Chapter deux -Blue bells-
Even by Wednesday people hadn't gotten over the Sebastian. Girls were still drooling and tripping in their heels, boys were still shooting him dirty looks and pulling their girlfriends closer, and teachers were still asking stupid questions.
Sebastian however, couldn't care less it seemed.
He fit in perfectly with our little group of misfits. Dannie the Maneater, Luke the Womanizer, Cameron the Beanie-wearer, and our new addition -- Sebastian the French Boy. He and I seemed to be friends at this point. Talk was not awkward between us and humor came a little more easily. I still felt like I was embarrassing myself around him, but I felt like that around a lot of people.
So it wasn't really surprising when he asked if I would help him with his project in English Literature. He invited me over to his house and I accepted. After school we decided to walk because he said it wasn't too far away.
"So, what's it like switching from living in France to coming here?"
"It's...strange." He said as her ran a hand through his light brown hair. "I have been here a few times but when I was younger, it always makes me uncomfortable how...open some people are, but it feels good to be in a different place with different activities. I miss my family though, especially my mom." He finished. He had a small smile on his face.
"Mama's boy huh?"
"Always have been and I always shall be." He said simply as we came up to a nice looking Victorian style house. He unlatched te fence and he lead me to the back door.
"After you." He said politely, as he held open the door for me. I pulled myself out of my head and stepped inside. I was greeted by the smell of coffee. A thin woman with gray laced throughout her blonde hair sat at the table. She took a sip of her coffee before saying, "Bonjour, Sébastian." She turned to me. "And who is this young man?" She had a slight accent that dipped gracefully over her words.
"This is Cameron, he has been helping me out."
"My name is Alice Trenton, pleasure to meet you Cameron." She smiled brightly.
"Same to you, Mrs. Trenton."
She waved her manicured hand dismissively. "Oh, please, call me Alice."
I smiled and Sebastian said, "Okay, well Alice we'll be upstairs working on a project." He led me up a set of stairs and I followed him up. When we reached the top of the stairs he turned into the room on the right. He pushed the door open. "Sorry, it's a little messy."
I looked at him incredulously. "Messy?" Was he using the right word? Everything was impeccably clean and straightened. His bed was made, no clothes were on the floor, and his desk was organized. This wasn't just the opposite of messy, this was kind of neurotic.
"Yes, look." He lifted the edge of his bedspread up. A couple piles of clothes stared back at us. I blew out a breath.
"I was beginning to think you were some kind of clean freak." I couldn't stand clean freaks. My mom was one of them.
He laughed and his eyes crinkled. I still couldn't figure out the color. "I most certainty am not. I'm only keeping this clean for the sake of Alice." I looked around his room. On his dresser he had a little brown box with carvings on the surface, atop his desk he had folders stacked in piles, and in the corner of the room he had boxes stacked on top of one another.
He pointed to the boxes in the corner. "If you're wondering, those aren't mine. This doubles as a storage room and a guest room. My aunt and uncle moved the other boxes to the attic so I'd have more space." I nodded and looked around his room again.
"Sebastian?" I said as he sat on the edge of his bed. "What's that?" I pointed to the wooden box with the carvings on it. His fringe fell into his face as he looked up. He gestured for me to bring it over to him. I gingerly carried it over. I was unaware of the content of the box, I didn't want to accidentally drop it. I sat next to him, vaguely aware of our legs brushing as I did.
He set the box in my lap and took the top half of the box off to let me see inside. It was a mixture of things. There were pictures in a neat little stack, a jar about half the length of a pinky, a small candle, and three tiny bells. He pinched one of the photograps between his thumb and forefinger. He showed it to me.
"Is that your family?"
He nodded. There was a short, slight woman who was dwarfed by the other giants in his family. Sebastian had his chin on her shoulder and one girl stood with his mother, another behind Sebastian and the third stood clutching at his pant leg.
"This is Brigette," He pointed to who looked to be the oldest of his sisters, the one beside his mother. She had dark hair and a giant smile. "This is Renée," he pointed to the one who was almost hiding behind him in the photo. You could barley see her. "This is Victoire," He pointed to the youngest. She looked to be only a toddler. "And that's my mother, Jacqueline."
His family looked so happy, it made me wish I had a real one. "Oh, and my dad is the one taking the picture." Just one big happy family, the opposite of my little two person household.
I smiled. "You have a nice family."
"I miss them." He said, and looked away, his eyes catching the light from the small window.
There was a beat of silence before I asked. "What is this?" I pointed to the minuscule bells. He took out the bells and held them in the palm of his hand. Three little blue bells were bound together in a cluster by a few strands of green string.
"When I was younger, I saw a picture book with full of flowers, have you ever seen blue bells?" I shook my head. "Well they are the most beautifuliest --"
"Not a word."
"Exactly, they were so beautiful they needed a new word." I smiled at his smooth recovery. "Blue bells are the most beautiful shade of blue, they're just. . ." He made this weird hand motion.
I mimicked him. "Like that."
He flashed me a smile. "Yeah, I do not even know why but I was very fixated on those flowers. I went and begged my mother for some. She wouldn't and couldn't get me any -- blue bells aren't native to France. I begged and cried until she came back with blue bells -- actual blue bells! She bought some bells and painted them blue for me!" He smiled, and pulled out the next thing, a little jar.
"My baby teeth." He said, rattling the jar. Then he pulled out the candle. "It's a candle that smells nice apparently. Renée made it for me. I have not lit it yet." He set the blue bells in the box before standing up.
I placed the photos and everything else back where they were, and put the lid back on. I set the box back on this dresser and turned to him. "Let's get started."
We sat on his bed and for about half an hour working on that project. He wrote in pencil so I could correct the occasional Y that should be an I or add a missing U from it's Q.
"Erase that, it's effect not affect." He looked up the poster board he was was writing on and gave me a what? look. "A-f-f-e-c-t, not e-f-f-e-c-t." He erased the letter A. I looked at the rubric the teacher had given him. "This is pretty good, you think you can do the rest of the art? I can't draw worth crap."
"Yes... would you want to stay for dinner?" I bit my lip. I was supposed to help my mother cook spaghetti tonight. She wasn't going to be happy if I had dinner without her...
...which was why I wasn't going to tell her.
"Uh, yeah." I muttered, releasing my lip from between my teeth. "Is that okay with Alice?" A smile tugged at his lips.
"Alice is my aunt. She spoils me rotten, I do not know if it's my personality or what" He shrugged. "I have got her under my thumb."
Maybe it's your smile I thought before I relalized what was happening. He did have 1000 kilowatt smile though. He knocked half the girls at school off their feet with that. It was a weapon. He could kill someone with that thing.
"Cameron?" It was fascinating the way he said my name with his accent.
"Yeah?" I pulled myself back to reality. I needed to get a grip.
"You look kind of distracted. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah I am. I was just thinking. . ." I made that weird hand motion he had earlier and he rolled his eyes and laughed. I flopped onto his bed on my belly and watched him work on the floor, occasionally adding suggestions or edits.
"So what are we having tonight? Please tell me it's not snails." I was a self-proclaimed (and proud) picky eater. The word my mom liked to use was 'finicky'.
His lips curved up into a smile. "No, it's not escargot. What a stereotype. It's just chicken fricassee with tarragon." When he saw my confused face he added, "It's a French recipe, I think you'll like it."
I shook my head. "I have very high standards for my food."
"Well this should exceed your standards."
"I'm very picky."
"Everyone likes good food.'
"Hence 'good'. My definition of good is different from everyone else's."
"You are probably going to like it."
I just nodded. "Well, I'm done, so what do you want to do now?" I shrugged. He clapped his hands together and sat down on the bed so his hip was level with my face. He looked down on me. "Why don't you tell me about yourself?"
I bit my lip. "Well I'm not very interesting, I live with my mom, you met my best friends already....that's it." He shook his head. "What?"
"That is not it. What do you like?" I gave him a blank look. "Anything."
"I love the color blue, all shades of it. I like music even though I can't sing, which is kind of a given for most people. I like nectarines, but not peaches because the hair on them makes me shiver. And I like beanies." Dannie would have been so proud of me. This was the most I'd ever told someone in such a short amount of time. "What about you? I told you about me so now you have to tell me about you."
He ruffled his hair and his insert-color-here eyes stared down at me. "I love the color eggplant, the shade shade of purple. I like music too of course. I can play the piano. My mouth doesn't like the taste of cherries and -- what are you laughing at?" He was confused at me trying to stifle a giggle below him.
"Your mouth doesn't like the taste of cherries? You mean you're allergic?" He rolled his eyes.
"Same thing, I have not spoken English in a while, give me a break. Anyway, that's just a little something about me."
It went silent for a minute or two before I said something I'd been dying to ask. "What color are your eyes? I have to know!" I really did. It was driving me nuts that I couldn't find a description suitable for his eyes. His lips curved up and he flashed his 1000 killowatt smile. "Well, I guess you could call them ---"
"BOYS! TIME FOR DINNER!" Alice called. Sebastian shrugged as if to say maybe later. Then he stood and offered me his hand. I scooted into a sitting position and took it. I had a strange thought in passing, but his hand felt very warm in mine and I wouldn't have minded if he didn't let go.
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bloop bloop
--- Snickers