Entry 6: Plan E – Brute Force

Date: March 16, 2013

I was able to hide the fact that I’d sprained my ankle all until the next morning when I was climbing down the stairs and I looked like someone with a hip dislocation, or so my mother said. So I told her that I’d sprained my ankle last night on my way home but that I didn’t want to worry her by saying anything.

“But it’s my responsibility to be worried!” she protested and then whisked me off to the nearest clinic we could find. The doctor told her not to stress over my ankle since it just had a minor twist. He told me to stay at home for the next few days and rest and exercise it every once in a while. In a week or so, I would be good as new.

“What happened?” she asked me on the way home, while assisting me in walking and acting as my cane replacement.

I obviously couldn’t tell her that I was in a boy’s house, in a boy’s room, and was in a boy’s bed (it’s not like what you think) around six in the evening. She’d go ballistic. So I simply said, “I, uh, my foot got caught in a crack in the cement and I fell.”

“You have to be more careful next time, Seven,” she told me, worry lines forming on her forehead. “You’re lucky you didn’t get a head injury or something worse…”

“Mom,” I said exasperatedly. “You’re becoming paranoid. I only got a sprained ankle. Don’t worry, I promise I’ll be more careful, okay?”

“Alright,” she said, heaving a sigh, “but no more school for you for the rest of the week. You can go back on Monday, if you really have to, since you’re almost finished with your junior year.”

“That’s great! That means more reading time for me!” I exclaimed and laughed when she shook her head and rolled her eyes at me.

For the next two days, I did nothing but sit in my room, my ankle wrapped in thick bandage and propped on a pillow, and read the new books I’d bought. Although I was glad that I could be free of all the secret keeping and chasing after Colin, another part of me was itching to escape out of my room and sneak into Colin’s room to search for it again.

But I had to rest. I could gather my energy for another plan on Monday.

On Saturday I got my first visitors—my cousins Nate, Nick, and Neil. Nate was already in his fourth year of college, Nick in his second, and Neil was my age. Their younger sisters, April and May, were still in the sixth and third grade respectively, which was probably why they didn’t come but I didn’t mind; I was closer to my male cousins anyway.

Call me an attention seeker, but I loved how they all showered me with kindness and protected me as if they were my three older brothers.

They all had brown hair, getting it from my dad’s side of the family, but they inherited their mother’s blue eyes. You could say that these three were a bunch of lady-killers in their school. We all used to attend the same middle school, the one April and May were currently in, and even back then you’d hear several girls giggling over them and whispering about how lucky I was to be related to them.

Faye, the rich girl who came from that same middle school with me all the way to my current high school, had a crush on Nick, for some reason.

Out of the three, Nick was the most quiet, the book reader in the family, and we often exchanged titles of books we liked and bought each other novels we knew we wanted for Christmas. He was my favorite cousin, but he usually didn’t care about girls, hence my confusion.

Despite being the eldest brother, and supposedly the most mature, Nate was the noisiest. He was in football college, always loved roughhousing with his brothers—which Nick disliked since he was the slimmest—and going to parties with a girl on each arm.

Neil was more like his eldest brother than the second, but less noisy. He used to be a really shy boy and was even bullied often, but when girls started noticing him he turned into quite a playboy.

Oh, and one more thing about these three idiots: they didn’t observe the proper etiquette of knocking before entering.

This could be easily proven by what they did first thing Saturday morning, when I was still sleeping with a book left wide open over my chest, and they simply barged in and Nate, in his loud voice, boomed, “Good morning, Seven! Rise and shine!”

My eyes snapped open and I blinked at them in surprise. I sat up immediately and pointed an accusing finger at them. “What on earth are you three doing in my room?” I demanded and I thought distractedly that this must’ve been what Colin felt like when he found me in his room the other night.

Neil grinned, casually walked over to my bed, and sat down as if he owned the place. He said, “Of course, we’re here to entertain you. It must’ve been boring doing nothing but reading all day.”

“No, it’s not,” I said at the same time Nick did. I shared a glance with him and smiled knowingly. He grabbed my desk chair, dragged it closer to my bed, and sat down. He then observed the stack of books I had beside my bed. “Are these new, Seven?”

“Yup, and I finished half of them yesterday,” I stated proudly.

Nick smirked at me and countered, “I finished a series of seven books in one day.”

I frowned at him. Nick and I were always competing on who was the fastest reader, and though sometimes I skipped sentences or paragraphs just so I could be done with a book, Nick always won. How could he read so fast?

There was a time that I actually accused him of cheating, but he asked me to test him on a book that I knew really well from cover to cover. He read it right there in front of me for an hour and a half, and then said, “Done.”

I asked him the hard questions, the details, the characters’ descriptions, but he answered all of them, even correcting some of my errors and quoting lines to prove it. He was definitely an alien, no doubt.

“Okay, before you two go into your own little corner of the universe and talk about books again,” Nate said with a roll of his eyes, “can you tell me what happened to you, Seven?”

“Didn’t Mom tell you?” I asked, yawning while scooting back and leaning against my headboard.

“Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “She said something about being at a friend’s house with Uncle Sean”—he meant my dad—“and that the three of us are going to be your babysitters for the morning.”

I scowled at him and whined, “I don’t need a babysitter, much less three!”

“Well,” Neil said, crossing his arms, “she wouldn’t want you to get yourself hurt again.”

“By doing what, flushing myself down the toilet?” I countered. Nick sniggered and Nate rolled his eyes—again. “Just answer the question, Seven. What happened?”

“Nothing,” I said, shrugging. “I was just walking back home when I tripped over a crack in the cement and twisted my ankle.”

“You didn’t see the crack?” Neil asked, raising an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Uh, it was around seven in the evening and I was thinking about…something, so I didn’t notice.”

Nick furrowed his eyebrows and asked, “What were you doing out so late?” He knew my everyday routine as well as I did—school, bookstore, and then back home.

I swallowed nervously and said, “I was at a friend’s house.” Although I couldn’t exactly count Colin as a friend, I was at his house so it wasn’t a lie, but my cousins wouldn’t buy it.

Nate narrowed his eyes at me, scrutinizing me, and then concluded with a mischievous smile, “I think you’re hiding something.”

“What?” I asked, my voice pitching high. “What are you talking about? Hiding something? I’m not hiding anything…”

Nate continued to stare at me for a while before he turned to Nick and asked, “What do you think, bro? You know her best.”

I knew I wouldn’t hear the end of this when Nick stated, “I don’t believe her either.”

“So what could she have been doing so late at night?” Neil asked his older brothers curiously.

Nate shrugged and said, “I’m not sure. She’s definitely doesn’t want us to know because we’d tease her about it or tell Uncle Sean, so it’s probably something really important to her and something that would make Uncle Sean’s eyes fall out.”

I was both horrified and amazed at how they knew me so well.

“Could she have been doing something illegal?” Neil wondered aloud and I cleared my throat loudly. “Hello? I’m still here.”

They ignored me. “I don’t think so,” Nick said quietly, rubbing his chin in thought. “Seven isn’t the type of girl who’s interested in those kinds of wild things. It must’ve been something that any ordinary girl around the age of sixteen to seventeen would want to do.”

I glared at the three of them. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here!”

They ignored me still—until Nate widened his eyes and snapped his fingers in excitement. “I’ve got it!” he proclaimed to the world. He pointed rudely at me and announced, “You were with a boy, weren’t you Seven?”

Someone shoot me, please.

“That’s ridiculous!” I denied but I couldn’t help the blush as I recalled how Colin had effortlessly pinned me to the bed and teased me about my sudden lack of oxygen. I remembered how intensely his green eyes bore into mine and—

“Aha!” Neil said, jumping up and pointing at me as well. I should talk with Uncle Douglas —their dad—about their lack of social decency. “The red taint on her cheeks proves it! She was with a boy!”

Nick smiled at me, amused. “I definitely wasn’t expecting that of you, Seven. Sometimes I forget that you are growing up.”

“So, who’s the boy we’re supposed to beat up?” Nate asked, cracking his knuckles and grinning.

“You’re not beating up anyone!” I insisted, fisting my hands tightly.

Neil patted my knee gently and nodded solemnly. “No need to be shy about it, Seven, we can understand how your hormones at this age can easily get out of hand.”

I groaned and dug the heel of my hands into my eyes. Man, this was exhausting. “You guys are not listening,” I said.

“Look, Seven,” Nick said, leaning forward and propping his elbows on his knees, “we’ll stop annoying you if you just tell us what is going on between you and this boy you were with last night.”

It was pointless trying to deny it now. The assumption that I was with a boy last night (which was actually the truth, but I wasn’t admitting that) had turned into a solid fact for my cousins. They weren’t going to let this one slide.

“There’s nothing between us,” I said, sighing exasperatedly. “It’s just that…he has something that I really need.”

“What’s this ‘something’ you’re talking about?” Neil asked and then widened his eyes. “Did he steal something from you?”

“That son of a—” Nate started, looking like he wanted to rip Colin to pieces. I frantically waved my hands around and said, “No! He didn’t technically steal anything from me”—yeah, right—“he just…won’t return it.”

“Seven, that’s almost the same thing,” Nick said matter-of-factly.

“No, it’s not!” I protested some more. I didn’t know why I was reacting like this. Didn’t I want to get the black notebook back as soon as possible and save what secrets were left? This was my chance to get it back—but I was more than a little hesitant to take it.

Maybe I just wanted to do things on my terms. Besides, who knew what these three would do to Colin once they’d got their hands on him?

That thought made me pause for a while. I swept a quick glance over my cousins and noticed how leanly built they were—Nate for his football games while Neil had gotten stronger so that no one would bully him anymore. Nick was the most slender among them but he was strong, especially after working out with his brothers during his spare time.

And then I got an idea for my next plan.

“Okay,” I said, “do you guys really want to help me out?”

“Of course we do, Sev,” Nate said, his hardened expression softening as he looked at me, “which is why we’re going to beat this kid up for you.”

“How many times do I have to tell you that you’re not beating up anyone?” I said, rolling my eyes. “Alright, if you want to help me, then you have to promise, swear, cross your heart and hope to die, whatever, that you’re most definitely not going to hurt him.”

Neil turned sharply to me and raised his eyebrows. “My, my,” he drawled, smiling, “is little Seven in love with this boy?”

“You’re getting off topic, Neil,” I said, avoiding the question I didn’t know how to answer. I looked each boy in the eye, one at a time. “So, do you guys promise?”

The three brothers glanced at each other, a hidden message being sent to one another without having to say anything. Finally, they sighed and then turned to me. “Fine,” they all said in chorus, but unhappily, I noticed.

“Good,” I said, grinning at them. I ripped a piece of paper from my school notebook and grabbed a pen. As I drew what were supposed to be straight lines, I told them Colin’s address and asked if they knew where it was.

The other night, as I rode in the cab on the way home, I had taken note of the streets names, landmarks, and familiar buildings, and after exploring—which got five more dollars out of my wallet—I considered myself well acquainted with the neighborhood already.

Soon enough, I realized that Colin’s place wasn’t all that far from mine.

“Isn’t that where Lucy lives?” Neil asked Nate, nudging him in the side with his elbow.

Nate stared at Neil with his eyebrows furrowed. “Lucy?” he repeated, unable to recall whomever that name belonged to. “Who’s Lucy?”

“You know—your ex?” But Nate still couldn’t remember. Well, it was understandable; he had a lot of exes.

Nick sighed, shaking his head. “I think Neil means Luscious Lips Lucy. Remember her?”

“Oh right, that Lucy!” Nate suddenly exclaimed, snapping his fingers as he finally realized. “How could I forget? And yeah, I think that’s where she lives.” And then his eyes widened and he asked me, “Why? Don’t tell me you’re going to make me go there. If she sees me, I’m dead—or so she said last time I saw her, and I don’t really want to see if she’s going to fulfill her end of the bargain or not.”

“Sorry, Nate,” I said, not sounding the least apologetic, “but yes, you have to go there because that’s where our target is.”

“May I ask how you know where the boy lives?” Nick asked, raising a suspicious eyebrow. All three looked up at me and I swallowed nervously.

“Questions—so many questions!” I said, waving at them dismissively. “Anyway,” I added, “you three are going to pass through this route since this is the closest to my house and he rarely uses this. What I do know, though, is that he always gets up to go jogging around…”—I glanced at the clock in my room—“fifteen minutes from now.”

This information wasn’t all that hard to recover. Just from plainly observing Colin’s posts in Facebook, I’d noticed long before that he always posted on Saturdays at around nine o’clock in the morning about a certain song he was listening to. His friends would then comment, asking about how his jog was and how ridiculous he was for posting about everything he did, which would then turn into a debate, and it wasn’t that hard to figure out the obvious.

“What does he look like?” Nick asked, while scanning the map I’d drawn.

“Tall, leanly built and has fair skin. He has dark red hair and these really amazing emerald-green eyes,” I said and quickly clamped my mouth shut. That “amazing” part was definitely unnecessary. Miraculously, they didn’t notice.

“So, what do we do when we see him?” Nate asked.

“You’re going to capture him and bring him here,” I said simply, as if we were only talking about where we were going to eat out for lunch, “but make sure that he doesn’t see the way here so he’ll truly be disoriented. I’ll handle the rest.”

Honestly, I had no idea what to do once my cousins had finally brought him to me, or what to say. Panic was driving me to do everything and anything I could think of. I was gambling on the chance that the extreme measures I had been taking would scare him enough to give the notebook up.

No matter what, I need to protect everyone’s secrets. I owed them at least that.

Five minutes later, my cousins set out to do their part of the plan after helping me down to the living room so that I wouldn’t have to hurry down the stairs once they arrived. I killed the time by reading the book that Nick had brought along with him, but no matter how deeply I tried to sink myself into the story, each tick of the clock made my skin itch and my gut twist into tangled knots.

Sometime later, finally easing my restlessness, I heard the frantic knocking on the basement door, which was connected to the garage. I dropped the book and limped as quickly as I could on my bandaged ankle. I wrenched the door open and Nick helped me down the steps and into the garage.

With the car gone and being used by my parents, the place was almost empty and looked even messier than it usually did. Stacked on the walls were boxes of forgotten things, both old and new newspapers unread, and hardware that Dad used for emergencies.

There was a small wooden desk in the corner, its paint washed out and peeling. It used to be my mom’s but she had passed it on to me and you could say that the years hadn’t been kind to it as it aged. Nearby, a red beanbag was pouring out its fillings through a rip beside it.

And right in the middle of it all was Colin, under an old lamp hanging from the ceiling like in one of those detective movies, with his wrists tied together and placed on his lap. If some criminals left signature marks, like a card or a bloody symbol on the wall, my cousins had one of their own: a cardboard box with a smiley face in front, covering their victim’s head.

Under the fluorescent light, Colin’s sweat glistened around his neck and plastered his white T-shirt to his chest, which rose quickly as he panted. He was wearing black jersey shorts that were just above his knees and white Nike running shoes.

“You guys are awesome,” I whispered to my cousins and they all grinned at me. As they filed out of the garage, Nick stayed behind and touched me gently on the shoulder. “Are you sure you’re going to be alright with him alone?” He looked back at Colin with narrowed eyes as if he expected him to jump up anytime and attack me.

I smiled reassuringly at him and nodded. “Don’t worry, I can handle it.”

“Scream if you need to,” he joked and I punched him playfully on the arm. “You’re being overdramatic.”

“And you’re not being anticlimactic?” he countered but didn’t persist. Once he was out of the door I closed it quietly and turned to face Colin.

I slowly made my way to him, circling him carefully and watching for any twitches, any sign of fear. Infuriatingly, there was none.

“So,” I started, when I was getting impatient with the silence we were keeping between us, “you probably know why you’re here.”

There was no reply.

I stood directly in front of him and said, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Colin. I told you that if you didn’t give back my black notebook, I’d take things to more extreme measures. This is just the beginning.”

Apparently I was talking with the wall because the answer that bounced back to me was silence. I cleared my throat and crossed my arms. “You want it that way, huh?” I said, trying to sound intimidating, “so be it.”

Still, Colin had no words to say to me. A full minute passed before I snapped. “Hey, I’m talking to you!” I shouted, fisting my hands. I took a step forward and pulled the box off his head.

The moment the light touched his red hair I realized that having amazingly good looks held a lot of advantages. One was that people who were affected in any way by these said good looks could be easily manipulated. Take me, for instance.

Colin had had his eyes closed under the box but, once it was off, he slowly opened them, focusing those beautiful green orbs on me. His hair was matted to his forehead with sweat but somehow he could pull it off. His exercise had left his cheeks flushed and the light made shadows dance across his face, engulfing his whole body with a magnificent aura.

And then the jerk just had to smile up at me.

Of course, silly old me just stood there, staring at him with my mouth agape.

Quick as lightning in that moment, while my guard was down, Colin stood up, raised his arms, and wrapped them around me, caging me in against him. He broke into an evil laugh. “I’ve got you now, Seven!”

The sudden movement surprised me and I stumbled, causing my ankle to twist slightly to the side. I could feel sharp pain in the still healing wound there but I could do nothing to stop it. I was stuck.

“Ouch!” I said, trying to push him away with my hands but the rope around his wrists was so tightly tied that I couldn’t break free. “Colin, let me go!”

I wriggled like a worm in his arms, trying to squeeze myself out, but all that did was press my chest against his. I looked up at him and, to my surprise, I found him staring down at our bodies, the laughter dying on his lips and his face slowly reddening.

For some reason, he suddenly became flustered. He tugged at his own arms, trying to get away from me, but something must’ve messed with his head because apparently he’d forgotten that he shouldn’t pull his arms away but lift them off me. He stepped back in panic and our legs got tangled, causing the both of us to fall—we’d been falling down together a lot recently, I’d noticed—and land on the red beanbag.

With a loud oompf, its fillings shot out of the rip and fell softly down like the feathers of an angel that had just passed by.

I was sitting on Colin’s lap, his arms around my waist and our faces so close that I could feel the heat radiating off him. Though a part of me was so embarrassed and simply wanted to get off him, another wanted to linger just a little longer. I stared into Colin’s eyes and noticed from the corner of my eye the pink blush across his cheekbones.

Somehow I knew it wasn’t there because of his exercise anymore.

He swallowed nervously as his eyes trailed down to my lips and stayed there. My heart pounded, accelerating with every second that passed as Colin slowly parted his lips and bit his bottom lip.

“Colin?” I whispered. A thousand thoughts raced through my mind in that small space of time and they could all be summarized in one sentence, one question: is he going to kiss me? Colin had tilted his head and leaned close, his nose brushing mine, my breath mingling with his, our eyes fluttering close and our lips merely inches apart. But I didn’t find out the answer to that question because the basement door opened with a loud bang and Neil came in, panting, to announce, “Sev, your parents are back.”

Colin and I jumped apart and, when I couldn’t get out of his embrace because of the rope, only then did he realize that all he needed to do to release me was to lift his arms. Once there was some distance between us and I wasn’t feeling as if I were inside a sauna, I noticed Neil scrutinizing us disapprovingly.

Fortunately, for once, he didn’t say anything about whatever he’d just seen.

“Come on,” he said after a while, “your parents are going to be opening the garage door”—he pointed at the metal gate before us—“any minute now. Nate and Nick are stalling them as we speak.”

“What about Colin?” I asked, gesturing to the person in question without looking back at him.

“We have no choice,” Neil said, reaching for a pair of scissors and using it to cut off the ropes around Colin’s wrists, “we’ll have to say that he’s a visitor.”

I nodded and, as Colin rubbed his slightly red wrists, he cleared his throat. When I saw his uncomfortable expression, I felt my heart sinking.

Was he looking like that because of the near-kiss? The blood drained from my face when I considered the possibility that it wasn’t him who shortened the distance, but me. Could it be that I’d moved without knowing, that my mind had mixed up my imagination and reality? Why did I always have to ruin everything?

“I just want to ask,” he said and then cocked an eyebrow at Neil, smirking, “what makes you think I’m going to go along with this after what you guys have just done to me?”

Now there was the Colin Stillman I knew.

Seeing the normality of things, it was easier for me to speak to him, but I didn’t get the chance. I was just opening my mouth to try and convince him to oblige, but Neil was ahead of me.

With a knowing smile directed at Colin, he said, “I don’t think it’ll be a problem. From what I saw just now, we don’t even have to force you.”

At that, Colin’s smile faded away and he knitted his eyebrows in confusion. I was pretty confused myself, but we didn’t have time. Neil took me by the elbow and assisted me out of the garage as fast as I could go. Colin had no choice but to follow us.

Just as the door swung shut behind us, I heard the sound of the garage door opening.

We darted towards the living room where the three of us plopped down on the cushions and I quickly placed a pillow under my foot on the coffee table in front of me. Neil grabbed the remote control and switched on the TV. Colin relaxed his position, crossing one leg over the other, and turned to Neil, who’d expertly started to say, “You know, this is a really good show. The theme song’s pretty nice too and—oh, there you are, Uncle Sean, Aunt Julie. You’re back earlier than we expected.”

“That’s what Nate was just saying,” my mom said, looking at my eldest cousin weirdly as she entered the basement door, “again and again, I might add.” Nate grinned guiltily at us from behind her.

“Thanks for watching over Seven, guys,” my dad said, nodding at Nick, who nodded back with a smile.

“I don’t need a babysitter, Dad, much less three,” I said, repeating my earlier dialogue and rolling my eyes.

“Yes, but—” my dad suddenly stopped when he saw Colin, who’d straightened up the moment my parents came in. He turned to me with a frozen smile. “Seven, who is this?”

“Um, Mom, Dad, this is Colin, my friend from school,” I said, gesturing to the boy who nearly stole my first kiss, “Colin, these are my parents, Sean and Julie Warrilow.”

Colin immediately sprang up from his seat and extended his hand to my parents. I turned to look at him and saw that he’d flashed his best smile at them. “Nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Warrilow,” he said.

“Oh,” my mom said, a little breathlessly as she stared at Colin. “Oh my, please call me Julie. ‘Mrs. Warrilow’ makes me sound so old.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Mrs. Warrilow,” Colin replied smoothly, “it doesn’t, but calling you by your first name would certainly make me feel awkward.”

My mom took his hand and shook it. “Alright, then,” she said and then giggled.

I raised my eyebrows at my mom. I couldn’t believe she’d just giggled and at Colin, of all people. But I knew my mom; she probably found Colin just as handsome as most girls—including her own daughter—did.

My dad obviously wasn’t impressed by his charm though. He narrowed his eyes as he took Colin’s hand and gripped it. I could see Colin’s smile faltering just a little bit at how tightly my dad held his hand, but after a lengthy staring contest, my dad said, “It’s nice to meet you, too. Your name’s Cody, am I right?”

He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “It’s Colin, sir.”

“Right, so, Cody,” my dad continued on as if Colin hadn’t said a thing and I rolled my eyes, “what would be the reason as to why you’re currently in our living room?”

“Sean,” my mom hissed under her breath at my dad, lightly slapping him on the arm.

I opened my mouth to answer, “He—um, he just came to visit me, Dad. You don’t have to act so gruff, you know.”

“I’m not, kiddo,” he said, his features softening as he patted my head and kissed me on the forehead. He turned to Colin, who was looking so out of place, and was probably going to say something else but my mom quickly cut him off.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Colin, how rude of us! Sit down, sit down and I’ll prepare some snacks for you kids. What do you guys want?” my mom said in a rush, ushering Colin back to his seat and hurrying to the kitchen.

Nate grinned at my mom and said, “We want some of your cookies, Aunt Julie.” He almost sounded exactly the same as he did when we were still kids.

“Alright, let me just reheat the ones I already made. And I also made some milkshake last night—would you like some, Colin?” she asked, beaming at Colin, who nodded meekly and said, “Anything will be fine, Mrs. Warrilow.”

My dad, frowning at how little he could do against my mother, glumly crossed his arms and sat down on the couch beside me.

Eight minutes of absolute awkward silence existed between the six of us. Nate was watching a football game live on TV and whooping in excitement every now and then; Nick had his nose stuffed inside one of the books I’d finished in the past few days while I was cooped up in my room, and Neil was rubbing his chin in thought as he stared quizzically at Colin, who in turn seemed to be fascinated with his own hands. My dad was also looking at Colin with wariness; as for me, I looked at each of their faces and bit my lip nervously.

This lasted for eight agonizingly slow minutes—until my mom finally came back in with our snacks.

She laid the tray out on the coffee table, and Nate and Neil’s hands immediately shot out to grab one of the warm, crunchy-but-meltingly-soft-in-the-mouth cookies—but my mom was faster and she slapped both of their hands away and as they whimpered like whipped puppies. She told them sternly, “Where are your manners? We should let our guest eat first.” She then turned to Colin and smiled at him lovingly. “Cookies?”

“Um, sure,” he said, his eyes darting anxiously at Nate and Neil who were both glaring daggers at him as he took a cookie off the pile.

As my cousins helped themselves to the cookies, my mom sank down on the couch beside Nick and elegantly crossed her legs. “You know, Colin,” she started, “I think it’s really sweet that you made the effort to visit my daughter.”

Colin glanced at me from the corner of his eye before turning to my mom and replying, “Oh, it’s no big deal, Mrs. Warrilow. I actually wasn’t planning on visiting Seven today but before I knew it, in the next second, bam”—he clicked his fingers together as he spoke—“I was already here.”

I choked on my cookie and coughed, reaching out for my glass of milkshake. I hurriedly took several gulps and cleared my throat.

My cousins noticeably paused in their ravenous eating but quickly resumed, so as to not look obvious to my parents.

“But still,” my mom insisted, “we really appreciate it. Don’t we, dear?” My dad didn’t say yes or no, he just grunted.

“So, are you Seven’s classmate? She never really talks about her friends from school that much,” my mom said. “It’s always been about books, books, books.” I shot her a sharp look and noticed Nick glance up briefly from the book he was reading.

Colin chuckled softly and responded, “No, I’m a year older than Seven, but we have a few classes together.”

My dad suddenly spoke up, “So, Cody—”

“It’s Colin, sir.”

“Same difference,” he said dismissively. “Are you involved in any kind of groups?”

Colin looked confused. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know, gangs, occults, illegal societies—”

Mom said, “Sean!” at the same time I said, “Dad!”

“What?” my dad asked defensively. “It’s a valid question.”

To his surprise, though, Colin looked worried and answered, “I guess it’s time that I come out with the truth.”

Everyone stopped what they were doing and slowly turned to Colin, hoping that they’d heard wrong. My mom laughed nervously and asked, “What do you mean?”

He closed his eyes, pressing his thumb and forefinger to his eyelids and sighing, as if the situation was so hard on him. “The truth is…I am part of a, you could say, group but it’s not the kind that you’re all thinking of.”

At this we were all leaning in close to him to hear more.

“I…I belong to an organization,” he said and let go of his breath as if a great weight had been taken off him. “It’s…” He shook his head and said, “Sorry, I—just forget I said anything.”

“What is it, man?” Nate asked impatiently, curiosity winning him over.

Colin looked pained as he laced his fingers together in front of him. “You guys wouldn’t believe me.”

“You’ll never know unless you try,” I said, dropping my foot to the floor so I could get close and listen.

He released a deep sigh and said, “Alright. I suppose it’s too late now.” All of us held our breaths in anticipation. “I…belong to an organization that was made to fight against aliens and other extraterrestrial beings.”

For a second we just stared at Colin with shock mixed with confusion and incredulity. And then Neil voiced out the word we were all thinking: “Huh?”

By then Colin couldn’t hold it in anymore. He suddenly laughed, his smile almost as bright as the sunlight streaming into the room through the window. “I’m just kidding!” he admitted.

Did I forget to mention that he was notorious for never taking anything seriously?

At that moment, I was torn between wanting to smack him upside the head or laughing at how easily we were fooled by his great acting.

I chose the former.

I grabbed the pillow on the coffee table and hit him several times with it. “Ugh! You’re crazy!” I said, “I actually believed you for a second there!” But despite my words, I had a smile plastered on my face.

He shielded himself with his arms and laughed. Neil, who was beside him, took hold of his arms and said, “Here, Sev! I’ll hold him and you attack! Go!”

As I continued my attempt at murder with a couch pillow, Colin shouted, “No! Have mercy!” Everyone else was laughing at the scene in front of them—even my dad—until I stopped because my ankle was complaining. I fixed myself back in a comfortable position as Colin did the same.

“But pushing all jokes aside,” he said, as if he wasn’t the one who started it, “I’m not part of any groups, Mr. Warrilow, never been, never will.”

I turned to look at my dad’s reaction and was surprised to find him eyeing me carefully. There was something about his look that made me feel as if he could see right through me. I wondered if this was how the criminals he faced almost every day at court felt like whenever he’d look at them.

My dad shifted his gaze to Colin and cracked a smile. “I see,” was all he said.

From there, the topic ranged from school to what Colin planned on taking in college and somehow to horror stories until it became a debate between who was the best of the best in the Avengers.

“It’s definitely Thor,” I said, contradicting Neil, who said it was Iron Man. “Iron Man’s nothing without his suit!”

“The guy’s got brains, Seven,” Nate countered, siding with his youngest brother. “Do you think Thor could build a suit that can fly, shoot rockets, and is bulletproof with scarce resources and limited time? I don’t think so.”

“But Thor’s a god! He doesn’t need to build a suit!”

“I think Captain America’s stunning,” my mom commented.

My dad sent her a look I knew all too well. “No, he’s not,” he said. “All he has for power is a shield.”

“If his opponent is a woman, that wouldn’t be the only power he has over her.”

“Well, most of the time, it isn’t.”

“I said if.”

Right on time, Nate glanced over at the clock and started to get up. “Well,” he started loudly, catching everyone’s attention, “it was nice meeting you, Colin, but I think we need to go back home for lunch.” He gestured to his brothers, who nodded in agreement.

As they pushed themselves off the couch, Nick said, “Goodbye, Uncle Sean, Aunt Julie. Thanks for having us.”

“Our pleasure,” my mom said, smiling. “And thank you for taking care of Seven this morning. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.”

The three of them shared a knowing look. “Nah,” they all said together, contrary to the way they mischievously grinned at my mom. She didn’t seem to notice, thankfully.

I watched them get up, expecting them to head to the door and leave, but Neil walked right in front of Colin and said, “Why don’t you help Seven up to her room so that her parents won’t have to escort her themselves?”

My dad, of course, automatically opened his mouth to speak, “Actually I—”

“Uncle,” Neil said quickly, wrapping a firm arm around my dad’s shoulders and steering him away from Colin and me, “I heard that you’ve been really busy at work—lawyer stuff and all. Is it really that hard?”

“Well, no…it depends…” my dad said, his words coming slowly as he looked over his shoulder and tried to keep an eye on me but Neil kept taking his attention away. With a wave from Nate and Nick, they left the living room.

“Is it really alright for me to help her up?” Colin asked my mom.

I was about to protest when my mom cut me off and said, “Why, of course you can! It would really be a big help since I have to prepare lunch. Do you want to stay here and eat with us?”

Colin shook his head politely. “Thank you, but my family is probably expecting me to be home for lunch.”

“That’s fine. Maybe next time then?” my mom insisted and I felt like I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Colin only chuckled and replied, “We’ll see, maybe sometime when I’m not fighting our enemies from outer space.”

My mom giggled—again—and said, “Oh, Colin, you’re so silly.”

The next thing I knew I had my arm over his shoulder, his arm around my waist, and he’s helping me up the staircase. When we took a sharp turn and walked together down the hallway I saw from the corner of my eye, my mom, peeking curiously up at us from the bottom of the stairs and smiling to herself. Ugh.

“Your mom’s cookies are awesome,” Colin commented the moment we were out of anyone’s earshot.

“Tell her that and she’ll send you basketfuls of them,” I deadpanned.

Colin chuckled softly and said, “You know, I like your family, Seven. They’re fun.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I just said, “I guess they’re cool.”

We reached my bedroom door and my stomach started making gymnastic award-winning flips when he took the knob in his hands and turned it.

My mind raced, trying to recall if I had cleaned up my room, whether there were any left undergarments left hanging on the furniture or scattered on the floor—and did it smell bad? Was there anything too personal displayed out in the open?

But I didn’t have the time to clean up anyway, and the door was already swinging open. My eyes quickly darted around the room, trying to see if there was anything even remotely weird that should be tagged with a sticker saying “NOT FOR COLIN’S EYES TO SEE” but, fortunately, there was none.

Colin didn’t look up at my room; he immediately brought me to my bed and gently let me sit down on its soft cushions and crumpled blankets.

He straightened up and only then did he cast a curious glance around. His gaze lingered on my bookshelf and continued on until it finally arrived at the tall pile of books beside my bed I’d just finished reading.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you died from getting crushed by the number of your books you’ve got in here someday,” he commented with a smile.

I stuck my tongue out at him. “Your room’s no better. Your walls are full of sketches and drawings.”

“It’s called art,” he said defensively and then looked behind him to see if there was anyone lurking outside my bedroom door. He turned back to me and noticeably lowered his voice. “Anyway, you do know that you’re pushing yourself too much just for this stupid notebook, right?”

“No, I’m not,” I denied quietly and Colin snorted incredulously. “You have a sprained ankle! No wonder you weren’t in school for the past two days.”

“What do you care?” I asked coldly, the question unwillingly bringing tears to my eyes. It was the inevitable truth, I always told myself. Colin Stillman would never look at me the way I looked at him. I quickly blinked them away. “Please, Colin, just give me back my notebook.”

“No can do, Seven,” he said, grinning widely at me.

I tightened my hands into trembling fists. I couldn’t hope to understand this boy, even if I tried. One moment he’d seem caring and thoughtful, and in the next he’d be the naughty boy who seemed as if he still hadn’t grown out of his childhood.

I scowled at him in reply and he laughed. I saw his right hand move up towards me and I raised my head to see what he was going to do. I was about to warn him, “Don’t you dare do whatever you’re about to do,” but what he did next surprised me to the point of speechlessness.

He gently held the side of my head and kissed me on the forehead.

I sat there, frozen, whatever thoughts I had were completely obliterated in that second.

I was very tempted to pinch myself just to be sure it wasn’t a dream, but the moment felt so delicate that, if I so much as moved, it could all disappear.

Sadly, just as abruptly and unexpectedly as he leaned towards me, he pulled back, those emerald green eyes widening in shock as if he had no idea what he’d just done. He retracted his hand, taking its warmth away from me as well, and kept a slight distance from me.

“Uh,” he started, his voice cracking as he looked frantically around my room as if something in there could help him out of this awkward situation he’d gotten himself into, “I, um…” He swallowed and stabbed the air above his shoulder with his thumb. “I’ve got to go now, so…bye, then.”

Without even waiting for me to respond, he turned on his heel and walked out of my room.

I didn’t bother following him. I was afraid that if I tried to stand up my knees would give out and I’d collapse pathetically to the floor. I took a deep breath, butterflies crashing against each other and ricocheting off the walls of my stomach.

I could hear voices below but couldn’t comprehend the words being said. I shakily twisted around to look through my bedroom window. After a minute or so, I heard the front door close with a bang and then Colin came into view, his walk brisk and stiff, quickening as he stepped around the crack in the cement.

He kissed me just now, didn’t he? I wasn’t dreaming? I thought to myself, my hand reaching up to touch the spot where his lips had brushed against my forehead.

I shivered, but it most definitely was not from the cold. But, why did he do that? He definitely didn’t have to. Does that mean…

I watched attentively as he started running at top speed, heading out of my neighborhood and getting farther and farther away.