Chasing December (#wattyawards2015)

Chapter 11: It's Simple Arithmetic

I went up to the door and knocked. I waited for a minute before shrugging and assuming no one was home. I won’t lie and say I wasn’t a little disappointed.

“Hold on, hold on!” I heard Hunter’s voice yell towards the door and shuffling behind it.

When he opened it his eyes and mine shot open from shock, but because of two totally different reasons. I’m sure his was from me seeking out his companionship and mine was because he came to the door shirtless. I noticed that he had a tattoo on his arm. I don’t know why I never noticed it; maybe it was because I was paying attention to abs, to be honest. It was words in what looked like cursive but I would have to get closer to see. He also had a couple bandages around his arm and one on his collarbone in the middle of chest, near the bottom of neck; the part that would show if you wore a T-shirt. Anyway, I expecting him to be surprised, happy even that I was here but instead I got the opposite reaction.

“Why would you come here?” He yelled at me. It wasn’t like complete anger, but that was in his tone. “He could’ve been here. That doesn’t matter, just good thing he’s not. You just can’t show up like that December.” He scolded me, and I felt like that was the most hypocritical statement he has said to me so far.

“Oh really? Yet you can show up at my house uninvited 24-7.” I was honestly offended. It didn’t make sense.

“That’s not what I meant Cember.” He sighed running a hand through his hair and opening the door wider.

“Oh so now I get invited in? What’s with you?” I was confused and I didn’t like to be. It irritated me when I was confused. I needed to understand a little bit or this wasn’t going work. He ignored me and just pulled me inside and he scanned the outside area before closing the door.

He started to walk through his house and I had no choice but to follow him. I’m sure it’s what he expected. I followed him to the hallway near the kitchen and he went through one of the doors and I followed him. It was what I thought it was. It was his room and it wasn’t different from what I expected. I mean it was definitely neater than most boys’ room. He had clothes lying here and there, and a wrapper or two. But it was relatively neat.

His room was a dark blue, like navy and he had a desk with an Apple computer on top of it. His bed was made but wrinkly from him lying on it. He jumped in it and patted next to him for me to sit. I rolled my eyes and sat there.

“Where have you been?” I asked, voicing my reason for coming over here in the first place.

“Why? You miss me, November?”  He asked a huge smirk slithering onto his stupid face. I stayed silent and didn’t say anything this time, just kept a straight face. He’d only flip it around so there was no point. “Well I had a calm case of poison oak. It itched like a bitch and my mom wouldn’t let me go anywhere. Not even if I needed to, which was boring.”

“I had it too, idiot! You dragged us through the wrong bushes.” I told him smacking his arm.

“OW! Watch out March, that arm still hurts from my scratches and the healing cream.” Hunter whined rubbing his arm.

“Good,” I stated getting up to observe his room. I notice he had a couple of pictures up, not many. I’m sure those were his mom’s personal touches, more than they were his. One picture was of him, Tristan, Jeremy, and the guy from the car that Hunter would tell me who he was. The other was of him, Muse, his mom, and another guy who matched the family with features. His dark hair was cut short, not buzzed, but not exactly a faux hawk maybe it was a smaller version of the hairstyle.

“Who’s these two?” I asked pointing at the guys that I didn’t know the name of in both of the pictures.

“Come here,” he responded gesturing me over to sit next to him once again. This time he was sitting up Indian style. I sat next to him and he first pointed to the picture of him with his friends. “I guess it won’t hurt, the only reason why I didn’t tell you his name is because I liked seeing you angry. That’s Peter. You’ve met him indirectly before, he was in the car with Jeremy that day he stopped us before school. The other,” he paused for a moment before clearing his throat and saying “that’s my brother Ryan.”