section ten (or the section on gummy worms)

The frozen yogurt at fro-yo was my favorite in all of Denver. Probably in all of Colorado, I wasn’t informed enough to say all the United States, but I was pretty certain it was the best. Lyle and I piled on toppings on vanilla frozen yogurt; he liked the gummy worms and sprinkles while I liked the caramel sauce with chocolate chips.

“Don’t the gummy worms get all hard from being cold?” I asked as he scooped on about twenty multi-colored gummies. He wasn’t being stingy with scoopings.

“That’s why they’re so good,” he decalred, taking one more scoop of gummies and giving me a defiant look.

“Why don’t you use hard candies then?” I asked. Gummy worms were gummy worms for a reason.

“Are you quetioning me?” the corners of his eyes wrinkled up with the smile he was trying to hold back.

“Yes!” I laughed, pulling off a gummy worm from its frozen demise. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

“Lots of things don’t make sense, Brigitte,” he said solemnly. “Okay,” he grabbed my cup of frozen yogurt, “I’ll get that for you.”

“You don’t have to,” I protested trying to grab the bowl back.

“Yeah,” he insisted, “I do. I invited you out, it’s the gentlemanly thing for me to do.”

I smiled and felt myself blushing. I looked away as he paid the cashier, she was blonde and pretty and smiled while he made small talk with her. I felt very fifteen at that moment and it reminded me that a sixteen year old like Lyle would not go out with a fifteen-year-old like me, one that was a mess and didn’t accept their little brother like he accepted his little sister. Verdict was; I felt like crap.

“You wanna sit down?” he nodded toward the booth in the corner.

“Yeah, sure,” I headed that way and he followed.

“Did you need to call your dad?”

If I was good girl I would have said yes, if I was a very good girl I would have told Lyle to take me right home, if I was a saint I would have just had him wait with me while Dad moisied on over to the community center. But I wasn’t any of those things, I didn’t want to be any of those things. Not right now.

“No, he hasn’t called. Honestly, he probably fell asleep or something.” If they’re so worried about me, they’ll call. That’s what cellphones were for.

Lyle frowned, but didn’t say anything.

“So, if you live in Lakewood where do you go to school?”

“Oh, I go to Waldorf,” he said it so non-chalantly but Waldorf was a hoity toity school closer to Auroa. I immediately felt intimidated by him. “Where do you go?”

“South,” South High School was not the creme de le creme but it was what my parents could afford because everyone’s tax dollars paid for it.

“Not a bad school,” he said unevenly. I tried to keep a straight face, Waldorf’s above normal education was no secret and South’s below normal education wasn’t much of a secret either.

“It sucks, but my parents didn’t think about having me apply to a private school—”

“You could have gotten a scholarship.”

“Oh yeah, that wouldn’t have been a problem, the actual filling out forms… my parents just get busy.” I shurgged it away, it didn’t matter anyway. I was almost done with my sophomore year, next year would involve the SATs and then off to college, any real education would be lost on me now.

“That can suck.”

We sat there for a few more minutes, spooning the frozen yogurt away.

“You wanna worm?” he asked. He picked up a green and yellow one and dangled it in front of me. Grinning, I took the thing from him and popped it in my mouth. It was hard, just like I suspected.

“It’s like eating a Starburst,” I said while continuing to chomp on the worm.

“No!” he maintained, “It’s completely different.”

We ate a little more. Lyle asked me about what it was like to go to South and I asked him what it was like at Waldorf, my suspicions were confirmed in that it was all very, very intimidating.

“Ugh,” Lyle groaned happily. He slouched in the booth and rubbed his stomach. “I love this place. I’d weigh a ton if I lived anywhere near here.”

“I could totally eat here everyday,” I scooped the last bit of frozen yogurt out of the cup and placed the empty one in his.

“Well, we should come here next Wednesday,” he suggested.

I bit down on my lip, not really feeling it from the cold yogurt, and smiled. “Uhm, yeah, that’d be great. But let me pay next time,” I insisted.

“Great,” he picked up the cups and slid out of the booth. “Now, let’s get you home before I get accused of kidnapping or something.”

It was almost ten o’clock by now, but neither of us said anything about my phone not going off.

The car ride was quiet, we listened to the same radio station but I liked the pop songs while he liked the rap or hip hop songs. He did a hilarious impression of the current Lady Gaga song at the stop light on University and Harvard.

“Yeah, house right up there, right before Filmore.”

“Wow, nice place.” The house was a typical McMansion.

“Well, it’s just easier to have a bigger house with Andrew, there’s more space for him to run around.”

“I can understand that.” I pulled my stuff together and opened up the door. “So, ask your parents if they want me to give you a ride, okay?”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks for the yogurt.”

“‘Course, no problem.”

I walked up tothe house and opened the heavy oak door, the lights were on an my mother was sitting at the table going over some paperwork. She looked up. “Where have you been?”

total: 1000

grand total: 11,000