Infatuation

➳ 2

Clover

            The sun was beating down on my head while I tried to haul my suitcase out of a taxi cab. The taxi-driver gauged me with his beady eyes and held his hand up, which roughly translated to, and now you shall pay me my measly loan!

            I puffed the pervasive air that seemed to linger everywhere out and grabbed a few bucks that were still in my pocket. “Here you go sir, have a nice meal at McDonald’s this afternoon,” I sneered while trying not to pass out from the overwhelming heat.

            The man shot me a dirty look, started the engine and sped away.

            Already feeling nauseous from the heat, I sat down on my suitcase and proceeded to put my head between my legs. Why had I ever agreed to take on a summer job in California for fuck’s sake? Oh right, because my mom had practically begged me to keep an eye on my little brother, who had taken on a job as lifeguard at the Riverwood resort.

            Lifeguard was probably not even the right term. Watching over obnoxiously rich people while they were sunbathing around the pool did not require much skill. Nevertheless, mom apparently thought that Gary was too incompetent to do  anything other than playing video games, so she had send me with him as well.

            To watch over the ‘lifeguard’, how ironic.

            So instead of sipping Cosmopolitan’s at the beach in Miami, I was stuck in Pasadena with my seventeen-year old brother, who I had not seen for almost a year. College just took up all of my time and I couldn’t even put the books down during Thanksgiving last year, which was quite sad actually.

        The hard life of a law student…

        But before I could feel too sorry for myself, a shadow appeared in front of me. I slowly looked up and saw Gary grinning down on me.

            He had a smirk plastered on his face, and I desperately wanted to punch it off. “Nice seeing you here, sis.”

            I released a guttural sound from deep within and shot him my most menacing look. “Don’t. Speak. To. Me,” was the only thing I could force myself to say.

            Instead of being offended by my hostile attitude, he simply shrugged and walked towards the entrance of the resort. “Are you coming or not? Before you know it, that look on your face could become permanent,” he laughed and slapped his thigh for good measurement.

            Seeing that I did not have other options, I pushed myself up and started to drag the heavy suitcase behind me while I walked his way.

            “You know that I’m only doing this because mom asked me to watch over you, right?”

            “I already suspected something like that, but I didn’t know that you were actually that gullible.” The look on my face was probably priceless because he was almost rolling on the floor with laughter.

            “Oh my god, you didn’t know that she just wanted to send you away so she could have some alone time with her new boyfriend?” he wheezed through his fit of laughter.

            I simply wanted to die that moment. The pavement would split open and magically teleport me back to my room in Miami. “She got us both out of the house, so she could bone her boyfriend whenever she wants to?”

            Gary finally calmed down and wiped an imaginary tear away. “I think so, that is my theory at least. The question is, why did you take the bait? I did it because I didn’t want to be there anyway.” His expression suddenly changed into a grim one and his lips were pressed tightly together.