Chapter Twenty-Five: My First Love:

On that trip to the market, I fell in love. Who? Why it was Joe, of course. It’s kind of the clichéd story of the good girl falling for the bad boy. How did this happen? It’s kind of a strange story in itself. But I am going to try.

Henry wouldn’t let me out of his sight.

“I am going to be fine,” I said. “I don’t feel sick anymore.”

“I am not letting you out of my sight,” Henry hissed. “She’s still watching you. It’s too dangerous to leave you alone.” I couldn’t argue with him when he got like this. I dropped my shoulders.

“Fine,” I said.

“Good,” Henry said. He turned and looked at the shellfish stall. I stood around, looking awkward.

“Hey!” I heard someone yell. I looked up and saw Joe standing on the other side of the road at the tomato booth. At first, I gave him an odd look. Joe and I haven’t always been on the best of terms. We haven’t seen eye to eye most of the time. Addie isn’t a huge fan of him either. Suddenly, Joe walked over to me.

“Hey there,” he said.

“Hello…” I muttered. I blinked at him. Henry was still looking at shrimp.

“You out shopping too?” Joe asked.

“Yeah,” I said. Usually, we would trade insults back and forth. But this setting was different. We weren’t little kids anymore. Plus, Joe seemed to have mellowed out some. I never seen him hang around anyone else. I started to wonder if he had any friends at all.

“Please lame, huh?” he asked.

“I guess…” I said. I didn’t know what to say around him. Joe looked behind me at Henry’s back.

“Who’s that?” he asked. I turned and looked behind me as Henry started talking to the clerk at the booth.

“That’s just Henry,” I said. “He just lives with us.”

“But what is he to you, though?” Joe asked. “Is he the help? Is he sleeping with your mom? Are you two dating?”

“He just lives with us,” I said.

“Oh,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. Joe and I looked like we were struggling to say something. The more I stared at him, the more I started to notice things about him. Were his eyes always so blue? When did his jaw line become so beautiful? His cheek bones too.

My mind started to blank out as I reached out to turn his right cheek. He slapped away my hand.

“What are you doing?” Joe asked. I quickly snapped out of my trance.

“Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry.” He raised his eyebrow at me.

“Um… Okay,” he said. We just stared at each other. Since when have we tried not to talk to each other like this? Joe would be the one to shout insults at me. Sometimes, Addie would shoot off at him back. I would just find myself in the middle. Right now, not even Henry wasn’t even paying any attention to us. Why was it so hard to talk right now? Joe opened his mouth again.

“Joseph!” a woman yelled. “Joseph, get over here!”

“I’ve got to go,” Joe said.

“Oh. Okay, bye,” I said. I waved my hand back and forth.

“See you later,” he said. I felt myself sinking back into another daze as he dashed across the street. I gave him one more little wave. I could feel my cheeks turning bright red. I probably should have just looked behind me to see Miranda looking at me with a disapproving look. As you can predict, a boy made things between us even worse.

Or rather things were always getting bad and Joe didn’t help at all.