Carl

“What the hell was that anyways Mel? That guy was a creep.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about Scott. I didn’t want him around me, but I can’t just make people go away. I told you that I didn’t know who he was. He was just some married guy that was hitting on me.”

They were walking back to the car and I looked over when I heard Scott’s voice. He was walking with his sister and I wouldn’t have recognized her as that if I wouldn’t have known already. She’d changed a lot since I’d seen her last. Every bit of her was different, except those emerald eyes that caught mine before she looked down quickly. That would have made me recognize her because it was something that she had done many times before.

I didn’t know what the two of them were talking about, but the conversation was holding less of my attention as I took in the woman before me, and I was right in thinking that she was all grown up now. I just hadn’t thought that the gangly girl that I’d seen last would ever look like the woman in front of me now.

She was taller than I remembered and still wispy in her body, but she had curves now that weren’t there before. Her breasts were subtle and swaying as she walked the last few feet to me. I was staring, I know I was because I could have counted all of the freckles on her cheeks; I looked so long at her face, trying to see the resemblance to the girl that I’d once known. It was almost like I was trying to compute in my head that she really was who I knew her to be. It was hard to do it, really hard.

“Carl you remember Mel, Mel, Carl.”

I smiled at her and wasn’t sure what to do. It felt like something was in order, but I wasn’t sure what. She’d come to me once and bared her soul to me and I hadn’t handled it very well. It was right before she went to boarding school and she was very young. I had pushed her aside in a way that was callous and now, more than ever I had changed the way I’d done it. Now I wished that I’d given thought to what I was saying to her, because now she was all grown up and probably hated me.

“You ready to go?”

Scott was a bit louder than he had to be and I avoided his eyes, sure that he had caught me staring down his sister. I knew how protective he was of her and the last thing that I wanted to do was get him pissed off at me, but damn, hadn’t seen that one coming. Who would have known that the teen that I told to buzz off six years ago would look like that? She had already gotten her revenge without lifting a finger to do so in just being.

“Yeah let’s get out of here. We have some work to do back at the house that needs to get done.”

Scott was happy to hear that and he insisted that he sit in the middle in the truck. I ignored his sister to make him think it was all a fluke and he finally started to relax. The last thing I wanted to do was to fight with Scott. We’d never fought in all of these years and it wasn’t going to start now. I knew better.

The ride back I was silent and listened to the two siblings talk. The first bit was about their dad and how he was doing. Scott worried that there was something wrong and their mom had called her back to be there, but she assured him that it wasn’t the case.

“No, I just had to get out of there for a little while. My grades are good enough that I didn’t have to stay the last two weeks, so I left. I just wanted to get back home and I don’t know, chill I guess. It doesn’t have anything to do with dad.”

Scott seemed relieved and I was relieved as well. The man was a good role model to me and I knew that I needed to visit more. I owed it to Ted, but when I saw him how he was now, I didn’t know what to say and I froze. I told myself that it was worst to do that.

“So what happened?”

She didn’t want to talk about it, but Scott kept pushing the subject and made her.

“I broke up with my boyfriend and it got messy. I don’t want to talk about it Scott.”

“Was that the professor you’ve been dating?”

I snuck a look over at her and our eyes met for a moment. She didn’t want me to know about that, but I had to wonder why I’d never heard it before. Most likely I had heard Scott railing on about her, but I hadn’t cared. I was feeling so damn foolish now for not caring. Look at her. What an idiot I was back then to have been so aloof with her. I’d made her cry and now I was the one regretting it more than ever.

“Yes, it was him.”

She bit out the words and I just focused on the road like I wasn’t even there to hear it all.

“Well I told you that you shouldn’t be with some old guy. He’s almost as old as me and Carl. You’re too young for guys our age.”

I didn’t have to look at Scott to know that he’d said it like that for a reason. He had seen me checking his sister out and he wanted to make sure that I knew it wasn’t okay to do so. He was putting his foot down, drawing the line in the sand and it was as transparent as if he had actually done either one literally.

“You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ve learned my lesson on older guys Scott.”