Miles To Go

Chapter Nine

Try as I might, I cannot hide,

What it is I'm feeling deep inside,

Miles paused and chewed on the end of his pencil for a moment as he gathered his thoughts.

They hear my thoughts as they ring through,

They know my heart belongs to—

There came a knocking at the door and he heard a voice say:

"Miles, are you in there?"

Lizzy! He quickly set down his pencil, shut his notebook, and came to the door.

"Good afternoon," she smiled.

"Lizzy? What a surprise," he swallowed. "Umm...to what do I owe this pleasure?" he asked. The afternoon sun made her hair aglow. In a short, sleeveless, belted, denim dress...she was stunning.

"Yeltsin told me you wanted to speak with me," she said.

"He did?" he said, feeling puzzled for a moment. "Oh, right. Yes. Please come in, come in," he gestured. "Here have a seat," he said, clearing off a small wooden chair in the corner of the room by grabbing an armload of dirty laundry and chucking it on the floor. "Sorry about the mess. Gerald's kind of a pig."

"Ahh," was all she said as her eyes took in the shoes and socks strewn about, the little desk and lamp, the twin beds on either side. She lingered on the inappropriate poster above Gerald's unmade bed for a moment.

Oh shit, he thought.

"That's not mine. It's Gerald's. Here," he grabbed the chair from the desk and quickly turned it around. "Sit here instead. That way you won't have to look at it." He sat in the corner himself. He hoped the smell wasn't getting to her. I wish I had some Febreze right about now. He rubbed his hands together. "Okay. So, I've been eager to talk to you about integrating the young Oompa Loompas into the school system. Actually, I was going to bring it up the other day at school, but after I saw the way the other children treated Calvin..." Miles sighed. "I was much discouraged."

Lizzy's brows tightened. "Oh, I see. You think they will be bullied and discriminated because they are different? Like Calvin?"

"Yes. But even more so. To many, they are still considered the enemy. They only see them as the ones who caused so much pain and suffering." He shook his head. "All too easily their anger and hate gets directed towards the Oompa Loompas."

"But most of the little Oompas had nothing to do with The War. They either don't remember or they weren't even born! Surely we can make them see that."

"Then they blame their mothers and their fathers and the whole entire race! They are so thick-headed and hardhearted and...and..." His posture had completely fallen now.

Her face was sympathetic as she got up and walked over to him. She leaned over until she was eye level and put both hands on his shoulders.

"Don't give up hope. There's always hope, Miles. If there's one thing I've learned from raising Calvin and now teaching school, it's that you have to have patience. Lots of patience."

He considered her for a moment. The intoxicating smell that always reminded him of the carnival and now his first kiss, was overwhelming.

"Are you going to kiss me again?" he asked, as seriously as he could manage.

"What?" she backed away. "No. I wasn't."

"Why not?"

"Well, Miles...you're too young for me," she said, but then a little smile gave her away. It was all he needed. He got up from his chair.

"Too young? Is that it? I may be only sixteen and a half, but my body has aged to be twenty or twenty-one."

"But you're still only sixteen inside."

He wanted to argue that he was sixteen and a half, but that would only make him seem more immature. Instead he said, "Do I seem like most sixteen-year-olds to you, Lizzy?" He gestured around the room with his left hand, indicating that he was way more mature than his roommate, Gerald, who was actually seventeen.

But as he gestured, her eyes caught on something on his wrist and she grabbed his hand.

"What's this?" she asked. He had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt earlier, exposing a small tattoo done in fancy lettering.

"Gerald," she read.

"I felt I should get one too." Miles said with a one shouldered shrug. "After all, he got one for me when he thought I was dead. And I feel bad for trying to kill him."

"Wow. It's so meaningful," she said, rubbing the spot on his wrist with her thumb. Whether she knew it or not, it was definitely turning him on. "Conor McGreggor had a lot of tattoos but I don't think they were very meaningful. Most of them he got when he was drunk."

I know, I met that Scottish hillbilly after I met you.

Now was his chance to ask her something he had wanted to know for a long time.

"What was your...relationship with Conor?"

Lizzy blinked. "He was...he just...I....Well, he wanted to have a romantic relationship with me. But I couldn't be with someone like him."

Ahhh, yes. Miles couldn't help but smile. He needed to hear her say it. It seemed to be the case by what he had picked up from hearsay, but he couldn't ask anyone like May or Gerald directly without revealing his intentions. And he wasn't ready to do that yet. It was bad enough that Yeltsin knew and probably every other Oompa that he came in contact with. And Gerald was a monster, with his many attempts to read his notebook. He had to guard it with his life.

He had poured out his heart to that notebook, but he found there were no words that could express what he felt for her. In that moment, he decided he would show her, and prove to her that he was no longer that broken boy she found in the haystack. He was a man.

He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her in for a kiss. She made a noise and a feeble attempt to pull away, but it was just that, feeble. When he was finished with her mouth, he went down her slender neck. With each sweet caress of his lips, she would giggle and try to push him away saying "...stop...stop it Miles...stahooop..."

He stopped and looked at her for a moment. Does she really want to stop?

She was looking at him too, breathing hard. He felt her hands slowly creeping down his back.

"Is this okay?" she asked. He grinned in answer. She giggled and gave his bottom a little squeeze. "Oh...oh...it's so soft...yet firm," she remarked.

Something else was getting firm. He wanted her to feel it. He kissed her again, and with one arm on her back and one hand gripping her leg, he gently lowered her to the floor. He pressed his body into hers and she moaned.

She could feel it.

A bright light suddenly washed over them as Gerald swung the door wide. The three looked at each other in horror. Gerald clamped a hand over his eyes and said, in a slightly Irish accent,

"I've seen too much...."