Chapter 128
Zenon's sister, her ex-boyfriend and Nicole had all been on their way to dinner when the incident happened. They were now standing on the sidewalk with their mouths wide open.
I hope their dinner reservation's flexible.
Axel and Bryce were walking across the backyard, re-tracing Zenon's path to reach us. There were a lot of weeds, but that didn't seem to slow them down.
Gloria and my mother were standing at the entrance of our house. Even Heidi poked her head out of an upstairs window.
Wasn't she meant to be unconscious?
And Zenon.
He was kneeling behind my car. The sight of him there caused major deja-vu.
Zenon's been cute since the day his basketball rolled into our driveway and I saw him for the first time. He was probably cute before, but I can't confirm that.
And then came the day we had our first real conversation... ten years later. He had been kneeling on the ground behind my car, in the same way he was now.
He had more tan, and his hair was a little shorter then – but I liked it this way. Forever 'cute.'
Zenon didn't have to look up to know my reaction.
We've done this before.
I ran towards the accident and half-fell next to him, but he'd already extended an arm to keep me steady. The impact of my unstable body should've rocked him, but he was strong enough to remain completely unaffected.
Somehow, I was the one out of breath though he'd been running.
I looked at the damage I created and that's when déjà vu peaked to a whole new level of unreal.
A laptop.
I ran over another mother flipping laptop.
Speaking of mothers...
Mine was silently holding a briefcase by our front door. She, along with seven other spectators, were watching us. Do they not speak? Usually Heidi never keeps her mouth shut.
They wanted to see Zenon's reaction. To them, he was always such a relaxed guy.
Ha.
So, they watched and waited.
And Zenon's reaction came out in one word. "What the fck, Candy?!"
OK, I lied. Four words.
He lowered his hand from his knee to the concrete driveway. My eyes traced the muscles along his arm to his biceps and up to the blue eyes that could freeze me.
I asked, "Is that your laptop?"
He said nothing. He said absolutely nothing. And from the way he was looking at me, it was like he was daring me to say something stupid.
I, of course, obliged.
"IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!" I blurted out in panic. "I swear I had no idea AND I haven't even paid you back for the last one and now... WHY DO YOU KEEP PUTTING LAPTOPS ON THE FLOOR?!"
OK. I was losing it. The stress was really getting to me.
"Now would be a good time to react Zenon," I whispered, having gone from 0 to 100 back to 0 in five seconds flat.
I was a roller-coaster of emotions, while he was cool as a cucumber.
The cucumber exhaled and said;
"Will you now admit that you're a fcking terrible driver, Candace?"
Silence.
That's what we're getting out of this?
Really?
I put all my passion behind one word: "Never!"
Does he have no respect for the time I saved...
I pointed at a corner of the driveway where a broken flowerpot sat. "That's where it happened."
He didn't understand me, "What?"
"You know what."
I was trying to be climactic... but it wasn't working.
"Candace," he said, "I can't follow your thoughts 90% of the time."
"True," I acknowledged, "but you've been getting better at it lately."
Zenon sighed and I could see a tiny little smirk appear, "You're talking about that ridiculous time you saved a raccoon, aren't you?"
"Yes," I nodded, "When in doubt, you can always guess that."
Nicole and Charlotte ventured closer to us. Charlotte whispered to Nicole, "What are they saying?"
They wanted to listen in more and pretended to be investigating the crushed laptop. It had a giant wheel-shaped dent in it.
A couple wires stuck out of it, like frizzy hair. That laptop was having a bad day.
"Are we attending a funeral for the cat or the laptop now?" Bryce asked, "Because my social calendar is full already without these absurd events."
Zenon's phone rang. We all saw the caller ID: Art.
He picked it up and put on loudspeaker for us all to hear.
"YOOOOOO," Art's greeting blasted out of the phone, "Man you're never going to believe this! You told me to check my kit and my jersey is missi-"
Zenon hung up.
I guess Art's a little too late.
That's when my mother made her sneaky exit. Now that I had backed my car up slightly, she could get her car out. I don't where she was going since she never felt the need to tell us, but somewhere work related, based on the briefcase she was carrying.
Axel came up to Zenon and rested a supportive hand on his shoulder. Axel had been there through the trauma of the last incident.
Charlotte pushed past them. As a concerned sister, she inspected the damage to the laptop.
I almost expected it to fizz and pop, that's how messed up it was.
"Did you back everything up?" she asked her brother.
Practical question.
The kind my own sister would never ask. I shuddered to think of his response... All his files... his music... his....
"Back what up?" he asked, "This computer is like 3 months old after she drove over the last one."
On the one hand, I was relieved to hear that. On the other hand, why'd he have to expose me like that?
Without context, Zenon saying 'she drove over the last one' must sound weird. Only Axel knew about that. Well, maybe Bryce too, if he actually remembered. Sometimes, news came to him in one ear and flew straight out the other.