The following day, when I went to my neighbors' to read with Jackson, the most bizarre thing happened. Like I literally had to pinch myself to believe that it was reality.
When I came across Devon, he gave me a royal ignore and walked past me.
I was stunned. This had never happened before.
"What's wrong with you?" I blurted out, unable to digest that he didn't utter a word yet to irritate the shit out of me.
Devon faced me with a scowl. "Everything is wrong with me. Because for you nobody is the world can be as right as Josh, right?"
"What?!" I was completely bewildered. Now where did that come from?
Devon didn't respond but turned his back to me again and continued to walk away.
"Wait wait wait!" I jogged ahead of him and blocked his path. "So you're gonna walk away? Just like that?" I still couldn't digest that Devon wasn't being his cocky self.
"I don't think you should waste time chatting with me because, sadly, I don't look like Josh. Go home," he said grumpily and moved past me.
I frowned. "For your kind information, I did not come here to chit chat with you but to read with Jackson," I called out to him from behind.
"Good. Revise the alphabets also with him. A is for Apple, B is for Ball and J is for Josh," said Devon with a deep grudge and disappeared out of sight.
Wait, what?
Devon was behaving like a bawling kid. He didn't even turn up when Jackson and I settled to begin reading a new Roald Dahl book. And this somehow didn't go down well with me. I didn't know I had become so used to Devon being around while reading that now it felt so annoying when he wasn't there. Time and again I gazed at the door expecting him to come but he never came. And because I was so distracted, I made a lot of mistakes while reading out to the tiny tot.
"Are you ok, Eleanor?" asked Jackson, looking at me with confused baby eyes when I made another error.
"Yes, I am, honey," I smiled at him. "Can you finish reading this paragraph while I'm gone for a little while?"
"Okay," he said, smiling adorably.
I rose to my feet and strode out of the room to go in search for Devon in the house. It wasn't long before I found him seated at the kitchen counter biting into an apple. He rolled his eyes in annoyance and looked away when he saw me. I raised my brow at that.
"We've finished Chapter 1 of 'Fantastic Mr. Fox'. You can still join us incase you want to," I said quietly.
"No, thanks. I'm good here. Because I'm not as fantastic as Josh. Why don't you ask him to come over?" Devon said, sulking all over.
"God! Can you frickkin' just stop it?" I narrowed my eyes onto him.
"I remember an English proverb 'An apple a day keeps a doctor away," he began snidely. "I wish an apple a day also kept people who support Josh away."
Now I was annoyed. "You know what, fine! If you have problems with me then I might as well go away."
"Good bye."
I walked a couple of steps but then stopped. I knew very well he wasn't going to stop me or anything. I rolled my eyes and walked back to him.
"I hope you know you're behaving like a fussy five year old kid," I taunted.
"Get your mouth checked. You speak nonsense. I'm seventeen, not five," Devon snapped.
"Yeah, right. Whatever you say Mr. I-am-seventeen," I drawled.
Devon gave me such a grumpy look that I had a hard time suppressing my laughter. I had no clue he'd get so damn jealous of Josh.
"Did anyone tell you that you look very cute when you're angry?" I giggled. I mean, honestly. The scowl itched on Devon's face was very adorable along with his red nose and puffy cheeks.
"I'm sure Josh looks more cute, doesn't he?" Devon grouched.
"Okay, I want to tell you something," I told him.
"Would it include the three words?" Devon looked at me with a ray of hope.
"Actually, no. It includes two words."
He was sulking the very next second all over again. "Then I might as well leave," he said pointedly.
"No, wait," I stopped him when he was about to rise from the chair, "I want to say Thank You. And that you play Chess really well."
"Your favorite person Josh had won yesterday. So why don't you go and tell him whatever you want to?" Devon snorted.
"Josh is not a fool like you think," I told him. "He very well understands who won and who lost yesterday's match. He told me about it. And that's why I'm thanking you. What you did means a lot."
Devon looked away from me. He said nothing, his expressions were hard to decipher. He just rose to his feet and was about to walk off when I randomly looked down and saw that his shoe laces were undone.
"Tie your shoe laces or else you will fall off," I told him.
"Tell that to Josh because he is somebody you care about the most," Devon said in a tone of deep resentment.
And he walked off like that. I called after him to be careful but he didn't listen. When he got to the living room, he tripped over his laces next to the coffee table and fell flat on his face onto the couch.
It was all so comical that it was hard to not laugh. So when a giggle escaped my lips loud enough for him to hear, Devon straightened himself and spun around to give me a very grumpy look.
"I'm--I'm sorry," I coughed in an attempt to mask my smile but it didn't work.
Devon left in a huff.
"I'm sorry, really!" I called after him but he didn't listen. I couldn't help but break into a laughter.
I was on my way back to Jackson when my phone buzzed. It was Stef.
"Hey bitch, Blue or Yellow," she said when I answered the call. "I'm going out with Adam to the movies!"
"Hey back bitch, that's great! That yellow dress you bought recently will be perfect," I said.
"Bingo. Stilettos or Wedges."
"Wedges I guess?"
"Yeah, I think with wedges, it would be more comfortable to kiss. Anyway, how good is Jackson reading?"
"Don't talk about it,"I sighed. "Devon's being grumpy. He wasn't even around when I was reading! No matter what I say, he is sulking over everything. He has never snapped me like this. I don't know what to do."
"Dude, I asked you about your reading time with Jackson but you're all about Devon. Is everything ok?"
That startled me. "Ohh...um...y-yeah. All's good..." I said clumsily.
I heard a chuckle from the other end.
"Why are you giggling? What's so funny?" I questioned her.
"Nothing, nothing," she denied, hiding another giggle behind her voice.
"No, tell me. I wanna know," I frowned.
"It's nothing. All the best! See ya soon. " Stef hung up.
I rolled my eyes and went to join Jackson again. While I was listening to him read, Jackson asked me a question out of blue ans completely out of context.
"What is porn?" he asked innocently.
I went white as a sheet when I heard that. "Why do you ask?"
"I want to know. What is it?" he asked me out of childlike curiosity.
"Where did you hear the word?" I asked him but then the answer to that struck me as lightening the very next second.
Devon. Who else?
I was on my feet with a mission in mind. I marched out of the room to hunt down Devon and to knock some sense into his head and decency in his tongue.
I didn't find him in the living room so went upstairs and barged into his room. I saw him sprawled on the bed surfing on the laptop.
"There's a phrase called 'Knock before you enter', " he said looking at me.
"Knock, my foot!" I fired at him. "How does Jackson know the word 'porn'? How can you be so blunt with your language even when a child this small is around?!! How can you be so careless and insensitive with what you say in front of a kid?? A child this little shouldn't hear certain words?!! How ridiculous is this!! Shame on you, Devon! Don't yo---"
"Eleanor....don't shout at Devon.." I heard Jackson's meek voice behind me, "I heard that word from people who are more big than Devon..."
My eyes grew wide hearing that. Shit.
This was so fucking embarrassing.
I looked at Devon in a silly apologetic manner but he gave me a very pointed look. "I will always be malicious for you because it is Josh who has all the goodness in the world, isn't it?"
Devon stormed outside the room. I sighed. Damn.
Devon ignored me completely the next day as well. I wanted to apologize to him but he was making himself unreachable. He wasn't present while I read with Jackson which made me feel very down cast. That evening I was anxiously pacing to and fro in the living room of my house thinking hard to come up with a way to say sorry to Devon.
Right then, I heard a knock on the door. I strode over to open it but was startled to find nobody.
"Here, down!"
I heard that voice call out and looked down to see little Jackson at the doorstep. Oh.
"Hey, what's up?" I greeted him with a wide smile. "Come on in!"
"I am in a little bit of a sit--sit--sit--"
"Situation?"
"Yeah, I'm in a little bit of a situation," he bobbed his head. I giggled seeing him try to behave like an adult.
"It is Devon's birthday tomorrow and I want to give him a surprise but I don't know how because I'm so small...."the kid looked confused.
"His birthday, you said?" I blinked. Devon's eighteenth birthday. "Okay,, tell me about his favorite things."
"Uh..." the little boy made a thoughtful face, then spoke, "He likes art and craft, drawing and painting. And he loves those round things that go round and round and round and song and video plays from that."
"CD player," I said, "Alright, leave everything to me! We're gonna have a wonderful surprise for your brother tomorrow!" I added brightly.
I knew the exact thing that I had to do. And there was this one stop store in the neighborhood that could provide me with all the materials that I needed. I looked at the time in the clock hung on the wall. My eyes widened. The shop closed early on weekends. There were just few minutes left. I dashed out of the house hoping to reach on time.