Innocence

"Mean," I repeated, leaning back against the tree trunk behind me. Aiden kept eye contact with me as well, his hands completely still in his lap. Actually, his whole entire body was completely still. His chest moved an inch as he breathed, but other than that, it was like he was completely still and he wasn't going to move.

"Well," I said quietly, almost to myself. "I can't argue with that piece of information."

Aiden's mouth twitched into a smile. "That was nice of you."

I glared at him. Maybe it wasn't, but he said it first. He was the one that always acted like he wanted to be around me and then when he was, acted like I was the last person he wanted in his face. What was I supposed to think?

The smile disappeared from his face just as quickly as it had appeared. "I guess we're both exulted about it? Or are we just routed?"

I blinked at him. The veil so close to him and barricading me from him was getting on my nerves. "So you're throwing SAT questions at me now?"

I made him smile again. "I was just asking if you liked that you were mean or if you didn't."

"Why would I like it if I was mean? How does that make any sense?"

He shrugged. "Some people flourish off of being boorish, penny-pinching, and malicious. It's what people do to get where they want to be."

I glared at his fresh smile. "Now you're just using those words to annoy me."

He shrugged, "Maybe so. But its true. A lot of people can only get far if they crush the people they love." The wall lost another few bricks as I watched him carefully.

"How would you know that?"

Wrong thing to say.

He didn't answer. His muscles in his jaw tensed as he looked back down at the ground.

The silence was something I didn't want to handle right now. I needed to keep this conversation going no matter how uncomfortable and scary it was getting. But Aiden was the kind of guy that wasn't much for talking. At least that is what I saw right now. Sometimes it was like he wanted to tell me the world, and the next thing I knew all he wanted to do was to run away.

Even though I had already asked this question, I decided another try might get me farther than before. I kept my voice quiet and my words soft as I asked, "Who are you?"

He gave me the same reply. "Aiden James Westcott."

"No," I whispered, "who are you really?" I emphasized the word really to try and give him a clue as to what I really wanted to say.

With all of the seriousness in the world, Aiden replied, "I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

He groaned to himself, closing his eyes. "I don't mean anything by it. Forget what I said." He got to his feet.

I got up too, no longer wanting to be on the ground when he wasn't. "Why do you do that?"

"What?"

I took a step closer to him, letting my body relax to show I wasn't about to attack him or anything. "Why do you always avoid questions like that? Why does there always have to be a wall?"

"Trust me…what--"

"It's kind of hard to trust you," I said with annoyance. "I don't think you realize what you're doing. Or maybe you know exactly what you a re doing, and you're doing it on purpose."

"You don't need to know who I am."

"And I'm just supposed to tell you all about me because I don't know you at all? How does that make any sense?"

"It doesn't make any sense."

"Then what do you want?"

Aiden ran his fingers through his hair again. "I don't know."

"Do you know anything? It always 'I don't know' or you simply avoid the question with one of your own. What am I supposed to think?"

I didn't wait for an answer. I stalked right past him and out into the sunlight. Aiden must have followed.

"Don't go," he pleaded in a small voice.

I kept going down the sidewalk, closer to my house. "Why not?"

"Because…I don't want you to."

I stopped then, pivoting my position to face him. "Why? You never seem to want me around so it would be better for me to just leave you alone."

"That would be better," he agreed.

I threw my hands in the air in defeat. "My God!"

"That isn't what I want though," he added quickly. "I like being around you, even if you're upset with me."

I took a deep breath, calming my voice. "I'm not…upset with you. I'm just frustrated."

"I don't mean to frustrate you."

I rolled my eyes. "Well you do a heck of a good job doing it."

He was quiet for a little while before saying, "I'm sorry."

"No," I sighed, "I'm the one who's being mean."

"Yeah," Aiden said with the hint of a smile, "you are kind of a jerk."

I smiled too, relaxing as I started back toward my house. Aiden walked next to me, his hands in his pockets as we strolled down the sidewalk by ourselves. Not one car or person passed us on our way back.

"So why don't you tell me who you are," Aiden coaxed.

Maybe if I showed him I could open up to him, maybe he would do the same and open up to me. "What do you want to know?"

"Let's start with family."

This was not my kind of topic, but I could get around the major details with a very simple answer. "There isn't much to tell. I'm an only child, moved from California to Georgia where my parents split up and are once again back together. That's why I moved here."

After a moment of silence, Aiden asked, "Why did your parents split up?"

I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, looking down at the cracks in the cement as we walked. When Aiden realized I wasn't going to answer, he started to apologize.

"Oh, I didn't mean to--"

"It's fine," I interrupted.

It looked like it upset him to know that he was putting me in a bad mood. He thought about his next question before he asked it. "Tell me about Georgia then. What's it like there?"

I lifted my head up, trying to keep the huge grin that was forcing its self on me, from my face. "Georgia is…home."

Aiden smiled then, a genuine smile like he was happy that he had picked a topic that I liked to speak about. "I've never been to Georgia."

"It's great. It never gets that cold, well, as cold as it is here, and there is always something to do. The best years of my life will probably always be in Georgia." Absently I played with the ring on my finger as I played different scenes in my head. Every single one of them had Mike in them.

Last summer when we both went to the beach and Mike got totally beat up by some waves and did a face plant in the sand. The first day of school a few weeks after that when I spilled ketchup all over my new pants because Mike made me laugh and I had to go and get some sweatpants from the nurses office. And the first time Mike and I ever tried to surf. Not a petty sight.

My smile faltered and then fell. Gosh I wished he were here with me right now. It would have been the best gift ever.

"What?" Aiden asked, seeing the change on my face.

"I just miss a friend, that's all."

"It's hard when you miss your friends."

I gazed up at Aiden who was looking straight ahead, avoiding my gaze. Maybe Aiden was even deeper than he put off. "Where did you move from?"

"Europe."

That explained the accent and his exotic face. I understood why he seemed so foreign to me now. I had only moved across the country away from my friends. Aiden had moved across the world. And I was going on and on about my problems… "You left friends there?"

He kicked a rock that was in front of him on the sidewalk and watched it soar across the road to the other side. Sighing, he murmured, "Yeah, I guess I did."

"You miss them?"

He looked to his right where his house was coming into view. "More than anything."

Aiden was always in a bad mood. It kind of put me down as well. But I didn't dwell on. After all, I was the one that brought up the topic in the first place.

Why was talking to Aiden so hard? Was it because I knew he had a secret and I was always on the guard of trying to figure it out? Everything was so complicated and confusing when I was around him. Sometimes I wanted to hit myself for being around him and actually wanting to be around him; other times I want to celebrate the seconds I actually got something from this guy. Was that normal?

I stopped in front of Aiden's house, noticing for the first time that someone had been watching us. Trevor was on top of the roof, sitting near the edge, his legs dangling above the front door. Trevor saw me staring and stood up. With ease he walked up the roof and over the other side.

"How did he get up there?" I asked Aiden who was staring like I was.

"The balcony in the back," he whispered. "Trev's angry."

"What for?"

Aiden laughed and started down the sidewalk again toward my house. "It's nothing really. He's just angry with me because he liked you first. He says I wasn't being a good brother when I started to talk to you."

"He liked me…first?"

I thought I was going to get another dodger question, but to my surprise, Aiden responded with sincerity.

He turned to look at me, his eyes sparkling with excitement. "Yes, he liked you first."

I usually wasn't the kind of girl to blush, but my body betrayed me this one time. I could just feel the heat rush from my chest, up my neck, and to my face. What was I supposed to say to that?

The gates that kept intruders from our property were open and we passed them until we came to the front steps. I sat down on the bottom one, leaning over to pick up a rock. I needed to have something in my hand so I wouldn't do something dumb without realizing it.

Aiden sat dawn two feet away from me, picking up a rock of his own. I shifted so I was facing him, sitting on the stair in an awkward position. Fumbling with the rock in my hand, I measured Aiden's posture, his facial expression.

His body was ridged, like he was very uncomfortable, and his face matched. There was sort of reluctance about him, like he really didn't want to be here. Not with me though, it was like he didn't want to be on this planet. How odd was it to see that a person that seemed to be on top of the world. He had money, he had fame at school, and he was obviously smart.

What else could you need?

I scooted closer to Aiden, getting his attention. His head snapped up to watch as I let the rock fall from my hand. We both watched it roll a few feet then fall to its side where it stayed.

"You don't know me," I whispered as I stared at the placid rock on the ground. "So how could you like me?"

Aiden's body relaxed in the slightest bit, his shoulders caving in. "I don't know. I guess…" his vice trailed off as he ran his fingers through his hair. His thumb on his other hand rubbed the small pebble in his palm. "What I mean is…" He sighed in frustration, his eyes never meeting mine. He couldn't get the words he wanted to say to me right now.

"I want to," Aiden whispered. I almost thought I hadn't heard anything, but I had seen his lips moving in the smallest of ways.

Before I could ask what he meant, he turned to face me, his face finally lifting to look at me. "No, I do not know you. But I feel like I should."

He stood up, dusting off his pants. "Maybe I should go…"

"Why?"

Aiden gazed down at me, his eyes filled with mixed emotions, all jumbled together so I couldn't read them.

"Why don't you tell me about Europe," I suggested, leaning back on my elbows.

I stayed where I was for a full minute, my eyes completely focused on Aiden. He stayed just as still, trying to contemplate his options. He finally made up his mind, lowering himself back down on the stair and leaning back like me.

"You want to know about Europe?" he asked quizzically.

"Of course. You moved from there, right?"

He nodded. "I grew up in Madrid for most of my life."

"Spain?"

He nodded again. "Yeah. But after awhile we moved up into the Pyrenees Mountains. My family likes our space."

"And you liked it there?"

"I guess."

It was kind of hard to get him into the conversation, but I wanted to try. The things he said and how he said them were very intriguing. It was like he was bringing you in without giving himself up.

"What did you do there for fun?"

Aiden smiles and looks down the driveway as he speaks. "We owned a vineyard before we moved to the mountains. I loved it there. It was very peaceful."

"Why did you get ride of it?"

"My mom didn't think we should have stayed in that area."

I could tell we were getting to a touchy subject so I changed the subject to something I could provide my input on as well.

"What do you do for fun here, in Maine I mean?"

"I haven't been here long, but so far sports are the only things that have kept me occupied."

I crinkled my nose in disapproval. "That's something I am not good at."

He laughed quietly, picking up some of the melting snow on the driveway. "And you don't like the cold?"

I picked up some of the slush as well. I held it in both of my hands, letting it melt further and drip through my fingers. "Its not so much that I don't like the cold, I just don't like the chills, the shivers, and the sickness that comes with it."

"Makes sense…"

I dropped the rest of the slush near my feet, letting the water drip from my fingers. Aiden still held the snow in his hand, watching as he shaped it into a small snowball.

"So what do you do for fun then? Do you have any hobbies?" Aiden asked me.

I turned my face to the sky above us and watched as the white fluffy clouds above us moved across the crystal blue sky as if it was their job. "The only hobby I could bring here was reading. Other than that, all of my other hobbies are stuck back in Georgia."

"What kind of books do you like to read?"

"Fiction mostly. It's the plot that I like. I don't really know how to explain it."

"It's because you can escape your life for just a moment and get engrossed in the story. That's why people read. They just want those few minutes where they are so involved with the plot they actually feel like their there and are living the character's life, with the character's problems and not their own." His eyes crawl to my face. "Its easier to do that because the character's problems are solved in the end one way or another."

The way Aiden told me things was like he was the smartest person in the world. Not in a cocky way. It was like he wanted to share is knowledge with me, but didn't at the same time. And the way his face looked when he says something like that tells me that he's been through a lot that people shouldn't ever go through.

Why was he so hard to get information from, but the easiest to read? He was like a dictionary. Sure it was organized in the best way possible, but the words are so small and they are all so squish together in a jumble of sentences that it takes forever to find what your looking for.

"That's not why I read," I defended.

"Why do you read then?" he challenged.

I sat up straighter, but then lost a little bit of my confidence. Why did I read? There wasn't a really big reason for it. I didn't really start to love reading fiction books until I was in the sixth grade. Maybe Aiden was right.

"I didn't mean to upset you."

I tried to smile, but it was a failed attempt. "Don't worry about it. I guess I just never thought about it before."

"I always seem to say the wrong thing," Aiden admitted.

I sighed, "That makes two of us. Really its no big deal. You make a big deal about a lot of things. You should loosen up a little bit. You're worse than me."

That made him smile. "Oh really?"

I gave him a tight nod crossing my arms over my chest. "Don't go making fun of me now."

He laughed his genuine, heartfelt laugh. "Don't worry, I wasn't planning on it."

An awkward silence fell between us as we were both as a lose for words. When Aiden stood up, he was smiling.

"I should get home. My mom will be home for lunch soon."

I stood too, not really wanting my company to leave me here by myself. "Okay," I said with nothing better to say to him.

He took a step away from me, then turned back around. "Will I see you tomorrow?" he asked.

My muscles strained to show how excited I was. "I would like that."

He nodded then headed down the driveway and around the corner till I could no longer see him.