The New Girl, Part 1

CHAPTER FIVE

The New Girl, Part 1

The ravens come bearing news. A certain new redhead was spotted in Midtown today. And I hear her daddy dearest is every bit the #mchottie his daughter is. Forest Hills could certainly use middle-aged eligible bachelors. Too many of them leave. #foresthillsmysteries — Tweet from Raven_Eye.

They say lightning never strikes twice, but it apparently does in Forest Hills. Ollie’s life was in danger once more, and there I was trying to rescue him again.

Honestly, I’m not entirely sure how I did it, but I managed to reach him just before the truck did.

“Hey!” I grabbed onto the sleeve of his arm and then pulled him back in desperation.

I didn’t mean to twirl him around so he’d fall into me, and I definitely didn’t plan for us to fall back onto the pavement in a heap. But that’s what happened, and it was pretty much the definition of déjà vu. 

The truck zoomed past us without stopping for the two teenagers lying on the road just a foot away from its path, but a bald man did pop his head out of the passenger side window to yell at us for not, “Watching the road, you dumb kids!” It was so reminiscent of Californian driver asshole syndrome that I almost cracked a smile.

“We really have to stop meeting like this, Jessica Day,” Ollie sighed.  

He was on top of me with our faces inches from each other, which meant I had no choice but to stare into those dreamy blue eyes and that lopsided half-grin that seemed to be his default look whenever he wasn’t being the melancholic idiot I knew him to be.

“Seriously...” I pushed him off me, although that took some serious willpower. “Can we please not make this a regular thing?”

Ollie offered me his hand, but I just brushed him off and got up on my own just to prove that I wasn’t taken in by his charms. Not that he was trying to be charming. It was more of a natural thing with him.

“Maybe look left or right before you cross the road like normal people do,” I snapped. “Or just not try to get yourself kill—”

I suddenly noticed that the pedestrian light across from us was still turned red and not green like we thought it had been only seconds ago. It was only now that the light switched to green and the people on the other side of the street— none of whom came to help us — began crossing over to our side without even asking us if we were okay. It was almost like they didn’t see what just happened.

No, I was wrong about that. A few people had seen Ollie’s near-death experience.

The three girls in the diner were standing outside the store behind us, and all three of them were looking curiously in our direction. The one in the middle, the pretty one with the heavy eyeliner, was even frowning at Ollie. And it was only then that I noticed how the blue of her irises was like his. They shared the same skin tone, too.

“Sister?” I asked.

“Cousin,” he replied, before waving at her. “I’m fine, Laura... not that you care.”

He’d said that last bit in an undertone. But Laura still must have heard him because her frown only deepened before she turned around and left in a huff, leaving her two friends to rush after her.

“And she used to be such a sweet kid,” Ollie chuckled halfheartedly.

Not that I didn’t mind this piece of insight into his childhood, but there were some other burning questions in my mind that needed to be answered.

“Didn’t you hear me calling to you?” I asked.

For an answer, Ollie popped out the ear-pod in his right ear. “I can’t really hear much else when I’ve got Coldplay on replay.”

Huh, he liked the same band I did. Not that this was a unique thing. Everyone loved Coldplay.

“And you didn’t see the huge truck flying straight at you?” I pressed.

Ollie shrugged. “It wasn’t there when I looked.”

He was frowning at me, almost like he knew what I was about to ask next. That didn’t stop me from asking it though. “You didn’t... you didn’t try to...”

I couldn’t finish that sentence.

Ollie rolled his eyes at me. “No, Jessica Day. I wasn’t trying to kill myself this time...”

It was the way he said it that made me not completely believe him, and I think that showed on my face because Ollie’s face got a little stiff.

“You think I want to die in a car crash?” he asked. “You know how painful that would be?”

“Is it any different from falling off a cliff?” I replied.

He frowned. I frowned. Seriously, this really was déjà vu.

After a painful amount of dead air, I let out a sigh and said, “Sorry, I don’t mean to be snippy. I’ve just never jumped in front of a moving car before.”

Ollie’s eyes softened and I found I couldn’t stop staring at them.

“You didn’t have to... I didn’t need saving,” Ollie replied.

“You sure looked like you did,” I answered.

No, I really wasn’t trying to sound combative here, but his indifferent tone was starting to annoy me. I mean, I did just save his life again. A little gratitude would be nice, right?

“No, I really didn’t,” Ollie replied, equally irritated. “I’m pretty fast when I want to be, Jessica Day.”

“Stop saying my whole name like that,” I said. “It’s Jess, just Jess.”

A few more seconds of dead air passed us by before Ollie finally stepped back.

“Well, I can’t say it wasn’t fun falling into you again,” he pointed a thumb behind him, “but I’ve got somewhere to be right now.”

“Oh, yeah, me too,” I replied lamely.

“See you around... Jess,” he grinned.

With a wave, Ollie turned his back to me, and I doubt he noticed that I stood there staring at his back until I couldn’t see him anymore.

***

For the rest of that day, I obsessed over what happened in midtown. I couldn’t completely believe that Ollie hadn’t seen the truck speeding toward him, but I guess most people who get hit by cars never do. Besides, that thing with the light turning green for him was really strange.

Ugh, I wish Kim and Lori were here and I could talk to them about this. And that’s part of why I couldn’t shake it. I had no one to talk to about the handsome boy who moonlighted as a damsel in distress. It’s not like I could pick up my smartphone, call Kim and Lori, and talk about all that’s happened and then expect them to understand because they wouldn’t. I definitely wouldn’t have as this really was one of those ‘you had to be there’ kind of things.

Not that they would have believed me either. A cliff-side dalliance with a handsome boy whose eyes glowed under the light of an extra-large moon was the stuff of fairy tales.

Geez, here I was on a Sunday night before my first day at Forest Hills High thinking about some boy... Forest Hills is turning me into a cliché.  

Still, I managed a fitful sleep that got interrupted in the middle of the night by a scratching noise outside my window. It got so annoying that I was forced to get out of bed and check on it. But I didn’t find anything.  

The only saw was a bird — or maybe it was a bat — flapping its little wings along the top of the trees behind the backyard. It was flying away, so I didn’t think it had caused the noise.

“Probably just a tree branch,” I reasoned.

It wasn’t until my head was snugly back in my pillow when I realized it couldn’t have been a tree branch either as there were no trees beside my bedroom window.