Chapter 13: Monday's Date is Leafy

After racking my brain of any of the possibilities of the location of our date, I gave up. I came to close to Googling it, but decided that I wasn't that desperate to know where we were going. I also doubted that the Internet was going to have anything on Jangles. It was a minnow in a sea of sharks.

            "Be home by ten," Dakota said, taking a bite of his ham sandwich.

            I scoffed at his attempt at a big brother/parental figure act. I knew he really didn't care what time I'd be home, just as long as I was safe. But I'd play along and respect him like Mom would want me to do. "Okay."

            He narrowed his eyes, finishing off his food and taking a swig of 2% milk. "I'm serious, Ash."

            I laughed and rolled my eyes. "Sure you are."

            I jogged up the stairs to change. I settled on an oversized, but still flattering, I Love Paris striped tee, a pair of dark-wash denim shorts, and my diamond studs that Phil had given me as an 'I'm your new daddy' gift. I refused to believe that Phil could replace Dad. Phil was a stick in the mud and Dad was a billboard in Las Vegas that shined. You couldn't even think about comparing the two.

            I heard the roar of Eli's jeep and bounded down the stairs. I threw the door open to see Eli standing there with his pearly white grin, a blue and white polo, and a pair of khaki shorts. It amazed me how great he looked in just everyday clothing. He was holding a sunflower, almost identical to the one he had gotten me on our previous date, but some of the petals were more damaged, the edges of them slightly crumpled.

            He shoved the flower into my hand. "It's for you," he stated, a goofy grin crossing his face.

            I laughed. "I assumed so. Who else could it be for? My brother?"

            "Well I already sent him roses..."

            I rolled my eyes and playfully pushed him. "Shut up."

            I went to go put it in with the first one. It was close to dead and all shriveled up, but I wanted to keep it anyway. Sue me for being sentimental, but it was a memory of this summer. Dakota kept griping at me for keeping it. "It's ugly," he stated before sending a disgusted look my way. I told him that we kept him around. He didn't make another remark.

            "Where are we going?" I asked Eli.

            "My house."

            I wondered what kind of surprise he had up his sleeve. I sent him a puzzled look, but didn't say anything else about it. Even if I did, it's not like Eli would've told me.

            The driveway was empty except for a basketball hoop. The house showed no sign of life—sound, nor lights. Instead of going in through the front door, he went through the side fence, which was almost entirely covered in overgrown bushes. The backyard was a completely different story. It was the model backyard, something you would see in a home magazine. There was a little garden filled with sunflowers (which explained where he got the flowers), a deck with a grill and picnic tables, an old swing set that looked like it had seen better days, and a tree house built on a great, oak tree.

            "I guess you've figured out where the date is..." Eli trailed, looking up at the enormous structure.

            "Did you build it yourself?"

            He shook his head, chuckling. "No, Marcus and my dad did. I was too young, like five months old. But it was handed down to me since Marcus never used it. It's my secret hideout. Promise not to tell anyone?" He stuck his pinky finger out.

            A smile crept onto my face as I nodded my head, wrapping my pinky finger around his. "Promise."

            He winked and began climbing up the makeshift ladder of rope and boards. He disappeared through the hole at the bottom of it. His head popped out. "You're not still scared of heights, are you?" he called, peering down at me.

            A fuzzy feeling spread throughout me as I realized that Eli had actually remembered my slight phobia of heights. The happy feeling quickly faded as my once-forgotten fear was so subtly brought up and made its way back into my conscious thoughts. And even though I knew that he liked me, I still didn't want to seem like a baby in front of him, so I shouted, "Not a chance," even though it was one of the biggest lies I've ever told. I was terrified. I felt like my bones could jump out of my body at any given second.

            My trembling hand grabbed the ladder and soon, my foot was plopped onto the first board. I started to climb. The feeling of pride began to sink in. Once in awhile, the friends that had tree houses, would invite me up and be apart of their secret club. I felt honored, of course, but I swiftly declined their invitations. I felt left out like any other ten year old, but even from a young age I had never took any real and dangerous risks, such as climbing up live wood. My childhood friends learned that I wouldn't be going up pretty quickly, and I wasn't invited anymore, but that was okay with me because that was the year that I discovered the wonders of having a sleepover.

            Mistakenly and stupidly, I decided to glance at the ground. I had ignored one of the most important rules of climbing tall things: don't look down. I couldn't help myself. Curiosity killed the cat, and in this case, I was the cat. Only I didn't have the balance to land on my feet. I'd probably end up like Humpty Dumpty and fall to where I'd end up dead. The grass was so green, so lush, that I felt horrible about having my blood burst all over the place. It's a shame that I didn't have time to write Marsha an apology letter before I left Earth.

            I heard Eli shout my name, but it was faded, and I couldn't really comprehend what was happening. The only thing running through my mind was that I was too far away from the ground for no injuries to occur. I let my hand slip, giving up on myself already. I waited for the ground to open up and consume me. I had accepted my fate—either under the ground or in a hospital bed.

            Only, I never hit the ground. I found myself being hauled up by Eli; his strong, determined grip holding onto my arms and hoisting me upwards. Like a fish, I flopped onto the platform, scrambling across the floorboards to a windowless corner. Eli looked scared to death, his eyes were wide open. But in the fear, I saw a bit of relief.

            "Are you okay?" he demanded. "Don't give up on me like that."

            I looked at each little grain in the wooden floors, tracing them with my eyes. "Thanks for saving me, Eli."

            "I guess I'm kind of your hero or something, huh?"

            "Or something," I laughed quietly.

            "I think heroes usually get kisses..." he trailed.

            I rolled my eyes and gestured him closer. "I suppose you do deserve it for saving my life..."

            "I do!" He scooted over to me and puckered his lips. I stifled a giggle and pressed my lips against his for a second. He crossed his arms. "That was a lame kiss."

            I laughed and rested my head against his shoulder. I looked around his tree house, taking in a piece of his childhood. I felt honored that he decided to bring me up to his little hideout. There was a trunk/toy chest type thing against the wall, blankets and pillows were stuffed into a corner, and there were two windows that overlooked the backyard. Paper signs littered the walls. Most were the typical 'No Girls Allowed' or 'Boys Only' signs that were written in a child's scrawl. There was a wall dedicated to drawings, mostly stick figures, but there was one of a pink unicorn.

            "Did you draw this?" I asked, pointing to the mythical crayon pony.

            "Nah, I don't draw girly things. Rachel did that."

            I felt a pang of disappointment. Of course. Contrary to the 'No Girls Allowed' Sign, he probably had Rachel up here all the time.

            He must've sensed my mood change because he piped, "If it makes you feel better, you're the first girl I've brought up here."

            It did make me feel better; a lot better. If Rachel was here, I probably would've stuck my tongue out and said, "Neener-neener." It was childish, but that's how I felt when I was around Eli. There was no need to act mature. Nothing could break the beam that was on my face.

            "So why break your rules now?" I asked, looking at all the paper covering the wooden panels.

            "I...I don't know. It feels right having you up here with me."

            "Thank you."

            "Yeah...I haven't been up here in a while. I usually come here to think and just to be alone. Mom and Dad can't climb anymore. They've gotten too old for that."

            I laughed at the thought of Ethan and Marsha attempting to climb the ladder. "So what do you have to do up here?"

            "I have board games, card games, more board games..."

            "I like board games. Which ones do you have?"

            He listed almost all the board games, including some that I've never heard of, like Qwirkle. "Let's play Connect Four. But I must warn you, I'm pretty good at it."

            "I'm the ultimate champ."

            "Just like you're the master at building sandcastles, right?"

            "Exactly," he said smugly. "I'm glad someone appreciates my talents."

            "In that case, I'm going to be winning a lot of games."

            "We'll see about that. I'm undefeated."

            "Well prepare to be defeated, but if you are as good as you say you are, let's make a bet."

            "What kind of bet?"

            "Whoever loses has to do a dare the other one makes up."

            "Deal."

            I grinned. "I call red."

            "Good. I wanted black anyways. Prepare to eat dust, Cutie."

            He set the game up and divided the chips. "You go first. You have red."

            I dropped my chip into the center slot and began blocking his attempts to trick me. I defeated the so called "undefeated champion" twelve out of thirteen times. I let him win the last game. I was growing weary of his grumbles about my supposed cheating. When he saw that he had four in a row before me, he cheered and did a happy dance. "In your face!" he had cried. Right then and there, I almost let it slip that I had let him win. I bit my lip, letting him have his moment. I had already crushed his ego enough in that game.

"I'm tired of this game. Let's play Hungry Hungry Hippos," he suggested.

"You're just mad because I was winning."

"I let you win!"

I snorted. "Sure you did."

"I did!" he insisted.

I rolled my eyes, dumping the chips into the bags. "I want the yellow hippo."

We cleaned up Connect Four and brought out the little hippos. I began pressing the little lever furiously, trying to eat the little white balls. Eli was good at this game, probably because his fingers were quick and nimble from playing too much video games. He dominated at this game, but I won a couple times.

We played Monopoly next and kept putting each other in bankruptcy. He had built hotels on all of his property, killing me financially each time my shoe ventured onto the east and north side of the board. He got most of the expensive property. I usually hated playing monopoly because it was so monotonous, but it was fun seeing Eli as a 'business man.' He was surprisingly serious.

            I won at Checkers, Clue, and Sorry, but he won all the rest. I didn't expect him to understand chess, let alone be good at it. During Guess Who?, I learned that we're both horrible at guessing. We ended up making impressions of people we thought the other one had. "Hi, I'm Zachary," Eli said in a serious, deep tone. "I'm addicted to being an egghead with foxes as eyebrows. My lips look like a lady's and...and...my name is Zachary." By the end, we were both in tears, clutching our stomachs as we laughed.

            "You're a girl, right?" he asked once we were done playing all of the board games.

            "Last time I checked I was."

            "Girls like to dress up."

            "I suppose..."

            "So that's what we're going to do!"

            "We're going to dress up?"

            He nodded. "We're going to play house or castles or whatever you want."

            "You, a soon to be college man, wants to play dress up with me?" I clarified, raising an eyebrow doubtfully.

            "When you put it that way..."

            I shook my head furiously. "You can't change your mind now."

            I hadn't played pretend since I was eight or nine years old, so it really was like visiting my childhood. I snatched a red blanket from the corner and wrapped it around myself to create a makeshift dress. Eli had the same idea, as he tied one around his neck and called it a cape.

            "Are you supposed to be a superhero?" I blurted.

            "No, Cutie. I already played superhero today." He winked. "I'm going for the Prince Philip look. You know, from Sleeping Beauty."

            My initial reaction was shock. He had actually remembered the prince's name, and it wasn't something common like Prince Charming. But as my face fell, Eli recognized his mistake and apologized quickly. "I'm sorry, Ash. I totally forgot. I feel like a total jerk. God, I'm so sorry."

            It wasn't his fault that my family hated all things Disney. Although I missed it, I couldn't bring myself to watch another movie. It hurt too much. "It's okay...I'll be Princess Aurora." I swallowed and plastered on a fake smile. Hopefully Eli couldn't see right through it. I spent a lot of time perfecting it.

            He didn't. And if he did, he certainly didn't say anything about it.

            When we started to reenact the meeting in the forest, I was pleasantly surprised at how well I remembered the song lyrics and the general plotline. We were singing—if you could even call what we were doing that—the lyrics to "Once Upon A Dream. I was even more surprised at the fact that the neighbors haven't come out and complained yet. We skipped the scenes with the three fairies, so I was only playing Sleeping Beauty. Eli played Maleficent, which was quite amusing. Throughout his performance, I was laughing hard at his attempt to battle himself. He was switching back and forth between each character, belting out lines of the characters. They weren't the most accurate, but they were certainly original.

            The kissing scene was nearing. "And with a kiss, I die!" I cried dramatically, dropping gently onto the floorboards. I wasn't risking one of them to collapse under me, resulting in my injury.

            He planted a kiss on me and fell onto the floor, sprawling out beside me. I sat up and tapped his chest. "Wrong love story, Romeo," I laughed.

            "Ah, so my Briar Rose did wake up."

            "O' happy dagger!" I mocked plunging a knife through my chest and slumped down.

            "Okay. I'm confused. Are we doing Romeo and Juliet or Sleeping Beauty?"

            "We've basically finished both of them. And I'm getting tired."

            He spread his blanket out on the floor, and I copied him. For ten minutes we quietly stared up at the wooden roof, wondering if the stars were out yet. It was slightly sloped, so any rain that passed through could form puddles on the ground.

            "Let's carve our names into the wall," Eli said, breaking the peaceful silence.

            I looked over at him. "What?"

            "Let's carve our initials. I saw it in a movie once."

            "With what?" I looked around and saw the same things as before, only in a different, less organized, location.

            "I'm sure I have a knife here somewhere..."         

            "Are you serious?"

            "Black?"

            "What?"

            "It's from Harry Potter."

            I laughed. "I didn't have you pegged for a HP fan."

            "I am. Hermione's hot. So are you in?"

            "Are you sure you want to do this to your no-girl zone?"

            He shrugged. "You're already up here. That zone no longer exists."

            I smiled. "Okay."

            Eli found a knife at the bottom of the trunk. If you asked me, it was extremely dangerous. We were lucky that we didn't get cut when we were digging for props and things to do. He pointed to a spot next to the window, asking me for approval. I nodded. He carved his initials, which were much neater than the ones I had etched. The only experience I had with knives were the ones I used to cut food and to butter bread, which I wasn't even good at, so, to say the least, it looked horrible. I drew half of a heart and he completed the other half. It was lopsided and not even a little picture perfect, but that only made it sweeter.

            I took a step back and admired our "masterpiece." I found it a little strange that he wanted to carve something like this in his tree house, his man cave. It was like a tattoo of this summer. "I like it," I decided.

            "I like you."

            A light blush invaded my cheeks as I smiled shyly. "I like you, too. So what's my hint for tomorrow's date?"

            He thought a moment before settling on, "You drive me crazy."

            "Do I get to drive your car?" I asked hopefully.

            He scoffed. "You wish. Are you hungry yet?"

            I didn't realize that it was dinnertime. "What time is it?"

            He glanced at his phone. "Seven."

            As if on cue, my stomach grumbled. "Whoops. Excuse me."

            "I'll take that as a yes." He grinned. "Don't worry. I think it's cute."

            I buried my face in my hands. "It's not cute. You're probably the only guy to think that!"

            "Maybe. Are you okay with turkey?" I nodded. "Good. Because I don't think we have anything else."

            "Will we be staying down there, or are we coming back up?"

            "We're coming back up. You don't want to?"

            "How about you go get the food and I stay up here. We don't need a repeat of what happened earlier."

            He laughed and climbed down the treacherous ladder. He did it so easily and smoothly, while I was like an awkward marionette whose strings were uneven. While he was fetching our dinner, I smoothed out the wrinkles in the blankets and tidied up a bit.

            Five minutes later, he came back with a baggie of sandwiches in his mouth. "I hope you didn't want any drinks," he said.

            He handed me a sandwich, which I gratefully scarfed down. He shook his head and chuckled. "I'm sorry I starved you. You're like a wild beast."

            I glared. "Shush," I said, my mouth still filled with food.

            "You're attractive," he laughed. "What time do you need to be home?"

            "Ten, but Dakota doesn't care what time I get home. So whenever, I guess."

            "You'll be home by ten. I want to make a semi-good impression."

            "Why don't you just go for a good or great one?"

            "Because no brother wants to see his baby sister date anyone."

            "Good point," I agreed. "So what shall we do until then?"

            "We could climb up to the roof of the tree house."

             I froze, a look of sheer terror crossing my face. He had to be joking because there was no way that he would even expect me to get to the roof without some sort of ladder or barrier to keep me from falling down. I couldn't even get to the tree house with a leader, let alone out a window and up a slanted piece of wood that could lead to my potential death.

            A sudden burst of laughter came from his mouth. "Your face was priceless! You actually believed that we were going up to the roof, didn't you?" He opened his eyes wide and his mouth formed an 'o' shape. "That was you."

            I hit him on the shoulder again and resumed munching on my sandwich; grating on it like I was a beaver and it was a piece of wood. "That wasn't funny," I mumbled.

            "Oh, but it was."

            "Let's do it," I said, looking up at Elil.

            He creased his eyebrows. "Do what?"

            "Let's go on top of the roof."

            There was no taking it back now. It was all in the open. A part of me hoped that Eli would come to his senses and tell me it was dangerous, but I doubted that he would. He lived for danger and adrenaline, and I wanted that feeling.

            The astonishment in his face was unmistakable. "Really?"

            My smile was small. "Really."

            "Are you sure?"

            No. "Positive."

            I had wasted my last chance to take my suggestion back. Was I being an idiot? Probably. Should I try to retain the minimal common sense I had left? It would be a smart idea. Was I too hopped up on happiness to even care? Definitely.

            Unlike me, Eli looked freakishly happy. It was sort of frightening. "Why are you grinning at me like that?" I said nervously.

            "No one's ever taken me up on my offer to go on the roof before."

...wonderful. "Have you ever gone up?"

            "A couple of times," he said. "It's a good place to watch the sunset."

            "You watch the sunset? How poetic."

            He shrugged. "I guess."

            He went out the window and onto what he called "a sturdy branch." It wasn't flimsy, but it didn't seem like the Golden Gate Bridge, either.

            "Are you sure this is safe?" I asked him, peering out the window hesitantly before backing away slowly.

            "Nope."

A second later, his hand slipped and he was soon out of my view. My heart stopped and I let out a scream as I rushed to the window. Panic ran threw my veins. If only I hadn't opened my mouth and attempted to impress him, then he would be hurt. "Are you okay?!" I screamed desperately, my eyes scanning for signs of Eli on the ground.

Besides my own, I didn't hear any bloodcurdling screams. I sank my shoulders in relief when I saw that Eli was hanging onto the branch with one hand. He made it look so effortless as he was hanging there, like it was no big deal. "Hey, Cutie," he said casually.

            I stomped my foot angrily and pointed to the spot next to me. "Would you get up here?"

            "No thanks. I'm good down here."

            "Eli..." I growled.

            He rolled his eyes and pulled himself up. He held out his arms. "Happy?"

            "Not quite. Get in here."

            I stepped out of his way and practically attacked him when he got in. "Miss me already? You only saw me a second ago."

            "You're an idiot! I was about to have a heart attack."

            "Does this mean we're not going up to the roof?"

            I shook my head. "If I had slipped, I wouldn't have had the strength to hold myself up like you did. I'd be on the ground...dead."

            "You'd be a pretty ground." He smiled toothily, which caused the corners of my lips to turn upwards.

            "I'd rather be ugly and living."

            "That could never happen." I was about to 'aw', but then he opened his mouth again. "You know, unless you let yourself go. If you gained wait, let your hair thin out, don't shave—"

            "Eli?"

            "Yeah?"

            "Just shut up and kiss me."