Love Comes In Unexpected Places

Chapter One

The Little Blue Car and a Rebellious Sister

Nathan’s POV

“Dude, is that chick ever going to actually get out of her car and come in to talk to you?” Josh asked.

I laughed subtly and continued to wipe down the counter as if it was the most interesting thing I’d ever done.

“And why would she do that?” I asked. I scrubbed extra hard on a filthy grease stain.

“Hmm…well, that’s a tough one. Maybe because she parks her car in the same spot at the same time right outside the restaurant every day, but has yet to step foot outside of it? And I think she pretty much just stares at you the whole time before she finally leaves around 4:30. It’s getting kind of scary. I mean, I know almost every girl in the school wants to be stalking you, but this chick has taken ‘Stalking Nathan Roberts’ to a whole new level.”

I laughed a little more jovially now.

“‘Stalking Nathan Roberts?’ That’s a bit ridiculous, Josh. And how are you so sure she’s not ‘stalking’ you every day?”

“Oh, don’t kid yourself. She’s not here to see me. But I’ll tell you this-if she doesn’t get up the nerve to come in here someday soon, I may just have to go approach her myself. She’s driving me insane! I can’t do my job without feeling like someone’s…watching me! Really, isn’t it creeping you out just a little?” The way Josh was talking and making gestures with his hands seriously made me want to just burst out laughing at that point.

“Not really. It’s just a girl, Josh, cool it already. If she wants to come in, fine. If she wants to stay out there forever, let her. It’s not any of our business.”

“Fine. We’ll let the chick be. For now, anyway…”

I sighed, glancing out the window. Yes, surely the same little blue car was once again parked there, in plain view. I couldn’t really make out many of her features. Okay, I couldn’t make out any of her features, except a mass of dark curly hair. I actually have to admit, I was pretty curious to see exactly what this mysterious girl looked like. Come to think of it, for all we knew she could have been some woman in her twenties, and here we were a couple of seventeen-year-old high school guys.

Josh and I had gotten our jobs at Paul’s Pizza the summer before, when we were sixteen and desperate to earn some gas money. Our parents also thought it would be a good diversion from all of the summer parties going on through town, and I never thought I would admit it, but they were absolutely right. Several people who went to those parties died of binge drinking, including one of our good friends, Adam Prince. In fact, I’d say he was probably one of my best friends besides Josh. His story was actually a more devastating one, and ended up making the local news. He was one of those honestly good guys that you never would’ve expected anything so horrible to happen to. I’m sure almost all of Herena Valley attended his funeral, and it was really sad.

Anyway, we’d almost had our jobs for a year, and on top of making a good amount of money, we’d also met some awesome new people. It was worth a million parties, by far.

My thoughts were brought back to the present as I heard a faint jingle of a bell, signaling that somebody had entered the restaurant. I looked up from the table I was currently cleaning up and was pleasantly surprised to see Peter, the son of Paul, the owner, who Josh and I had gotten to be great friends with in the past nine months. We hadn’t seen him in the past couple of weeks, though, with him working the night shift and Josh and I the afternoon.

“Pete! What’s up, man?” I said, going over to him and giving him a quick pat on the back. In a very manly way, of course.

“Not much, not much,” he said, smiling. “And you, Nathan?”

“Oh, you know, just busy with school and work. Not a lot of time for much else.”

“Tell me about it. I’ve had about six projects in the past week, not to mention this job to do every night. Sometimes I wonder if I’m not completely crazy.”

“I know I’ve wondered that same thing lately,” I said.

Then Josh came out from the kitchen and also looked surprised to see Pete standing with me, and we all just began talking and getting caught up with each other’s lives and everything.

By the time we had finished talking and Peter had picked up something to take to his dad, I realized that it was nearly ten minutes after five, and that I had to get home to do all the tedious homework that waited me. Without thinking, I turned my head to look out the window, but the mysterious girl and her car were long gone. And for some reason, that’s all I seemed to be able to think about as I lay in bed that night.

---

The next day at school I sat through a few hour and a half lectures, but the only thing my mind seemed to be focused on was that car. The thought of Ms. Mysterious was really irking me now, and suddenly I’m thinking: What kind of ideas has Josh put into my head? I knew I shouldn’t have been too concerned about it, but at the same time, what kind of person just sits in the car for nearly two hours per day, looking in to the window of a pizza parlor? I tried to tell myself it was just some psycho, and that they’d eventually go away, but all day these thoughts just haunted me.

After school I met Josh by his locker so I could catch a ride to work with him. My car had recently broken down and was in the shop until the next week. As we walked out of the front doors of Herena Valley High, it really struck me that spring was finally here, and junior year would be over in just a couple of months. The soft breeze blew at a steady pace, ruffling the now yellow leaves of the honey locust trees surrounding the campus.

“Okay, Josh. You were somehow right. Actually, I’m sort of blaming you for this, but I absolutely can’t stop thinking about that girl. And I don’t have an honest clue who she is! I haven’t even seen her face!” I blurted out as we drove to Paul’s with our favorite rock station playing.

Now it was Josh’s turn to laugh.

“I knew it! You’re in love with a woman you’ve never even seen! Dude, pretty soon you’ll be walking down the aisle-“

I punched his arm.

“Ha-ha. That is not funny. And definitely not going to happen. I just want to know who she is, that’s all.”

“Oh, man. You are so in denial. You should just go up to her car and ask her to marry-“

He was asking for another punch, and we both laughed the whole thing off the rest of the way to Paul’s.

---

The strange thing that afternoon, though, was that Girl without a Name never even showed up! As if all my thoughts and all of the joking had driven her away somehow. As mysteriously as she had come, she was now gone. It wasn’t possible that we were imagining her, but why was today the day she was a no-show? I thought. I was really hoping to get a better look.

I went inside to tell Josh about it, and he couldn’t believe it.

“Dude, this has got to be some sort of crazy sign. Maybe it wasn’t in the stars after all…”

“The stars? Since when are you the astrology freak?” I asked, enjoying this little game we seemed to be playing.

“I’m not. But Veronica was…”

“Yeah and where did that relationship end up? Seriously, Josh, you pick the dumbest girls to date.”

“More like the hottest. And who are you to be talking about dating dumb girls. You’ve been out with almost half of the junior class.”

“Uh, no, I haven’t. Maybe ten or twenty girls, but that was back when I was a real jerk, and I admit that. I never should have gone out with any of them, especially not at that age. I’m learning there’s more to girls than just looks. Maybe you should keep that in mind, too,” I said.

“Hah. So you think you’re some sort of saint now, Nate? Too good to be hanging around with guys like me?” he teased.

“Of course not, Dummy. I’m here, aren’t I? Talking to nobody but you. But date another Veronica and we’ll see about that,” I said with a sly smile.

He threw a greasy, wet rag at me and I fired mine right back at him. It’s a good thing we didn’t have any customers at that time, or there may have been complaints against us.

---

Later that night when I got home I decided to shoot some hoops in the backyard before starting my homework. Playing basketball has always been my outlet for stress and a range of other emotions, and has also always been my favorite sport. I’d always played on a school team in the past, but decided that it wasn’t in the cards for junior year, since I had my job and a buttload of homework to do. But I still needed to stay in shape and exercise, so I often go to my backyard in order to blow off some steam, or whatever I’m feeling at the moment.

When I entered the backyard and heard sobbing, though, I knew something was wrong. My eyes followed the noise to our little wooden bench, where I saw my sister, Chloe. She had her feet up on the bench with her arms hugging her knees. Her very thin, straight, blonde hair gave off a radiant golden sparkle in the sunshine.

I walked over and sat next to her.

“Chloe?”

At the sound of my voice, her sobs turned into full-blown tears.

“Go. Away,” she murmured in that oh-so-famous “I’m Chloe so leave me alone” tone.

“Chloe, what’s wrong?” No way was I going anywhere.

“I don’t want to talk to you.” More tears.

“Of course you do. I’m your big brother,” I said, putting a hand on her back. She shook it off and snorted as if I’d said something truly despicable.

“It’s Jason, isn’t it?” I asked, referring to her current boyfriend, who I absolutely hated. My muscles tensed just thinking about him.

She then lifted up her head and turned it to give me what I’m assuming she thought was a hurtful glare. I just thought she looked pretty ridiculous with her mascara running down her cheeks and hideous nose ring in place. The truth was, since becoming a pre-teen and now teen, Chloe had been acting out in pathetically rebellious ways over the past few years. She had managed to dye her blonde hair every color imaginable, and had only recently changed it from aqua back to her natural color, after our mother’s relentless nagging. How on earth she managed to get her nose pierced, I don’t know, because she’s never told me, but I knew both of our parents practically blew through the roof over it, Mom especially. I’m almost positive she was even in tears about it at first, and I have no clue why she’s never made Chloe take I tout. I think she’s just kind of given up trying to change Chloe, because the girl’s made it pretty clear that nobody is going to change her unless she changes herself. I think she’ll come around eventually, but until then we just need to give her that time and space she needs. I think Mom’s learning to accept that, but it doesn’t make her any less angry with Chloe.

“That’s just what you want to hear, isn’t it Nathan?!” she shot back.

“Well, yeah, it would easy my mind,” I said, smiling a little. Bad choice.

“Ugh! Wipe that smirk off your face! Boys are such heartless idiots!” she yelled, turning away again.

“So what happened then?”

Silence. A bird landed on the bench and looked at me curiously before flying off.

“Chloe…”

“Fine! Fine, fine, fine! Well, congratulations, your day has just been made! Jason Johnson broke things off with me today! Happy?” She could barely get the last word out of her mouth before breaking into tears again.

“Just happy that the jerk is finally gone. Not happy to see you so sad.”

“Sad?! SAD?! I AM COMPLETELY, DEVASTATINGLY HEARTBROKEN!! And you could care less about me or my feelings! You are a guy, after all.”

She said this with pure disgust, and this negativity of hers was really beginning to bother me. It took all of my patience to sit there instead of picking up that ball and ignoring her.

“Sorry to burst your bubble, Chloe, but not all guys are such Jason-type losers. You’d learn that if you just tried hanging out with a different crowd.”

“How dare you?! How dare you sit here and insult me and try to tell me how to live my life!”

“Oh, I think we’ve all learned that nobody can tell you how to live your life, Chloe. Nobody but you, that is. And you may not know or appreciate it now, but you’re way better off without that scumbag.”

“I hate you! Just leave...now!”

“No problem. You can deal with your own pitiful crap. If you’re going to have that attitude, then you’re right, I could care less!”

I got up and stormed into the house, all previous desire of playing basketball long gone. Ugh, Chloe really drives me up the wall sometimes.

---

I remained pretty tense the rest of the night, the dullness of Chemistry and English and U.S. History just all ran together to create one big jumbled, migraine mess. I put on some music to calm my nerves, but it didn’t exactly help much. I was restless; I had to get up and move around every five minutes. Or so it seemed.

And what do you think crept into my mind in the midst of it all? You got it. That little blue car.