. no actually it’s a personal picture.” Alec smiled and tilted his head towards the door.

“What a shame.” He said before the bell rang. I had to run to my next class after putting my camera back in its bag.

“