Why did it feel like someone was poking me? It didn’t even feel like they were just poking me, but my… Cheek? Was someone poking me in my cheek to wake me up?!
I shot up quickly, and looked to my side. I saw Eli and he just grinned at me, as if he thought that this was hilarious. I would be the one to tell him if this whole scenario was hilarious based on was time it was.
8:30…
8:30?!
I glared at Eli. “Eli…” I stopped what I was saying, trying not to yell too badly at him. “I’ve come to the point where I’ve learned not to care if you just pop up. But… What in the Sam heck are you doing waking me up this early on a Saturday morning?!” Eli starts laughing, and I pulled him by the collar of his shirt, bringing his face centimeters from mine. “You think I’m joking?” I ask seriously, and his eyes widen. “Ask my parents, and they will tell you I’m not a morning person. Got it?” Eli nods his head quickly, suddenly getting the picture. I let go, and I take a breath in, looking at Eli, who was watching me cautiously. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“Well,” Eli says, rubbing the back of his head. “I was going to ask your parents if we could go out, and I could give you some pointers on the road.” I looked at him skeptically. Why would he want to give me some pointers? I guess Eli realized that I was confused. “I was going to give you some driving lessons, like I said I would that one Saturday.” I start laughing.
“You don’t want to teach me how to drive, Eli, I’ll most likely have a panic attack.” Eli smiles at me and sits next to me on my bed. “Plus, I don’t think that they would too keen on the idea of a seventeen year old teaching a sixteen year old how to drive; no matter how experienced he is.”
“I’ll be able to help you if you have a panic attack, and I think they will be more than happy to let me teach you.” I squint my eyes at him and purse my lips. Eli looked at me with a very simple smile on his lips, and he got up a grabbed my hair brush. He smiled at me, putting one hand on the side of my head while brushing the other side of my hair. I look at him, and realize the he was taking all of the annoyance of waking me up early away with every stroke through my hair. He left his hand there, and I could feel his fingers making my hair wrap around them and get tangled. We just sat there, which was weird but very calming.
And then he realized what was happening.
He got off of the bed quickly, and cleared his throat. “Um, yeah. So, I’m… Uh, I’m just…” Eli looks around frantically, and I raise my eyebrows at his antics. “I’m just going to go, and find your, uh, parents.” I nod my head, and he walks out of my room and closes the door behind him. The next thing I knew, my face was stuffed in the pillow.
“Ughhhhh,” I groan, and the sound is muffled. “Why is he so attractive?” I didn’t mind saying that out loud, knowing that, to anyone else, it would’ve sounded, obviously, muffled and confusing. And it wasn’t as if he was standing by my door or anything like that.
I, regretfully, decided to get out of bed. I was too tired to actually care about how I looked at this awful time in the morning, so I just walked out of my room without a second thought. I briefly heard Eli greeting my parents before I shut the bathroom door behind me. I had to let the warm water wake me up before I could, or would, wash my hair and body.
It only took two steps to my right to get back into my room, towel wrapped securely around my body. I made sure that Eli wasn’t checking out my posters or anything before I locked my door. I put on deodorant and underwear, and then put some black, basketball shorts and a t-shirt on. I put my hair up in a ponytail, after brushing out all of the knots, and then wrapped it around itself until it looked like a bun.
I walked into my kitchen, going to the fridge while rubbing my eyes. I had my eyes set on the last bit of orange juice, and was reaching for it when Eli’s stupid, hairy arm came up and slapped my hand away. He pushed me away from the fridge and closed it.
“Hey!” I exclaimed. “I was going to drink the rest of that.” Eli looks me up and down.
“You’re really going to wear that?” he asked skeptically. My mouth dropped in offense; it’s not like he looked any better… Well, clothes wise anyway. Eli shakes his head, dismissing my clothes. “I’ll get you breakfast on the way, don’t worry, Cass.” I look at him, skeptical, and he grabs my hand, dragging my body to the frontdoor. I couldn’t stop him, either; and trust me, I tried my hardest to.
Eli didn’t even let me lock the front door. He just unlocked the doors to his car and opened the driver’s side, shoving me into the seat. My eyes widened as they followed him while he walked around the front of the car and opened the passenger door, smiling at me while sitting next to me. I shake my head at him vigorously.
“Eli, no,” I say, feeling upset. I would ruin this perfectly perfect car! “I can’t drive your car.”
“Your parents said I could teach you how to drive. And I know exactly where I want you to drive me to,” Eli says, buckling in. I look at Eli as if he’s crazy.
“This is a really pretty car, Eli! I don’t want to wreck it.” Eli put his hands on my face, cupping my cheeks while smiling at me.
“I trust you. You won’t wreck the car,” Eli said, as if he was 100% sure of himself. “I’m going to be here, telling you what to do anyway.”
“Eli, I would have to drive behind and in front of people. I’ve never done that, and I don’t even like going fast on a parking lot.” Eli sighs, keeping his lips in a tight line, and rubs circles on my cheek.
“Cassia,” he starts off simply. “I am right here, and I won’t let anything happen to you or my precious car. So, you can do this, because I know you can.” I look at Eli, and immediately feel even more terrified. How could my parents do this? This was really irresponsible. Wasn’t there a law about people with learner’s permits only driving with someone over 21 if they weren’t in your family? I didn’t actually read that whole guide book, or half of it for that matter, so I guess there could be something about this. Eli realized that his little pep talk didn’t work and sighed.
“Look behind your shoulder at all times when reversing, and make sure that no one is coming your way.” I look at him confused.
“What?”
“Do as I say,” Eli commanded. “Look over your shoulder, and, if it is all clear, put the car in reverse and spin the wheel slowly to the right.” I take a long and deep breath in before looking over my shoulder. I put the car in reverse slowly, and, as slow as a snail, I reversed Eli’s car out of the driveway. “Put it in drive, drive, slowly stop at the stop sign, and put your blinkers on whichever way you want to turn out of the neighborhood.”
“You were great, Cass,” Eli assured me when we were inside of the closest McDonalds. He ordered us a thing of French toast sticks and some orange juice. I couldn’t even tell him not to pay for me because I forgot everything except for my cell phone. Eli had to tell me multiple times to speed up, because the speed limit was 35, and I didn’t want to go up past 10.
“Really, Eli?” I asked, not believing a word he was saying. “That’s was probably the worst driving experience you’ve ever had.” Eli laughs.
“It wasn’t that bad, Cass,” he insists. “You did really well for that to be your first try.” He sticks his French toast stick in my syrup and grins.
“You should’ve gotten three of four things of syrup instead of eating all of mine.” Eli scoffs. And I cross my arms over my chest.
“We both knew that you wouldn’t have used all of yours, anyway,” Eli says, taking a long sip from his orange juice carton. I just shrug my shoulders.
“So, where am I driving you next?” Eli raises his eyebrows at me. I watch him shake his head at me. I furrow my eyebrows at him, and he looks at my forehead pointedly. I smile sheepishly as I force the skin to relax.
“I’m going to be driving you somewhere, and you probably would like a little break,” Eli says, smiling. “You’ll be driving us back to your house though,” he adds quickly.
“Eli!” Eli just laughs, grabbing my hand and leading me to the car as he throws away our trash.
“My grandpa brought me here right before he died.”
I was caught off guard when Eli told me this. Eli decided to drive me and hour and a half away to make me hike up some trail in the forest for an hour. I realized why he decided to drive. I was so thankful that I wore basketball shorts, and not something different, because I wouldn’t have made it. I didn’t want to finish the hike when we were halfway in, but Eli told me that I would thank him later for making me stay. We walked all the way to the top, and there was an opening. It looked over all of Orlando, and the tress behind Eli and me made a semi-circle. It was really a sight to see. The ground probably had the greenest grass I had ever seen.
“What?” I asked as we sat next to each other on the ground. Eli was looking out into the view, taking it all in.
“He had had cancer for the longest time, and it was at that point that his time was coming to an end. He would always tell me that he wasn’t afraid to leave, even though I was terrified for him to leave me.” I squinted my eyes at him, not knowing why he was telling me this. I could feel the tears that resulted from my girl hormones kicking in; I was never good with listening to death stories. “He said that he was happy to be able to be with my grandma again. So, a couple of days before he died, he brought me here, and talked to me about so many things. It was a couple of years ago, when I was fourteen, so I don’t remember much. But I remember two things vividly.”
“And what was that?” I asked, curious. Eli looked at me, smiling a small smile my way.
“He told me that he had brought my grandma up here. Right before she passed. She had asked him to bring her to their spot,” Eli says. “There was never anything wrong with her health wise, she just knew that she wanted this to be where she last was with my grandpa before she died.”
“You mean… She knew?” Eli nods his head at me sadly. “Why did you bring me here, Eli? It’s obviously really special, and I don’t feel…”
“It’s alright, Cass. I wanted to bring you here because I needed to tell someone, and I trusted in you the most.” Eli sees my reaction, and corrects himself. “It’s not like I don’t trust my family. I just… I don’t know why, I just wanted to bring you here.” I chew on my cheek.
“Well, I guess that’s cool,” I say lamely. But I really had no idea what to say to that. It’s like giving someone a mansion because they were there for you to listen to one time. “It seems like you just wanted to hang out and talk though, Eli. Is something bothering you?” Eli looks at me, and then a content smile makes his way to his lips. I raise my eyebrows, and then I’m pulled into Eli’s chest. I feel it go up and down, and I couldn’t help but smile as I was enveloped, not only in his arms, but the scent that I’ve learned was only his. I wrapped my arms around him.
“This is going to sound really weird,” Eli starts to tell me. “But… Whenever I see you, or you’re leaving, can… Can I hug you?” I backed away from Eli, and raised my head to look at his face. For the first time, I saw red on his cheeks, and it was really cute. “It’s kind of an important thing to me now; because I understand what my grandpa told me when I was fourteen.” I studied Eli as he looked down at me, and smiled. “I can’t really explain it right now, but can I just ask that of you?”
“If it’s that important to you, then you can hug me whenever you feel like it,” I say honestly. “I can wait for your explanation later.”
“Why are you so sure you’ll eventually get an explanation?” Eli asks, and I smile even wider as I feel him tighten his hold on me.
“Just a feeling,” I say, resting my chin on his chest. And then I remember something. “What was the second thing that your grandfather told you?” Eli shakes his head, grinning down at me.
“I’ll give you an explanation later, Cass.”
A/N: Yay! New up-diddly-update! This chapter was real nice and calming, another "get to know you" feel! And of course, Cassie and Eli are getting closer and closer! Wanna give me a comment? Maybe even a vote or two? ... No? Oh, yeah, it's fine. I'm cool with that too! Haha! :D