sweet dreams

  Breakfast wasn’t very appealing to me, since I couldn’t sleep the night before, and I was too exhausted to chew my food. As I got my stuff together, I peered out the living room window at my new neighbor’s house. They had moved in two weeks before, and they had a boy about my age I assumed. Poor kid. He only had two weeks to adjust to a weird new town, and then school starts. My parents had brought up the subject of moving, and I’d always been strongly against it. I had my friends, (well not really, since I hadn’t talked to most of my friends since school was out for summer...) But I had my memories. Poor kid. He probably had no say in whether he moved or not.

            I pulled on my sneakers, and went to open the door to leave. “Have a good day, Jaime! I love you!” Mom yelled from the kitchen. “Love you too, Mom. See you later.” I replied unenthusiastically. The warm morning air brushed against my face as I stepped down our front steps. “Yeah Mom, I know... home right after school. Is it like there is somewhere else I would go?” I heard from across the street. The kid, the boy, Oh my gosh. He walked out of his house with this attitude I wish I could have. I heard some shrill yelling from inside the house, and he muted them by plugging his ears with his headphones. I can’t believe I hadn’t noticed this kid. All Mom had said was that he seemed nice, and he was my age. I never got around stopping over and giving them a plate of “welcome to the neighborhood!” brownies. He had this shaggy soft looking auburn hair that hung right beneath his eyebrows. His clothes were baggy, but not exposing any underwear like a wannabe gangster would be wearing. He seemed to be walking to the beat of whatever music was filling his head. He saw me. He saw me staring in complete awe. He almost stopped walking, like he got stuck in a trance as well. Awkward.

            We walked on opposite sides of the street until we got to a dirt road that led to the street my, well our school was on. This was when he spoke. “I guess you go to Brenham High too, huh?” his edgy, even voice broke the awkward silence. “Yeah.” “Oh. You’re not new are you?” he asked. “No.”, I said, sounding like a complete robot, like I had been trained to only answer yes and no questions. I was extremely self conscious after that, when I noticed when he was talking, he was also moving slightly closer to me. Maybe so he could hear me better, since I mumbled everything under my breath... or maybe he thought I was hot. Psh. Doubt it. I laughed to myself, and he noticed. Awkward.

            His name was Seth. He was a sophomore like me, and he was from a big town up north. Oh was he in for a shock when he realizes only about 400 students populated our high school. My dark hair tried its best to hide my blushing face whenever he looked to me for an answer to one of his questions. We crossed over to the parking lot of the school, and he sighed. As I stopped myself from asking what was wrong, he asked me where my homeroom was. Turns out, we had the same one. We walked there together, and then he left to find a bathroom. I almost offered to show him where to go, but then it would turn into another awkward moment that would make me want the chair I sat in to open up and swallow me whole.

            1st hour ended, and second hour flew by like no other. After class, I tried to get out of the classroom just as he did, and sneakily bump into him so I would have a reason to talk to him. (By saying “Oh, excuse me Seth.” Or “Oops! I didn’t see you there!”) Sounds kind of obsessive huh? Not really. I just didn’t have anyone else to talk to. Remarkably, our lockers were two down from each other. As I put my morning class items in my locker to go to lunch, my eyes shifted down the hall and I watched him slam his locker door shut and turn the dial to relock it. He swung his head up and looked at me as his smooth shimmering hair swayed across his forehead. He stepped over to where I was standing, and almost scared me even though I had been secretly watching him since class was dismissed. He leaned against the locker next to mine, and I closed my locker. I glanced up into his captivating blue eyes. “Care to join me for lunch?” he asked. “Uh, I need to run back to Mrs. Olson’s. I think I left my text book there.” I said sheepishly, I couldn’t believe this kid was making ME nervous! “We’re allowed to leave them there. So don’t worry about it.” he protested. Dang he was good. So we walked to the cafeteria. I got in line, and grabbed a sub, some fruit and a Capri Sun, as he grabbed a sub, a cookie, and lemonade. We sat at a far corner table together, and we talked. About everything, like things about the town he came from, what our families were like, what music we liked, ect, ect, ect. I was almost sad when it was over. He checked his schedule, and he had to go to gym. As I trudged to art, he was all I thought about. I was so caught up in my daydreaming about him; I almost walked right past the art room. At least there were some familiar faces in that class. One of my friends, Chelsea, was sitting at a table in the far back. I pessimistically dragged myself to go sit by her. We hadn’t talked all summer. It felt like I was the new kid or something. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as uncomfortable as I thought it was going to be. We told each other what we did all summer, and showed each other our schedules. Then HE came into the picture. Chelsea mentioned that she noticed Seth, and told me her wholehearted honest opinion of him. When she found out he lived across the street from me, she playfully asked if she could spend the night that upcoming weekend.  We did some sketches, and I found myself drawing people. And most of them looked like Seth. (Who would’ve guessed?) Chelsea figured it out, and giggled. Awkward.

            The end of the day came quicker than I had expected. I raced to my locker to see him. He was just putting some homework sheets in his backpack. I slowed down to a normal “Thank God Today’s Over.” walk, when I realized I didn’t even need to go to my locker. So I opened it up, and fidgeted with some of the things on the top shelf, to make it seem like I came here for a more practical purpose, than to see Seth. He slammed his locker shut, and glided over to my side. “You walking home?” he asked, interrupting the thoughts that had been racing in my head. I told him I was, and we left the building. I saw Chelsea get into her mom’s Volvo, and swivel her head around to look at me and Seth. As if she new we were there. I felt my face turn hot, and I shrugged to help my hair fall into my eyes. Seth noticed, looked me over a couple times, and laughed. Awkward.

            We got onto our street, and instead of going on opposite sidewalks, Seth stayed by my side. Like a golden retriever or something. I got 3 sidewalk squares away from my front yard, and glanced up at him. “I think I’m going to get going…” Then I thought my heart was going to explode. The kid, this guy, Seth. He grabbed my hands, and wrapped them around his shoulders, and placed his firm hands on my waste, as if we were about to dance, like the prince and princess do at the end of a beautiful fairytale. “Thanks for the best first day of school, ever.” he murmured, as he leaned in to look at me in the eyes. Our faces were so close; I could feel his breath on my lips. And he went in for it. I had barely a millisecond to lick my nervously chapped lips, and...

“Oh my gosh, Jaime! You’re going to be late!” That’s the absolute worst thing you could wake up to on the morning of the first day of school. I pried my eyes open, and stared at the ceiling for a second. Then reality overwhelmed me. It was a dream. No, maybe today isn’t the first day of school. I flipped over and checked my phone. Yup, September fifth. The first day of my sophomore year in high school. Thank God I took a shower the night before, so I could just throw on some clothes, brush my teeth, and eat some breakfast. Weirdly, I couldn’t get myself to eat. Just looking at food disgusted me because I was so tired. Wait, in my dream, I was too exhausted to eat because I barely got any sleep the night before. But I HAD been able to sleep last night, because I had that awesome dream. I sighed, gathered all of my school necessities, slipped my shoes on, and walked out the front door. I heard my mom’s goodbyes, but they sounded miles away. Because all of my senses were focused on the gorgeous figure staring at me from the yard of the house across the street.