I Cheated Death, Now He Wants A Divorce
"Ugh!" I yelled in frustration while tossing my pillow across the room.
I hadn't been able to sleep all night knowing Caleb Hunter slept right next door to me. Frustrated, with my hair a mess and bags forming under my eyes, I got up out of bed and lifted my window.
I had two large windows placed next to each other with only a small piece of the wall dividing them, which made for the perfect exit to the roof.
Slowly, I crawled out to my roof and plopped myself down. My bare feet felt cool against the rough shingles. The cold air rushed past my skin, the moon and a few broken street lights being the only things to illuminate the pitch-black sky. I glanced around at all the other houses, the world too dark to see anything. I took a deep breath in.
That had always been my thinking place. I felt safe. I took another deep breath in and the faint smell of cigarette smoke hit my nose. I began glancing around, spotting a small glow coming from the house next to me. I hadn't noticed it before. Looking closely, I could make out the faint outline of a person. Chills ran up my spine, the figure on the roof beside me unrecognizable. "What are you looking at?" The mysterious figure spat.
I screamed, loudly, before losing my balance and tumbling off. This is it. This is how I am going to die. My brother will find my dead body splattered against the pavement. I squealed and shut my eyes to await my death. My life flashed before my eyes and it was only then that I realized the sheer disappointment of it. I hadn't done anything note-worthy.
She would be so disappointed in me.
A hand grabbed mine before I hit the ground, or even the first story of the building for that matter. Realizing I wasn't going to die, I slowly opened one eye and then the other. Caleb stared down at me with a worried expression. He grabbed my other arm and pulled me up. My breathing became more steady the farther away from the ledge I got.
Caleb crossed his arms, his appearance stiffening again. "What was that?"
With my track record, falling off a roof was not that surprising. I stared at him with a blank face. He must have jumped the distance between our houses to catch me. He could have fallen himself. Maybe Caleb's not as bad as I thought.
He ran his fingers through his hair. "What are you: stupid? How do you fall off a roof?" He cursed and began muttering profanity under his breath.
I take that back, he's worse than I imagined. He scared me! I mean what creepy person does that? "I'm sorry you startled me. What were you doing?" I rebuked.
"Sitting on my roof, same as you," his voice filled with annoyance, a faint mocking tone present.
"Same as me? Last time I checked I wasn't smoking." The cigarette still sat between his fingers, the fumes making me sick. "Seriously, that's bad for your health." I pulled back away from the smell and waved my hand in front of my face to help.
"What are you, my mother?" He took another hit of the cigarette.
"Fine kill your lungs for all I care!" I threw my hands up in frustration. I hadn't even talked to him for two minutes and he had already gotten on my nerves.
"Shouldn't you be thanking me, you know, for saving your life?" He didn't bother making direct eye contact with me.
I scoffed. "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't need saving in the first place!" I stepped closer to him, jabbing my fingernail into his chest.
He stared at me, the height difference making it so he had to look down. "Oh please, you fell off a roof! How is that my fault? Last time I checked I'm not the reason you're so clumsy." There was a slight accent to his voice when he yelled, a subtle roll of his tongue as he pronounced his 'r's.
As attractive as the sound was, it didn't take away my urge to push him off the building and watch as he helplessly fell to the ground.
We were practically at each other's throats, yelling so loudly the entire neighborhood could probably hear. My theory was proven correct as several lights flickered on. Who does this guy think he is? "I only fell off because you were being a creep."
His face remained so close to mine that I could feel his breath tickling my nose. "Oh, and how was I being a creep?"
"Who sits on their roof smoking?" My body shook in a combination of rage and the chill of the night air. "You know what, I'm done with this!"
I spun around, being careful not to fall off againâI had a feeling this time he wouldn't catch meâand crawled back into my room. I heard him jump back to his own house. Part of me hoped he didn't make the distance but, unfortunately, my wish didn't come true. He made it back safely and, much to my dismay, gracefully. I couldn't believe the nerve of that guy.
I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and angrily texted Vikki. 'Who does Caleb think he is? He acts like he's the king of the world or something!'
Vikki responded almost immediately. And, not even bothering to wonder why she was still up, I went on a full-blown rant about Caleb. She attempted to calm me down but it's pretty hard to calm down when the reason you're mad is still sitting on the roof smoking. I mean seriously smoking? He was going to kill his lungs. Actually, maybe that's not such a dreadful thing.
After a solid thirty minutes of complaining, I decided to actually get some sleep. After all, I did have school in the morning. Caleb hadn't even been here for a day and he already threw off my schedule. In bed by eleven, that was how it had always been. I never stayed up later, not even on weekends, but Caleb Hunter had to come in and ruin it all.
I laid down and tried to ignore the fact that Caleb still sat outside. I finally started to drift off to sleep when the sound of rap music, blasting at incredibly high decibels, interrupted. I bolted up in an instant and glanced around. The sound echoed from the window. I leered at the outside world knowing the sound must be coming from my annoying neighbor.
I climbed out of my room for the second time tonight. Caleb sat on his roof with a speaker blasting music. "What is wrong with you?" I shouted, throwing up my hands, which were now uncontrollably shaking.
He stared at me, the mischievous glint in his eyes present, and turned up his speaker. A smirk appeared on his face and I swear for a second I considered murder.
I stood on my roof and prepared to jump and hopefully not die. He looked at me expectantly. I took a running start and leaped the distance. I landed with a not so graceful thud and a small roll. He jumped back. "What are you doing?" He yelled.
Without saying anything, and not breaking eye contact, I grabbed his speaker and chucked it off the edge. It landed in the street with a crash and got run over by a car. Granted, I aimed for the bush but that worked out a thousand times better. I tried to stifle my laugh as I looked at him.
His face flamed up. "What is your problem?"
"What is my problem?" I gaped at him, flabbergasted. "You are! Why would you be blasting music at three in the freakin' morning? Get headphones or something!"
"So you threw my speaker off the roof? Do you know how much that thing costs?"
His face blazed so redly, he looked like an angry tomato. The thought made me smile and I had to suppress my laugh once more. "Yeah, it's fourteen dollars at the store on the corner. I have the same one. I also know that it's supposed to be used in the shower, not outside, at three in the morning!"
"What I do at three in the morning is my business!" He seemed about ready to push me off the side.
"Not when it's so loud that I can hear it."
"Get off my roof!" He barked.
The audacity of this guy. "No!"
"Fine, then I will." He moved me effortlessly out of the way.
What? My anger simmered down into confusion as I watched his next moves closely. He proudly walked to the edge and easily made it over to my side. "What do you think you're doing?" I remained in my spot, too stunned to move.
He made no notion of stopping and continued on. He began to crawl through my window. "What? No! Don't do that," I directed.
I rushed after him but it was too late, he was already inside. He immediately started walking around my room, touching everything. He picked up my journal and started to leaf through it. "Give me that back!" I demanded, grabbing it from him.
He laughed and moved on to my sketchbook. "What are you doing? Stop touching my stuff!" I took the book back and grabbed all other possible items he could go through. The tower of stuff in my arms practically covered my face.
He simply laughed at me and moved on to my wall of paintings. "Did you paint these?" He asked.
"Yes, now can you please leave?" I tossed the miscellaneous items down on my desk.
"Why? Do I intimidate you, Love?" He moved dangerously close to me.
"What? Nâno you don't, um, you don't intimidate me," I stuttered moving my head away from him.
He leaned in closer and ran his thumb across my bottom lip before smirking. My lip tingled from the sudden contact. I felt my face reddened. "You're right, you're definitely not intimidated by me." He pulled away and laughed.
It took me a minute to regain my composure. "Great, you've made fun of me. Can you go now?" My voice came out far more pouty than intended.
"Oh, but I'm not done looking, Love." He ran his pointer finger along my desk.
"Don't call me Love!" I demanded as he increasingly got more and more irritating by the second.
"Who's this?" He held up a picture of me and another girl, the two of us covered in mud, a huge grin spread across each of our faces.
"My sister," I deadpanned.
"I didn't know you had a sister, you'll have to introduce us. Who knows, maybe we'll hit it off." He smirked.
Despite his teasing tone, the comment infuriated me. "Yeah, well, she's dead so, unless you like limp, lifeless bodies, she may not be the girl of your dreams."
His face dropped almost instantly. A harsh way to tell someone your sister died: yes. But I would do anything just to get him out.
I felt tears sting my eyes at the thought of my sister. I guess I wasn't fully over it. "Well, now you've made me sad so, congratulations, you got what you wanted." I wiped my eyes. "Can you leave now?" I pushed him to the window, not giving him a choice.
"I didn't, I, I meanâ" he started to apologize, but I pushed him out before he could say anything else.