Eden (4 page)

Leaving the Pasta Garden, I walked Eden back home. It had gotten dark outside since we entered the restaurant. I hated the fact that the sun went down so early in autumn and winter, it felt later than it really was. I walked Eden down the street to her house.

“I had a wonderful time, Thomas,” Eden said when we reached her doorstep.

“I did, too,” I agreed quickly.

“My parents still aren’t here,” she told me, “but if you’d like I could cook you dinner tomorrow.”

I couldn’t say yes fast enough. The idea of Eden cooking for me was just too good to be true. Girls only cook for guys that they really like, right? I wish I could think of something else to say to her. I didn’t want this night to end. It was like a dream come true.

“So, I’ll see you at school tomorrow?” Eden asked, closing any hope I had of prolonging the night.

“Of course,” I promised.

“Good,” she said smiling and then she leaned forward and kissed me lightly on the lips, “I had a wonderful evening with you, Thomas. Thank you.”

I stood there rooted to the steps. I must have had a look of complete shock on my face because Eden covered her mouth and silently giggled into her hand. I planned to say something back to her, I really did, but nothing would come out of my mouth.

“Good night,” she said quietly, opening the door to her home and silently slipping inside.

It wasn’t until Eden slowly closed the door, leaving me all alone on the door step that I was able to quietly mutter, “You’re welcome.”

5

The next morning I was in such a good mood, you would think that it wasn’t the first day of school. I literally bounced out of bed the second the alarm clock sounded and even though I had barely gotten any sleep last night, my body felt energized.

I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before because after returning home, Eden’s kiss ran through my mind over and over. I still couldn’t believe it. My first kiss! My father was in shock when he saw me exit my bedroom whistling.

“Are you alright?” he asked, “You do remember that today is the first day of school, right?”

“Sure, Dad,” I reassured him, “I remember.”

A smile played across my mother’s face. She knew why I was in such a good mood this morning. She leaned over and whispered something into my father’s ear. I couldn’t hear what she told him, all I could make out were my father’s responses.

“What…him…are you sure?” were the only fragmented parts of the conversation that I could over hear. My father looked over at me with a mix of pride and surprise and gave me a thumb’s up, “Way to go, son.”

“Thanks,” I said, blushing.

After a bowl of cereal and some juice, I headed to the end of the block, where my bus stop was. Drake and Kyle were already waiting when I arrived.

“Where’s Matt?” I asked, approaching my friends.

“Late as usual,” Kyle replied.

“I heard that we have the same bus driver this year,” I told them.

“Freaking Howie?” Drake asked in amazement, “I’m surprised that they gave that loser a driver’s license. He’s not playing with a full deck.”

“Same bet as always?” I asked. The others knew exactly what I meant.

“I call left sideburn,” Kyle said first.

“I call the neck,” I chose next.

“I’m going with the right mustache,” Drake said after a moment of contemplation.

“I…choose…right…side…burn,” we heard from behind us.

It was Matt, he was huffing and puffing, but he made it to the bus stop just in time; we could see the bus coming down the street.

“We got Howie again this year?” Matt asked, arriving at the correct assumption after hearing us place our bets.

“Yeah,” Drake confirmed, “God help us.”

“Here he comes,” I announced, waiting for the moment of truth.

The bus pulled to a stop alongside the curb and the doors opened with a whoosh. Sitting behind the driver’s seat was the same driver we had last year. I pumped my arm in victory. Looking up at Howie, I could see that his face was perfectly shaved…all except for his neck which was covered with at least a four-day growth of hair.

As Drake so eloquently phased it, we didn’t think Howie was all there. He had a perpetual case of bed head and he often showed up with big patches of hair on his face that, somehow, he had missed while shaving. It was a mystery how he failed to notice the unwanted hair because every kid in school could spot it from miles away.

“Hello Thomas,” he greeted as I entered the school bus.

“Hi Howie,” I returned.

Another thing about Howie was that he always spoke in his trademark slow voice and annunciated each single syllable, like he had only recently learned the English language. He also never used nicknames; he had never once said ‘Hello Tom’ or ‘Hello Tommy’ it was always ‘Hello Thomas’ slow and simple. I had once tried to get him to call me Tom, but it was like he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

After a rounding chorus of ‘Hello Kyle’ and ‘Hello Dwight’, we took our seats near the back of the bus and Howie drove down the street.

It still amazed us how Howie kept his job. I guess it is because he only drives high school buses. It wasn’t that he was a bad driver, but if any parent had been waiting at the bus stop holding the hand of their little child and Howie pulled up, I think they would decide that driving their children to school themselves was in their best interest.

A few minutes later Howie was pulling the bus up to the front doors of East Harbor High. We exited the school bus and joined the swarm of teenagers entering the school.

“See you at lunch, Tom,” Matt mocked, “Try not to miss us too much.”

Matt was making a reference to the fact that my three friends were all in homeroom 11-C and I was all alone in 11-B; little did they know that I had a new friend.

“I’ll do my best,” I promised, heading down the hall to my locker.

I had the same locker as I had last year, which was good because it meant that I didn’t need to memorize a new combination, but it was also bad because my locker happened to be across the hall from the gym. There were no classrooms in the area, which meant that I had to gather all my books for my morning classes because there would be no chance to stop off at my locker in between.

I was just opening my locker when I caught a flash of movement behind me and my locker door was suddenly slammed shut. Turning around, I was faced with my old nemesis, David Staggert. Staggert had been tormenting me since elementary school. He usually traveled around with a small group of thugs, but it looked like this morning he was alone.

“Howdy, Cream Puff,” he greeted me.

I can’t remember where that name came from, but Staggert had been calling me Cream Puff for years. It was pretty lame as far as name calling went but I could never remember Staggert using fowl language, which was kind of strange. Usually bullying and cussing went hand in hand.

“Hi, Staggert,” I said in return, “What’s going on?”

“School,” he seemed to be waiting for someone to laugh at his feeble attempt at a joke until he probably remembered that his gang wasn’t here.

“I’ll be watching you,” he threatened, pointing his finger at me. Then he turned and walked away.

I will never figure him out. I’ve given up fighting back because we had never had an actual fight before. He just liked to insult people, but for the most part his insults never made any sense. I find myself mystified, rather than angry, at his little remarks. When challenged, he often backs down, but comes right back the next day as if nothing happened. Some times he is even friendly; maybe when he is older he will be diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. Until then, I will just have to accept him as he was.

After gathering all the books I would need for my morning classes, I made my way to my homeroom. Entering the classroom, I could see a few faces that I recognized, but none of them were really friends to me. I took a seat in the back of the room, making sure that there was an empty seat next to me for Eden.

The bell signaled the beginning of homeroom and everyone took their seat. Luckily, no one took the vacant desk next to me. The teacher came into the room, Mr. Olsen.

“Today we have a new student,” Mr. Olsen announced, commanding the class’ attention, “Her name is Eden Sinclair. She is a new resident of East Harbor, please welcome her.”

Eden came walking, shyly, into the classroom. I could almost hear the collective gasp from every student. I could see every boy in the class looking at her with an expression of awe and every girl with an expression of envy.

“Ms. Sinclair, please take any open seat you desire,” Mr. Olsen offered.

Eden appeared to be looking around the room for something and then her eyes fell on me and she smiled. Mine wasn’t the only heart that melted at the sight of her smile; I could hear new gasps of awe escaping the lips of many of the boys in the class.

Eden waved to me and every head in the classroom turned to look directly at me as I waved back to her. Looks of astonishment played across every face present.

“Hi Thomas,” she whispered as she reached my desk, “Thank you so much for saving me a seat next to you.” She briefly ran her hand over mine before taking her seat, but it was enough to send a hot chill through my body.

I looked up at the faces around me; they all stared at my hand and then back to me. Eden seemed oblivious to all the observers around us.

Our first class was math. I hated math, especially first thing in the morning. Beyond addition and subtraction, I didn’t really see the point. Sure multiplication and division came in handy at times, but how often will we use calculus and algebra in the real world? Today, though, it didn’t seem as bad as usual, but that could be due to the fact that I had Eden sitting beside me.

After math came history. I loved history; everything about the past really interested me. It seemed like Eden shared my love of history because she actually squealed with delight when she received her textbook, like she had never seen one before. I should have guessed that any teen-ager that read Charles Dickens would also love history. It was just another item to add to the growing list of things we had in common.

Being the first day of school, we really didn’t accomplish anything in any of our classes. They were all pretty much just a chance to meet our new teachers and to receive any text books that the class required, but it was still a relief when the lunch bell sounded.

“I want to dump my books at my locker,” I told Eden when we entered the hallway.

“Me too,” she agreed.

Eden’s locker was at the opposite end of the school building, so we made plans to meet up in the cafeteria.

“If you get there before me, could you save me a seat?” I asked her.

“Sure,” she agreed and headed down the hallway towards her locker.

Reaching my locker, I threw my books in and closed it. Re-entering the main hallway, I met up with Matt, Kyle and Drake.

“How was your morning?” Kyle asked.

“Yeah, were you lonely?” Matt added.

“No,” I said honestly, “I didn’t miss you guys at all.”

“It’s ok,” Drake said, patting my back, “it’s not healthy to keep all that emotion bottled up inside you.”

“I think I’ll survive,” I laughed, thinking of Eden waiting for me.

We stopped off at the guys lockers so that they could drop off their books. It was a few minutes before we reached the cafeteria, I could see Eden sitting all alone at a table waiting for me.

“There’s that new girl I heard about,” Drake whispered, glancing towards Eden.

“She is so hot,” Kyle practically drooled.

“I wish she was in my class,” Matt added, “I’d be all over that.”

I didn’t say anything. I just waited in line to order my lunch.

After we each got our food, we headed over to an empty table. All the guys placed their trays on the table and sat down; everyone except for me. I kept my tray in my hands, I had somewhere else to be.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Matt asked, “Have a seat.”

“Sorry, guys,” I told them, “I’m wanted elsewhere.”

I took my tray and headed over to Eden’s table; she saw me and waved me over to her table. I didn’t have to turn around to see the looks of astonishment and envy that must have been crossing the faces of my friends.

“There you are,” Eden greeted me as I placed my food on the table, “Are you going to introduce me to your friends?”

“Not now,” I said, “I can introduce you some other time, right now I want to keep you all to myself for as long as I can.”

“Don’t worry,” Eden consoled, “You can keep me to yourself for as long as you like.” I could feel my face turn beet red at her reply.

We ate lunch and talked about the subjects we would be attending this afternoon. Periodically, I would glance over at my friends. They were not talking; they were just staring over at Eden and me while they ate lunch. I knew that they wanted to come over and introduce themselves or ask me how I knew this girl, but none of them had the courage to approach Eden. Truthfully, if she hadn’t been my neighbor, I would have never had the courage to even say hello to such a beautiful girl, so I couldn’t fault them for that.

“How did you get to school this morning?” I asked her.

That question had been plaguing me since this morning, since Eden’s parents are still away on business.

“I took a taxi,” she explained, “I’m so claustrophobic and I would go crazy on a crowded school bus. I would probably hyperventilate.”

I didn’t like the thought of her in distress.

“I didn’t see a taxi this morning,” I pointed out, hoping that she wouldn’t be offended by my questioning.

“The school gets kind of crowded when all the students arrive,” she explained, “so I have the taxi drop me off a few minutes before the buses arrive and pick me up after the buses leave in the afternoon. That way I won’t get overwhelmed by the crowd of students.”

“So you will take a taxi to and from school everyday?” I asked her, thinking how expensive that would be.

“I have no choice,” she explained, “Luckily the classrooms here are so big and there are not many students in each room.”

“That’s because years ago the children from New Harbor used to attend school here, too,” I explained, giving her a little history lesson of my own, “New Harbor used to be even smaller than East Harbor and they didn’t have the money to fund their own school. So, when they built a school here, they made it big enough to accommodate the children from both towns.”

“I’m glad that New Harbor flourished, then,” she said with a laugh.