Deny Me Your Kisses

“Hey! Look out!”

Unfortunately, I didn’t heed the warning that had been shouted to me, and I happily continued to stroll along with my baby sister sleeping soundly in her pram. It had taken me hours to get her to shut her eyes – but my luck was about to run out. Within seconds, I found myself lying on the pavement, staring up at the sky in a daze, with a very painful bump on my forehead. It took me a few moments to associate me on the ground with the football that was on the pavement beside me. Footballs were harder than they looked – ouch. I sat up, touching my forehead with a hiss of pain.

“Are you alright? I’m really sorry; you must not have heard me…”

“I heard you alright” I mumbled to the offender. “Watch where you’re putting that thing. You could have hurt Lissy!” I glanced up to find an unfamiliar guy stood in front of me – I groaned inwardly at this sight. Always had to embarrass myself in front of the opposite sex, didn’t I? I quickly stood up, ignoring his outstretched hand, and brushed the dirt from my jeans. The pain in my head was pounding away relentlessly, but I wasn’t going to let this idiot know that he’d hurt me.

There was a sudden explosion of agony in my head and I couldn’t help but wince as a scream came from the pram. Within minutes, my hours of work had been obliterated. All because of some jerk and his dumb ball! Giving a vicious glare to ‘the jerk’, I stormed over to Lissy’s pram and lifted her out, holding her to my hip. Abruptly, she stopped crying and I sighed with relief. I loved my little sister to pieces, but she could be a royal pain in the butt sometimes.

“I’m really sorry; I didn’t mean to hit you.” I looked back at jerk boy and found him looking rather… ashamed. I couldn’t stop the smug smirk from touching my lips. It disappeared though when the guy looked straight at me. I definitely hadn’t seen him around here before – I would have noticed him (and made a fool of myself in front of him before now). This guy had the brightest blue eyes I had ever seen. A few rebellious strands of his brown hair kept blowing into them, and I had a sudden urge to brush them back. I suddenly realised that I had been looking after Lissy far too much. Now I wanted to mother total strangers!

“It’s fine, I guess.”

“Does your head hurt?” Now his eyes showed pure concern for me. I bit my lip, wanting to scream out that it did hurt, very much – but I resisted.

“No.” My simple lie came out calm and steady, and he must have believed it, because he didn’t pry any longer.

“Well… sorry again. I just moved in across the street – my name’s Zack.”

He expected me to tell him my name, didn’t he? Well, he definitely wasn’t going to get anything about me. “Oh, cool… well, see you around Zack.” And with Lissy in one arm and her pram in the other, I walked away and didn’t look back once.

Of course, an official walk away wouldn’t be complete without me nearly tripping up… would it?