hit & misses

At least a tornado didn't hit.

Ellie watched the TV diligently through the evening. There were storms all around and no So you think you can dance to really watch, other than the weather man discussing the elevation of the storms. Ellie wasn't sure why she concentrated so much on the movement of the storms.

It didn't even rain until the wee morning hours. Her Mom wouldn't let her on the computer nor even her cell phone. Something about.. it had to be an emergency. She was pretty sure this didn't set well with Eric because he kept texting, and she couldn't answer any of them.

She went to bed miserable because her mother took her phone. Why was it that she always got the worst of it? Lisa never did. It just wasn't right. So Ellie went to bed mad and didn't feel she could sleep soundly until she could see the landscape of Eric clearly in her mind and remember exactly when his lips met her that turned into a French kiss on the carriage ride. She wanted to remember the first time it happened. Not the second or the third, but the first. She wanted to feel it all over again. The shock, the emotion. Something to leave her with the thought this was for real.

No way was she going to dare think of Kyle. Although, thoughts of him slipped in as she tossed and turned. After all she'd thought about him a lot. She could even picture the fine hair on his fore arms. She shook the thought of remembering what Roger had said about him being a baby. Then she thought about what she really knew about his past. Her throat started to ache. She had to to stop thinking about him, but how?

The next morning the basement flooded. It was more of a small lake in the middle of the room behind the couch, almost where the TV sat.

"How in the world did this happen!" Ellie's Mom was livid. She made them all jump. Ellie got out the shop vacuum from her Dad's garage and sucked a good bit of it up.

After her Dad had his second cup of coffee, he thought it might have to do something with the gutters. He couldn't remember the last time they were cleaned. And he was pretty sure the last storm before this one brought down a ton of leaves.

"Guess I better call Kyle," he said nonchalantly.

"Kyle? Dad we don't need Kyle." Ellie insisted.

"Are you going to get on the roof?" He eyed her then.

"Um, no," She was in a sweat already and rather filthy. She wanted to suggest Eric, but then she didn't want him to see her this disgusting either, in cutoff gray sweat pants and an Old Navy tank top that she only wore to bed which might be see-through if she stopped to look by the bathroom mirror long enough.

"He's done it before, you know," her dad told her. "He likes roofs, in fact. I think he'd want me to call him."

Just then Ellie's Mom let them know that Kyle was already here.

Ellie fretted slightly and decided it was about time she had a Dr. Pepper. She deserved it.

Of course, he wouldn't come in the kitchen while she was there. She finally stomped off to her room and yelled at her Mom, "I want my phone back!"

Her mother handed it over to her. It was actually in her parent's bathroom.

As soon as she got to her room, she called Eric.

"It sucks to be me," Ellie told him immediately. "I'm stuck here with a wet basement, and my sister is having breakfast in bed. How's that?"

"That does suck," Eric said. "I was wondering what happened to you last night."

"Nothing." Ellie's voice was dull, she hadn't meant to sound so horrible. "Mom wouldn't let me text you." Ellie rolled her eyes at that one and pushed her sneakers off as she laid across her bed.

"So when do you think you can get away?"

"It'll have to be after lunch. I'm sure I'm going to have to do something with my Dad about the gutters. Maybe after lunch. I'll tell them I have library stuff to do."

"Excellent. Then I'll meet you at the library around one?" She could already hear a smile in his voice. It was the best news she'd heard today.