Losing Hope

pick up the phone just as she shuts the oven and turns to face me. “You got a text.” I laugh. “Your cake is fine.”
    She rolls her eyes and throws the oven mitt on the counter, then walks back to her seat. I’m curious about the cell phone, especially since she told me earlier this week that she didn’t have one.
    “I thought you weren’t allowed to have a phone,” I say, glancing at all the texts as I scroll my finger down the screen. “Or was that a really pathetic excuse to avoid giving me your number?”
    “I’m not allowed,” she says. “My best friend gave it to me the other day. It can’t do anything but text.”
    I turn the phone around to face her. “What the hell kind of texts are these?” I read one out loud.
    “Sky, you are beautiful. You are possibly the most exquisite creature in the universe and if anyone tells you otherwise, I’ll cut the bitch.” I glance at her, the texts making me even more curious about her than I was before. “Oh, God,” I say. “They’re all like this. Please tell me you don’t text these to yourself for daily motivation.”
    She laughs and snatches the phone out of my hand. “Stop. You’re ruining the fun of it.”
    “Oh, my God, you do? Those are all from you?”
    “No!” she says defensively. “They’re from Six. She’s my best friend and she’s halfway around the world and she misses me. She wants me to not be sad, so she sends me nice texts every day. I think it’s sweet.”
    “Oh, you do not,” I say. “You think it’s annoying and you probably don’t even read them.”
    “She means well,” she says, folding her arms defensively across her chest.
    “They’ll ruin you,” I tease. “Those texts will inflate your ego so much, you’ll explode.” I scroll through the settings on her phone and punch the number into my phone. There’s no way I’m leaving here without her number, and this is the perfect excuse to get it. “We need to rectify this situation before you start suffering from delusions of grandeur.” I give her back her phone and text her.
    Your cookies suck ass. And you’re really not that pretty.
    “Better?” I ask after she reads it. “Did the ego deflate enough?”
    She laughs and places the phone facedown on the counter. “You know just the right things to say to a girl.” She walks into the living room and spins around to face me. “Want a tour of the house?”
    I don’t hesitate. Of course I want a tour of her house. I follow her through the house and listen as she speaks. I pretend to be interested in everything she’s pointing out, but in reality I can only concentrate on the sound of her voice. She could talk to me all night and I’d never get tired of listening to her.
    “My room,” she says, swinging open the door to her bedroom. “Feel free to look around, but being as though there aren’t any people eighteen or older here, stay off the bed. I’m not allowed to get pregnant this weekend.”
    I pause as I’m passing through her door and eye her. “Only this weekend?” I ask, matching her wit. “You plan on getting knocked up next weekend, instead?”
    She smiles and I continue making my way into her room. “Nah,” she says. “I’ll probably wait a few more weeks.”
    I shouldn’t be here. Every minute I spend with her makes me like her more and more. Now I’m in her room and there’s no one in the house other than her and me, not to mention the fact that there’s this bed between us that she told me to stay off of.
    I shouldn’t be here.
    I came here to show her I’m the good guy, not the bad guy. So why am I looking at her bed and not having good thoughts right now?
    “I’m eighteen,” I say, unable to stop imagining what she looks like when she lies in this bed.
    “Yay for you? ” she says, confused.
    I smile at her, then nod toward her bed as explanation. “You said to stay off your bed because I’m not eighteen. I’m just pointing out that I am.”
    Her shoulders tense and she inhales a quick breath. “Oh,” she says, slightly flustered. “Well then, I meant nineteen.”
    I like her reaction a little too much, so I try to refocus and concentrate on why I’m here.
    Why am I here? Because all that’s running through my mind right now is bed, bed, bed .
    I’m here to make a point. A much-needed, valid point. I walk as far away from the bed as I can get and end up at the window.
    The same window I’ve heard so much about over the course of the past week at