He was staring at me, I know he was. It didn't start to bother me until I got up and moved to a chair instead of right next to him on the couch. What the hell was his deal? Did he think I didn't notice him, eyeing me like that?
"Ok, Blake. What the hell are you looking at me for."
"Because I know something you don't know."
"Don't start with me." I rolled my eyes as I brushed out my hair and pulled it back into a ponytail that was about an inch above my shoulders. I always thought my hair looked cute that way. I even tied one of those fluffy, feather things into the ponytail.
"What's with the Britney Spears thing?"
"Well, if you have to know, Taylor's friend, Erik, is here for the week. He's staying at his house."
"Damn." Blake slumped back into the couch. "That was my 'something you don't know'."
I'd never met Erik before. He was a friend of Taylor's that he met while he was on the road. Taylor sent me a couple letters about when they hung out together. I guess you could say I was completely jealous of Erik and I wanted to kill him. I'm not sure. I've never been jealous of anybody before.
"Don't worry Blake, I just found out yesterday. I know you've known for a week or two. Now if you excuse me," I paused for drauma, "I'm going to Taylor's."
"You're not gonna kill Erik are you?"
I shrugged. "No." I smiled and went out the door.
I saw him before I even got all the way down the street. He was rollerblading with Taylor, and he was good at it. Yet another reason for me to be jealous.
Taylor saw me and waved. I waved back and continued down the street. I stopped in front of their house, and sat on Isaac's car. I watched. And watched... until finally somebody took the time to notice me.
Taylor skated over to me and stopped. "Hey, Erik, this is Jess." He smiled at me. "Jess, this is Erik."
"Hey." I smiled, smuggly, not really wanted to be all chummy chummy.
Erik skated over to me and shook my hand. "Hey." He smiled. "I'm Erik."
"I know." He had blonde hair, rather spiky, and really pretty eyes. He was tall as hell, taller than Taylor, and looked like a surfer.
"I guess so. I used to be, I know that."
Taylor nudged me. "She still is. Do you wanna go home and get your blades? We can skate."
I sighed and shook my head. "I'm not allowed. Too much stress on my head or something. It sucks."
"Stress on your head?" Erik was too cute when he didn't know what was going on. It was starting to bug me, and I'd only known him for half a minute.
"I got hit by a car. I haven't had my memory back for very long."
"Dude, that sucks."
I nodded. "I could pretend I'm a ramp again, and you can jump over me like you used to."
Taylor laughed. "I don't think so. That was when you were like, 8."
"I'm still the same size."
I think it was about that time that Erik noticed I the top of my head barely came to his chest. "Are you even five feet?"
I stood as tall as I could and smiled. "4 feet 9 inches. On a good day."
"Gymnast?"
"Yeah." I wanted to roll my eyes so badly. He was a damn know it all.
They went back to skating around in circles and jumping over curbs and a homemade ramp that was sitting in the middle of the street. After about ten minutes, I grew bored and stepped out to ask Taylor if I could go inside and get a drink. I didn't even get out a word before Erik slammed into the back of me, causing me to practically flip over. I landed on my side, my forehead hit my arm instead of the ground. I was lucky. I didn't feel lucky though, when the pain shot through my head and down into my back.
Erik dropped down to the ground next to me and put his hand on my shoulder. "Damn, are you ok? I didn't even see you."
I didn't say anything, I just waited for Taylor to come over. He hadn't even seen Erik run into me, he just saw me hit the ground. Taylor put his arm around me and helped me into a seated position, where I immediately wrapped my arms around my knees and rested my head.
I think I scared them because Erik sounded pretty shaky. I could see the ground between my feet, the pebbles blended together into a huge blurry gray mass of nothing. I could barely sit up straight, I felt like I was sitting on top of water. Without Taylor's arm around my waist, I thought I might fall back over onto my side.
"Jess, can you get up so we can get you out of the street?"
I shook my head. I could barely move, my head was pounding more than it had when I first woke up in the hospital.
Taylor and Erik grabbed my arms and practically dragged me out of the street. They had to, there was a car coming. I crawled onto the lawn and laid down, half on my stomach, half on my side. Taylor laid down next to me. "Are you ok?"
I shook my head and kept my eyes closed. I could hardly open them without pain. But Taylor stayed there, laying next to me, with his hand on the side of my head, not paying any attention to Erik.
I didn't want to cry, I was not going to cry. Not in front of a person I had only met a short while ago, that managed to plow me into the ground and ruin any sort of progress I had made.
"It's your head isn't it?"
I nodded slowly.
"Want me to call your doctor? Or your mom?"
"No." I slowly sat up and blinked hard. "No."
Erik looked down at me. He looked very sad, very sorry. "Did I screw up her head?"
Taylor nodded.
"I'm sorry, Jess."
"It's ok. I'm ok." I smiled and pushed myself off of the ground. Taylor stood up next to me and I wobbled to the side. He put his arm around my shoulders and led me into his house.
I sat down on the couch with Taylor next to me, Erik sitting on front of me on the floor. His hands were on my knees, like he thought he had broken me.
"I guess I made a bad first impression?"
I laughed. "I'll be ok. It just rattled me a bit. Damn, I remember when I was little, I could fall down all the time, hit my head on metal bars... and nothing ever hurt me. Not until that damn car ran me over." I sighed.
Taylor sighed too. "That's because you're so small. I know Blake hada hard time because he saw you get hit. I can't imagine watching somebody your size being thrown into the ground."
"Oi. Bad Memories. Not that I remember it." I shrugged. My head hurt too much, I just didn't want them to know. I didn't want to start all over. And I didn't want Erik to screw up my new friendship with Taylor. Things were finally starting to go my way and all I wanted was for hot ass Erik to just go back home to California where he belonged. It was going to be a long week.
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