My A-hole neighbor fascinated me.
There had to be something seriously wrong with me. He’d been nothing but rude and mean to me and yet I found him fascinating. Was I really so lonely I’d be captivated by someone who snarled at me?
How sad.
And pathetic.
And completely absurd.
The vehicles came to a stop, parking in front of the house. Headlights turned off, casting the house and driveway into the dark. Car doors slammed, but it was far too dark and too far away for me to see just whom had stepped out of the vehicles. Unfortunately, there were no lights on on this side of the house to further my spying.
I left the window seat, disappointed and afraid if I stayed longer I might get caught. All it would take is one person glancing up to spot me. Then he’d have a real reason to dislike me. People would find out I spied on my neighbor and they’d call me things far worse than freak show.
I changed into pajama shorts and a tank top and crawled into bed. I shouldn’t have been tired after my nap against the window pane, but oddly enough, I was. I think it had something to do with how traumatic things had gone at school for me. Holding my head high and keeping the tears at bay had been exhausting to say the least.
Tomorrow would surely be no better. It might even be worse. I didn’t understand it – why they treated me in such a way. I didn’t understand it at all and I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to endure it before I broke down and thoroughly humiliated myself. Or maybe I’d snap and tell them all to go straight to hell.
It took longer than I had thought for the tears to come. Once it started it felt like a bottomless well that would never run dry leaked out of the corners of my eyes. As I laid in my bed silent and unmoving, I cried myself to sleep. I figured it would be a regular occurrence for me. Likely, a nightly ritual.
Chapter Four
This couldn’t be happening. It had worked just fine yesterday!
I turned the key over in the ignition. Again. And again. Just as I had been doing over and over for the past fifteen minutes or so. I had hoped if I simply kept trying, a miracle would take place and my most beloved possession would come to life for me. Without it I had no way of getting to school. My mother wouldn’t be able to take me. She wouldn’t be up for hours, needing to sleep off her hangover. She called it beauty rest. I called it sleeping the night before off.
I couldn’t ask Mr. Cole to take me. He would insist I call him by his first name, then go on to tell me how wonderful my mother was. I shuddered at the thought of the other students seeing me arrive with him. I’m sure it would have brought me even more negative attention and I couldn’t take much more. His kindness would be lost on me. Not to mention if he started to bring me to school my mother wouldn’t like it very much. The attention was to never be directed my way, but solely rest upon her. She could get mean and downright nasty when she didn’t get her way.
I shuddered involuntarily. My mother was not a very nice person.
Knuckles rapped softly against the front p
assenger window. Mr. Cole stared in at me. Unlike my mother, he didn’t need to sleep off the night before. He didn’t indulge in alcohol the way she did. He was an attractive man in his mid-to-late fifties. Light brown hair with a sprinkling of salt at his temples. Soft, brown eyes filled with a depth of kindness I was unused to. He had a fit body, despite his age, that was a testament to the fact he worked out religiously and ran several miles a day on the treadmill in the room that housed our gym. I’d never used the gym and hadn’t even seen it because I’d never been down in the basement. I only knew of its existence because I’d heard him talk about it.
He dressed nice, too. Like the wealthy business man that he was. Always in a suit and tie. This morning was no exception. I had no idea why he bothered. The man worked from his home office. I wasn’t sure if this was a new development due to my mother and I being in his home now, or if it was something he’d always done. Perhaps it had been part of their arrangement. After all, what would the point be in seeking out someone to fill the role of your companion if you were never around to enjoy her.
Sighing deeply, I leaned across the gear shift and the passenger seat to manually roll down the window. Not only would it be rude to ignore him, it wasn’t like I had a means of escaping him.
For the eight hundredth time this morning, I desperately wished for my Bug to start. It didn’t. It had never done this before.
“Problem?” He asked in his soft, kind voice.
Problem?
Did I have a problem?
Just one?
Was he crazy?
I had problems a plenty. Loads of them, in fact. Like his kindness, for one. Why did he have to be so nice to me? It would be much easier to move on from this place once he’d finished with my mother if I avoided forming attachments of any kind. Surely when he casts my mother out I would be right by her side when she lands on the curb.
“It won’t start,” I mumbled not looking at him. I couldn’t look at him. If he thought he made me uncomfortable the sooner he’d be on his way.
“I will drive you in to school this morning,” he offered like I knew he would. “I can pick you up this afternoon as well. Your mother…” he fumbled for words and I had to fight back the bitter laughter that wanted to escape my mouth. My mother indeed. He had no idea.
After clearing his throat, he finally found his words. Words I was not expecting. “While you are at school I will get you a new car. This one might be fixable, but I feel like even so, it is not reliable enough for me to feel comfortable enough with you driving it. I will be far more comfortable with you driving around something I’ve purchased for you.”
This was undeniably kind and outrageously generous of him. I imagined him having done similar things for his own children. But I was not his child and I could not accept such a thing from him. I could not accept gifts of any kind from him. If he gave me a gift, what was to stop him from taking it back when this thing he had with my mother ended? The Bug remained in my mother’s name as far as I knew. If he got rid of it and replaced it with a new vehicle, when he kicked us to the curb later on and took the new car back we’d find ourselves homeless and without a vehicle. It would make a bad situation that much worse.