Dealing with Awkward Situations

by IncapableDreams

Chapter One: The Underwear Incident

To begin with, I was already a criminal.

There were countless of times when I didn't buckle up while sitting in my mom's (parked) car. I jay-walked several times a day and I even committed truancy a couple of times in my life. It only took me a total of one hour to come to the conclusion that I was a law breaking machine. So, committing an act of burglary (with one of the resident's permission, I might add) would simply just add onto my already horrendous list of crimes. If, by any chance, I get thrown into the slammer, at least, my mom would dance happily, screaming that she 'had one less child to feed'.

But I swear, if my mom doesn't bail me out, I will escape on my own and burn all her precious treasures. I snickered to myself in a malicious manner. Trust me Mommy, I have the intestines to burn your entire Disney movie's collection.

"You're where?" Kelly, my caring fifteen year old sister, exclaimed. I had accidentally allowed my excitement to consume my mentality, causing me to inform Kelly about my actions the second she picked up the house phone. And informing Kelly about my actions were never a good thing.

I decided to ignore her outburst. "Tell Mommy and Daddy that I won't be home for another hour or so before they urinate in their pants and call the cops to report a missing child. I called them over ten times already and I keep being directed to their voice mail."

"Have you lost your mind?" I pulled my sister's cell phone (I begged Kelly to allow me to borrow her phone for the week) away from my ear to prevent my sister's screaming vocals to damage my perfect hearing. "You can't just...you are such a coward for resorting to these measures. This is wrong and illegal."

Illegal, yes. But 'wrong'? In my defense, I was merely breaking into the house that my best friend, Aimee, was currently residing at in order to retrieve mycellphone. Let me place emphasis on the: my cellphone. A week ago, I had stupidly dropped my cellphone in Aimee's room out of shock when I caught her making out with my ex-boyfriend.

Apparently, my ex-boyfriend and my best friend have been together for six months. I broke up with the heinous individual three months ago after a year long relationship when he informed me that he was cheating on me-he just didn't mention that it was with my best friend.

A few hours after I dashed out of the house after catching the couple slobbering over each other, Aimee had left a voicemail on my house phone, informing me that she wasn't going to return my cellphone until I stopped ignoring and evading her. She also mentioned that she was moving into her family's friends house for a few weeks since her parent's wanted to renovate her entire house. She left me the address, insisting that I should visit her.

Since I wasn't planning on contacting my best friend anytime soon and my parent's were refusing to purchase me a new phone because there was a possibility to retrieve my current one, I concluded that burglary was the only option. Once I came to that conclusion, I murdered my guilty conscience and accepted the fact that I was an unstoppable criminal.

I even dressed for the occasion: a black beanie, an oversized black sweatshirt, black skinny jeans, black combat boots, and black leather gloves.

Besides, there was a minimal risk of getting caught. Tonight was the homecoming dance at my school and since Aimee never missed a dance, it would be impossible for her to catch me breaking into her temporary house. Not only that, the two constant things that I always heard from Aimee about her family friends were that one, the adults were all workaholics, only returning home when it was close to midnight, and two, they hid their house keys in easy to reach places for Aimee to use if she ever needed it.

I glanced around the entrance of the house for a few moments. The house key wasn't located under the welcome mat nor was it anywhere in the large bush that sat to the left of their door. Spotting the ledge, I reached towards it and patted around for a while before I felt a cold, solid object. I slid the key down into the palm of my left hand.

"Don't do this," Kelly warned.

"Yes, yes, of course," I said absentmindedly. I shivered as the winds began to pick up while the sun began to set.

"Tory."

"I'm feeling entertained and thrilled," I chirped as I opened the door and stepped inside. The lights were off but I could faintly make out the outline of the furniture in the living room.

Kelly then proceeded to babble on about my 'unhealthy obsession with taking risks'. She was trying to teach me several different lessons through her lecturing but I didn't care enough to pay attention to what she was actually saying. She was overreacting and in a few seconds, she'll realize that it was useless to warn me ahead of time because I had already broken. Instead of hearing her extensive speech, I focused on smoothing the wrinkles out of my oversized sweater.

From the lack of noise from the other end of the line, I assumed that Kelly had calmed down. But then a voice of panic reached my ears again. "Come back home, right now!" she demanded.

"You can't tell me what to do; I'm one year older than you," I giggled.

"Tory, listen to me, what if-"

"Don't worry, my loving sis, the house is void of people," I said soothingly, though I kept my voice low. "I ding-dong ditch a few minutes ago and nobody answered the door."

The situation seemed to finally click in Kelly's head. "You're already inside, aren't you?"

"Oh, my! My phone is losing its life energy as we speak," I blatantly lied. "Bye!"

"No, Tory-" I snapped Kelly's phone shut and stuffed it into the depths of my black boots.

I maneuvered my way around the first floor until I discovered the stairs leading to the second floor at the back of the house. When I reached the top of the stairs, there was a long hallway with several doors, some closed and some opened. The walls were bare except for the two landscape paintings that were framed beside one another near the closest door to the stairs.

Seeing that there was a small amount of light in the hallway, I searched for the rooms where it was leaking out for. There were two rooms, one closed and one opened, wasting energy and money as the seconds flew by. I waited for a few seconds and listened carefully in order to confirm that nobody was here and that some imbecile just forgot to turn off the lights before leaving the house. When there was only silence, I headed towards the room with the door open and light on, recognizing that it was a bedroom.

As I began to wander around the room, I couldn't stop myself from gaping in awe. room was clean, organized. The floor wasn't a victim to dozens of worn clothes and random objects. The carpet seemed recently vacuumed, the bed was made, the cream colored walls were void of photos or posters, and the bookshelf was dustless. When I took note of the desk at the back of the room, however, I was astounded. The desk itself destroyed the balance of the atmosphere in the room. Surrounding the computer on the desk were clutters of used dishes, paper, notebooks, open textbooks, and writing utensils.

Despite the fact that Aimee had a habit of treating her bedroom floor as a mixture of a laundry basket and a closet, I assumed that the room I was standing in was her temporary bedroom. The cleanness of the room related to the fact that Aimee would never reveal her tendency to be disorganized to people outside of her immediate family (she hasn't allowed any of her cousins into her room before), though, I was the exception. And since Aimee was a serious and studious academic, the disaster sitting on the desk was reasonable.

Knowing that Aimee's favorite hiding spot was always in her drawers, I skipped my way over towards the dark wooden drawer located at the back of the room. I pulled open the top drawer and when I glanced at the contents, I came into contacts with a variety of boxers shorts, boxer briefs, and plain colored t-shirts.

"This is...not Aimee's room?" I said, bewildered, as I began to shift the boxers around, fruitlessly hoping that underneath all the typically male undergarments, there were black colored bras and lacy thongs. By the time I accepted the fact that this wasn't Aimee's room, the drawer was a mess.

After releasing a sigh, I lifted up my knee to use as a stable surface as I started folding the clothes and placing them back neatly into the drawer. I was down to the last pair of boxers when I heard the sound of footsteps. Panicking, I stuffed the striped black and grey boxers into the pocket of my sweatshirt.

There shouldn't be anyone in this house besides me, I told myself. Wait, the other room with the light on...

Automatically, my head whipped to the direction of the sound. My green eyes came into contact with the male figure with dark hair and a bewildered expression etched onto his face. The bedroom door shut behind him, the only sound resonating in the room. I inwardly gulped but didn't make the effort to move. I couldn't move. I was frozen to the spot and my brain decided now out of all times to stop cooperating with my body.

My entire face was turning red in embarrassment. "Um," Eureka! I found my voice! "I could explain."

Out of all the people that Aimee could be temporary living with, it just had to be someone from our school, worst of all, it just had to be the someone that I harbor a seemingly never-ending, but insignificant and small, crush on since freshman year.

"Really." He sounded skeptical. "Then tell me, what are you doing in my room?" His dark brown eyes trailed downwards onto my abdominal area. "Are those my boxers...?"

My mind wasn't even functioning correctly. I didn't know whether it was because I was a failure as a burglar or because I was seemingly stealing Trevor's undergarments, but I was trapped in a state of shock. And if he keeps standing there clad in only his red boxers with his gorgeous chest tempting me to touch it, I predict a heart attack.

Trevor sighed before taking a threatening step forward. "First of all, how did you get in my room?"

I was thankful that we sat next to each other for the first semester in our freshman year and that we were semi-friends (okay, fine, barely acquaintances) because if he didn't know me, he would probably pummel me with his fists...just like he did with the student that shoved him in the hallway. Though, contrary to popular belief, Trevor didn't start a fight for a miniscule reason such as being rudely bumped into in the hallway, it was because that student was bullying his little sister for refusing to date him. If I hadn't overheard the threats that Trevor spewed at the arrogant jerk and revealed the truth behind the scuffle, I probably would've been on my knees by now, begging Trevor for mercy.

"Uh..." No words came out.

"Actually, how did you even get into my house?" he interrogated while removing the towel from his damp hair.

I took a moment to contemplate on my options: tell him the truth ordo anything but the former. Since I couldn't find the ability to admit that I became a burglar because I was too much of a coward to initiate a conversation with my best friend...'Do anything but the former' easily wins.

This is going to become one dreadful memory.

I replaced my astounded, mouth hanging face with a flirty one. I was mentally crossing my fingers, hoping that watching all those phony reality television shows filled with 'smoking hot girls' helped me master the sluttish, seductive appearance. Which, was actually quite difficult considering the fact that I embrace helping people out (for money, cash only), not the male species and social skills.

I slowly moved away from the bed and strutted towards him. "Well," I said in two pitches higher than normal, twirling my long brown locks. I tried thinking of what the sexually promiscuous girl in my third period class would say. "I wanted to see you, of course, you silly attractive half-naked beast."

His eyebrows shot up considerably.

I trailed my finger alone Trevor's cold, bare chest but in actuality, I wanted to slap myself. "You're so hot that you're making me burn up." I licked my lips for extra effect. "I have been lusting for your bodfor the longest time, baby."

My dignity and pride are officially extinct.

"Do you have a fever, Tory?" Trevor said gently, placing a hand on my forehead. "Are you high?"

"Oh, Trevor! Touch me some more!" He awkwardly patted my face with his hand. "Ugh! Yes! Right there! More, more!"

That's it. I'm committing suicide once I get home.

"Okay?" His hand retreated back to his side.

"Trevor," I moaned. He gave me a questioning glance. While keeping his eyes locked on mine, I slyly brought my hands towards the door knob. Open the door and then run; that's all I have to do. "I've been waiting patiently here so I could strip off your clothing and grind on you."

Dare I say, I purred.

"Really? I could have sworn you were trying to leave." His entire expression changed. A smirk was playing on his lips as he leaned against the door, blocking my escape route. "And please, don't...attempt to talk dirty to me again. It's strange when it comes from you." I didn't take any offense from that comment. "So, what's the realwhy you broke into my house and invaded my room?"

Why couldn't he be oblivious and stupid? Ugh. I dislike clever boys.

I backed away from the beast while he moved towards me. I almost jumped in joy when I saw that my previous escape route had potential to once again, be my escape route. Trevor had created distance between the door and himself by entering my personal bubble. The close proximity was causing me to feel extremely uncomfortable, making the door my last and only hope.

Out of ideas, I decided to play the innocent card. "What...? Where am I? I'm not in your room."

An eyebrow rose. "Then where are you?"

"Out of here," I blurted as I dashed around him. I threw open the door before throwing myself out

Twenty minutes later, I arrived home with a dumfounded expression etched onto my face and a pair of boxers in my right hand.

"I stole his underwear," I stated when I saw my little sister.

"Give him yours in return," was Kelly's response before she locked her bedroom door to prevent me from stealing her underwear.

Author's Note: Initially, this was suppose to be a one-shot but then it ended up being longer than I expected and I haven't even finished writing it yet. So, I'm making this a short-story. It probably won't be longer than 5 chapters. All I have to do is a bit of self-editing on the next chapter before I uploaded it. However, I won't have time to edit it for a few days. On the bright side, I finally posted something new :D.

The book cover art is by ir0nna :)