Broken Glass, Broken Hearts (short story) part 17

"You OK Angela?" I asked as Angela trudged down the stairs. She smiled weakly at me and said, "Yea. I'm fine." She sat down next to me and I casually put my arm around her shoulders. She looked up at my face and her eyes sparkled as her smile brightened. My breathing stopped and my heartbeat raced. I felt my hand brush through her hair but didn't realize it had actually been me doing it until she leaned her head on my shoulder and wrapped her arms around my left arm. My eyes widened and my heart stopped altogether. My arm was still on her shoulder and I suddenly realized that Jake and Milly were still sitting next to us. But they weren't paying attention to us. They were too busy critiquing every second of Keith. I sat there for the rest of the movie with no breath and no heartbeats. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit. I obviously had breath and heartbeats or I would have died. But let's just say that it was hard to breath and my heartbeats were not going at a normal pace...or rate...or whatever the grammatically correct phrase is. At the end of the movie after Jake had said bye and gone up to his room and Milly had gone down to the car and started messing with the radio, Angela surprised me. "Thanks for coming Tyler," she said. She smiled widely and said, "You make me happy." I couldn't take the smile off my face. She giggled quietly and wrapped her arms around me. I closed my eyes as she kissed my cheek. I kept my eyes closed as she unwrapped her arms, whispered 'bye' in an embarrassed tone and closed her front door. Then I slowly opened my eyes. I felt like I might pass out, and I'm surprised that I didn't.

I closed the door behind me and closed my eyes as I leaned against the door. I bit my lip to keep from smiling hugely. I felt like jumping and screaming. I let out a slightly loud little excited yelp that sounded like it should have come out of the mouth of a yorkshire terrier. "You OK sis?" Jake called from upstairs. I nodded happily and then said "Yea, I'm fine," realizing that he couldn't see me nod. I could almost feel Dustin hugging me and jumping around in excited circles. If she had been there at that exact moment, I'm not sure which one of us would have been more excited. My brother played 'Pump It' by the Black Eyed Peas extremely loudly from upstairs and I started dancing to it. "Pump it, LOUDER, pump it, LOUDER!" I sung/screamed. I could hear Jake laughing at me from the staircase and I smiled widely at him as I kept dancing. "Say oh oh oh oh, say oh oh oh oh!" I yelled. It was turning to be a great day, and I knew that Dustin was right. I could make it through anything.

Monday morning Milly got picked up for school by some friends (one of them being Jake, I

might add.) So I got in my car and drove to Angela's house. She came out wearing green converse,

a huge grey sweatshirt that said "Prop o' Dustin", aviators and jean shorts. She had an iPod in her

and I have a feeling she didn't notice me driving up because when I stopped the car in front of her

house, she just kept dancing. I laughed as she sung along to a Black Eyed Peas song I didn't recognize

right away. "Morning Ang," I said through laughs. She tipped her aviators down slightly, revealing

a slightly surprised expression. She tipped them back up, smiled widely, and said, "Hey Tyler!" she

took her headphones out of her ears and slipped into the passenger seat. I laughed and said, "Nice

outfit. Is it a dress up day?" She smiled, "No, I just decided to wear some of my sister's stuff. I

decided that she would want me to wear it. And its surprisingly comfy. But don't expect these weird

outfits everyday, I'm just experimenting. I think I'm gonna see if there's a way to make clothes less

bright." I laughed, "What do you mean by 'she would want you to wear her clothes'? Did she leave

everything in your house?" Angela frowned slightly and said, "Yea..." she was quiet for a second. I

looked over at her troubled expression briefly as we pulled up to a red light. "Something wrong?" I

asked. She smiled at me, "No, I'm fine."

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