The Best Thing for Me

by Lauren Jackson

  We finished eating in silence and I helped her clean. We talked a bit more and I found she was really easy to chat with. So I did. We kept going for ages. It was actually nice having a proper conversation with someone besides Mel or my family. I cool breeze swept through the kitchen, making me shiver.

  "I'll go grab you a jumper. Oh, do you need anything? Hair brush? Toothbrush? I know you probably don't feel very human-like at the moment."

  "That'd be great," I said in a rush. "Thanks heaps."

  I followed her into her room and she chucked me a jumper. It was too big for me, but smelt nice and was warm. I snuggled into it. After I went to the bathroom, cleaned my teeth and attempted to brush my hair, I felt normal again.

  That was the moment Jason decided to re-visit, which I was thankful for. He strolled in casually.

  "Morning sis, morning Em."

  "Hey."

  "How ya feeling?"

  He looked great. He was in track pants and a hoodie. His blond hair flopped messily onto his forehead, making me want to reach out and brush it back. His skin was clear and his eyes were nice and round. He was so attractive.

  I then realized I'd been just staring into space.

  "Oh, um, better now that I've eaten. Thanks so much for taking me home - well, your sister’s home and everything. I really appreciate it."

  He shrugged nonchalantly. "Yeah, no sweat."

  "Yeah, completely fine Em," his sister called, her voice drifting towards us although I wasn’t sure where it was coming from. "I owe your Dad anyway."

  "Oh?"

  "Yeah, he's that attractive builder up on the hill yeah?"

  "Um, I guess so?"

  She chuckled, realising that was probably a silly thing to ask his daughter. "Well, he helped me out a few years back, treated me real good. Felt like I owed him."

  "Oh, well I'm very grateful."

  She beamed. "Well, Jase will drop you home whenever you're ready. No rush, stay as long as you want."

  "Oh, I can walk-"

  "Don't start." She warned, giving me 'the look' and I knew not to argue. I could tell she was going to make a great mother one day.

  I rolled my eyes but smiled at her. Jason grabbed his keys and we headed out towards the car. We didn't say much to our way back to my place, I kept waiting for him to say something, but he never did. So I stayed quiet, just looking out the window. I wiped my sweaty palms on the bottom of my skirt, hating the fact that they went clammy at anything out of the ordinary happening in my life.

  "Could you park at the bottom of the hill?" I asked suddenly, hoping it didn’t come across rude. "I don't want Dad to ask questions."

  "Sure."

  We came to a smooth halt. He cut the engine and gave me a lazy smile. I turned half my body towards him, my heart rate picking up slightly.

  "Thanks again. I really owe you."

  He waved his hand in dismissal. I swallowed, sitting there awkwardly. When he made no inclination to move, I slithered out of the car whilst removing the jumper. I folded it neatly on his passenger seat and smiled at him gratefully.

  "So..." I said, not wanting to leave, but I knew I had to. The more I thought about it the more nervous I got, so the next words that escaped my lips even surprised me. "Guess we'll go back to knowing each other much. See ya."

  I shut the door and hurried away before he could say anything. I hoped I hadn't sounded rude, but it was the truth.

  Well, I hoped it wasn't, but I knew it was going to be. This wasn’t going to be some cliché moment for me where the popular boy befriends the lonely, quiet girl, unfortunately.

  Like he would be my friend. He's practically an 'It' boy and I'm just, me.

  It didn't stop me hoping though...

  6

  I stood on my tip-toes as I searched the hot box for any remaining Pizza Singles. I grumbled to myself, if only the person in front wasn't so tall. I peeked around him and spotted one. My arm twitched as I was tempted to do a little victory dance.

  As I was still on my tip-toes, I slightly overbalanced myself, bumping the rather tall person in front. My forehead connecting with their back painfully.

  "Oops, sorry!" I squeaked. I silently added, please don't hurt me.

  "No worries," a familiar voice said. He turned around and I felt all the saliva retract from my mouth. My stomach did its automatic flip whenever I was in his vicinity. I cleared my throat, trying to act as casual as possible.

  "Oh, hey Em." Jason smiled politely.

  "Good thanks!" I automatically blurted.

  Oh. My. God.

  Please, please tell me I did not just say that?

  My face flooded with heat as I tried to recover my very embarrassing moment. He laughed at my mortified expression.

  Just as I went to speak, he did at the same time.

  Oh, save me now.

  I slapped my forehead with my palm, holding in a rather large groan. I just wanted to hit myself into a coma and not wake up until school was finished.

  "This isn't going well," he said, a playful grin on his face.

  "Yeah, tell me about it."

  He just shook his head at me, a small smirk dancing on his lips. "You're quite cute when you’re embarrassed."

  My mouth fell open. Rewind. Sexy, tall, surfer, 'It' boy said what?

  He turned around and ordered which was good; I could try and gain control of my face and emotions. I focused on inhaling and exhaling, furiously wiping my stupid sweaty palms on my school pants. My mind was racing as I processed his words.

  Does he think I'm cute?

  Or did he mean like little sister cute?

  Was I reading too much into it?

  He turned around, winking as he walked away. My knees wobbled together. I leant on the counter heavily, probably looking like I had just run a marathon.

  "Um, your order, miss?" the lady asked, frowning at me.

  "Oh, um, the Sizza Pingle please."

  Oh jeeze. What was with me!?

  "Excuse me?" the lady asked in utter confusion.

  "Er-" I fumbled, embarrassed. "The pizza single."

  She gave me a strange look as she retrieved it. I tried to behave normally, but my face betrayed me. I slowly walked up the corridor towards my seat. I couldn't help but notice some girls looking at me. They'd been staring all morning. I'd already been to bathroom to check if I had something on my face or toilet paper stuck somewhere on me, or even a 'Kick Me' note on my back. I couldn't find anything.

  I kept going, choosing to ignore them. Even if I chose to ignore, didn't mean I didn't hear segments of conversations.

  Yeah... she was the one in the killer dress.

  Isn't she best friends with Melanie Stewart?

  She got so smashed the other night.

  She looked really good.

  I heard she left with Jason Mayor.

  I stared wide-eyed. People were talking about me in a not completely terrible way? This day was just getting weirder and weirder. I located my group and sidled in, hoping to not attract anymore unwanted attention. I grinned and said 'hey' to a few before digging into my pizza. Or should I call it my sizza? Har de har.

  I felt my phone go off and I attractively wiped my fingers on my clothes, reaching for it.

  "Heeelllo?"

  "Hey Emz, how are ya?"

  "Alright, yourself?"

  "Not bad. I'm just at the supermarket and I was wondering what you want for dinner?"

  "Umm." I bit my lip, thinking about it. What I really wanted was tacos but since I request it every night, Dad automatically just says no now which is a bit depressing. "Spaghetti?"

  "Okay, nice and easy then."

  "Oh! And don't forget to buy chocolate."

  "Of course not." he replied with a laugh. I hung up, pocketing my phone, and resumed with my yummy pizza, too absorbed with the delicious flavoring to notice one of the girls staring at me.

  "Who was that?" Anna, a girl with messy dirty blonde hair and heavy eye make-up asked. Not to
be rude but her intense eye make-up made me think of a raccoon, but I would never dare say that out loud. She played with her phone, not looking at me. I felt like saying something exotic like, 'Oh, just my boyfriend who's in America currently,' or, 'Just my ex-boyfriend who won't stop calling me."

  But, what would be the point in that?

  "Just my Dad." I said lamely with a smile.

  The rest of the day breezed by, not seeming to get much weirder. I did get some glares from the 'It' girls which made me hide away pathetically. It actually did make me quite worried so I ran out of school as fast as I could. I climbed my hill and banged open the door.

  "Yo yo, stud-muffin of the family is home." I called out theatrically.

  I heard my Dad snort attractively in response, clearly disagreeing. "Yeah right, love. Forgetting I'm in the family?"

  Rolling my eyes, it was my turn to laugh. "Keep dreaming."

  I deposited my bag and threw on some clothes before entering the kitchen. I rummaged through the bags eagerly, but my face fell in horror as realization dawned on me.

  This could not be happening.

  "What?" Dad asked, coming over, sensing the rage that was building up inside of me.

  I groaned dramatically, throwing my hands up in the air to emphasise how annoyed I was.

  "You forgot the chocolate!"

  7

  We all piled into class restlessly. I managed to grab my spot in the corner right back, which I was thankful for. I will have a mini panic attack the day someone gets there before me. I opened my book and pulled out my pen. No one sat next to me per usual. I guess that was okay with me though because I was used to it by now. The teacher, Ms. Wilson began her lecture, striding around the room. She was explaining about an in-class task we had to do with partners.

  Wait, partners?

  Oh. Crap.

  She finished explaining what we had to do and that there would be great consequences if anyone didn't do any work and left it all to one person, blah blah.

  "So..." She said, as she finishing up. "If you don't find partners I'll put you into pairs. No going with your best pals or people you know well. This task is about broadening your knowledge and team work. Team work with someone you don't know much about or want to. Make it quick before I start choosing."

  I just sat there awkwardly. May as well just wait for her to pick some other loner instead of embarrassing myself trying to look for someone. I doodled in my book, waiting, so it surprised me when someone slid into the seat beside me.

  "Hey Em." The lovely voice said and my stomach clenched instantly.

  I glanced up. His blond hair was extra floppy today and his eyes piercing blue. His tanned skin matched his hair and eyes so perfectly. I felt plain and ugly beside him. I was tanned I guess, but it was more just my skin type. His was more a surfy tan which was considered ‘perfect’ in my town.

  "Hi." I couldn't help a grin stretch across my face. "Are we going to be partners?"

  "If you will have me." he smiled teasingly causing my stomach to only tighten, yet again.

  Would I ever. I thought.

  "Of course." I recovered smoothly. (Or so I attempted).

  We got to it. I was pretty pleased he actually did some research and wrote stuff down. I gazed at him as he summarised some notes. His writing was slightly slanted and was like neat scribble if that even makes sense? His arm muscles flexed deliciously as he wrote. He typed on his laptop a few times before resuming writing again.

  "See something you like?" he winked at me before looking back down at his notes.

  My stomach did a back flip and I averted my eyes, feeling the heat rush to my cheeks.

  "Er, just seeing what you were up to." I lied lamely. I quickly continued with my own notes, refusing to let myself look at him.

  "You type awfully fast," he noted after numerous minutes of silence.

  "Yeah, well, I write a lot of writing stories."

  "Oh really? What about?"

  "All different stuff, really." I shrugged, not wanting to admit that I write romance stories when I had absolutely no experience of that myself. "Kind of hard to explain."

  "Oh okay."

  I felt eyes on me and glanced up, noticing Britney was glaring at me from across the room. My blood ran cold at the stare. I dropped my gaze, swallowing nervously.

  "Oh dear." I murmured, looking away. "Don't kill me."

  He laughed, looking up at where I had been previously. "That's a bit dramatic. Those girls are all talk. They won't hurt you."

  "Not Jamie." I snorted and muttered without thinking.

  "What?"

  I froze.

  Did I say that out loud?

  "I just said that's lamey."

  "No you didn't. What about Jamie?"

  "...Lamey," I protested quietly and he glared at me, seeing right through my lies as most people do. I sighed deeply, feeling like the annoying kid that always dobs everyone in. "It was nothing, I practically tripped. It was my fault."

  He looked at me fiercely. "Cut the cra-"

  "Okay, okay!" I surrendered. He sounded strangely like Mel. "She thought I overheard something, she made sure I wouldn't tell."

  He banged his fist on the table, making a few people glance over. I sunk into my chair, hating the gazes on me. I felt my face flush.

  "Don't attract attention." I whispered.

  He got up, much to my despair. Horrified, I watched him make his way towards the ‘It’ girls group (of course they all managed to be partnered up together).

  "Noooo!" I whispered furiously.

  He strode over to Jamie's table crouching next to her. By the way he sat and the muscles in his back twitched, which were excellent by the way, it seemed he wasn't being too friendly. I gulped, the panic rising in the pit of my stomach.

  Oh no.

  Complete and utter social suicide right here. She glanced over at me with scorching eyes and he said something to make her widen her eyes. She sagged her shoulders and replied. They continued to quietly argue. My heart was racing the entire conversation.

  This was bad.

  Very, very bad.

  He finally finished and strode confidently back over, sitting beside me. I folded my arms across my chest and made a grumpy face at him.

  "Hey, don't be mad. I sorted things out. She'll leave you alone."

  "I was handling it fine by myself."

  "Sure." he replied, sarcasm dripping in his voice.

  I narrowed my eyes and flicked my pony tail. I turned away and finished doing my work. I was grateful that he would do that for me and he meant well, but I just knew this would end disastrously. Once he goes back to pretending I don’t exist, they will come at me with fire blazing.

  "We're probably not going to get this done now, hey." he said lazily, stretching back. My lips parted as I gazed creepily at him. I shook my head, snapping back to reality.

  "We have a week." I argued.

  "We only have one more class until then."

  I didn't want to admit he was right, but of course, he was. I sighed, tapping my pen on my book.

  "Well what are we going to do?"

  "Want to come around to mine tomorrow?"

  I just blinked at him, several times. I didn't just make that up, right?

  "What?" I said stupidly.

  "Did you want to come to mine tomorrow afternoon to finish it off?" he repeated more slowly, as if I had a hearing deficiency.

  I shook my head, as if that would clear away my annoying thoughts.

  "Oh. Yeah. That’s sounds great. What time?"

  "Well, just come home with me after school?"

  "Okay. Cool." I shrugged casually as if this wasn’t possibly a life changing moment for me.

  He smiled and I beamed back genuinely. My cheeks were actually beginning to ache as I was smiling so much lately. The bell buzzed loudly and I forced my hands to pack up my stuff.

  "See you tomorrow."

  "Um, yeah, see ya." I said, scuttling away. I w
anted to do a little dance, and sing and just go hug someone. But that would be weird. And creepy. I remained calm, except that I was grinning like a lunatic. I couldn’t help the skip that made its way into my step.

  I rushed home and vaguely told Dad I was going to a friend’s tomorrow and that Mel needed me this afternoon.

  "Um, yeah, okay." he said distractedly, bending over something that required a spanner.

  I ran down my hill and down to Mel's mansion. I threw the door open and kicked my shoes somewhere. I ran up her stairs and kicked open her door dramatically, about to announce one of the greatest things ever to happen to me.

  Woah, woah, WOAH.

  "AHHHH!" I cried out.

  My eyes! Oh my precious eyes!

  Luke. Yeah, my older bro and my bestie were canoodling. On her bed, with limited clothing.

  I ran back out as fast as I came in. I tripped down the stairs, just grabbing the rail to save myself. I wildly flailed, trying to find my shoes, hoping that her parents weren’t watching me undergo this struggle.

  "Hey!" Mel called from the top of the stairway. "Slow down!"

  "No, no, you finish what you were doing. I just felt like going for a run." I called back. "Er, in your house."

  I opened the door, and jogged out, my mouth feeling dry.

  "WAAAAIIT!" She screamed after me.

  I spun around panting. Oh good, she'd found her top.

  "I'm sorry!" She protested, holding her hands up in a peace signal. "It just happened. He came around asking if you were here, forgot you probably weren't home from school, one thing lead to another..."

  "I don't want to hear the details!" I said, shaking my head repeatedly. "I don't want to know."

  "Look, I'm sorry. He is my ex and all."

  "Yeah yeah, right." I muttered. "Anyway, I'll just go..."

  "Wait," she panted, pulling my wrist. "What did you come racing in for anyway?"

  "I forget."

  "Don't." She whispered, squeezing her eyes closed. "Don't shut me out. We've been through that."

  I sighed again, but this time from defeat. "I'll tell you when you're less busy."

  "But-"

  "It's okay, honestly." I smiled, trying to calm down. "Just don't hurt him."