Chapter Two: Home

I walked home well aware that I was being followed. I gripped my hoodie and pulled it over my head. I tried not to like this new Harley guy. He was too nice. There was no way he could be this nice. He had to have a motive for wanting to know my secret. It wasn't because he was "nice" and wanted to be my friend. No one wanted to be friends with quiet Taci. Taci is stupid... stupid, stupid, stupid. I sneered and looked over my shoulder. Harley smiled and waved. I whipped my head forward again. Ugh! Why is he following me?!

Not so subtly he caught up to me and looked around, "You must live over here," he said cheerfully.

I grunted.

"You made a sound! Oh my! I bet hardly anyone gets you to do that! I saw that dude in class didn't even get you to do that. I must be skilled!" Harley grinned from ear to ear. He jumped in place as I kept walking.

Yeah, he's very skilled. Skilled in the art of annoying the crap out of me.

"So, you must live around here... Let's see if I can guess which house it is... Is it... the blue one?" Harley asked and pointed to a very fancy one with a large front porch and a large tree out front. He was nodding at me like he had found the one.

I glared at him.

"Uh... no? Okay," he said as we walked past the house. "It is... the gray one with the low-hanging roof!"

I looked over at the one he was referencing to. It actually belonged to a hermit who was worse than me. The gray house was dreary with a cracked window in front and a couple of very dead trees. He had a dog that stayed inside, so he wasn't all alone. No one dared talk to him. His name was Jeff and he was in his sixties. No one had seen him in years and some people had said that he died... But I knew better. He just wanted to be alone. He had a secret. A secret like mine. I respected that and left him alone.

"Okay, you don't live there. I give up. Can't you just tell me?" Harley asked pitifully.

I walked up to my house and pointed to the door without turning around. It was a lightly colored yellow house with a white roof. It had white-colored window frames. The house was two stories and had apple trees lining the pathway to the door. It looked very happy, peaceful, and bubbly. No one would ever expect that I would inhabit something so... pleasant.

"Cute," Harley smiled.

I rolled my eyes and kept walking up the cobblestoned pathway to my house.

"Like you," he whispered.

I stopped walking. Did he really say that. I twirled a lock of curly blonde hair and thought of my gold eyes. No one had ever called me "cute" before. Did he really think I was cute? The only adjectives I ever got called were stupid, idiotic, brainless, crazy, and insane... but never cute.

I turned around and looked at Harley. He had a little pink in his cheeks as he smiled at me and waved.

"I'll see you tomorrow at school, Taci! My house is right over there!" he pointed to a house three doors down from mine. It was white, one-story with a big red door. It was a perfect size for a small family. It made me wonder how big his family actually was...

I shook my head. I couldn't be wondering about this. If I started to wonder, then that meant I would start the next step: caring. I could not care about Harley. If I cared about Harley, then I might end up actually talking to him. I couldn't talk to him. No, there was only one person in this whole world I talked to... Speaking of which. I hadn't talked to her all day.

Quickly, I ran into the house and saw my mother in the kitchen.

"Hi, Honey, how was school today?" she asked cheerily in her apron. It had an apple pie on it.

I shrugged. Nope, it was not her. I didn't care about her. She drove my dad away and he was the only other person I cared about. I glared at her as I passed her.

"Oh, okay," she smiled.

Ugh, her fakeness bugged me. She reminded me of those preps in my class. My mom actually was a prep in high school. She was a cheerleader who probably slept with half of the football team, but decided to go with my dad, the class nerd. Well, at least until she chased him away.

I walked into the last door on the left and bent down into the crib on the far side of the pink room.

"Hello, Asha," I smiled as I said my first words of the day. "How's my baby sister?"

She giggled as she looked up at me with big, bright blue eyes. They were the same as my father's and I treasured those blue jewels every time I looked at her. I beamed and kissed her forehead.

"I love you, little Asha," I glowed. "I would be nothing without you. Nothing, you hear that?"

She cooed.

"You don't understand a word I'm saying... That's what I love about you. It's going to suck when you can backtalk me. But it's okay. I will always be there for you," I cradled her in my arms and sat in a chair by her crib as I just looked at her until she fell asleep.