Every Little Thing

Chapter Seven

            It’s been a month since I caught him in the rain. 30 days. 720 hours. 43200 minutes that were all spent thinking about him. I’ve never been happier in my life. I’m smiling all the time, I can’t eat or sleep, I daydream for hours about this boy who’s wormed his way into my life in such a small amount of time. 

            It hasn’t always been easy though. He’s obviously been perfect, bringing me places, buying me flowers and calling me and all that stuff; but hiding something this big and important to me is getting suffocating. It’s almost unbearable trying to refrain from grabbing his hand and pulling him into me on the corridors. I have to walk straight by him completely expressionless. I believe he’s still in the mindset it’s a game; the secretiveness. He’s a lot more daring with his actions than I could ever be; following me into bathrooms and leaving me notes and other things in my locker. Once, he even went as far as to fill a janitor’s closet with rose petals and candles for me. We skipped the rest of that day and stayed there, just enjoying each other. He made me laugh so much that day, and I think that was the moment I knew I was really falling hard for him. It’s scary-- how deep my feelings run for him-- and I’m not going to lie and say I haven’t gotten scared and tried to push him away like I’ve done in the past. I try to convince myself that I hate him but he knows just what to do to get me to melt and fall back into his arms. 

I spend most of my free time in his shed with him. It’s a really beautiful place with books of every kind filling the bookcases that line the walls. He’s started to teach me how to play the guitar. He even taught me to cook a few things; well, pasta and pancakes, but he was still proud. 

            He lives there alone while Claire and her boyfriend, Shane, live in the house with the blue shutters. Eric told me that once he lived there with his mom, step-dad, and Claire; they were unbelievably happy until when he was 14 his mom passed away after the doctors had discovered a brain tumor. His step father ended up killing himself a year later when he couldn’t cope with the loss. 

            Claire was 19 at the time and got full custody of Eric. For a while, they really struggled. They had no stable form of income and their house ended up being repossessed. Even though Eric doesn’t like to talk about it much, I could sense it was a really dark time for him. It was during this time that he had started to smoke and began to mess around with drugs. 

            But one day he realized that he was going to end up just like his real father, who was a huge pot head and ran out of town the minute he found out Eric’s mom was pregnant. He cleaned himself up and found that he was extremely intelligent. He has a determined disposition spurring him on to take on two jobs, get his grades up and repair his relationship with Claire. They got the house back, but they had to rent it until the landlord finally sold it back to them. Claire and Shane moved in, while Eric moved into the shed to give them space. He built up the whole thing himself, adding a second floor and fitting a bedroom, electricity, gas and heating. I could tell he was really proud of this place, but he likes to keep it secret; and that’s probably because he’s a very secretive person by nature. He’ll keep to himself and I love there’s so much to discover about him.

            I love the fact that he’s let me into his life; let me get to know that he falls asleep in 4 minutes flat and how he has 3 different laughs; a giggly one, a loud one, a silent one and a soft chuckle. He loves sweet things over sour, and he’s actually a huge soft; he’d pick a night of cuddling watching movies over going out. All these details I’ve come to know are completely and undeniably endearing. I adored every inch of him. I can’t get enough.

            But our bubble had been burst last week when Jake noticed a “love bite” that Eric had given me over the weekend. We haven’t gone very far in that department, but when things get heated, they get heated.