Jensen Strother and the Thirteen Stars

Chapter 5

Saturday, August 7, 2011

[At the store down the street: Picking up groceries for the family-who I'm seriously not talking to until they tell me what the heck is going!]

Dear Listener,

As I already noted up there on the heading I'm at the grocery store picking up groceries for people I don't even know anymore. I mean honestly WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO??!! who can I believe? Denise is telling me to steer clear of Piper while my mother is telling me that I'm crazy and that Piper has nothing to do with anything when I KNOW she has to have something to do about the sudden weirdness. I just don't know how or why.

"I wish I could ask her..." I mutter to myself as I drop the stupid, nasty spinach into the cart on top of a zillion other food items I could care less about right now.

"Ask who? Is it another woman?" a light voice asks nicely from beside me. "Already?"

I jump a little but prayed that she didn't see. "Piper. Hi."

"Jen. Hi," she says back, obviously mocking me.

"I... I'm sorry about Thursday, okay?" I state and begin to walk away from the spinach section. She follows.

"Oh, you mean you're sorry about standing me up after I waited three hours for you? ...Oh it's alright, Jensen, I forgive you."

I stop walking for only a second. "Three hours?"

"Okay. Two and a half, so what? The point is that we had a date planned and you..." She let that trail off, making me feel even worse about myself than I already am.

On other days I would be ecstatic to see her... ecstatic and sweaty, but still happy about it-seeing her I mean; not the sweaty part. But today? Today I'm fearful. I really, really fear that there is something maybe... bad about Piper and I don't want my aunt or my mom to walk in here and say something about it. That would be too much-and trust me, I don't get full very easily.

...But in between all that redundant fear I don't fail to notice how beautiful she looks. Her gorgeous dark hair is in cute pigtails at the side of her perfect heart shaped face and her black Hello Kitty shirt and gray jean capris makes her look even more lovely... and by damn with the word "lovely" there goes my last ounce of manliness. Ugh.

"Yeah, you know, Piper, I was sick. Sorry I didn't 'notify' you first."

"Hey, what's your problem? I was just saying-but if you want to be a jerk about it..."

"No, I'm sorry," I say sincerely.  I don't like being mean to her. Even if it is for a good cause, I guess. "I'm sorry. I really was ill-" in the head... "-and... I just... I was having family problems."

"Wanna tell me about it?"

Yes. "Not really," I lie.

"Okay. Well when you need someone out of the family to talk to you know I'm just five feet across the street."

"You are? I never noticed," I lie yet again.

She laughs. "Right. We both know that's not true."

I snort. "You'd know."

"I would."

I peer into her ever smug aqua eyes. "Okay, smarty pants."

"So... do you want to hang out sometime?"

I definitely had to stop dead again for this. I run my hand through my hair. She's asking me out again. I really, really want to, honest to God, but it's, like, forbidden or something by this bizarro family. "Piper, I-"

She holds her hand up to stop me. "It's okay, Jen. I understand."

"No, I don't think you do. I-" I want to help. I want to rid her of that perplexed look off her face, but I can't. I can't... "I gotta go. See you at school." I begin to walk away before she can even try to get another word out. I have to get some things straight before I go on talking to anyone.

"No, Jensen!" she calls.

I swing around ready to give her the third degree for her own good. "Can't you take a hint?"

I expected her to feel hurt and run away like girls usually do when you've said something mean to them-the kind where you don't really mean it and you want them to leave for a straight reason. But Piper didn't run away. "Yeah, but..." she put her right hand on my shoulder and pulled us together. When our lips touched-when she kissed me-I got a flash of something. The letter "Z." Everything about our kiss reminded me of the letter "Z."

What the heck?

"That's so you don't forget next time. See you at school, Lover Boy." I wasn't sure whether she was talking about the kiss or the flash. She triggered the flash so she must've have known that I got it. Was this some kind of sick joke?

I stood there-paralyzed. And that's not even the worst part. You want me to tell you what the worst part is? The worst part is where the girl of my dreams AND reality had just kissed me (let's not forget called me "Lover Boy" also) and all I could possibly think about was one thing: the letter "Z."