Differences (An Interracial Love Story)

Chapter 5

We continued our voyage. We paused our conversation about Mr. Dallas, laughing and giggling the whole way.

What weird names for these roads.

My longboard took up more speed when we went around a corner. Luckily, I crashed into Hannah's strong outstretched arm. She started tapping my shoulder with her other arm while in a complete daze.

I looked at her in a lost way, following her to where her finger was pointing. She pointed at the end of a road named Maple's Crossing Street. In the roundabout at the end of the road were a group of boys playing soccer.

I got back her attention by snapping in front of her. "What about them?" She brought her head closer to mines, squeezing my cheeks in between her fingers. "See the one in the lime green tank top, black emo-ish hair, and camouflage bandana?" I managed to shake my head even though Hannah squished my face in between her hand.

"Well I've had this crush on him ever since school began and I've never spoken to him once." She released my face and began to fiddle with her fingers.

That's when I noticed my poor longboard still helplessly rolling down the street that they happened to be on. DING! Idea! "Oh no, Hannah! My longboard is on its way to that - that sewer thing! Lemme use your's!" I exclaimed, snatching her longboard from her arms before she could comprehend with what was going on.

Before I knew it, Hannah and I were chasing down my longboard (that was literally going like 2 mph). I stalled until it was closer to the guys, falling to my behind and now allowing her's to go towards her crush. My quickness skills came to me as I saved my board from its near cruel death.

Standing on the sidelines, I watched my plan go into action. The board went until it bumped into the guy's converse shoe.

Hannah, oblivious to what was happening, successfully ran up to her crush while grabbing her board. Her face was filled with embarrassment as she glanced up and looked back at me. I gave her a thumbs up then she gulped, turning back to him.

"Um... Hi Matt." She shyly waved. He held up his hand to stop the game. They all panted to the curb to sit down, leaving one guy to go solo with the goal net. Their faces dripped with sweat and their baggy jerseys spotted with stains.

"Hey you." He smiled, showing his braces.

They went off talking to one another as I concentrated on rolling my board beneath my feet. Suddenly, the shadow of my longboard disappeared by an upcoming shade.

I was confused while looking at what was in front of me. Blocking the remaining sun rays from my eyes, I squinted to try to see better. "Hey!" He said, cupping his hand over his eyes.

The shade turned out to be the soccer guy. Getting a better look at his face, my stomach began to war. I remembered those eyes anywhere!

That smile struck my face again. "Oh woooow! Hey, Brandon!" I said, unable to believe what I was seeing.

My arms stretched outwards to hug him. Instead we spent the longest time switching positions and in the end, we laughed and quickly clung onto each other. He took a seat besides me on the curb while tossing the muddy, worn out soccer ball between his hands.

"Hey, Naomi! So I guess your closer than I thought."

"Yeah. I live around the corner."

"Great! Now this whole hanging out thing could work out perfectly!"

I laughed a bit, "Right." I said, stuck without words.

He connected his beautiful eyes with mine. For the moment, we said absolutely nothing. We just smiled back at each other. There was definitely something different about this guy. Not the fact that he was a different race -in which I noticed at first sight- but otherwise also.

Eventually, I broke the trance. It began to be too much for me that my face gave in with the blushing. "I see you've met Hannah." Brandon brought up.

"Yeah. She's fun. By the looks of it, she liked this guy so I made it my friendly duty to plot this little plan. Now they're talking." I smirked slyly, peeking back at the two.

They were adorably smiling at each other. Surprisingly, Hannah ended up writing her number on his arm and, in return, he tied his bandanna around her hair.

Awwwww! Young love! Kids these days, though.

Matt gave her the universal boyish smile that said 'I'll see you later' or whatever while walking back to the game. A blank faze was on Hannah's face as she stood there, waving at him.

"Oh. Your gorgeous and witty." He started. "I really can't believe this. This is the best! Uh -"

Sadly, Brandon was cut off by Hannah pulling me from my seat next to him. All I heard from her was a mixture of blabber. She kept pulling me further from him, unaware of Brandon. "OMG! You! You-" she stopped, finally noticing a waving Brandon. "Hey, Brandonn." She wiggled her fingers at him, getting a simple "heya" back.

"Sorry to interrupt you guys' convo, but, unfortunately, I'm gonna have to take my friend away from you, Brandon. Sorry." Hannah pouted while taking me away from him again.

Brandon got back up from the curb and started heading towards the continuing game, "It's fine. Hey, I'll call you later on." Before I could even say anything, Hannah had me trailing behind her, dragging me back to her house.