book club

five || it's a metaphor?

After Jaxson explains what we are to do, he passes out a copy of the book to each person. He says that we can keep them, something about a "house warming gift."

Harry thumbs through his copy, and then looks up and smiles at me. It's a goofy, lopsided smile that makes me want to kiss him right here. Wait, Lea, no.

It would make me a liar to say he wasn't attractive, I mean hell, he's hotter than Haiti. But he's obnoxious, crammed full of his own ego, and extremely annoying.

"We should read this together. Like, outside of the book club." He says.

I pop my ring finger and then scrunch my nose. "With you? In public? No thanks." I say.

He looks hurt, but then he bounces back. He's like a fly, annoying and hard to kill.

"Ah, come on. What's so bad about hanging out with me?" He questions.

"I don't know you." I reply.

He shrugs. "I don't know you either. You're new, and I am still offering to hang out with you. You're going to need some friends in this town."

He makes a valid point. I don't want to eat lunch alone in the girls bathroom stall. I am not Lindsey Lohan and this is not a scene of Mean Girls. Though, my life would me ten thousand times more rad, as Jaxson says, than it is now.

"I'll reveal to you a proposition," I say, "You work on being less obnoxious, stop calling me babe, and oh, chew you're gum quieter. They can hear you smacking like a cow all the way in New York."

"New York, that's where you're from right?" Harry asks.

I nod. "Yeah, how did you know?"

"Your voice, it changed when you said it," He replies. "I can tell that you loved it."

Man.

"That's very... Intuative." I say.

He grins. "I'm not as dumb as you thought, huh?"

I glance at him from the corner of my eye. "I never said you were dumb." I say.

He taps his temple. "Ah, but you were thinking it."

After we are released from the prison of the church, everyone leaves. Me and Harry are the only ones left. My mother hasn't arrived, and Harry insisted he stay to 'grace me with his company'.

I watch as he pops a cigarette in his mouth, and then lights it.

"That's disgusting." I frown.

Harry shrugs, blows smoke into the air, and then takes another drag.

"I know." He says.

"You're gonna die." I chime.

He chuckles and shifts his feet. "I know, Lea."

I stare down at my sneakers, and then look back up at him. "Then why do you do it?" I ask.

Harry thinks about this for a moment, and then blows another smoke ring into the air. "It's a metaphor?"

I frown and my eyebrows draw together. "What? No it's not. How is it a metaphor?" I ask.

"Isn't there something about a cigarette in the book? A cigarette metaphor? A metaphoric cigarette?" He rambles.

"You've read the book?" I ask.

He tosses the cigarette to the ground and crushes it under the heel of his brown boot. "Yeah, a while back. I don't remember it much."

"Oh..."

"Yeah..."

My mother pulls up in her less than basic minivan and rolls the window down, beckoning me to the car. I say goodbye to Harry, and slide in the passenger seat. My moms eyes are solely on Harry, who politely waves.

"Who's that boy?" She asks as we drive away.

I shrug. "Just a kid from the book club."

"He's very nice looking." She says.

"Mom."

"Did you see how tall he was? I'll bet he works out."

"Mother."

"What?"

"Please stop."

She sighs and rolls her window down. "When I said that you need to socialize, I didn't mean romantically, but I sure wouldn't mind seeing him around more often."

"Do you mean that I should date him? Because, it sounds like you want to date him yourself." I grin.

She smiles at me and shakes her head.

"Lea, you are too much."