German Boy

Chapter 1: The German Boy

How do love stories start? With a simple hi? Or maybe with a cliché misunderstanding where you bump a really handsome, popular, bad boy and become his enemy? Perhaps when you see a guy passing by and you feel something unusual?

It's weird to think about the fact that I knew it was him I will love for the rest of my life the first time I saw him when I was six years old.

Now, you might be asking and judging me: Six years old? Seriously?

Yeah

Seriously.

Six. Years. Old.

That's how young I was when I figured out I'm in love.

It all started one sunny day. Everything was going well. Normal as they used to. And I can clearly remember, it's still fresh in my mind how a black car passed by me as I was riding my back on my way home after playing with my best friend: Sofia Bassett.

She became my best friend ever since kindergarten when I was four.

As my feet were pushing and pulling the pedals, I smiled when the car stopped a few feet away from my house. As in. Just a few feet away. It was so close to ours.

For years, that house was abandoned. No one lived in it. Sofia even used to tell me make-believe stories about it such as legends like a monster was living there and one of her relatives was bitten by it. But a few months ago before that day, it went under construction to get renovated and I swear, it became so much better than its earlier version.

But that day, all my fears of getting close to that house were washed away when I saw a blonde kid looking my age, slowly get out of the car with a few blonde girls looking a little older than us get down as well. The way his hair was bouncing through his forehead made me smile. It reminded me of how I loved jumping into trampolines before.

And I know what you're thinking. Blonde bouncing hair compared to a kid jumping on a trampoline? It might be funny but that's the way I saw it.

I wanted to approach him.

I wanted to talk to him, ask his name but without even looking around, he went inside the house when a man wearing a white polo shirt opened the door. The three other blonde girls went inside as well.

I asked so many questions to myself when I saw them.

Are they new here?

Are they our new neighbors?

How old was that guy?

Are they officially going to live beside our house?

The one Sofia used to tell me about having monsters and creepy creatures?

But I was sure of one thing: I quickly had a crush on him.

The way he walked inside made me easily melt under the sun like ice cream.

He didn't notice me but I noticed how gorgeous he was.

"Jaraiah! We're going to eat!" I heard my mom calling me which made me pedal faster with a thicker layer of smile written on my face.

****

The next day after that, I went out of our house and just in time, I caught him all alone, sitting on the floor with a flower in his hands. He looked so lonely so I sat down beside him and smiled. "Hi, there!" I saw how startled he was when I called him out. He frowned at me and took a step back as if I was going to eat him.

"Don't worry! I'm not a monster, I won't eat you." I said but instead of coming back and calming down, he rolled his eyes and shook his head slightly as he kept sitting in his position.

I decided to sit closer to him but there he went... tried so hard to ignore me by taking another step back.

"Are you scared of me?" I asked with a slight laugh.

He didn't answer. So I held his hand and said, "Don't be scared. As I said, I'm not a monster." He frowned harder and got his cold hands off mine.

"What's your problem?" He grumpily asked.

"I was trying to comfort you!" I answered

"I don't want you to. Go away!" I shook my head.

"I won't," I responded.

"And why?" He licked his lips.

"Well, I will." I took another step closer but he took a step back

"Then go now."

"Play with me first."

"I don't want to."

"Come on! It will be fun!"

"I said I don't want to."

"Fine." I agreed. "But next time we should play."

"No, we won't." I didn't understand him before. He was too cruel and grumpy. I wanted to talk to him more but he made me go away so I had no choice but to walk away.

But before I got too far, I looked back at him and found him already watching me. "Are you new here?"

He didn't answer so I kept asking, "Are you going to live here forever just like us?"

"No." Was the only cold answer I heard from him.

"Then why are you here?" I asked again.

"Stop asking too many questions, please." He said grumpily, again.

"I will, once you answer this one." Was it a favor? I wasn't sure.

"I just said no. I mean literally no! We're only here for summer. We're not going to live here. Thus, forever does not exist!" He defended.

I rose my shoulders and began walking away. I didn't even ask for his name. I already burned him out so I didn't want to ask him about it anymore.

"Last question, where are you from?" Deep inside me, I was praying he would answer it with grace and not with grumpiness. "Germany." Phew! My prayers worked.

"Ah, so you're a German boy, huh?" He didn't respond so I began walking away for the second time. I was about to play with Sofia. So I didn't mind seeing him sit there by himself. He wanted and asked for it so I left him there.

From that day, I started calling him German Boy in my mind. He was grumpy. Not like the friends I had there before.

But at least, he answered some of my questions though not all of them.

And what's important was that I saw him.

Thus, I held his cold hands. That was a bonus.