I'm Right Here

Had me at "Hello"

Bella's words eventually became just a playful joke to me for the next few months. I had almost forgotten about the boy. Well, until he showed up at my door months later looking for his sister. She was there and I did call for her to come down, but he and I did not speak except for a polite "Hi" and "Thank you".

When I first started seventh grade my father got a new job, meaning that he was unable to drive me to school in the morning or pick me up in the afternoon. He signed me up to ride the school bus in the mornings and afternoons, and that was where the action really began.

I was one of the first out of only a handful of kids to show up that first morning. The sky was pitch-black and the air chilly on my arms as I moved quickly towards the stop sign, and I paced around the area until another figure emerged from behind a hill that led to another set of houses.

His short, dirt-brown hair blew slightly in the breeze as he shuffled through the grass, honey-brown, bright eyes averted to the cracked sidewalk. He was not exceptionally tall- 5'8" I later learned- and he did not have the muscles of a Greek God, but he had "meat" on him; his arms were toned and there were a couple extra pounds in his stomach region that worked for him. I grew stiff as he met my eyes and cracked a slight smile before focusing on the music coming from white headphones. This was Bella's brother, the one who thought I was "hot" months earlier. Something inside me tightened as we both stood there, scanning the surroundings while avoiding each other's gaze until a few other people showed up and struck conversations with me.

It took weeks before it happened. I stood at the stop sign, pacing alone and letting my thoughts drift when he emerged from his shortcut.

"Hi," he said simply with a slight upward curl of his lips.

"H-hi," I stammered in response.

Thinking back, I can't remember when exactly I learned his name, but I know that soon after that I came to know him as Devin, a freshman at the time.