An Open Sky

Chapter Twenty-One ~Aidan~

I watched her. I curled up in my blanket and watched her through the trees. I traced the bandage on my face with my fingers. She was home. She was safe and that’s all that mattered. I hadn’t lost her yet. I won’t ever lose her, not this time.

                I watched her shrug off her sweatshirt, revealing an unbearably attractive bikini. I looked away, embarrassed, and switched my focus to the dirt. I could feel the heat rush to my face. I fought the temptation to look back through her window.

                I finally looked up to find her in a skin-tight tank top and striped short shorts. Great. Because that’s so much better…I could feel the heat returning to my face. I was glad she couldn’t see me right now. She set her iPod on a speaker by her window and blared some techno party song. I could hear it relatively clearly from where I was. The neighbors were not going to be happy…nor was her father. I remembered how my father would rush at me whenever he could hear my music. How I would end up on the floor…how a new scar would appear on my canvas of a body…

                She sat on the edge of her bed singing along for the first minute or so of the song. Then I watched her jump up and start flailing her arms around, whipping her head back and forth, her hair following like a shadow. I laughed to myself. My laugh was cut short when I spotted a man walking around downstairs.

                Adrenaline shot through me for a moment before I recognized the brown hair. Her father. He walked into the living room and sat just out of my vision on the couch. I saw the TV flick on. It was like he pretended he could actually hear it with Alexa’s music vibrating the house.

                I thought about what my mother would do if I tried pulling that off now. I shuddered, the pain returning to my face for a brief moment.

                I looked back up at Alexa, who was switching the song on her iPod. I wondered if she was thinking about me, or how often she did. I wondered if I would creep into the back of her mind whenever she was doing something just like she did mine. I wondered if she thought about when we’d almost kissed, and if she’d wanted to.

                The next song she played was a rock song. I didn’t recognize it, but it had a heavy guitar part that consisted of at least three solos. I watched her play her air guitar and spin around pretending to sing into an invisible microphone. I remembered when I used to do that. I’d always wanted to learn guitar, but my parents wouldn’t have it. They said nothing good ever comes from being a rock star, which I never understood because I just wanted to learn how to play. And besides, acoustic guitars were always my favorite.

                After that song, a beautiful acoustic chord came on. She got up shaking her head and switched the song to another party one. Even as the other catchy melody battled for control in my head, the soft, melodic guitar rhythm replayed itself over and over in my mind. I wished she wouldn’t have changed the song.

                I turned to face the stars and gazed up at the brightest one. I wondered why God never made any other worlds besides Earth. I guess He didn’t want the same thing happening on other places, too. People were evil. God always said he still loved them and he always would. I wondered how he could do it. How he could keep putting up with us. How he could keep dealing with someone like me, like Jay. If we really were His best creation, then how could we also be the worst?