CHAPTER 15: A Very Jumpy Girl
"So, Matt, do you know how you feel about her?" Greg asked about an hour later. Lori was asleep on the living room couch, dreaming about Matt and how much she wanted to be with him.
Lori had invited them over to her house so they could hang out and Matt immediately agreed. "Hmm....", he said thoughtfully, "Yeah."
"Aww. She's sleeping. She looks like an angel." Greg said when he saw that Lori was sleeping.
"She HAS BEEN sleeping for the past 15 minutes." Matt pointed out.
"So how do you feel about me?" Lori asked when she woke up. She looked up at him and saw him looking at her.
"You know how I feel about you." he told her.
"He loves you." Greg added.
"Don't I wish." Lori said dryly.
Matt looked at her and said, "I do."
"I don't think she believes you dude." Greg said.
"He's only known me for 4 hours, 5 minutes and 3 seconds." Lori reminded him.
"He does love you Lorr." Greg insisted.
"I wish I was Dan." Matt said as he stared off into space.
" What? Why? Who's Dan?" Greg asked slightly confused.
"This guy Lorr liked in elementary school and junior high." Matt replied. "She was in love with him."
"And he didn't even know I existed." Lori added.
"Why do you wish you were Dan?" Greg eyed him.
"'Cuz Lorr was in love with him." Matt clarified.
"And you think she isn't in love with you?" Greg asked rocking back and forth in the chair.
"I dunno. I think she is, but I want her to tell me how she feels." Matt said.
Lorr looked at him then away. "You tell me you're in love with me
Like you can't take your pretty eyes away from me
It's not that I don't want to stay
But every time you come too close I move away
I wanna believe in everything you say
'Cause it sounds so good
But if you really want me, move slow
There's things about me you just have to know
Sometimes I run
Sometimes I hide
Sometimes I'm scared of you
But all I really want is to hold you tight
Treat you right, be with you day and night
Baby all I need is time
I don't wanna be so shy
Every time that I'm alone I wonder why
Hope that you will wait for me
You'll see that you're the only one for me
I wanna believe in everything that you say
'Cause it sounds so good
But if you really want me, move slow
There's things about me you just have to know
Sometimes I run
Sometimes I hide
Sometimes I'm scared of you
But all I really want is to hold you tight
Treat you right, be with you day and night
Baby all I need is time
Just hang around and you'll see
There's nowhere I'd rather be
If you love me, trust in me
The way that I trust in you
Sometimes I run
Sometimes I hide
Sometimes I'm scared of you
But all I really want is to hold you tight
Treat you right, be with you day and night
Baby all I need is time." she lip-synched Britney Spears' "Sometimes".
"Cause you know that I want ya
And you know that I need ya
Is that any way to be
Just have your way with me
My body is cryin
These tears can you wipe'em
Is that any way to be
Jus have your way with me
I'm goin out with guys I don't wanna go
Places that I've been before
(they pitchen the same game)
Boy it's a dam shame
(how I wish it was you) callin' me
(I want it to be you) holdin' me
(boy it needs to be you) kissin me
Cause it's like a see-saw when it comes to your love
Boy when you're up
This girl is down
And I just can't figure it out."
"You can't go forcing something if it's just not right No time to search the world around Cause you know where I'll be found When I come around When I come around."
Matt looked down at her when she started saying words to the Green Day song "When I Come Around" and she looked at him. Greg knew that something was about to happen so he said, "I'm gonna go talk to your dad."
"Why is he going to talk to my dad?" Lori whispered. She stared into Matt's eyes and she got scared when she saw the way he was looking at her. It terrified her.
"I dunno baby girl." Matt shrugged his shoulders and said, "I have no clue."
"What were you saying earlier?" she asked changing the subject. "You were saying you had an idea."
Matt pondered it for a while then said, "Oh. I was thinking how it'd be cool if you could come with me to New York."
"Matt, her dad and mom said that she could." Greg said walking into the living room. He sat down in the glider and started rocking back and forth. "They say you have to keep an eye on her and make sure nothing happens to her."
"Are you serious?" Matt asked excitedly. A huge smile was plastered on his face. Lori just laid there, not having a clue about what they were discussing, and from the looks on their faces and what they were saying, she was glad she didn't know.
"Yeah." Greg smiled at his friend. "The only thing is though is that she'd have to stay at your house. Her parents don't want her staying in a hotel."
"OK. What are you guys talking about?" Lori blurted out. She sat up and looked at Matt then at Greg and back at Matt, waiting for one of them to answer.
"I wouldn't let her stay in a hotel. She'd be staying with me." Matt told Greg.
"Nice." a very frustrated Lori muttered under her breath. She rolled her eyes and got up and went out to the kitchen to get a bottle of her strawberry flavored water. Then she jogged downstairs and went to her room so she could listen to some music as she pondered the thought of what Greg and Matt were talking about.
"Do you guys want to stay for supper? We're ordering pizza from Dominoes." Jackie, Lori's mother, said walking into the living room. She was wearing black dress pants and a red and blacked striped shirt with black dress shoes. Her semi-long brown hair was in a loose bun.
"Yeah. We'll stay." Greg and Matt said together.
"Umm....Mrs. French, do you know where Lorr went?" Matt asked standing up and taking a few steps towards the door.
"Lorr?" Lori's mom asked confused.
"Lori." Matt said looking at her.
"Oh. I think she went down in her room Matt. And you call me Jackie." she said. "You can too Greg."
"OK." was all the guys said before Matt excused himself to go find Lori.
Downstairs Lori was listening to Jay-Z's "99 Problems" when she heard somebody knock on the light brown door. She paused the music and said, "Come in."
Matt opened the door and saw her sitting on her bed with a notebook in her lap. He walked over to her and took the empty spot next to her. He peaked over the piece of paper to see what she was writing and read some of it:
So I was a huge fan of Dream Street and I was totally in love with Matt, one of the members. I had a lot in common with him and we liked some of the same things. His favorite ice cream was mint chocolate chip, his favorite Sum 41 song was Fat Lip, he was into sports and he played on his school's lacrosse team with his younger brother, David, who's the same age as me.
I'm a 17 year old girl who doesn't have a lot of confidence and when I went to Wal-Mart I wasn't expecting to fall in love with this special guy who meant the world to me. I met Matt and he had this weird effect on me. It's hard to explain but when I'm with him I just feel something, something I've never felt before, not with any of my boyfriends anyway. I'm scared that I'll lose him though and never see him again. And when he told me that he loved me I couldn't believe it was happening. I mean, my dream was actually coming true and I got scared. I was in shock. I didn't know that a guy like Matt could actually care about me. I wasn't prepared for him to come into my life and now that he has...I really don't want to let him go.
"Hey you." he said trying to get her attention.
She jumped which made her pencil move and it made a huge black line on her paper. She looked at the black line and erased it then up at Matt. "Quit scaring me!" she ordered him.
"I can't stop scaring you, can I?" Matt asked.
"I'm just really jumpy. I don't know why." she said before she looked away. She looked to see where the spider went and couldn't find it anywhere. Shivers ran up and down her spine and she got goosebumps on her arms. She flipped the sheet of paper over and then she felt something crawling on her. She screamed and flung the paper almost across the room.
"What's wrong?" he asked when he saw that she was freaking out.
"Ewww! Gross!" she shouted.
"Eww? Gross? What are you talking about?"
"I hate spiders!" she said. "And one was just crawling on me and now I don't know where it went."
"Is this it?" Matt asked holding the spider by his two back legs. The spider was moving and Lori jumped off the bed and ran across the room.
"I'll go get rid of it. I'll go put it outside." Matt told her.
"How about I kill it by sucking it up in the vacuum cleaner?" she asked half-serious, half-joking. She went over to the vacuum cleaner, plugged it in, turned it on and sucked the spider out of Matt's fingers and when the spider was gone she relaxed. She turned the machine off and walked back over to her bed. "All gone. No more spider." she muttered. Then she started singing, "The eensy weensy spider went up the vacuums hose, now it won't be crawling on my nose, thank God for the vacuums hose." She burst out laughing. She put her hand to her forehead and said, "God, I am such an idiot."
"You killed the spider." Matt joked as he sat down next to her. He frowned but then smiled at her. "I take it you don't like spiders very much."
"I haven't had the best experiences with guys....or spiders. They're all just a pain in my ass." she told him.
"You think I'm a pain in the ass?" he asked in shock.
"You're...hmm....I dunno. I dunno what you are." she shrugged and shook her head. "A good pain my ass I guess."
Matt laughed and said, "Cute."
She hit him playfully in the shoulder and said, "Don't make fun of me!"
He ran his finger up and down her arm and she screamed. The look on her face was priceless when she jumped. Then she looked at Matt who was laughing his ass off and said, "You're such an ass."
"You are so jumpy baby." He laughed.
"Don't call me baby." she told him.
"You told me I could call you whatever I want and I called you baby so DEAL." Matt reminded her.
Chapter 16