Nate Part 3

"The girl you called weird yesterday is going to hang out with me. I don't want you messing with her. Her name is Isabela! And she already has enough problems; she doesn't deserve to be treated badly. Besides, she's a cool girl," I explain, watching as my sister freezes, completely stiff and turning red with anger as she glares at me, fists clenched at her sides. I can almost hear her head steaming like a pressure cooker. I know how she’ll react, but I need to make it clear that she can’t keep treating Little Sun badly. "I like her."
"What? Why? Why do you like this Isabela? She's strange... I don’t want that girl hanging out with us!" she shouts, her eyes, inherited from our dad, inflating with rage, and her black bangs nearly covering her eyebrows.
"You don't have to want anything! You were born a minute after me, so I’m older, and you’re going to obey me, or I won’t talk to you for a long time. And you know I can be mad for more days than I could stand being away from myself."
"Argh!" she growls, then raises her hands to the sky, and I know she’s cursing in her head. That’s why I call her Little Witch; I always say she’s mentally casting spells on people when she does that. "There are tons of girls for you to screw in this school. Why her?"
"Bianca, I don’t owe you any explanations for why I like a girl!" I retort, starting to get pissed off and dying to pull out a cigarette and blow the smoke right in her face.
Shit! I’m an asshole to the whole world, but this spoiled brat always manages to soften me. She has the power to make me more patient than I should be.
"So you really want to screw the girl? She looks like a virgin..." she says, biting into her lollipop and making an absurd noise as her small, nervous teeth crush the candy. "It's going to end badly, huh! Underage, virgin, comes and goes with the driver. Seems to have strict parents," she predicts with the dramatic tone she uses when she’s trying to scare me. "And make sure you use a condom, because I don’t want to be an aunt."
"Stop talking shit!" I yell, losing my patience and shaking with nerves to try to relieve the anger. "I’m not going to screw her; I just said I like Isabela. And I want you to leave her alone! You don’t need to be friends with her! Just don’t get in Isa’s way or mock her. Anyway... control your jealousy and don’t mess with me."
"Jealousy? Of you? Get real, Nate!" she scoffs in a growl, pushing my arm and stomping hard into the classroom.
As soon as we step over the threshold of the door, Little Witch freezes, and I know she’s hunting for Isabela with her eyes. My sister looks like a Molotov cocktail ready to ignite everything, and I wonder if it was the best choice to have that conversation before class, instead of at home, where her catastrophic potential would be more contained.
Bianca raises her hands to the heavens beside her head, cursing when she spots Isabela at the back of the classroom, in the last seat on the left, curled against the wall. I smile at the way her eyes widen when she notices us.
She’s so beautiful...
My sister sits in the front row because she loves to be a Hermione and give her input throughout the class. The teachers huff when she raises her hand to interrupt them, and Bianca does this regularly. I know she shifts to the side so I can sit next to her, as I do every day. But my feet are stubborn, they have a mind of their own, and guide me to the seat next to my "little sun."
I was thinking about her all night. Every conversation we had haunted my mind. I relived the details as if the memories were solid and could be touched. I thought about how Isabela thought I was playing with her, believed it was absurd that she caught my attention, or that I found her cute. Isa didn’t understand anything; she sentenced that I felt embarrassed to be with her during recess when my sister arrived, but I only pushed Bianca away because I knew she would keep insulting her out of jealousy. And the best way to get her out of the way was to move away.
"Good morning!" I greet, throwing my dirty black backpack to the floor beside me. I rest my arm on the back of her chair, but I see how she tenses up completely and remember the damn trauma. Shit! I’ve already started off on the wrong foot. I slowly pull away, trying to control the damage. I’m almost moving in slow motion. When I return my body completely to my chair, I let out a tense breath. "Are you okay, Little Sun?"
"Are you out of jail?" she asks, clearing her throat and blinking to hold back tears. It’s obvious she got scared that I would lean against her, and that gives me a pang of pain in my chest.
When I realize her question, I finally understand her sarcasm. I give a little smile, gazing at Isabela’s perfect face. There is absolutely nothing misaligned about her face; she is entirely perfect. The small nose, the beautiful and slightly full lips, the round contour of her face, the long and thick eyelashes... I get excited when I see her sketch a small, timid smile, just a slight tilt of her lips to the left, almost imperceptible.
"So you saw my defeat, huh?"
"I was in the car and watched from the front row! You took a big hit from the cop." I laugh loudly, shaking my shoulders and holding the bottle I gave her with affection. And when she looks at the object, it’s exactly what I feel for it.
It’s funny that I didn’t think much of this gift; it was more the feeling that it was an obligation to give her another bottle since I stepped on the old one, imagining it was Caíque's when Isa ran out of the bathroom during our first encounter. But as soon as I handed her the gift, her face lit up. Isabela opened such a beautiful smile... that it made me want to give her a truckload of bottles, just to see her face glow with joy again.
"Yeah, it went really badly. But I still managed to get to class on time, you know? It wasn’t as bad as it could have been because I was released quickly."
"You’re a joke!" she laughs, pulling out some sheets from her notebook, and when I shamelessly lean in to see what they are, I curiously notice they are sheet music.
"What’s that?" I ask, pointing my finger at the sheets.
"Oh, they’re sheet music for the song I’m practicing on the piano. Dark Paradise, by Lana Del Rey, do you know it?" she asks, opening a wide smile as she answers. She looks happy talking about it... and she plays piano! The desire to see her do it takes over my body. I can almost imagine her shining like the rays of the sun while she plays.
"Yeah. It’s a cool and strong song. So you play the piano?"
"I do," she replies, all excited, turning her body completely towards me and smiling widely.
Holding her gaze, I stare at her. I wish I could see what’s going on in that blonde little head of hers. When she gets shy, realizing I’m intensely devouring her with my stare, she looks away, embarrassed. The gesture causes an instant reaction in my boxers.
"Can the boyfriends keep quiet, or will they continue to disrupt the class?" the teacher, an unbearable woman with a nasal voice and an air of superiority, says, tapping her red pen on the board to get our attention. "So, will you cooperate, or will I have to send you to the principal?"
I divert my gaze from Isabela, but I know she’s embarrassed and tense with the scolding. In another situation, I would have been expelled from the room for responding with a curse. Because there’s anger growing in my chest, hot and explosive, but since I don’t want to drag Little Sun into my mess, I just stay silent, grab my battered notebook from my backpack, and start taking notes.
Every now and then, I glance at the girl next to me, and she returns my gaze with a few shy smiles. There’s no trace of the anger she directed at me in the girls' locker room yesterday. On the contrary, Isa seems comfortable with me. And that makes me want to devour her beautiful and shiny mouth.
I wonder if her lips taste like grape?
Has she ever kissed anyone?
Shit!
I remember Little Witch’s voice saying Isabela looks like a virgin. And honestly, I don’t doubt that. Isabela smells like a virgin, has a virgin’s look, and acts like a damn virgin.
She’s so young; she’s what? Fourteen? Fifteen? I won’t try anything stupid, not for lack of wanting to have her, but because I respect her. And I like Isabela too much, inexplicably, to rush things...
"How old are you?" I whisper, without turning my face to her because the owl that is our Biology teacher doesn’t take her bulging dark eyes off us.
"Fifteen," she replies, whispering so softly that I can barely understand. "And you?"
"Sixteen."
We don’t try to talk anymore until recess arrives because, unfortunately.