Desperate Teens, Textfreak1 [online e reader .TXT] 📗

the days she dies as the worst moment in her life (besides the birth of her brother).
“We decided when to get married,” Christian said triumphantly. “We agreed on the perfect date for it yesterday.”
“I would like to punch you in the face,” Katrina yelled. Her brain had its time off and she couldn’t prevent saying the words. “I actually thought that you’d be clever enough not to marry her,” and she looked at Kate distastefully. “She is nothing but a gold digger who sneaked her way into this family and sabotaged my life from the very first moment,” she shouted in a blind rage.
Kate began to cry and the wide smile on Christian’s face had vanished. He arose from his chair which fell over. Kate winced as the chair hit the floor. Katrina and her father were staring into each others eyes. Rage was filling the air, you could nearly touch it. Then Christian grabbed his plate and threw it against the wall, breathing heavily.
Katrina wanted out. She had to get out of there. She couldn’t stand them any longer and didn’t know what would happened if she did stay. Katrina ran out of the room, opened the front door and bare-footed she ran out into the dark.
Bewildered she stopped in the middle of the street. She stood in the dark, because the street lamp which actually should light through the night was broken. The stars and the moon were covered by heavy black clouds. Her mind was empty. She couldn’t think of anything else, but envying those teenagers who were laughing, sleeping or just worriless right now. She would have liked to go to Pauly and tell him everything. She imagined him, bringing comfort to her.
Her hands began to shake, she fell on her knees, which began to bleed, because of the hard concrete on which she had fallen and began to shed bitter tears in the end.

* * *

If Katrina had known about Pauly’s problems she probably wouldn’t have envied him any longer, but rather compassionated him. When the darkness broke down over the suburb, Pauly didn’t bother turning on the lights. For hours, he was alone in his room. His parents were watching TV downstairs and didn’t know of any of Pauly’s problems. Lying on his bed, staring at the black ceiling he found himself thinking about a future with Isabella and their child. The more he thought about it, the clearer the image of a life with her got, the more he despised it. He made his decision. He was sure about it and it felt right (for him at least). He didn’t want Isabella to give birth to his child and certainly didn’t want her to be his girlfriend. Everybody in school said that they would be a perfect couple, but Pauly never thought the same way. He liked to have fun, but that was it. Fun nothing more, nothing less. And if someone fell in love with him, he didn’t bother. It was their problem. ‘Love. I am to young to fall in love with anyone!’ was his precept. Maybe he thought this way, because his parents got divorced three years ago. He had always seen them as the perfect couple, but when they separated his mind kind of froze. For him, women became objects not human beings to fall in love with. ‘Only god knows if I will ever fall in love with a girl.’ That was a critical question Pauly didn’t want to think about. When it happened he would deal with it, if not he wouldn’t die because of that.
When he was lying on his bed thinking about these things, the street lamps came on. They shone through his window, hurting his eyes which had gotten used to the darkness. Reluctantly he stood up. It was then, when he reached the window about to draw the curtains he noticed a girl. He had seen her a couple of times before. In school and once on his way home. It was Jessica Brewer who lived with her aunt Sheila. Pauly didn’t like Sheila too much, because once she had offended him as a football-playing-idiot.
Jessica was taking out the trash. Pauly couldn’t stop staring at her. As she got a call and remained at the trash cans, he ran out of his room, down the stairs, put on his shoes and opened the front door. His heartbeat rose and his hands became sweaty. ‘Funny, what that unknown girl does to me,’ he thought.
Jessica had pocketed her cellphone and was about to go into the house again when Pauly called after her. She stopped. When Jessica turned around she had a questioning expression in her eyes, because of the so far unknown visitor. But when her eyes met Pauly’s (and just for a second) another expression flared up in her eyes. Desire.
Of course, Pauly didn’t notice it. He just smiled simple-minded and looked at her. Seconds passed and it didn’t even occurr to him to say anything.
“You’re not really talkative, are you?” Jessica said after a while. She was annoyed.
Realizing, Pauly stammered: “S-Sorry. It was...just a h-hard day.” Apparently the answer was fine for her, because she began to smile.
“Why? What happened that tied your tongue?”
“Nothing worth mentioning, really.”
‘God, think of something. Anything. Talk about her. That’s what girls like,’ he thought and collected his thoughts.
“But enough about me,” he said, pretending self-confidence. “How was your day?”
“Silently. Well, to be honest. Boring. Last day before school starts again and what did I do? I watched TV and leafed through school books. Oh and my brother moved in today. That’s going to be real fun. He’s the most boring boy I know.”
Pauly remembered the boy with the cartons he had seen earlier that evening. ‘That had to be her brother,’ he thought. “I think I saw him earlier. Can’t imagine your sibling is boring, because you are definitely not boring.”
Jessica had to smile. ‘More compliments. Think of more compliments.’
“I love your smile. Should do that more often,” Pauly said and moved closer.
Her smile vanished from her face. Both were looking straight into each other’s eyes. They moved closer so that Pauly could feel Jessica’s breath in his face. Their lips only millimeters away from touching.
The front lights of Jessica’s house were turned on and shone brightly through the darkness. As if someone spilt a bucket of cold water over them, they moved away from each other. Sheila, Jessica’s aunt stepped out of the house followed by Andrew. Her dressing gown didn’t minimize her frightening appearance and her black look gave Pauly goose bumps.

* * *

Instantly, Andrew didn’t like Pauly. He knew exactly what type of person he was. At his old school he usually tried to prevent meeting them in corridors. Football-players. Selfish and more muscles than brain cells. That was an important fact, because when you are not one of them it’s always good to be smart (or at least a pretty girl). You can offer them your help (as if you have a choice). You give them your homework, prepare their talks and let them copy your answers in tests. Therefore they’ll let you walk home with all your teeth in place.
He wondered whether he was in his class or not. Certainly Andrew hoped that none of these walking bull terriers were in his class, but it was High School. Which meant that at least one of them would give him a hard time. He wasn’t expecting anything from his new school. And the last thing he’d expect was not to get treated like dirt. His bleak prospects were interrupted by the shrill voice of his aunt.
“Jessica Natalia Brewer! You were supposed to take the trash out, not kiss it!”
‘Did she just call this boy trash?’ Andrew couldn’t believe what he had just heard. He had never seen that boy before, but apparently he was no good. Aunt Sheila had visited him a few times before, but he had never seen her that angry. One can only imagine how embarrassing it was for Jessica who stood frozen in the light of the front lights persistently holding Pauly’s hand. Sheila raised one of her eyebrows, giving Jessica an outrageous look. As if something bit her, she let go of Pauly’s hand.
Still starring at Jessica, she snapped: “What are you waiting for?”
Jessica mumbled sheepishly: “Goodbye” and she entered the house. When she passed her aunt she side glanced at her and gave her one of the best angry looks Andrew had ever seen. Aunt Sheila watched Pauly persisently though and missed her look. “And you,” she continued in a low voice, nearly hissing, “You better keep you hands of things you can’t handle.” And with these words she entered the house as well.
Andrew looked at Pauly for a short time, but as he looked back Andrew followed his aunt. Curiosity rose like a fire inside of Andrew. He badly wanted to know what that boy had done to make his aunt that angry. Actually Andrew had never seen her like this before. Only a friendly, warm person, hugging people without their assentation. But this side of her which he had never been aware of kind of scared him to death. ‘If a by who is not a relative to her,
only a neighbor did something stupid and she disliked him that much, what would happen when he did something inappropriate?’ This question exceeded his imagination. ‘Better not find out!’ he thought to himself, silently.
When he went into the kitchen where both his aunt and his sister were standing he could almost feel the awkwardness floating in the air. He didn’t know if he should dare saying something, but nothing came up in his mind what he could do to calm down the situation. Andrew knew that his aunt was one stupid comment away from exploding.
Her head looked like a red balloon and her eyes were little slits, starring angrily at Jessica. A few beads of sweat gleamed on her forehead and her hands were formed into a small meat fists. Only a well trained psychologist could tell what was going on in her mind. That was why it was so astonishing when aunt Sheila’s fists turned into stubby fingers again and she only said in a high-pitched voice: “Jessica I know that I can’t decide whom you will or will not date, but trust me he’s no good for you. I would really appreciate it if you didn’t see him again.”
Even Jessica’s eyes widened. Andrew couldn’t quite explain what had happened to his aunt, but he definitely wanted to find out. With a look on her watch their aunt said shocked:”Oh my! Tomorrow is your first school day and we are talking in the middle of the night. Hurry up you two and get to bed!”
Andrew looked at the clock, hanging over a calendar on which the next day was circled and highlighted. It was just nine p.m. and he couldn’t remember going to bed that early before. He sighed and watched his sister leaving the kitchen without saying anything else. Andrew could understand that she didn’t want to challenge her luck. But tonight he couldn’t even think about sleeping, because he was too nervous. School never meant anything good to him! After two hours lying in his bed he got up and marched through his room