His eyebrows shoot up even higher. “Wow, I wasn’t expecting that one… how old is she?”
I’m battling to keep my disappointment contained. “Forty-one.”
He pauses, studying me intently, and it makes my skin heat, but not from blushing. It heats with want, because I want him to keep looking at me like that. “How old are you?”
“Seventeen.” I’m not sure why I lie, other than being seventeen suddenly seems a hell of a lot better than being sixteen, and besides, I think he’s a little bit older. “How old are you?”
“Almost eighteen,” he says, eyes still on me.
“Did you just move in?” I ask. “Or are you staying with the couple that lives here? I don’t remember them moving out.”
“They didn’t.” He hitches his finger over at the house. “I just moved back in with my parents for a little bit until I can figure some stuff out.”
I dare to step closer to the fence and notice how beautiful his eyes are. And how much emotion they carry. Like he’s feeling too much, but trying to keep it all bottled up inside and hidden from the world. “Well, where’d you live before?”
He seems to get a little tense from this question, his shoulders stiffening. “Here and there.”
I think about asking him what his story is, or, better yet, dazzling him with my flirting skills. But I haven’t discovered them yet, so instead I end up saying, “That sounds cool.”
He gives me a look like he thinks I’m adorable. “Where are you heading to so early in the morning?”
“School,” I tell him.
“It’s summer. Isn’t school out?”
I shake my head. “Today’s the last day.”
“And you’re going?” he questions, wiping the grease on his hands onto his jeans, seeming to lose interest in me as he gazes off over my shoulder. “Man, I used to always ditch the last day.”
I suddenly feel like a ten year old with LOSER stamped on my forehead. “Well, I have dance right after and I take the bus from school so I sort of have to go.” I make a lame excuse.
“You’re a dancer?” he asks, and it brightens me up a little bit that he’s paying attention to me again.
I nod. “Yeah, I do mostly ballet and sometimes hip-hop.”
His gaze slowly scrolls over my lean legs and flat stomach, and I struggle not to look away from the heat in his eyes and the heat surfacing in my body. The heat only amplifies when his gaze meets mine, and for a moment I feel this strange confidence inside me flicker and I stand up a little bit taller.
“I’d love to see you dance sometime,” he says with a smile. I’m not sure how to respond, nervous over the idea. The smile starts to leave his face the longer I stay quiet. “Unless you don’t want to.”
“No, I want to,” I say quickly. “I-I will.”
His grin returns, bigger, bolder, more confident. “I’m going to hold you to that, Delilah,” he says. “In fact, I’m looking forward to it.” He pauses, his eyes skimming over my body again, and then he opens his mouth to say something. The look in his eyes makes me wonder if it’s important, but he snaps his jaw shut when a woman walks out the door.
She’s wearing a robe, but it’s not like my mom’s; this woman’s robe is made of pink furry material and flows all the way to her ankles. Her hair is in rollers and she has slippers on. “Dylan, get your ass in here and clean up the goddamn mess you left in the kitchen!” she shouts, loud enough that the neighbor across the street can hear.
Dylan’s jaw tightens, the bottled emotion in his eyes on the verge of bursting out. “I’ll be in there in a minute,” he replies in a surprisingly calm tone. He doesn’t look at her when he speaks; his gaze is still fixed on me, and all the emotion inside him is directed at me.
It’s overwhelming, and my breath hitches in my throat.
“Don’t give me that ‘I’ll be in there in a minute’ bullshit,” she shouts back, scooping up the newspaper from the porch. “With you that means your dumb ass is going to sit out here and work on the car until you feel like coming in.” She backs for the door. “I’m not putting up with your bullshit. Get your ass in here now and quit bothering the goddamn neighbors.” She turns away and steps back into the house, the screen door slamming behind her.
There’s this long pause where all I can hear is the sound of Dylan breathing. I want to ask him if he’s okay, because his mom seems like a real bitch.
Finally, I manage to gather up enough courage. “Are you okay?”
He blinks, like he’s stunned, but the stricken look on his face swiftly vanishes and suddenly he looks calm. “I’m perfectly fine. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”
“Are you sure?” I double-check. “I know how much of a pain parents can be.”
He nods, looking at me as if he’s trying to figure something out. “I’ll be okay, as long as you can do one thing for me.”
“Okay,” I say, a little confused.
“When you get home, make sure to say hi to me.”
“What if you’re not outside?”
“I will be,” he promises with a smile, and the dark cloud that rose over him evaporates.
“Okay,” I tell him, holding back a smile, despite how much happiness is bubbling up inside me. “I’ll make sure I do that.”
“Good.” His smile broadens. “I’ll let you get to school. Wouldn’t want you to be late for your last day.” He winks at me as he backs away toward an old car parked in the driveway with the hood up.
I wave at him and then head off to school, taking even strides, despite how much I want to dance up the sidewalk. I can feel him watching me all the way to the end of the yard where he can no longer see me as I disappear around the corner.
I let my smile break through. For once someone was looking at me. For once I feel like Poison Ivy instead of Invisible Woman.
Looking back at it now as I lie here on the shore, the water rising with the current and slowly rushing over my body, I realize that I was naïve. That I was nowhere close to being Poison Ivy. That I would never even come close. If anything, Dylan was Poison Ivy in disguise, and I was his next victim.
But it wasn’t all his fault. After all, I’m the one who chose to go back to him, even after I discovered his toxic kiss.
Chapter 2