I'm Marrying The Asshole of My School?

After Eric left, I sat down next to Rowen on the couch and yawned, “So, ready for bed?”
He leaned down and kissed my forehead and muttered, “Mhm, I’m sorry for earlier.”
“It’s all right,” I said, curling my legs under me, “But I’m just disappointed in you. I never expected you to do something like that.”
He looked away, “I know, Izzy but its instinct to fight back. It’s like brushing your teeth in the morning and night without thinking.”
“But with fists and blood? Fighting and brushing your teeth are two very different things,” I said, moving his head to look at me with my hands cupping his face. “I understand where you’re coming from. Fighting was second nature in your house, but you don’t have to do that anymore. Not here,” I saw a flash of an emotion in his eyes that I couldn’t detect.
He wound his arms around me and squeezed, “I’m sorry, I’ll try to be good. Especially around Eric.”
I pushed the hair out of his face, “Ain’t that the truth.”
“I don’t understand anything about him. Amber’s fine with me having a girlfriend but Eric accused you of having an affair.” He shook his head. “He’s way to into this marriage thing.”
“Even though he says he hates being “married” to me,” I rolled my eyes and stood up, brushing my green plaid jammie shorts from stray crumbs. “I’m gonna head to bed, it’s almost twelve and we have to get up early tomorrow.”
“Why,” He wrapped his arms around my waist and looked up at me.
“School silly,” I grinned, “Remember that thing with the buildings and books and people that teach us?”
“Oh yeah, the people with those noses and chins,” He chuckled and kissed my black tank top-covered tummy. “If we have to, then I guess I have to let you go.”
“Yes,” I laughed, “Yes you do.”
He released me and I kissed his forehead and he kissed my cheek, “Good night sweetie.”
“Night,” I walked over to the stairs and flicked the hallway light off, climbing up two at a time. The second floor was silent, telling me that everyone was sleeping along with the light off so I had to feel my way to my doorknob. Since I was at the end of the hallway nearest to the bathroom, it was always harder for me to find my room because Mom shuts off all the lights and its pitch black. But, thankfully I’ve lived in this house long enough to know exactly where my door knob was.
But I never know where the dogs are.
“Ouch,” I fell over one of them and hit the floor, banging my elbows so the impact wouldn’t hit my face.
I got up on my knees and felt for other dogs in the immediate area. I know Romeo loves to sleep with me so he’s probably the one I tripped over waiting for me to open my bedroom door. The others were most likely scattered in either of the other rooms or in the kitchen. I got up and opened my door feeling Romeo zip right in and hop up on my bed. I shook my head and kicked off my fuzzy slippers and crawled in next to him, hunkering down under the covers.
His big lazy head rested on my tummy and gave a final doggy snort slash sigh as we fell asleep.
The sound of my alarm clock once again woke me up with a start. Romeo just lifted his head from my lap and looked at me with his pert ears twitching from the sound. I hit the snooze and draped my legs over the side, rubbing my eyes from the crusty stuff, “Uhg, I’m getting too old for this.”
My voice, in the morning, normally sounded like I had bronchitis so I didn’t necessarily notice that I had a really bad sore throat until I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. When I opened my mouth wider to get the back of my tongue, I saw that my tonsils were bright red and felt scratchy. I cleared my throat but coughed- which hurt like a bitch- instead. Thinking of remedies that Nana used to tell me; I got one of the Dixie cups and filled it with water. Getting salt from downstairs I put it in the water and gargled, hoping it would help. There was a knock at the door, “Izzy, hurry up in there, I have a job interview.”
I opened the door for Jack and spit out the salt water, “Sorry, my throat hurts so I was using salt water to soothe it.”
He furrowed his eyebrows because it was hard to understand me since my voice was going in and out like a radio with horrible reception. “Go drink some warm tea with honey.”
I nodded and whispered, “Good luck with the interview.”
“Thanks Izzy,” He hugged me and I left him to go to my room.
Romeo was snoozing away on my pillow like a person. He’s odd like that; he can curl under the covers himself and put his head on the pillow. Mom thinks it’s so adorable. I pulled off my tank top and replaced it with a long yellow baby rib tee that had a cartoon vampire on it with a sign that showed garlic and an ‘x’ through it. I grabbed a pair of my faded jeans-turned-shorts that stopped at my mid-thigh and pulled on my black suspenders. Romeo was lying on my black socks and I pried them from under him and slid them on. I heard Tristan getting ready and playing video games at the same time; there’s some multitasking right there. I walked out of my room, Romeo in tow and padded downstairs, into the kitchen. Mom was already up, making breakfast; Rowen was sitting on the stool at the island talking to her, his hair damp from using the shower in the basement. When I snuck up on him and kissed his cheek and he swiveled around and caught me in a big bear hug.
“Morning, didja have a good sleep?” I asked, taking a seat next to him and grabbing an apple.
“You okay,” He took a spoonful of cheerios into his mouth, “You sound really bad.”
“Yeah, I have a sore throat but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“So did you sleep well?” He asked.
“Mhm, Romeo kept me warm all night,” I felt his wet nose tapping my thigh and looked down, “Speak of the devil.”
Rowen chuckled, “I had the others down here with me. They wouldn’t leave me alone for a second. When I would go to the bathroom they would take turns coming in with me. It was weird.”
“But they’re cute,” I grinned, taking a bite out of the apple.
“True,” He nodded and finished up his cereal, “I’m taking you to school today. Jack’s dropping Tristan off since he’s on the way anyway.”
“All right then let’s go before we’re late,” I hopped off the stool and gave Mom and kiss on the cheek, “See you later.”
“Bye honey.”
Rowen put his bowl in the sink and followed me out to the living room where I pulled on my Converse. He was wearing his with ripped blue jeans and a plain white tee shirt. We left the house, got into his old Chevy pick up and off to school we went.

AFTER SCHOOL I went over to Eric’s house even if I didn’t want to.
“So, why are you such a clean freak?”
He looked up at me, sitting Indian-style in the middle of his bed, “I’m not. My Dad’s the clean one. I just put up with it.”
I smiled a little; at least he’s human and not some perfect Adonis god. “When should we start the written part of this project?”
“Well, since it’s only been a couple of weeks, I guess we can start next month,” He tossed up a sock and a few pieces of paper on the bed, near my foot.
I looked at the sock in distain, “And why are you cleaning your room now?”
“Because my Dad asked me to,” He muttered from under his bed.
“But there’s nothing to clean,” I furrowed my eyebrows together, looking around the room to find nothing but his furniture.
I watched as he began to pile things up on his bed; paper, socks, jeans, shirts, old tuna sandwich…ew. Well no wonder his room was clean, everything was under his bed. “So, how long has that sandwich been under there?”
He looked up at it and shrugged, “A few months….wait, let’s see. The last time I had a tuna sandwich was…oh, that thing is like a year and a half old.”
I cringed and scooted away from it. I swear I saw it moving…and growling, “Can you throw it out, please?”
“Why?”
“Uh, because it’s disgusting,” And it growled at me. But I didn’t say that out loud. Eric came back out from under the bed and stood up, dusting his tan cargo shorts off.
For the past two weeks, I’ve found Eric to be more human than he shows off in school. I don’t think anyone has hung out with him long enough to realize it. He unbuttoned his blue dress shirt, with much trouble because of the marker-written green cast around his left arm, to reveal a white “wife beater” under it. I raised my eyebrows when I saw his tattoo. Huh, I never knew he had one. It was a Celtic band around his upper arm, weaving around his shoulder, coming out towards his chest and stopping at the nape of his neck. He looked over at me, at my expression, “What?”
“I didn’t know you had a tattoo.”
“Yeah, I got it a when I was sixteen,” He began to clean off the pile on his bed; throwing the clothes in his hamper, the papers in the garbage and the tuna sandwich…in the downstairs garbage. I waited for him to come back up and I noticed a picture on his nightstand next to his bed. It was of his Mom again; but this time, she was sitting on a swing, her white summer dress blowing in the breeze. She had her hands clasped on either side of the chain and she was smiling brightly at the camera or whoever was taking the picture. I picked up the picture and studied it. On close inspection, I saw a person, or figure in the background where the fence was. It looked like a man; he was staring over at her but I couldn’t see what he looked like. It was as if he was a ghost.
I heard Eric coming up the stairs so I hastily put the picture back and sat there looking innocent. He came in and then sat on the bed, “So we should think of this “marriage” thing.”
“How so,” I asked, leaning over to look down at his face.
His eyes were closed but he was talking, “Like how would married people act around each other?”
“Bitter and angry?” I suggested.
“No, loving and adoring,” He corrected and then opened his eyes to look at me. I saw two emotions crash against each other; one was sarcasm and the other was apprehensive. I never noticed that his eyes weren’t as a perfect bright blue as I originally thought; they were blue, don’t get me wrong here, but there was also a mixture of gold around the pupil. It also looked as if he had acne scars, but they were very faint. His nose was slightly crooked, too. I never realized how imperfect he really was.
“Why loving and adoring?” I asked, “I mean we could never be like that.”
“If we tried maybe,” He laced his fingers together over his tummy-abs.
I shook my head, my curly hair becoming a cloak around his head, “I doubt we could. We’re to busy hating each other.”
He reached his right hand up and took a piece of my hair between his fingers. “At least we can try and make this marriage work.”
I sighed and let my chin fall in my palm, “I don’t know. Honestly, I’d rather not make it work after you and my boyfriend tried to kill each other, also because you really are an ass. And you cursed in front of my Mom.”
“I said I was sorry a thousand times,” He fingered the piece of hair with his thumb and pointer finger, looking at me, “When will you forgive me?”
I shook my head again, “I don’t think I could ever forgive you.”
“Why won’t you?”
“Because,” I sat back, pulling my hair away from him, “One, I hate you, two, you’re an ass, three, you destroyed my house last night and hurt my boyfriend.”
“He broke my arm!” He exclaimed, sitting up and turning to look at me.
“You did have it coming,” I pointed out.
His eyes narrowed and seemed as if he was going to yell again, but he stopped and looked away. “Yeah, I did.”
My eyes became saucers, “Wow, you actually admitted something.”
“I can be good if I wanted,” He harrumphed, looking back at me.
I nodded, thinking back on the good things he’s done, “True, but still, you’ve done more mean things than good.”
“Just give me another chance, please,” He actually said ‘please’.
I sighed, waging an inner conflict; one side saying to give him one more chance and the other saying screw him; he wrecked your life since middle school. I went with the former. “One more chance and that’s it.”
He smiled, “Thanks, you won’t regret it.”
And then he did something I’d never expect.
He hugged me.
I tensed up when he did it and gave him an awkward pat on the back, “Okay, off the Izzy.”
He let go and I was still wondering about his Mom so I guess now was better then later when he’d be himself again, “So, I’ve noticed the pictures of your Mom. What happened to her?”
His bright eyes darkened and it looked as if a shadow fell over his face, “She’s dead.”
I didn’t know what to say. So, I touched his hand, “I’m so sorry.”
He looked away, “Its fine, she died a while ago.”
“If I’m not being too forward, what happened to her?”
“She was murdered.”
That did it; I crawled over to him on my knees and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, “I’m so sorry Eric.”
He wound his arms around me back and I heard him sniffling against my shoulder, “She didn’t deserve it.”
His voice was weak and I felt the wetness of his tears absorbing into my shirt, “No, she didn’t. No one deserves to be killed.”
His arms got tighter and his body began to rock with sobs, “I miss her everyday, Izzy. I lost her at such a young age but I can still remember the day I was called home from school.”
I remembered that day, too. We were still in elementary school in the fifth grade. It was arts and crafts day and Eric and I were partnered up making silly masks when the intercom came on and asked him to come down to the office with his stuff. I never saw him after that for a week. When he came back, he was pale; he looked as if he lost a ton of weight and had dark circles under his eyes. He didn’t tell anyone what happened, not even me. After that, we sort of just drifted away from each other and than in the middle school, he became an ass and popular.
“Izzy, I never meant to do anything that I did to you,” I pulled his head up to look at me and, wiped his tears away with my thumbs. He sniffled, “I didn’t know how to handle it. I was nine after all.”
“I know Eric, it’s all right now,” I kissed his forehead. Who’d have guessed I’d be here, comforting the one person who made my life a living hell. “Did they catch the person who killed her?”
“No,” He muttered, “For nine years, I was waiting for the call that they found him. But no calls came. Before he killed her, he was stalking her. I heard her talking to Dad about it.”
I tsked and pulled him up to his feet, “Come on, let’s go have some chocolate. That always cheers me up when I’m upset.”
He nodded and twined my hand in his; of course his totally enveloped mine like Rowen’s does. For once, I didn’t pull away; he needed this comfort now and I wasn’t going to keep it from him, even if he is an ass.
Looking back on our previous conversation about being adoring and loving, I think we could give it a try now.