Chapter Nine:
Kidnapped (Again):
“Who is it from?” Quinn asked me at lunch on Friday.
“Er…my mom,” I lied quickly. On the screen of my phone was a simple text message. Most girls would love to get one like it, from any guy. But all I felt was curiosity.
‘Don’t make plans tonight. I’m taking you out for dinner,’ Garret had just texted me. I had yet to reply.
“What’s she want?” Quinn asked. She didn’t know that my parents never texted. But what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
“Just organizing what’s for dinner,” I said easily.
“Mm, ‘kay,” Quinn said. She went back to doing her math homework.
‘Why? What makes you think I don’t already have plans?’ I asked Garrett. I held my phone under the table slightly so that even if Quinn happened to glance over at me, she wouldn’t see who I was texting.
Garrett texted me back almost immediately, ‘As a thank you. I’m paying. So just agree already.’
‘I can't just let you pay for me, you always do. And you have no reason to thank me,’ I told him.
‘You never let my mom pay you, so she gave me money and told me to use it on you. And I want to thank you for the photos.’
I was about to text him back and say that Ashley shouldn’t be paying me for watching Kyle and Maddy, because it wasn’t like I did much anyways; they entertained themselves. I was also going to tell him that giving him the photos took like five minutes of effort, the computer did the rest.
But then Garrett texted back, ending my protest for the moment. ‘I know you’re about to tell me no, I can see you. Just agree already. If you don’t, I’m kidnapping you.’
I looked around the area where Quinn and I ate lunch. It wasn’t the cafeteria but it was pretty much the same thing, just no food was sold here.
Sure enough, sitting on a bench across the room with a bunch of his friends was Garrett. He caught me looking at him and he smirked.
I just rolled my eyes and texted him back one last time. ‘You aren’t creepy at all. ;)’
‘I’ll pick you up at five. My mom can watch Alice.’
“Got it sorted?” Quinn asked as I tucked my phone away into my bag.
It took me a second to remember what she was talking about. “Yeah, it’s all cool.”
Quinn nodded and continued doing her homework, her head bobbed slightly as she stayed in tune to the music playing from her iPod.
When I picked Alice up from Ashley’s later that day, I felt like a terrible person. Both Maddy and Alice gave me their puppy dog faces and begged to let Alice stay. I wanted to let her. But it wasn’t fair to Ashley to just leave Alice there; especially with her mother visiting.
But they finally did smile when I told them that Alice would be coming back later that evening. I checked with Ashley and she confirmed that it would be alright for Alice to go back there later, until my parents got home.
“Why am I going back to Maddy’s later?” Alice asked as we made our way across the street.
“Because I’m going out with Garrett,” I told her.
“Is he your boyfriend?” Alice asked bluntly. As she looked up at me, her glasses slipped down her nose slightly, but she didn’t seem to notice.
I laughed. “No he isn’t. You know he’s not.”
“But he acts like one,” My sister stated calmly.
“And how does he?” I asked as I unlocked the back door for us. Alice went in ahead of me and dropped her purple backpack to the ground next to the couch.
“He’s nice to me, and he knows Mommy and Daddy, and he has a special nickname for you, and he takes you places.” Alice paused. She bit her lip and then looked up at me, her eyes wide like she was embarrassed to be wrong. “Isn’t that what a boyfriend is?”
“Sometimes,” I said. “But Garrett’s nice to you because you’re his little sister’s best friend, and he knows Mom and Dad for the same reason, and he only has a special nickname for me because he knows it annoys me. And he only takes me places as a thank you, or we go with you guys.” I ruffled the top of Alice’s head. Since her hair was straight it fell back into place by itself. “Garrett’s just my friend,” I promised Alice. I moved past her into the kitchen to get a snack.
“Do you want Gare-Gare to be your boyfriend?” Alice asked as she followed me into the kitchen.
I didn’t know what to say to that. How do you say to a six year old that one of the guys she idols isn’t exactly what you would think of as a boyfriend, without her going and telling him immediately?
So I just repeated, “Garrett’s my friend.”
“Okay,” Alice said accepting my answer the second time. “Will you play Barbies with me?”
I smiled. “I would love to,” I told her.
For an hour I played Barbies with Alice up in her room. Alice instructed me to set up a town using all the Barbie houses in her room while she found and clothed the dolls she wanted to use. I didn’t know what we were going to do, but I went along with it.
By the time everything was set up to Alice’s standards, almost the whole hour had passed. We were just starting to actually ‘play’ when I heard knocking on the door downstairs.
“That’s Garrett. Ready to go to Maddy’s?” I asked Alice.
She was down the stairs in an instant.
I cautiously walked out of Alice’s room. Every step I took was calculated and careful because I did not want to step on one of those plastic pieces.
Once I was down stairs, Alice already had her shoes on and Ken and Barbie tucked into her jacket pockets; she was ready to go.
I opened the door and let Garrett in.
“Why couldn’t you use your key?” I asked him.
“Nice to see you to Pigtails,” he said sarcastically. I just raised my eyebrow. “I may have misplaced it.”
“You lost your key?” I asked in disbelief. How could he lose his key when he used it almost every day?
“I didn’t lose it,” He said defensively. “It’s just where my house key is.”
“You lost your house key as well?”
“I’ll know where it is as soon as I remember!” Garrett retorted.
I curled my lips into my mouth to keep from laughing. “Can you take Alice over?” I asked Garrett. “I just need to run upstairs for a second.”
Garrett rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, sure. You go off and be a girl getting ready for our big date, I’ll take Alice.”
I was about to reply to him but he already had Alice under his arm and was leading her across the street.
I closed the door, leaving it unlocked for Garrett, and ran back upstairs. I grabbed some money and put it in the back pocket of my jeans. I don’t care what Garrett said, he wasn’t paying. I also grabbed a couple of bus tickets since most restaurants weren’t in walking distance.
I went back down stairs and scribbled a note to my parents, leaving it on the fridge. If they were late getting home Ashley would feed Alice for me, I would just repay her by keeping Maddy for dinner another night.
Just as I was slipping my phone and keys into my pocket, Garrett walked back in, leaving the door wide open behind him.
“This is not a date,” I told him seriously as I walked towards him and the door.
“I never said it was,” he said holding up his hands.
I stared at him until he admitted it.
“Okay, fine, I did. But you know I’m just teasing Piggytails,” he said throwing his arm over my shoulder as I came up next to him.
I rolled my eyes. “Just making it clear, Gare,” I said. I stepped out from under his arm and locked the door behind us.
“Oh it’s clear,” Garrett said with less humour than he had been using. I shot him a look and he just smiled back at me. He’s fine.
“So why’d you have to go upstairs? You don’t look any different to me,” Garrett said studying me.
“I wanted to grab money. You are not paying for me,” I told him seriously.
“If I’m not, why am I taking you out for dinner?” Garrett asked, his face scrunching up.
“I don’t know, you tell me. You’re the one who has kidnapped me.”
“You came willingly,” Garrett pointed out.
I waved him off. “That’s not the point.”
“How much did you bring?” he asked. He elaborated when he saw the weird look I was giving him. “I want to see where you can actually afford to eat.”
“Oh,” I said. “I brought twenty five bucks.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “Prove it.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled the green and blue pieces of paper from my back jeans pocket long enough for him to see them. “There? Happy?” I said.
I went to go put the money back in my pocket but Garrett snatched the bills from my hand.
“I’ll keep this safe from you,” Garrett said tucking the money into his own pocket. “Any pretty girl walking down the street at night could be attacked for this you know,” Garrett informed me.
I didn’t start screaming when he said pretty because he used it metaphorically. “It’s not even dark yet,” I pointed out.
“Give it an hour, it will be dark then.”
I just shook my head at him.
“You are not paying for me,” I told him.
“Think of it as a thank you for the pictures,” he said.
“I thought that was what the movie was for?”
“You bought the popcorn,” he said lamely.
“And you paid for the tickets,” I shot back. “They cost more.”
“Fine, it’s a thank you for yesterday.”
“I didn’t do anything!”
“So? I’m still thanking you.”
“Gare, you are not paying for me,” I said slowly.
Garrett sighed. “Okay fine. But where do you want to go?”
“I don’t want to go anywhere pricey or fancy,” I told him. I had more money in my room, but that didn’t mean I wanted to waste it all on going out all the time with Garrett.
“So…Mikey D’s?” Garrett asked.
As unhealthy as McDonalds was, I actually wouldn’t mind going right now. I hadn’t been there for a couple years, and I didn’t plan on going for a couple more. Plus the only two places close by where McDonalds and A&W. If we wanted to go anywhere else we would need to bus.
“Yeah sure, why not?” I said. Garrett smiled and we continued on our way.
“Oh yeah, how was babysitting yesterday?” Garrett asked later on as we sat at the table with a tray of greasy food between us. It was a good thing I walked everywhere, that way I wouldn’t feel fat from all this food.
“It was fine. Why?” I asked suspiciously. Watching Kyle and Maddy was always easy, Garrett knew that.
“Just they’ve been cooped up a while with our grandma so I thought they might go a little crazy with the freedom.”
I shook my head. “Gare, they still go to school and stuff. It’s not like their being held prisoner in their own house. They wouldn’t go crazy.”
“Yeah but you never know.”
I shrugged. Garrett was being weird, nothing new about that.
“Really? They did nothing weird? I was sure they would,” Garrett said.
“Well Kyle messed up the girls Barbie game, but nothing new about that.”
“How did he ruin it?”
“He broke up Ken and Barbie,” I told him.
“I’m so proud of him!” Garrett exclaimed. I stuck my tongue out at him. All guys really were the same.
“How much do I owe you for the food?” I asked. Both of us were already half way through our burgers and had made quite a dent in the mountain of fries between us. We had only sat down about ten minutes ago.
“I’ll just give you back the change later,” Garrett said holding up his ketchup covered fingers to show me why he wasn’t giving it to me now.
I nodded. I didn’t care if he gave me the change or not. I owed Garrett for all the other things he had paid for, for Alice and I.
I heard the door open and I looked towards it. I was just checking to see if anyone from school was coming in. It was still early, only five thirty, but you never knew.
“Are you that embarrassed to be seen with me?” Garrett asked, genuinely sounding hurt. We never really talked about the fact that we were friends outside of school, just not at it. Well apart from him apologizing for being a jerk.
We really only talked about it once. Two years ago when Maddy and Alice met at school and discovered they were neighbours, Garrett asked me to keep his caring brother side a secret. I think he was scared of it ruining his rep or something. Since then we became better friends, but we never let it carry on into school. It’s because at school he isn’t Garrett, my Garrett, he’s the other one.
We haven’t talked about it at all since then, everything just kind of happened. That’s why I was so surprised when he asked me if I wanted to be seen with him or not.
“It’s not that,” I assured him. “It’s just…” I trailed off, not really knowing how to put everything into one sentence. How do you say to someone you aren’t friends, when you clearly are and you both know it?
“We don’t have to keep doing this you know,” Garrett said. “I hate being a jerk to you at school. We could be friends there too you know.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, but things are simpler this way.”
“You’re freaking out about someone seeing us at McDonalds, is that really simpler?”
I shrugged once again. “Sorry I just can't help it. I don’t mean any offence by it, really,” I promised him.
Garrett looked like he was going to say more, but he didn’t.
A couple minutes later, when our burgers were gone and all that were left of the fries were the pathetic tiny ones, I apologized to Garrett.
“Don’t be sorry, I just forgot that I was the one that made you keep this a secret in the first place,” he said shaking his head. Garrett picked up our tray and dumped it and then left it on the shelf. Then he came and sat back down across from me.
“But you just said you wouldn’t mind being friends all the time and I turned you down.” I sucked on the straw of my drink. It was practically empty, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out yet. “Of course I need to be sorry.”
“Think about it and let me know,” Garrett said. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
“We can't just turn up all buddy-buddy at school one day,” I told him, I was trying to stall for time. I knew I didn’t have to give him my answer right now, but I still wanted to think about it now.
“Why can’t we?” he asked. “I think it would be fun to hear all the rumours of why we were.”
“Of course you would like that, you’re used to the attention, I’m not,” I reminded him.
“You’ll get used to it fast, I promise,” Garrett said.
“Come on, let’s get going,” I said standing up from the table.
“Bored of me already? Am I cutting into your secret boyfriend time?” Garrett teased me as he followed me out of the restaurant. On the way out, I dumped my ice filled cup in the garbage.
“Oh yeah, Captain Giggles is so jealous of you,” I joked back.
“He should be!” Garrett gave me a toothy smile.
“I just want to get home before its past freezing out here,” I said pulling my sweater tighter around me for emphasis.
“Don’t be such a girl,” Garrett scolded. But he threw his arm over my shoulder and I enjoyed the body heat.
“You know, I’m mad at you,” Garrett said after a moment of silence.
“Really? It was totally obvious,” I said sarcastically.
“You ditched me Wednesday. I had no one I could kidnap. I had to spend the entire evening with grandma,” Garrett complained.
“Oh, that’s terrible.” I rolled my eyes. “And I’m not going to just sit around waiting for you to come kidnap me, I have a life you know.”
“Yeah, that explains why you sit at home with your little sister each afternoon. But seriously! I got all ready to kidnap you, and then Mom told me that you weren’t even there. I was very mad.”
“And I care, so much,” I said.
We talked all the way home, and surprisingly, Garrett kept his arm on my shoulders, but I think that was also because it was easier for him to try and trip me. I didn’t move away from him though, because I hadn’t thought it would be so cold, and every time he had a chance to trip me, I would just push him back.
“I had a good time tonight,” Garrett said once we were back behind my house again.
I just nodded and raised my eyebrow at him.
“Hey! Don’t shoot me! Isn’t that what you’re supposed to say at the end of a date?” Garrett asked flashing me an innocent smile.
I laughed lightly, “Nice to know you’re using me to practice for your next one.”
I went to go up the steps to the back door but Garrett caught my elbow and stopped me from moving.
“I like you,” Garrett said casually.
“Uh, that’s good. I wouldn’t want to hang out with someone who hates me.” I went to move away, but he stopped me again.
“You’re funny Pigtails,” he said.
He leaned his head in and I tried to figure out what he was doing, but before I did, he smiled and his lips brushed mine.
It lasted only a split second, and then he stepped away and gave me the largest smile of the night.
“Good night Pigtails,” Garrett said as he started to walk backwards across the street.
I couldn’t move, I just watched him as he turned and went the rest of the way to his house. He waved from the front door and then he disappeared behind it.
I decided I hadn’t had as much sleep as I shouldn’t have gotten. So I went upstairs to go to bed early.
Because whatever just happened, I clearly just made up. Because there is no way that would actually happen.
***
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