Page 7 of Begin Again
“Hurry up, man.” I pull my coat closer around me and look down the dark street, but my coat doesn't fully block out the wind chill.
“Could you be quiet?” Noah, my best friend, whispers as we sneak along the side of a house. We just drove fifteen minutes into Greeley so that he could ask out a girl for prom—which is four months away. This whole thing is ridiculous.
“Well, maybe if you would hurry,” I say, my breath fogging up in front of me. I was enjoying reading a book in my warm bed when Noah showed up at my door, and when he wants to go out, you say yes. Because getting him to get out of the house seems nearly impossible. I thought I was a homebody, but it turns out the Jones’ siblings are even more so than I am.
I like to get out and go on adventures, at least most of the time. But when the temperature is in the negatives, I really don’twant to leave the house. That’s when I want to be home with my family or curled up with a book.
“Don’t be such a grump,” he snaps, the poster in his hand blowing in the wind.
“Why are we doing this again?” I’m fairly certain my nose will fall off if he doesn't hurry. Because of course, we couldn’t have parked in front of Lacey’s house. He made me park a street over and walk to her house so she didn’t see his car.
“Because she’ll get asked by some dude at her school if I don’t ask her now,” Noah tells me.
Kersey—where we live—has a small high school, so prom is combined with one of the Greeley high schools. Noah’s had a crush on Lacey for who knows how long and she’s finally single so now is his chance. At least, that’s what he told me when he asked if I could give him a ride into town. Out of the two of us, I’m the only one with a car and there’s no way his mom would have let him borrow hers for this. Which I find a tiny bit hypocritical because she wants Annie to be boy obsessed so she can find a husband—Annie is only fifteen—and thinks that Noah is wasting his time dating and should be making money instead.
Finally, we reach Lacey’s front porch where Noah sets up the poster and the candy before ringing the bell. I’m a popsicle as I watch him he take off running.
“Come on man,” he yells as he sprints away from her house.
It is too cold to move that fast. I see the light spill onto the grass as someone opens the front door. I swerve into the neighbor’s yard and I hear a woman call for Lacey as I crouch down behind a bush so she doesn’t see me. Is this what it's like to have actual friends? You hide in the bushes when they leave you in the dust so his future prom date doesn’t catch you?
I try not to get too attached to places or people. I know we won’t be here long enough for it to matter.
But there’s something about the Jones siblings that makes it hard to stay away. Noah is my best friend, but Annie is right up there in the mix. When I’m with her we talk about books and I like the fact that she looks at me like I’m an actual person, not someone who's just around to make out with. I’m always the new, shiny, cute guy that girls don’t actually want to get to know. I’ve moved around enough that I know not to make friends with most girls, especially the popular ones. But with Annie, it’s always been easy.
Maybe someday she will look at me like she wants to kiss me.The thought comes out of nowhere and I fall on my butt into frozen, icy snow.
“Crap,” I whisper and stand, brushing off my backside. Lacey’s front door is closed now, so I head in the direction of my parked truck.
I catch up to Noah and push the thought of kissing Annie out of my head. We’ve talked about this, we’re friends. And friends do not kiss. It would be in my best interest to lock the thought about kissing her away before it bubbles into something more.
Noah grins at me as we get into my truck. His grin is so much like Annie’s that my mind goes straight to her, and I bite my cheek to keep from smiling. Yesterday, she and I talked after school. I don’t think it’s because she likes me, but because she didn’t want to go inside her house. Noah was working though, so it was just the two of us. I kept looking at her lips while she talked, and her eyes because you could see she was genuinely happy to be talking to me. But I don’t think that friends look at their friend’s lips when they're talking.
Before I turn on my truck, I close my eyes and lose myself in a daydream for half a second while Noah rambles about how awesome prom is going to be.
I can almost feel Annie in my arms, what it would be like to press my lips against hers.
“We gonna head home?” Noah asks, snapping me back to reality.
“Yup.” I turn the key in the ignition and swallow thickly. Annie is different than the other people I’ve dated in the past. She’s quiet, and bookish, and makes everything in my life a bit brighter. I always look forward to seeing her. My thoughts are lost in her as I drive back to Kersey.
“Is there someone you think you’ll ask?” Noah interrupts my thoughts as we turn onto our street. I shake myself, I can’t start crushing on Annie. I don’t do anything serious. I’ve kissed girls in the past, and have gone on a few dates. But I can’t do a crush. It feels too serious to let myself actually fall for someone.
“I don't think so,” I say. I haven’t found any girls other than Annie particularly interesting and I don’t think Noah would like it if I asked her out. Knowing him, he'd probably make me promise not to ever date her because he's just that type of brother. The one who doesn’t want to see her get hurt. And I won’t be here in Colorado long, so the chances of me hurting her are pretty high. I can’t like her.
I’m not in one place long enough to date someone seriously, which is why I haven’t. I might only be sixteen, but some part of me craves putting down some roots already. I know better than to tell Mom and Dad that we should live somewhere longer than a year at most, because my words will just fall on deaf ears. I can’t wait to settle down someday though.
“You should find someone, and we could go together,” he says as I pull into my driveway. The lights from my house are glowing onto the front yard, but Noah’s house looks dark. Annie must not be home. “Want to come over for a bit? We could watch a movie or see if Annie wants to play a card game, she’s probably reading or something in her room.”
“Sure,” I reply, biting my lip to distract my thoughts about Annie, because now that I’ve wondered what it would be like tokiss her, I can’t seem to get that image out of my head. I have to stop thinking about her though because she’s my best friend’s sister and could be one of my best friends if I keep my feelings out of the way. I won’t ruin any sort of lasting friendship I have with her for a crush. I can be her friend. “And I’ll think about the dance.”
Noah grins at me. “You’ll come around.”
The week’s old snow crunches under our feet as we walk to Noah’s house. He unlocks the door and as it swings open, angry voices greet us from the kitchen. Apparently, everyone is home.
“If you’d stop eating so many cookies, maybe a guy would notice you.”
My gut clenches at the way Annie’s mom speaks to her and Noah freezes in front of me.
