Status: My latest masterpiece. An old story remodelled.

The World Beyond Me.

Chapter Six.

The walk back to the cul-de-sac was a short one filled with laughter and jokes with her new found friend. They dawdled alongside one another towards her house, taking their time as they were enjoying one another’s company – something they never expected to do.

Nervously, Connor scuffed his shoes across the tarmac of the driveway, hesitantly standing at the bottom of the porch. Adelaide stood on the first step, still only managing to reach his eyes. Her long, thick hair was loosened and swept over her shoulders.

“Um, this is awkward.” Adelaide giggled.

Connor shook his head and chuckled, a deep, throaty sound that caused Adelaide’s legs to turn to jelly. She leaned her petite figure against the white wood frame of the porch, her head resting against it lazily with her waves bellowing in the wind.

Ask him in!

Adelaide stammered for a long moment, feeling her heart race at a million-billion miles an hour. Finally, she closed up her mouth and stared down at her feet as though they were the most interesting thing in the entire universe. Her blue eyes traced every contour curiously.

“Do you want to come in?” she mumbled, rubbing her foot over the planks of wood.

Connor coughed a little. “Y-yeah. I need to ask you something.”

Adelaide nervously fumbled with the door handle with sweaty hands, shoving it open forcefully before she extended a hand towards the hallway – directing him towards the living room. After she’d kicked away her shoes, she followed with a giddy spring to her step.

“Hey,” Connor greeted on her arrival.

“Hi,” she replied nervously, curling into the corner of the couch.

“Um. I needed to ask you something, now I’ve got you.” Connor wiggled his eyebrows playfully.

Adelaide tilted her head to the side in curiosity. In the shade of the house his eyes were slightly darker, but still enticingly beautiful. His pink lips were curved up into a smile with dimples hollowed into his cheeks. They weren’t the same as Jesse’s, nor were his eyes, but Adelaide didn’t care.

He gulped. “Could you, possibly, help me out?”

Adelaide nodded. Her innocent face made him smile with a blush spreading over his cheeks. But it wasn’t the same smile she thought it would be. Her heartbeat quickened, growing louder and thrumming against her chest as her head fluttered in the clouds.

“I, um, really like this girl. She’s a lot like you, sporty and quiet, and I needed to know what girls like her like...”

“Well… That’s a new question.” Adelaide covered her mouth – embarrassed.

“Whatcha mean?” Connor frowned for a moment.

Adelaide slowly took her hand away from her mouth, peeling it away from her lips. “They normally ask for tutoring.”

Connor made an ‘O’ shape with his thin lips, looking down nervously at his feet scuffing over the cream carpet as silence echoed through the house – bouncing off the walls and hitting them from every possible direction.

“Look.” She did. “There’s a party tonight, on the beach.”

“I can’t go.”

Adelaide looked deathly serious, eyes wide and paralysed as her monotone, Annie-esque voice declined the offer before it was even made. Her face was drained of its teenage nerves and replaced by an adult sense of regret and guilt.

“Why not?”

She shrugged her shoulders lamely. To be honest, she didn’t know the answer as to why she wasn’t allowed out to parties since Annie came along. She guessed it was because when she was out having a good time, she wasn’t studying to get the grades that pleased.

“Please come, Adelaide. It’ll be fun.”

She shook her head for a moment. Pushing a hand through her long hair, Adelaide’s big blue eyes stared off into the corner of the room furthest away from Connor’s pleading eyes. Finally, he sighed and stood up from the couch.

“At least try and make it tonight.” Connor’s brown eyes were heart-warming.

Adelaide nodded. “I’ll have a go.” She grinned.

Adelaide stood up and showed Connor out to the front door, watching him thump down the porch and dawdle across to the house next door. There wasn’t a car on the drive-way – there rarely was nowadays. And the bird-bath was filled with decaying leaves, soggy from the stagnant, green water and standing crooked on the sinking grass.

Quietly, Adelaide closed the front door and made her way through into the kitchen to prepare some dinner. Her feet felt heavy, weighed down by the concrete of want and disappointment. She needed a release. Something to do to relieve her stress now that she was banned from playing rugby.

A throbbing played on her right knee.

Back in the day Adelaide had been a star rugby player on her local ladies’ team in Wales. She’d been playing since she was knee high – whether it be one on one with her father or against the whole network of extended family she had out there, she was always messing around with exercise.

The amount of injuries she’d inflicted upon herself were immense and too many to be counted upon one hand. She remembered one eventful match she’d played where she tore her hamstrings, dislocated her knee cap, broke a collar-bone and fractured her nose.

The aftermath of playing rugby for so many years was strong muscles and quick reflexes with only one weakness – her right knee. After dislocating it at that famous match she’d messed up the growth of muscle and tissue around it – causing it to grow painful and sometimes seize up.

Her brother sometimes used it as a weakness, flicking it cruelly with his sharp aim when she would complain to him. He would never attempt to hurt her immensely though – well, that was what she thought anyway.

Dale had changed in many ways since their father married Annie.

Adelaide opened the fridge, stared for a couple of minutes before returning to her thoughts as she dazedly prepared dinner for the evening. Pain throbbed in her chest at the thought of her older brother, the one that stayed with her – the one that was supposed to protect her whilst Xavier was away at University in Cambridge.

The family rarely spoke of Xavier. He was the child that Annie didn’t want because it ruined the “perfect family”. In Annie’s eyes there should be one boy, one girl. Not two boys and a girl. So it frustrated her immensely when Xavier was living with them for the few months of the summer before going to university.

Adelaide rubbed her forehead for a moment or two and delved into the fridge again to find something to make a main course. She decided to fill her father up so he would fall asleep sooner – meaning she could go to bed earlier.

The pan sizzled as she dropped a handful of chopped onions and mushrooms into the oil. The smells were divine, swimming in her senses and sticking to her throat like the sweetest syrup. Her hips swayed to the rhythm of Bon Jovi still singing in her ears.

Her thoughts were cruelly shattered by a loud;

“We’re home!”
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This one's for my biggest fan of the moment ;) You know who you are :O) More posted soon!!! xxx