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Send Me Away With the Words of a Love Song

He Knows

May 1997

"Raury, do you want something to eat?" I asked my red-headed friend. I'd met Raury Zaliski when we were ten years old. She was new to California, having moved here from the state of Texas. At first, I assumed she was foreign, just as I was, but I later learned that Texas was another state in America. There were quite a few things I still had to learn about America. Where Raury came from, people rode horses and went to something Raury called a 'rodeo.' The first time I'd met Raury, she'd told me that people in California were too stuck-up and that she planned to return to Texas as soon as possible. But she never did.

A lot of people were quick to say that Raury and I complimented one another. I was shy and cautious, while Raury was rambunctious and outspoken. Perhaps that's why we were such good friends.

"I've been wanting some of your mom's chocolate chip cookies," she replied, cracking her thousand-watt smile. I'd always been jealous of Raury's confidence in her smile, something I'd never had.

I nodded simply, my short blonde hair grazing the tops of my shoulders. "I'll go get them," I said.

I left Raury in my room, the ever-present music blasting from the speakers, to make the descent downstairs. I knew Zacky and his friends were down in the living room, joking around before starting their band practice. I was a bit anxious about going downstairs because lately, Zacky's attitude had been harsh and borderline cruel. Mother said that he was going through a 'phase' similar to the one Zina had been going through when I'd first moved here. But I missed hanging out with Zacky's friends, who were also my friends. Matt, Jimmy, and Brian used to like having me around, as did Zacky, but lately, things seemed to have changed. And I didn't like it. Not at all.

I could hear their voice echoing up the stairwell as I crept down it in sock feet. They were laughing and joking in the living room, more than likely doing something illegal since Mom and Dad were not home. They were rather fond of such things as marijuana, which left Zacky's room or whichever room they chose to smoke it in, permeated with a foul stench. I stopped just short of the linoleum of the kitchen floor and tuned my ears into their conversation.

"So how did things go with Val on Friday, Matt?" my brother's voice asked.

"Well, let's just say she's not as innocent as she used to be," my brother's friend Matt answered with a devious note present in his deep voice. The boys in the living room began laughing, and I heard the obvious sound of high-fives given. Their voices mixed, and I could no longer understand what they were saying. But I was confused as to what Matt's words meant, and I made the mistake of taking a step forward to hear a little better. All voices in the living room went silent, and I froze.

"Senoma, I can see you hiding over there," Zacky's voice said as I crouched on the bottom step. I didn't move, hoping he was bluffing. "Why won't you leave me and my friends the fuck alone?"

My brother's harsh words hurt. I hated the teenage changes in him that had made him so cruel. "Zacky, I just want to play!" I whined, storming into the living room. My brother's green eyes bore into my skin. "Please let me stay!"

"Senoma, we're fifteen fucking years old," Zacky pointed out, his tone scoffing. "We don't 'play.'"

"Give her a break, dude," one of his friends said. My savior's name was Brian, and he'd always been my favorite of Zacky's friends, for many reasons. Even at fifteen, he was very aesthetically pleasing, and my changing twelve-year-old mind was taking note of this. But surface beauty aside, Brian was still an amazing person. He was the only one of Zacky's friends who countered my brother's harsh attempts to push me from their circle, and for that I was grateful.

"I'm not gonna give her a break, Brian," Zacky stated bluntly. "I'm almost sixteen, I don't want my twelve-year-old sister constantly bugging the shit out of me!"

"I'll be thirteen next month!" I exclaimed, balling my hands into fists. Sometimes my brother's arrogant attitude absolutely infuriated me. Just because he was fifteen, he thought he was so great. "So quit treating me like a child."

"You're not even my real sister," Zacky spat, and I felt tears prick at the corners of my crystal blue eyes. He'd just taken this too far. He'd never been this cruel. "So why don't you run along back to the Ukraine and leave me and my friends the fuck alone?"

"Fine!" I shouted, beginning to cry. I stormed out of the living room, with Zacky and his friends laughing at my back as I went.

I took a seat at the island in the kitchen and buried my face in my arms. It wasn't long before I heard the scraping of metal chair legs on the floor, meaning I had a guest. Barely moving my head so that I could peak through my blonde hair, I saw Zacky's friend Brian sitting in the chair next to me. He was staring straight at me with a genuine smile on his face, his lighter than milk chocolate brown eyes dappling with apologies.

"Go away," I grumbled. Even if it was Brian, I wasn't in the mood to speak to anyone.

"Hey, I just wanted to tell you that I thought what Zacky said to you was way out of line," Brian stated, blatantly ignoring my request that he leave. "He may be my best friend, but he's an asshole sometimes."

"He is, isn't he?" I agreed, bringing my tear-streaked face away from my arms and into the open. Brian chuckled and used a thumb to gently wipe a tear that was falling.

"But you gotta understand that he's fifteen, and sometimes he doesn't want his twelve-year-old sister constantly tugging at his sleeve," Brian continued, and my feeble smile waned. My gaze downcast, I scooted my chair a few centimeters to the left, away from Brian. For some reason, this made him chuckle, and I scowled at him. "I'm just saying, he might want to hang out with us without you sometimes. Now that doesn't give him an excuse to say what he said, but still, Senoma. Give Zacky a little space. He'll grow out of this phase soon, and by then you'll be moving into that stage, and he'll be on the receiving end of the cuss words."

This got me to laugh, and the look on Brian's face was triumphant. "Oh, I'll give him hell," I said.

"Just not too much, okay?" Brian pleaded playfully. "Remember, when you piss him off, I'm the one he bitches at. Now, is there anything I can do for you before I go?"

"Yea, could you get the chocolate chip cookies down from the top shelf?" I requested, pointing to the top of the kitchen cabinet. "Zacky put them up there so I couldn't have any, and I want some."

"Sure Senoma, no problem," Brian answered. "As long as you don't mind if I sit down and have a few with you."

I giggled at his request but nodded all the same. I had reached a point in my adolescence where being in Brian's presence reduced me to a nervous mess. Like now, if I weren't so upset at the things Zacky had said to me, I'd be red as a tomato. I was beginning to think I'd developed my first-ever crush on Brian.

Brian retrieved the cookies from their perch while I fetched milk from the fridge. Chocolate chip cookies just weren't the same without milk. Now that it was just Brian and I, and the words exchanged between myself and Zacky had been forgotten, I was nervous. My hand was shaking as I lowered my cookie into my milk.

"Having some issues there, Senoma?" Brian laughed. He reached over and took ahold of my skinny wrist. "Here, let me help you out there." I was so shocked that he was touching me that all I could do was nod like an idiot. Brian slowly guided my cookie into the milk, and after a few minutes, transferred it to my mouth. Thank God the cookie was mush at this point, or I would've choked on it. Because Brian was feeding me a cookie.

"Brian, where the fuck are you, man?" Zacky called from the living room. "We're ready to start band practice."

Brian sat what was left of the cookie he'd been feeding me on the counter, turning towards the sound of my brother's voice. "Well, I suppose I'd better go," he said to me. "Can't really have band practice without a lead guitarist."

"Yea, of course," I repeated blankly. I watched as Brian took his glass, still full of milk, and poured it down the sink. I felt what I called the 'fuzzies' startup in the pit of my stomach as I watched him. Was it wrong that I let my eyes wander to his ass? Yes, of course, it was! I was twelve years old, I shouldn't be concerned with my brother's best friend. Oh, but Brian was something special.

He was something very special.

I made sure to hear the sound of my brother's band's music before I left my seat at the kitchen island. I snatched the Ziplock container of mother's homemade chocolate chip cookies from the granite countertop, abandoning my glass of milk, and scurried up the staircase to my room. Raury hadn't left her spot on my now black bedspread and was bobbing her head in time to the Metallica song that was now flooding from the speakers mounted on my still purple walls.

She looked up when I slammed the door closed as I flew into the room. "You got the cookies!" she exclaimed happily. She sat up and rubbed her flat stomach. "Finally! I'm starving! But what took you so long?"

I catapulted my small body onto my bed, bouncing my red-headed friend an inch or so off of the mattress and causing her to lose her grip on the cookie she'd just bitten into. Her brown eyes, a few shades darker than Brian's, widened to extremes. "Raury, I think I like Brian," I confessed softly, deciding not to beat around the bush with this.

"Well finally you admit it," Raury sighed, throwing her hands into the air. An eyebrow shot into my blonde hair, and my friend rolled her eyes before continuing with an explanation. "It's obvious to everyone, Senoma! I'm pretty sure even Brian knows you like him."

My heart skipped a beat. "You really think he does?" I asked Raury. What if Brian did know I liked him? Would that mean he would like me back? I doubted it, though. He was so sweet and good-looking...he probably already had a girlfriend. After all, Zacky had one and he wasn't nearly as nice as Brian.

"I know he knows," Raury assured through a mouth full of cookie. "And even if he doesn't know now, he will here in a few minutes." Raury had obviously begun thinking the way only she could, and her thousand-watt smile transformed into a thousand-watt smirk. She leapt off of my bed, and shot off down the stairs, with myself only a foot or so behind her. "Brian!" she called as she went. "Brian, I have something to tell you!"

I reached my hand out to catch a fistful of her shirt but missed the fabric by inches. "Raury, Стоп!" I hissed, resorting to my native Ukrainian.

My wild red-headed friend did not heed my warning; rather, she burst into the garage where my brother's band was having practice, yelling, "Brian, Senoma likes you!"

At this point, everything and everyone in the garage went silent. Every pair of eyes-blue, green, brown, hazel, and the like-landed on my petite form, which was frozen in the doorway connecting the kitchen and the garage. Zacky's jaw was wide open, obviously due to shock. He shook his head in order to collect himself, exclaiming, "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Yea, Senoma likes--" Raury began to repeat herself, but I pounced forward and slapped a hand over her mouth. She continued to try and speak, but her words were so muffled they couldn't be understood, thank God. Being of Ukrainian descent, I had very pale skin, which unfortunately made the blush riding high on my cheekbones extremely noticeable. I quietly excused myself in Ukrainian, and dragged my struggling Texan friend from the garage.

"I cannot believe you just did that!" I shouted, shoving Raury into my room. "What if Brian didn't know I liked him?"

"Oh, he knew," Raury contradicted with a wide smile. "I heard him telling Jimmy a couple of days ago."

"So he knows?" I confirmed, disbelieving.

Raury nodded, her short red locks flopping around her oval-shaped head. "Yes ma'am, Senoma," she said. "Brian knows you're completely, totally in love with him."

Notes

Стоп - "stop"

Comments

Yay - Zacky approves now!

Nicole Nicole
2/24/19

Bout damn time Zacky

BeccaBearSc BeccaBearSc
2/24/19

Damn you Zacky!

Nicole Nicole
2/21/19

Don't worry S²

I'll happily distract Zacky for you..

BeccaBearSc BeccaBearSc
2/21/19

When I read plane to South Carolina I squeaked... loudly...scared the shit outta my cat.

I love me some ZV and Im a South Carolina girl (BUT HATE THE GAMECOCKS.... I'M CLEMSON ALL THE WAY)
BeccaBearSc BeccaBearSc
2/14/19