My Stupid Girl (7 page)

I couldn't believe my eyes.

Lucy was standing outside in the rain
looking like a drowned kitten. She grinned at me, hair flattened against her
head, eyelashes dripping huge drops. I whisked the curtains closed and hurried
to get a shirt on. I’d already been half naked around this girl; there was
nothing to see here.

Shirt firmly on my back, I re-opened the
curtains and lifted up the window to peer down at Lucy. I felt a wet hand-slap
on my forearm. It didn't hurt but it startled me. I stepped back a few inches.

"It’s been two weeks!" I heard
her voice coming out of the darkness over the sound of water falling from every
possible surface. This felt like it needed a response, but I was not delighted
about the prospect of another slap from the soggiest girl I’d ever seen. I
poked my head back out and Lucy was glaring at me so viciously that I was
surprised daggers weren’t shooting out of her eyeballs.

"You haven't called me! You moved to
Whitefish?!" Her hands were on her hips, water pouring off the ends of
elbows. She was so adorable, trying to scold me in the middle of a Noah’s
ark-style deluge. I couldn't help but smile.

"Why are you standing there smiling
like an idiot? Let me in!" She stamped her foot, sending droplets of water
and mud flying. Her hands lifted up to me like I was supposed to pick her up
into my room. I stared for a minute.

"Um, yeah, why don't I just open the
front door for you?” I pointed to the front of the house which was a whopping
twenty feet away.

"Oh." She put her hands down and
turned around to head toward the front porch. As I walked across my room I
heard a thunk. I headed back to the window and saw her body smashed against the
side of the house.

"Lucy? What happened? What are you
doing?" In response, I saw a long finger pointing to something in the
rainy dark. I couldn't see anything so I squinted. Finally I made out a little
black object that was moving back and forth in little shuffling steps.

"Throw something at it," Lucy
squeaked. If a person had a hundred spiders crawling on them they would sound
about the same. My face split into a grin. I couldn’t help it. Besides, she
couldn’t see me, which was good. She was terrified.

"What is it?" I asked her
quietly.

"A dog," she said in a voice
dripping with disgust.

"A dog? It looks more like a rat,
don’t you think?”

If that was a dog it was a Chihuahua. Lucy
didn’t budge. Her hand was still held up, pointing at the little blob.

"I don't care what it looks
like!" She was sliding sideways against the house, slipping down, still
refusing to move forward. Even though I knew it would totally kill my
reputation, I couldn't help it, I laughed. It probably sounded like a mouse
sneezing (I don’t get a lot of practice) but there it was. Her head snapped up
and at first she was looking thunderous, like she’d slap me again if she could
convince herself it was safe to move. But when she realized my laugh was
because of a hulking dog-rat beast she cracked a half smile and shrugged a
little.

"Oh, just pull me up." She held
her hands up again. Apparently I was supposed to sprout giant Popeye muscles
and lift her straight up in the air with my forearms. She waved them
impatiently waiting for me to grab them.

“You hiding spinach in your back pocket?” I
asked, amused.

“What?” She cocked her head to the side.

"Stand on something, at least," I
didn’t feel like explaining with the prospect of super-soaker soon to be in my
room. 

"Are you serious? Like what?" Her
eyes were darting from the dog to me and then around the dark side of the house
for something.

"What about that bucket,
Sherlock?" I pointed to a purple sandbox kid’s toy a few feet away from
her. She shot me a disgusted look after she realized what I was gesturing at. I
was really enjoying this. Lucy released the side of the house and slinked over
to the bucket like she was a part of the mission impossible crew. As she
touched the bucket the little dog started growling.

Lucy stopped dead in her tracks, frozen
halfway bent over, her eyes like saucers.

"Just kick it!" I called out to
her.

"No way." She was whispering with
so much force it would have been quieter if she had just talked to me. "It
has teeth."

"You’re wearing boots. What can that
thing do?" The bedraggled girl’s irrational fear of dogs was making my
entire week. She stood still for a few more seconds and then burst into action.

"Oh shut up!" She swung her leg
in the general direction of the little dog-blob, scooped up the bucket, and
raced back to the window. Her knees picked up higher than her face, like she
was running on quicksand. She threw the bucket down and leaped onto it, almost
falling sideways in her attempt to launch herself at the window. Although she
couldn’t make it on her own, the plastic bucket did give her at least six more
inches. I grabbed hold under her armpits and started to heave.

"Why is it I’m always pulling you out
of something?" I murmured into the top of her head. She was really close
to me; her wet hair was sticking to the side of my face. I heard her grunt with
amusement. She was walking up the side of wall and managed to get her knee on
the sill, then her left foot. She pushed off and went flying over my head, into
my room. We both landed on the ground with a thump.

As soon as I made eye contact with this
crazy girl I saw her open her mouth and I knew there was going to be an
obnoxious, booming laugh. She must have seen me flinch because she put her
hands over her mouth and instead laughed into her hands. No noise came from her
mouth, but her shoulders shook uncontrollably. In a few moments, tears started
to stream down her face. Finally, the laugh-seizure passed and the hands came
off the mouth. Lucy rolled over on to her side and sighed deeply. Then she
looked over at me and pulled out the devastating smile.

"Hi." She said.

I shook my head, feeling what I assumed to
be the stupidest smile ever spreading across my face.

"Hey, Lucy."

Her smile quickly turned into a little
frown that was echoed in a scrunch of her adorable eyebrows. My heart ached a
little.

"It’s been two weeks, David." She
said quietly, investigating some invisible spot on her hands.

"Yeah, I know." I looked down
too. I had no idea what to say. I wanted to make her feel better somehow. I
really didn’t like the eyebrow scrunch.

"How are you?" I asked her,
looking up to see her staring at me.

"Like you care!" She crossed her
arms in a huff and glared at me again.

"I'm sorry, Lucy. Honestly, I didn't
even think you would notice," I said truthfully.

"Oh, I see. A boy comes out of
nowhere, saves my life and it’s just supposed to slip my mind that he hasn't
called me? Especially after I specifically asked him to?" Yeah, that makes
perfect sense. How silly of me!" Her eyebrows were performing acrobatics,
now. Very stern, irritated acrobatics. 

"Sorry. I did think about it," I
admitted.  "A lot, actually.” Her face instantly morphed from stern to
sunshiny as a little smile pressed at the corners of her mouth.

"You did?" She bit her bottom
lip, trying to edit herself. "Why didn’t you, then? You act like jumping
into a freezing lake is easier than calling a girl." She let her arms
relax a little but she still looked hurt.

She was SO right about that. Saving her was
mostly a reaction; I would have saved anyone, even pretty boy, Mike. But
calling Lucy took effort. Thoughtful effort. Thinking was my Achilles heel. I
was a serious over-thinker. I would think and think until I started thinking
about why I was over-thinking. Then I’d ponder that for a while. Most of the
time whatever I was thinking about was long-done by the time I was finished
thinking about it. Thus, most things I had to think about didn’t really get
done.

I was also a chicken.

I shrugged my shoulders, feeling stupid.
She smacked my arm and graced me with a full smile.

"I'm soaking wet, can I borrow some
clothes?" Her big innocent eyes paired with a slightly cocked head, all
very natural, like this was the most normal and reasonable request in the
world.

"Err…." was all that came out of
my mouth, "Sure?" It sounded like a question. The soaking wet cutie
who’d just flown through my window wanted to wear my clothes. Totally normal.

I walked over to my closet, heaved the door
open, and stared blankly into it. What on earth would she want to wear? I had
black shirts, some black pants, and a few pairs of skinny jeans that I was
positive her curvy hips wouldn't fit into.

"You got any pajama pants?" She
called from the bathroom. Good, great. Make yourself at home.

"Yes. I'm wearing them," I
answered her. I remembered a pair of green cargo pants I had worn a couple of
times when I was younger. Out they came from the box at the back of the closet.
She materialized by my side and grabbed them, along with a Nine Inch Nails
shirt I didn’t even have time to say goodbye to. She scampered back to the
bathroom and closed the door behind her.

I heard a few splats where her clothes must
have hit the tile floor. She opened the door, sauntered out, and I saw her
clothes laying in a wet pile in the middle of my bathroom. My first reaction
was to brush by her and pick them up but I was momentarily paralyzed by the way
she looked.

How could someone who had wet, stringy
hair, no makeup and baggy boy clothes on be so stunningly beautiful? The girl
literally made my knees weak. Noticing the Jello in my legs, I realized I was
becoming something that I thought I hated. Whether or not I ever called her, I
had to stop kidding myself that this girl didn't make a difference to me.
Realizing that I was ogling, I tried to scrape my jaw up from the floor.

Lucy walked towards me and sat on the edge
of my bed. I sat down in my computer chair and rested my head on the back,
consciously avoiding looking in her direction. My ceiling had never gotten this
much attention from me.

I was glad that I rarely washed my makeup
off. Lucy, on the other hand, had the prettiest skin. It was pale and clear,
but with a rosy undertone. Her top lip was bigger than her bottom and her two
front teeth were a little too big for her mouth. She didn't seem ashamed of
them because she was always smiling, showing them off. Her wide eyes laughed at
me every time my gaze slipped from the ceiling to her face. It seemed like even
the slightest flaws were endearing, mostly because she seemed unaware of them.

"How'd you find me anyway?" I
asked, forcing myself to look at her.

 "I cornered Johnny at school today
and I made him tell me where you were."

I laughed a little. Poor Johnny. "And
he just gave me up that easy, huh?"

Her grin, as she nodded, was like a string
that pulled my hand around to pat my hair down against my right eye. "He
looked a little scared, actually." And her open smile turned slightly wry,
like she completely understood how Johnny had given me up so easy.

"I'm sure he was petrified with a
pretty girl chasing him down and demanding information."

I felt myself blush; I was so lame.

Lucy smiled at me and crossed her legs in
front of her to sit Indian style, putting her bare feet on my bed.

"He told me that he was supposed to
bring you your car. So I told him I would do it." She looked pleased with
herself. "It was my first time driving stick shift."

"Wait, what?" I said quickly.
"You drove my car here, in the rain. You've never driven a stick
before?!"

"Um, yes? I made it here; your car is
fine!" She said defensively.

"I'm not worried about my car, Lucy.
That thing is on its last leg, it’s about to die any day. And you were driving
in this rain on the icy roads? Seriously?”

My face was turning red, I could feel it. I
was going to hit Johnny the next time I saw him. Lucy looked down like she
realized, for the first time, that her whole escapade had been something other
than the best idea ever. Then her concerned look vanished and she put her hand
up to her mouth.

"What?" I said, staring at her
huge blue eyes. She dropped her hand and then started to giggle.

"I just realized I drove your car up
here to see you!" Was she being serious? Hadn't we just gone over this?

"You’re going to have to drive me back
home!" She bent over, laughing her obnoxious laugh and slapping her knee
like this was the best joke she ever told.

"Wow, you’re a nerd." I said it
without thinking. I instantly grimaced because it was something that I would
say to one of my close friends, definitely not to a girl I’d only met twice.
But I’d just had a moment of feeling completely comfortable around her and had
said something without thinking. Cringing, I snuck a glance at her and she was
beaming at me.

"Total nerd,” she agreed. “I can’t
believe I did that!" She shook her head again. "I guess all I could
think about was coming to see you. I hadn't thought the whole thing
through." She looked apologetically at me and shrugged her shoulders.

"Well, I'm glad you came," I said
quietly.

"You are?" Her head popped back
up. She asked in such a sweet voice that seriously I considered melting.

"Yeah." I answered her. I was
dying. I was a bleeding heart, whispering sugary reassurances to a gorgeous
girl who was sitting on my bed. I’d known her a few weeks and this girl was
getting closer to me than almost anyone else in my life ever had, barging into
my space and prying me open. It was extremely uncomfortable. I looked at the
clock on my wall, which was a nervous habit of mine, and saw what time it was.
Almost eleven at night.

"Um, do you want me to take you home
now? It’s late. Won’t Mike be worried?" I asked her, trying not to sound
curious. Or bitter. Super, angry bitter.