Beautiful Day in My Neighborhood Ch. 04

Someone had commented that this was realistic. Could you please explain why you feel that way?

You might be wondering why Ellaine and Ellie got switched. Remember, this was in Tuyet's POV earlier. Simply, Ellaine and Ellie are twins. Tuyet gets them mixed up. This is a good cover for I messed up, yes?

Please keep on with the feedback. I like tips and suggestions as well.

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As we are walking away from a surprised Ellie and Rachel, I feel myself swoon and I drop.

Dina's voice is echoing as she asks if I'm alright. I had skipped my last couple of snacks and then I went and used up energy on that idiot Ellie.

Everything is blurry but I manage to hang on and mumble that I want my candy bar.

In the distance I hear Rachel and Ellie both laughing.

I repeat my request for the Snickers and I feel something at my lips. I take a bite and taste chocolate. Dina is sitting and has me resting against her as she feeds me.

I can't help but think about how much I would enjoy this if it was under other circumstances.

"Do I need to call nine one one?" She asks after a few minutes.

Luckily the candy is doing it's job. "No, Dina." I pull myself up a little and she helps me stand. I'm still a little wobbly. "I need to eat often. Or eat a lot." She gives me a look and I quickly explain, using the short version.

"Explains why I always see you eating." She takes a Cliff Bar from her pocket and hands it to me.

I don't care for the brand but I know it will help. "Thank you." I can't manage any enthusiasm but I can smile.

We walk a few feet and sit on a bench. "I am so glad we are near the park." I say and watch as bits of the Cliff Bar spatter my sweats.

"Why is that?" She asks while brushing my crumby spittle from my leg.

"Last time this happened I was forced to lay by a port-a-potty while I ate popcorn." She gives me a questioning look that says 'seriously?'

"Luckily not all of my popcorn spilled. I got enough energy to crawl away and call Mom." I laughed. The situation was rather absurd then. "I started keeping track of my calories real close after that."

"So why weren't you watching them today?" She began to give me a shove but stopped herself. I went from sitting upright, to leaning away from her as she pushed a little, to leaning against her after she pulled me back.

"I was kind of worked up about the fight." It was true. "I really expected to be on the losing end." I finished the last of the snack and looked over. "Thank you!"

"You're welcome!" She smiles then looks off to her right.

Her arm is around my shoulders. I'm leaning against her. She's warm and soft but I still feel her muscles. I wonder if I feel cold and bony to her and decide to sit up. Her arm moves away from me and now I feel foolish. To cover it up I stretch, and groan in pain. "That was a mistake!" I feel my eyes water. Something pulled when I did that.

Dina starts rubbing my back. "Where does it hurt?"

"My back." I concentrate on where the pain is more severe. "Between my shoulders." That was what I had landed on after all.

She stands and moves behind the bench, she goes from rubbing to actually massaging my back. 'She is really good!' I feel my back slowly loosen up.

"Better?" She asks as she still works her magic touch on my grateful back and shoulders. I nod and sigh happily. My shirt gets a bit taught around my throat, Dina has pulled it and then I hear "Damn!" She releases my sweater. "You have a hell of a bruise!"

"I figured on as much." She's still massaging my back but her pressure has lessened. "Thank you so much!" I catch one of her hands on my shoulder and hold it. "I feel better. Good enough to walk you home!" I say feeling a bit more chipper.

She says with some humor. "Making sure I get home safely, huh?"

I blush, I don't know why but I do.

"Well, if we hurry, we can catch the ice cream truck." She lifts both of our bags as she steps around the bench. Dina holds her elbow out. "Shall we?"

I link my arm with hers and we head for home.

Yes, we do have an ice cream truck in our small town. It plays midi versions of traditional Indian music, this might be offensive but I mean dot-on-forehead and not lives-in-teepee.

Mr. and Mrs. Upadhyay are wonderful people and both take turns making the rounds, selling cheap, but tasty, ice cream to the kids.

They get it from a few sources.

It's shipped to them from Mrs. Upadhyay's brother in India once a month. Moraccan Dry Fruit being one of my favorite flavors, it comes in a pint. Dina likes the Kewra Kulfi bars most.

Mr. Upadhyay's cousin in Canada sends some every couple of months. We both like the Pistachio and Dark Chocolate bars.

They also put in orders with my Mom for the American brands. Vanilla Bean being a shared favorite of ours as well.

I can imagine kissing her and tasting the different treats on her lips. This train of thought is very new to me still and I am struggling to keep focused. I wonder if she's having the same problem. Then again, how she is describing the different Kulfi bars in detail, I doubt that.

The midi music starts up and we both abandon the appearance of being grown ups and run after the bright pink and orange truck with stickers all over the side.

We stop to see Mr. Upahdyay smiling at us. His dark eyes filled with joy and his big friendly grin widens. He knows us well and grabs our usual orders but I spot a new flavor and add two of those.

I go to pay but Dina stops me. "Uh uh uh!" She has a twenty dollar bill and is handing it to Mr. Upadhyay. "My thanks for everything!"

"It was nothing." I say.

She shakes her head no. "It was a lot!" She collects her change and we wish Mr. Upadhyay a good day.

A block from home, I have an armful of frozen treats, she has three, I feel greedy.

She's all smiles though and she keeps asking me how my Moraccan Dried Fruit is. So I surprise her and shove a spoonful in her mouth the next time she asks.

She has a thoughtful look but is smiling. Then I go to ask what she thinks and get a Kufi pop shoved in my mouth. I have to bite off the end and she stares at me as I fight a brain freeze.

"No fair, I didn't give you enough to freeze your brain!" I'm finally able to say after a few moments.

"You were supposed to suck it." I get a vivid vision in my mind and I think she can tell because she starts to laugh.

"Tasted good though." I try to get my thoughts back on track.

"So, um, I don't feel like dealing with Karen and Kenneth. Mind if I hang out with you until she passes out?"

I look up to see the Chrysler in the drive. "Who's Kenneth?" I ask.

"The hell spawn." She says motioning to her little brother down the road a few houses once again showing off his bike to the other kids. "I wish he'd get kidnapped for a while."

"That's mean!" I am not really upset, just trying to sound that way.

"Yeah. I take that back." She takes another bite of her preferred bar. "Though it might put the kidnapper on the straight and narrow."

"Still mean." I chuckle and we head for my front door. "Cruel and unusual punishment." She has icecream come out of her nose and I use my sleeve to wipe her face while she struggles with laughing, a brain freeze and discomfort of having frozen dairy in her nose. I mutter sorry but she just pats my arm.

"It happens." She tells me. "Somewhere."

We stash the treats that need to refreeze and head up to my room.

From a house done up in Lavender, Sky Blue and White to my room with Black carpet, Black walls and ceiling. Okay, so it is a Black tarp tacked up with silver thumbtacks and not paint but it gets the job done. My furniture is all metal, except my bed, that is all grey bedding and dark stained wood.

Her eyes are drawn first to the wall filled with album covers and band posters above low sitting shelves filled with music on which sits a turn table, a tape deck and a CD player. Wires run off the devices down behind the shelves, and are hidden by the plastic, where they link into the speakers of my surround sound system.

"Woah!" She walks over and stares. "I haven't even heard of half of these!"

"I switch them up." I say and she looks at me. "I have a whole room full of this kind of stuff."

"Cool!" She turns back to the wall. "Where did you get them all?"

"The ones I've bought, E-bay mostly. Yard sales. Everything else was Dad's and Mom's or they bought them for me."

"I have a cheap MP3 player that links to the cheap, but loud, stereo in my room." She said as she noticed the cords.

"My god mother is an investment banker. She handles Mom's accounts and I've started since I became an adult." I say. Suddenly I'm worried about sounding like I'm a snob or something.

"Think she could help me out?" Dina spins on her heel and strolls to my bed and flops back. I bounce as her weight hits it. "I have some cash stashed and a bank account!"

"Sure! She is always trying to build her client list." My eyes are on her jiggling chest but her eyes are on the pictures over my headboard.

"Awesome. The quicker I can make bank, the quicker I can get away from the people I call family." She turns onto her side and pushes up on one arm to get a better look at them. "Your family looks happy!"

"Yeah, we are." I place a hand on her back and make small circles.

She rolls over to face me and smiles. "Thanks for letting me hang out!"

"Any time!" I say enthusiastically. "So, about earlier. Are you worried about what Rachel and Ellie will say?" I have to admit to myself that I am.

Dina shrugs. Then leans in and gives me a kiss. It's on the cheek, so I am a bit disappointed, but she is kissing me, so I am also thrilled. She eases back and she has a small smirk on her face. "You're blushing!"

"Yes." I manage.

"You wanted me to actually kiss you?" I can't tell if she is teasing or asking.

I drop my gaze to the bed. "Are you messing with me?"

"Hey!" I hear her and look up.

She is so close I can smell the ice cream on her breath and then her lips are on mine.

I melt like my cup of sorbet had and lay back as she moves over me. I wince, still tender, and she stops. I whimper.

Dina smiles and lays back. I don't move right away so she holds her arms out to me.

"More comfortable for you this way!" I roll onto her chest and we begin a new kiss. Then another. Soft and light. Exploratory kisses. There isn't any tongue.

I guess we are both new to this or she at least knows I am. I have a brief flash of a mystery woman having had been in her arms like I am now and I can't help but feel inadequate to the person that may or may not exist.

We part and I rest on her. She runs her hand through my hair. I can hear her heart beat and it is fast. She smells like Sandalwood soap and Original Scent Secret deodorant.

I sneak a sniff of myself.

"You smell fine, Cinders!" She assures me. I get to see her give a little yawn and her nose crinkles so cutely as she does. "Like Old Spice and Dove soap."

"Dad used Old Spice." I yawn too. My eyes feel heavy, and like when I feel pain, I really just want to relax.

"You're comfortable." I cuddle up to her more and hear a couple thuds. "What was that?"

"Took my shoes off." She picks up my remote and holds it up as if asking if it was okay. I nod and the room is filled with Type O-Negative and we fall asleep to the album Bloody Kisses.

Before I am fully out of it though, I feel the blanket pulled over me. "Don't want you getting cold."

"You're warm!" I sigh happily.

I wake up after a bad dream.

It was just of all the times Dina had bullied me.

From day one when she pushed me and I tumbled down the few steps outside of the lunchroom when I first moved to town. I saw Porter in the background with a few faceless kids I don't remember. Porter was grinning like a little devil as she watched the show.

The attempt at grossing me out with putting earthworms in my spaghetti, joke was on them, Dad had taken me camping and fishing enough times where he had eaten a worm or two to get a laugh out of me. I eventually started to do it because when we did, we seemed to catch a fish. Still, with the attempt failed, I still saw Porter in the background like some wicked puppeteer.

This is where some of the potential friends I could have had left me alone entirely, I mean, I ate worms. Dad was a trained survivalist and I wanted to be like him.

The first time I actually got hit by a bully wasn't by Dina's hand. It was Ross, one of Porter's short lived goons.

Dina was arguing with Porter the following day about how I was Dina's. Dina stepped up the minor things, being generally annoying but never causing real harm.

In junior high, about the middle of it, is when Dina had taken to the habit of pressing me up against walls, trees, or just invading my personal space. As I mentioned before, I had been up close and personal with her enough to notice the scar on her lip. This is when I first noticed.

She always reminded her gang, Rachel, Ellie, Maddison, and the few come and gone kids, that I was hers and hers alone.

The only one who stuck up for me was Anna, and that was only physical on a handful of occasions. Most of the time Dina looked guilty and backed off without a word to Anna or I.

I thought back to when I had been tripped recently. Dina had said she had stopped at the start of the year, she never mentioned tripping me. I tried to recall who was there. Rachel and Ellie usually were. Dina had looked more surprised than spiteful the more I dwelled on it.

I felt Dina shift slightly and realized I was using her breast as a pillow. I didn't want to move but I sat up anyway. I looked over to see her staring up at me groggily.

"Nice nap?" I asked and she nodded. "Hungry?"

Another nod and she sat up. "I need to go make dinner for IT and hell spawn."

"Why?" I reached out and pulled one of my stray hairs from her cheek.

"Because they'll starve without me." Dina was being sarcastic and we both smiled again. "If I don't they'll break into my room." She frowned. "Or try."

"Mind if I come over?" I ask. "I kind of want to see Karen in her natural environment."

"No." Dina says flatly. "I can't ask you to go in there." I see concern on her face. "Besides, there isn't anything natural about her environment."

"Okay, then, before you go..." I watch as she leans in. "When did you REALLY start feeling for me?"

She stops short and sits back. It is quiet as she turns and puts on her shoes. I take note that she doesn't tie them, simply stuffing the laces in her shoes.

"I guess all those years of saying you were mine had something to do with it." She said low enough that I barely heard her.

"What about Rachel and Ellie?" I ask for the second time today.

"Fuck them!" It is a bitter reply. I'm a little surprised by it.

"Better not!" I say with a laugh to lighten the mood again and I achieve my goal in making her smile.

"Why not?" She grins sexily at me. "You get jealous?"

"Yes." I hope I've got my own sexy grin on and I bite my lip for a little added effect.

"You know, all I've wanted to do was leave town. But..." She pulls me to her and gives me a tender kiss. "Maybe all I've gotta do is get out of that house."

"We have a spare room." I was a bit surprised telling her this. It had been empty ever since we got the place, and before Dad was killed in action, it had been planned out for a second child.

"I don't want to rush things, Cinders." She stood and I hugged her, my face pressed into her chest and her chin resting on my head. "Don't want you getting sick of me."

"I'm immune after all these years." She chuckles, it is different than the dark ones she had used so often before. I like it.

With that I let her go and she leaves my room. I get up and trail after her, thinking of ways to make her stay a fraction longer. "Your backpack." She had left it by the bedroom door. It is a quick step back and she has it in hand.

"Ice cream! If you don't take them I'll eat them."

She smiles. "Think of me when you do!" Her voice is a bit husky and heat pools in my belly.

The front door closes and I rush to the picture window to see her sprinting home.

She is just next door but I feel she is so far away.

"Enjoy your nap?" Mom's humor tinted question sends me jumping out of my skin.

I fumble my words a bit then yell. "Stop sneaking up on me!" I hold my chest and feel my heart beating like a hummingbird's. "You looked in my room?" I ask shyly. A bit embarrassed that she caught me in bed with Dina.

"You had the door open." She tilted her head and got the motherly look on her face. "You're hurt!"

Seriously, how do mothers do it?

"I won." I couldn't think of anything else to say. "But It was a hard take down. I didn't plan it out well."

"Let me see." I went with Mom up to my room and removed my shirt. The gasp said a lot. "I think we had better get this looked at."

I got home late with a doctor's note saying I am excused from PE for the week.

I don't know what it is about seeing a doctor, but now it hurt to move my arm and I was walking a bit hunched.

Could be the fact that I was poked and prodded and asked "does that hurt?" So I felt worse and had pain pills prescribed, all be it was just a heavy aspirin.

Oh, yeah! It wasn't just my skin and muscles that are bruised, yes, apparently you can bruise bone too.

Dina's light was already off so I crawl into bed and lay in the dark thinking over my life until I fall asleep.

TUESDAY (Dina's POV)

I'm skipping school today. Something about Cinders asking if she could come over makes me want to clean up the sty.

As soon as I wake up I go for the cleaning supplies. No, I am not bothering with a shower as I will be filthy when I am done. I'll save that luxury for later.

Actually, I mull around a little until Kenneth and his mother leave. So maybe it is better to say as soon as they're gone I go for the cleaning supplies.

We haven't finished unpacking, so it takes me a little while to find everything I need. Gloves, carpet shampoo and trash bags are in three different boxes.

Their laundry detergent and the bleach are mixed in with the towels. Some of the bleach has spilled and ruined my big, fluffy purple one.

I sigh. What did I expect? That's my luck here.

I also locate bug spray, not Raid, but considering that the three entitled and lazy people I live with don't lift a finger and I've long ago given up on cleaning up their mess, trash has begun to pile up in the corners. Just like dishes in the sink and the piles of their laundry.

The pesticide is missing the label, it simply has "bug killer" written on the jug.

My room is protected by a collection of ant traps, roach traps and a barrier of Raid, but the rest of the house is a circus of crawly critters.

"Well, you guys win this round." I am looking at such a big job after such a short week that I can't even bother to waste the energy on getting angry.

I lay into it like I am trying to save the planet.

I start with the trash on the floor. Surprisingly I only fill two trash bags.

Most of it is stuff that Kenneth tossed out of his boxes and left covered in candy wrappers and pop cans. This turned clothes and paper items into a sticky, crumby, sickly sweet buffet for roaches, flies and ants. I spray the piles with the pesticide and toss whatever I can salvage into Kenneth's room.

Repeat with Karen's crap and Dad's junk. I take large heaps of assorted junk and carry it out to the garbage can. Five trips.

After, I sweep up the smaller stuff and fill another bag and a half. I can see large parts of the floor now.

I begin to dust furniture and it goes quickly, with only a minor hiccup when I run a dry cloth over a sticky ring near the edge of the coffee table. A wet paper towel later and I am done in the living room until I do the carpets.