13: Give and Take. Give and Take.

‘My father has lung cancer, April. And he’s stopped fighting.’

The words rang clear inside my head as soon as I woke up. My air conditioner was a little bit too cold to my liking, and I had the feeling to pee so bad, and yet my whole body was glued onto the bed. 

The Blacks were fighting ten meters away from me.

“Why are you always so difficult? Why, Ryder, why?”

“Because clearly you dropped me when I was a baby, Dad!” other times, I would have been sure that it could be a good joke, but right now, Ryder was just being mean to his own father. “You’re not a good parent. You never were!”

“God, Ryder. Please!” Mrs. Black’s voice was wavering as she was about to cry. “Don’t push your father so hard. He never meant for any of that to happen. You know it’s not his fault.”

Other times, I would have thought that they were talking about Ryder’s father dropping him on the head when he was a baby. But after yesterday, I knew the truth. They were talking about the cancer.

Other times, I wouldn’t have cared at all and preferred to think about the protruding pimple on my nose, but today, my chest felt heavy just hearing them all shouting and stuff.

“Get out from the house!” I could imagine Mr. Black flailing his arm towards the door. “Get out, just get out! Go to school, be a little useful to yourself, Ryder.”

“I’m getting out!” Ryder shouted back even louder than before. “And I’m not going to school!”

As soon as I heard the door being slammed down, I forced myself to get out from the bed. I ran to the door, ran into my parents in the middle of hugging and looking red as soon as they saw me, ran into the door, and ignoring the sharp pains of peebles and rough pavement, ran into the streets.

Whenever Ryder and his father fought, he wasn’t given any access to the Black’s car. The Blacks family had two cars a few years ago, but presumably because of the cancer treatment, they had to sell one. Ryder did say that he wasn’t going to school, it was just empty threats, because I always found him at school, attending classes, acing the exams.

Beating people up. Selling pot. Hanging with old, married men. 

“Ryder,” I called him.

He stopped his track, and when he looked at me, I could have sworn his cheeks turned red. “Too loud?” he questioned.

I shrugged. “Too loud.”

He scratched the back of his head whilst trying to regain the composure on his countenance. “What do you want?”

He wasn’t in good mood, that much I knew. His face looked tired and alongside the black eye, he had a pair of eyebags, further emphasizing the roughness of his face. His hair was messy, but not in his usual ‘I-want-the-messy-look-intentionally’ kind of look. It really was the authentic bed head.

But I knew how much in a bad mood he was when I could hear his stomach growl.

I looked at my watch. It wasn’t even seven in the morning. The Blacks started their morning fight way too soon, and Ryder hadn’t gotten the chance to grab a bite.

“Um… breakfast in our house?” I asked him. “My mom’s making out with my dad now, but from the smell of it, I think she’s making pancake.”

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I left Ryder on the kitchen as I washed. As I stepped out from the shower, I had just realized that maybe I had just made the worst decision in my whole life. Us humble Hales had never could gone along well with them ballsy Blacks. There were just too much difference between us. My dad was loving and loquacious and at some times, very dorky, whereas Mr. Black looked strong and rugged and quiet. My mom was a major drama Queen and loved to cook and make sandwiches for my dad, whereas Mrs. Black was elegant with a bit of feminist streak. Even Quentin and Ryder never got along; every single time they talked to each other, neither of them could get out unharmed.

So, maybe inviting Ryder Black into our house wasn’t such a good idea.

Getting out of the room became an arduous sport. I tiptoed my way to the stairs, my mind full of possibilities of what could be happening now that Ryder was mingling with the rest of my family. Everything was so strangely quiet. There was no screaming match, no shrills of pain, not even the sound of people fighting.

It was so suspicious.

As I got into the kitchen, however, I saw my mother standing in a very close proximity with Ryder. 

“Oh my God, Ryder,” my mom shook her head. “You do pluck your eyebrows really well.”

Say what? 

“Mom?” I tested the waters. “Um, everything okay?”

My mother pirouetted towards me, her face all lit up, and whereas before her face had been bare naked, there was a subtle hint of eyeliner and mascara now. “Oh yes, dear. I was just looking at your friend Ryder’s eyebrows. They’re so pretty, aren’t they? Imagine if your father actually learnt how to control that bushy thing on top of his eyes.”

“Real men don’t pluck their eyebrows,” My father whispered not so subtly.

Quentin, who was stirring maple syrup around his mashed pancake, didn’t sound any less annoyed. He coughed. “Real men don’t shave any hair off his body.”

I could already predict how Ryder was going to answer to this. He would walk up to Quentin, slammed his palm on the table, and then screamed right before his face: “You know what real men don’t do, female dog? Real men don’t dye their hair!!”

But then that scenario didn’t happen. Ryder didn’t even look at the very least angry. He just pretended that neither males in my family said anything and just smiled at my mother. “No, no, Mrs. Hale. Uncle Hale here looks good with his thick eyebrows. I wished my eyebrows were that thick so that I don’t need to shape them to make them look good.”

Quentin coughed even more. “Fucking liar.”

My father apparently didn’t appreciate this. “10 dollar on the mean jar, Quentin.”

“Are you serious?” Quentin was making a face.

My mother was wrapping her arm around Ryder’s shoulder, and Ryder smiled sweetly to Quentin. He didn’t say anything. He just smiled.

And that was an even bigger blow to my brother. “Hypocrite.”

My mother couldn’t stand for her new favorite kid to be trash-talked. “Another ten dollar, Quentin.”

Quentin’s mouth moved in evident fury, although no words actually came out from it. He stalked to the mean jar, jammed in a twenty, and then glared daggers at me. Aw shoot. 

“You invited him here!” he hissed.

“I’m sorry! He looked like a lost puppy back there.”

“A puppy?” if there was no witnesses around, Quentin would be pulling a few WWE moves on me. “A puppy who just rearranged your brother’s jaw yesterday?!”

I cringed as I had just remembered that. I looked at Quentin’s bluish jaw, it still looked very sore and a little swollen, too. 

“And then there’s this party this weekend, and I want to wear a hipster turtle neck sweater,” Quentin ranted on. “I wouldn’t look good with a turtle neck if my jaw is the size of an elephant!”

“I know, I know! I’ll help you ice it this night.”

That seemed to assuage him a bit, although when he pulled his chair, he still pulled the ‘I’m watching you’ gesture. He put on his earphones and started gobbling down his pancakes, probably because he didn’t want to hear Ryder charmed the Sith of my parents with his surprisingly good manners.

“So you’re saying you have no car to drive now?” my mother looked especially concerned. “Oh gosh, that couldn’t happen. You could always tag along with Quentin and April, though.”

Ryder’s eyes widened in surprise. He looked at me, his black eyes were a mix of hope and anxiety. “Are you sure-“

“We’re neighbors, after all. And your family had provided ours entertainment for years!” My mother chirped in, blissfully unaware at how very awkward that must have sounded.

“M-Mom,” I tried to stop her, but there was no way to pull her rein anymore. My father tried to ignore the comment by pretending to focus on the newspaper, whereas Quentin was busy with his phone. Ryder was my mother and my mother’s prey alone.

“I’m just wondering,” She scooted closer to Ryder, and then asked him in a serious tone. “Was it really true that your father dropped you on the head when you were a baby?”

Homerun, Mom. Homerun.

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When the three of us got into school, of course the whole crowd body was staring at us funny. The jock, the nerd, and the bad boy were all riding from the same car, but that’s not the most staggering part.

It was my mother.

“Oh I’m gonna miss you guys,” she shrilled. I was okay with familial PDA, but Quentin was allergic to it. He avoided being seen with our parents at all cost. And now, my mother insisting on getting us three to the school took the cake.

“Lemme give you a kiss,” she pulled me into a hug and kissed my cheeks. I beamed at her and kissed back.

“Good girl, and now you,” she tried to grab Quentin, but he quickly jumped out from the car.

“Mom!” he hissed. “Oh come on.”

“He doesn’t want my kiss, it’s ok,” my mother pouted, before then she turned to her new prey: Ryder Black.

“Have a nice day, Ryder,” she ruffled his hair a little bit, a smile brewing on her face. Ryder was so stunned he couldn’t say anything, but he did blink repeatedly out of shock. That seemed to make him look even more endearing in my mother’s eyes and she started to pinch his cheeks and planted a big fat one there. “Oh you, you cute boy, you!” 

This went on for a while, as other kids started to pile up all around our car to watch. Ryder Black, certified bad boy of the school, getting Mommified to the boot. Nobody pinched Ryder’s cheeks (no matter how fluffy and smooth they seemed), nobody ruffled his hair (because he styled it oh-so-expertly everyday), and most of all, nobody talked at him like he was a five year old boy.

My mother had become an instant hero among the students of the Pineville High.

When she drove away, a lot of Quentin’s friends couldn’t contain it anymore and burst out laughing. Quentin, looking very angry and vengeful, just stalked out from the parking lot, not even bothering with it. Ryder, on the other hand, still stood dumbfounded, his cheeks a little pink and his mouth not quite shut.

“Mommy boy!” one guy shouted at Ryder. Before he could take a good look of the face of the culprit, however, he ran lightning fast. Seemed that, even though recently Mommified in public, Ryder still could maintain his bad boy persona.

“Sorry about my mom,” I offered. “She’s very fond of skinship.”

“I noticed.”

We walked together again, I was growing more and more uncomfortable since I didn’t know anything interesting to say to him. Other times, I would have just started thinking some science things to occupy my mind, but Ryder’s revelation of his father’s disease had been bothering me since yesterday. The result? I couldn’t think of anything quietly without the word ‘cancer’ on it.

“Anyway, at least now I know where your, ah, quirkiness came from,” Ryder said.

“Oh yes, cancer,” I replied without thinking, and then smacked my lips subsequently. “I mean, yes, just yes. No cancer mentioned.”

“It’s ok, it’s not like I’m ultra sensitive about that.” 

“You’re not?”

He didn’t answer to that, and instead only smiled dryly. I couldn’t even call that a smile, it looked more like a simple stretch of the lips and nothing more. “You know… a lot of people are looking at us.”

I gave a quick lookover, and realized that what Ryder said was true. Being right on the spotlight wasn’t something I was used to, and thus I couldn’t really tell if people looked at me or not. But then after noticing around 4, 5, oh my stars, 7 people staring at me, I couldn’t help it anymore. My knees grew weak and started to wobble. I had been fully turned into a walking jelly and I was pretty sure that I was going to fall lifelessly to the floor.

“Oh my God. Oh my God,” I managed to breathe out.

“Permission to hold you?” 

“Granted,” I said, and then I felt his chaffed hand around my arm, holding me tightly to him. Immediately I regretted my decision to let him touch me. Now I didn’t know which was worse, to have 12 people staring at me, or to have him in such close proximity to me. 

“You know what you should do when a lot of people look at you?” he whispered to me. Bad move, Ryder. Bad move. Now my ears were blazing so hard it could erupt.

“Give them something to watch,” he said, before then he pressed his lips on my cheek.

I had never been kissed by anyone other than my mother before. My mother’s lips were soft and big and it gave me warm and fuzzy feelings inside. It never made my heart race like this, it never made me felt like melting like this, and most importantly, my mother’s kiss never made me go kaput like this.

For a few seconds or more, I think I had just gone mad. 

“Pass that kiss to Mrs. Hale, would you?” Ryder smirked as he held my head around his arm. “Good girl.”

And then he left me. Just like that. His plan did work, though, as the crowd was spread to all over the place, most of them following him, whispers here and there. 

My whole head was still tingling and my left cheek in particular was burning so bad I had to go to the restroom immediately. I nearly checked my bottom just in case I hadn’t wetted my bladder. I was pretty sure what I was feeling now wasn’t fear, because the voices inside my mind didn’t turn into all Yoda, but if it wasn’t fear, what was it? What was the strange thing inside my body that kept punching the walls in my stomach? Or maybe Ryder had some kind of science-fiction kind of skills that could plant some evil flesh-eating monster inside my body through deadly kisses? 

Against my will, the feeling of Ryder’s lips on my cheek struck again. 

Ba-dump. Something inside my chest just exploded.

Yep. There was definitely a flesh-eating monster inside me.

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Thank you so much for your supports!!! <3 As it turns out, it wasn't at the 13th August that I finished this chapter. Woot woot! Hopefully the next one will come out fast, too. I'm having real fun with this right now.