Differences

Chapter 5

~Destiny~

Hey Mom and Dad,

Things are going fine since you've been gone. Dawson, my babysitter, can get annoying sometimes, and he has a good reputation at school so I'm being careful. I would say the only good thing is that he began to take me to school in his car and it saved a lot of walking for me. Was that part of his deal or something?

Anyways, Pearl, our maid, came yesterday and she's friendly. She cooked these great meals for us and she cleaned everything. She's coming again tomorrow. Make sure you guys really pay for her gratitude, she's awesome!

I hope you guys come home! And I hope you're having fun, too. Just be back before Christmas because I know we won't be doing Halloween together this year. I love you lots!

Love, Destiny

After I was done with the letter, I clicked send and leaned back on my swivel chair. I hope they reply soon. I went to a new Word document and started working on yesterday's hot topic for the newspaper. I typed until the whole article was done, but I didn't edit it just yet. I really needed a break. I rolled my shoulders in pain.

I rubbed my eyes and walked upstairs. I heard faint music coming from the guest room and guessed it was Dawson playing my guitar. I originally went to the door to take my guitar away to practice, but I leaned against the wall, listening quietly. He was so talented at it, it was bothersome. Just as I closed my eyes, the music stopped, and I heard shuffling.

I sighed and got off the wall, standing in front of the door ready to knock. At that same moment, Dawson opened the door and we both jolted in surprise. Talk about timing.

"You scared the s**t out of me," Dawson said, holding the guitar and breathing heavily.

"And so did you," I said, putting my hands on my hips and eyeing the guitar. "Why is that in your hands? I never gave you permission to play it."

"I thought I could practice for a while until you're done with your article," he said. "I was going to go put it back in your room."

"Okay, so you went inside my room even though I told you not to?" I said. He shrugged, and I snatched the guitar, walking away. He followed me as I went into my bedroom and I gave him a look.

"I like to go to your room, okay?" he said, going to the Canada map. "It's pretty cool."

"'Stupid' would be a better word, right?" I said, touching the guitar strings and stroking its texture.

"How dense can you be?" he said. "I really do think your room is pretty sick. And I want to know what's in those boxes." He walked to a shelf that had decorated, mini-cardboard boxes lined up on the middle shelf.

"It's pretty useless stuff," I said. "It's not all that exciting."

"I'm sure. But I'm interested," he said.

"I don't trust you."

"I won't touch anything," he said stubbornly. I sighed, taking my guitar off and walking to where he was standing. I pulled out the first box and we sat on the ground, with it between us. I opened the box and inside were spaced trays, filled with rocks.

"My rock collection," I said, taking out a slip of paper and reading the dates. "I started this one when I was 7 and stopped when I was 13, so before high school started." I took out one tray at a time and explained that I used the trays to organize my rocks by their appearance. The shiniest ones go at the top and the boring ones go at the bottom.

"Wow, you collected these?" he said.

"Yeah. I used to wash them and just keep them in here," I said. Dawson went to pick one up. "Don't touch," I snapped. He grinned at me and removed his hand. I stood up to get another box and sat back down. Once we were done with the rock collection, I opened my second box. "You can guess what I have in this one," I said shrugging.

"I don't know, coin collection? Feather collection?" he said.

"Not in this one, but the other two boxes have my feather and coin collection," I said, my lips twitching. I opened the box and took out one tray. Inside were assortments of pens.

"Pens?" Dawson said in awe.

"You can touch these," I said. He picked up an antique pen with a peacock feather at the top and smoothed his fingers over the fur. I watched him go through the trays and pick up other funny-looking pens and sometimes pencils.

"Where did you even get these?" he said. "I've never seen these types of pens before."

"They're sometimes gifts, but mostly, they're from special events and childhood memories," I said, picking up a pink pen with fur and a pink heart dangling on a spring at the top. "I got this as a Valentine's gift from my secret admirer. It's a memory for me of my first Valentine. Usually, all the gifts or whatever, remind me that there were people once in my life who loved me, or at least liked me."

"You're saying it as if no one likes you right now," he said, putting back the pens. I shrugged and nodded at the same time. He had no idea.

After that, we went through my coin and feather box collection and I explained my globe collection, too. When we were done, and Dawson still wanted to know more about my room, I sat on the bed and strummed my guitar for a second.

"Why'd you put quotes in your room?" he said, reading the one above my head. "'Pulling someone down will never help you reach the top'." I sighed silently, and suddenly, the sound of my guitar sounded sad again. "Is there a specific reason for you to put this up?"

"There's always a reason why I put these quotes up. Like that one," I said pointing to the 'Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory' poster. "I have all my collections because of that exact reason." Dawson nodded, and he asked to know why I have all the others. I told him it was a secret.

"Wow, I've never seen anyone do this kind of stuff before," he murmured.

"That's because I'm different," I said, looking at the bedsheet. He looked at me, but I didn't meet his eyes. "Everyday, I'm in a group of people that have nothing common in me. And I can't begin to tell you how different we are." It was one of those moments when we just thought seriously in silence.

"Really? Can you tell me some differences?" he said, breaking the tension and sitting on the bed. I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Why do you care?" I said.

"I don't know, you just look really lonely and I want to know why," he said. He put his hands out towards my guitar and I gave it to him disinclined. "We can call the game 'Differences' and I'll give you something if you have enough."

"Are you kidding?" I said. "I don't want anything from you, neither do I want to waste anytime telling you how stupid and different I am. Plus, I have a lot so you're going to be wasting your money."

"Fine, say the differences about me and you, to make it more challenging. You know, since I'm not a girl," he said, winking at me. I rolled my eyes as he started to play something on the guitar. "Let your goal be 10 for now. Start."

"1) Your popular and I'm not," I said, and he nodded his head, gesturing for me to keep going. "2) You know how to drive, and I don't." He opened his mouth in surprise, but I kept going. "3) You're good at playing the guitar but I'm not. 4) You have friends and I don't. 5) You're good-looking but I bet I'm not. 6) You have a phone and I don't. 7) I'm pretty sure you have social media, but I don't. 8) You don't have all this kind of crap in your room, but I do. 9) Everyone adores you, but not a single person likes me. And..."

"Yeah...?" Dawson said, with an amused expression on his face. I couldn't believe he found all this funny. I had the last one in my mind, and I could say it, but I didn't want to: 10) You never get bullied or made fun of, but I do.

"10) I know how to play the piano, and you don't," I said, finally. "See?" Dawson put down my guitar and stretched.

"You know some of them are not true," he said, grinning.

"Whatever," I said, standing up. "I don't even know why I told you. You're definitely not the kind of person I would ever share my...dissimilarities. You wouldn't understand." He raised an eyebrow and stood up with me.

"Okay, what do you want?" he said. "You reached 10 differences."

"I want absolutely nothing from you," I said, crossing my arms across my chest.

"Fine, what if I introduced you to the phone and social media?" he said.

"I'm not dumb, I know what's going on," I said.

"But it's like saying, I know what goes on when you're bowling, but I never went bowling myself," he compared. I sighed in frustration and we walked downstairs and back into the family room. "It's like saying, I know what happens when you have s*x, but I've never had it before."

"Can you stop?" I said, my cheeks burning up. "You're being really embarrassing."

"Am I?" he said. "Because you're possibly the only girl who doesn't swoon over me when I say that." All my embarrassment turned into annoyance.

"Your ego is the size of Jupiter," I scowled, sitting in front of the computer. Dawson laughed, and I attempted to read over my article. I hadn't noticed he brought a chair and sat with me while I finished printing out the document.

"When do the newspapers come out again? Friday?" he asked. "Your stuff will be in there, right?"

"When have you started reading the newspaper?" I said. He shrugged, taking his phone out.

"Probably will make it a habit, point out some errors in your work," he said.

"Very caring," I said sarcastically and shut down the computer after I stapled the papers together. I leaned back against the chair and closed my eyes. My head was throbbing, and my shoulders were killing. Why did I sign up for the newsletter hot topic section? I felt a tap on my shoulder and I opened my eyes to the back of a phone dangling in front of my face.

"In the experience so far I had with you, I think you're more into games than social media," he said, showing me the screen. At the background was this picture of two figures. One of them looked familiar to me, for some reason. "You can look through it if you want." I took the phone and held it in my hands, squinting at the photo of the middle-aged couple. "Do you need glasses?" Dawson said.

"Who are the people in the background," I asked him. He looked taken aback and surprised for a second.

"My parents," he said. "Why?"

"One of them looks familiar to me," I said. "Is that your dad?"

"Yeah, he's everywhere every time. He's rarely home."

"What about your mom?" I said, looking at the woman with brunette curls and a bright smile.

"She's currently out of city with my grandma. My grandma's in a ...bad condition," he explained.

"So, you would be home alone if you were to go back to your house," I said. Dawson nodded, and I took a deep breath. "Alright, sorry for going off topic. Let's look at what you have in this junky phone of yours." I recognized most of the games in his phone, the popular ones and some old ones. But the game that caught my eye was Tap Tap Revenge. I used to play this a lot with my friends when I was younger. It brought back nice memories. "Um, can we do 2-player? I've never actually gotten used to playing by myself."

"I thought you said you had no friends," he said.

"Now, but not before high school. This game really brings back good memories," I said. We started playing on the loudest volume and obviously at the end, I lost. I had to regain those skills.

After playing some more games, we ended up at the front page of the screen where all his social media apps were. He smirked and touched his f*******: app. I rolled my eyes as he scrolled down his friends and likes and blah-blah-blah.

"I'm not interested in your profile," I said.

"I know. I'm just showing you how it's like," he said. I rubbed my forehead as he showed me his twitter account having more than a thousand followers. I get it.

"This is personal to you, I don't know why you're showing me this stuff," I said, looking at him.

"It's just a little test," he said, grinning. It was getting slightly darker outside and there were no lights on, so part of his face mixed in with the shadows. "What're you looking at?" he said. I stood up and went to turn on the lights, going around and closing the curtains to the windows.

"I don't really like the dark very much," I said.

"Oh, so you must not like horror movies," he said, smirking.

"Don't even dare, okay?" I warned him. I sat back in the chair and asked for his phone. This time, he was reluctant to give it. "I'm not going to delete all your clingy followers, okay? Just, chill." I flipped through the pages, looking for a certain app. And then I found it: Vines. I loved funny stuff and comedy, and plus, it's been a long time since I laughed anyways.

"Vines?" Dawson said, leaning over to look at the screen. It was a little distracting since he was close enough for me to smell his minty Axe body spray. I ignored it and pressed on one of the latest videos.

They weren't funny enough to make me laugh, but they did make me smile. Dawson on the other hand, kept looking at me expectantly. Finally, I couldn't handle it anymore. I closed the app and looked at him.

"Why are you keep on looking at me?" I said.

"I was waiting for you to laugh," he said, shrugging. "I don't think I've ever seen you laugh before."

"And why would you want to me to laugh?" I said, furrowing my brows at him.

"Well, you have a nice smile, so I wanted to see your laugh," he said. I blushed when he said that and looked away. "Aw," he said laughing. "Are you blushing?"

"No, you big jerk," I said, scowling. "It's just that, no one has ever complimented me, other than my parents, in a very long time." Dawson gave me one of those weird looks and I shook my head. "Well, are we done with your phone-tour?"

"Not yet," he said, taking his phone. I waited, playing with my fingers until soft music started to play. I looked at Dawson and at the phone. It was only instrumental and the only instrument I could hear was the guitar. It sounded soothing and I laid back on the cushion of my chair.

"What song is this?" I asked him, a little curiously.

"You like it?" he said, grinning.

"Yeah," I said, looking at the ceiling. "It's beautiful...really beautiful." I looked at him and sighed. "If only I could play that well."

"Not to burst your bubble, but I made this song," he said. "And recorded it." I briefly closed my eyes and reopened them.

"Are you wittingly saying that to make me feel bad?" I said. "If you are, you are an asshole." He smiled and put an elbow on the desktop table.

But I couldn't deny it, the song was so beautiful and slow. I was just lost in hopes, and disappointments, and dreams and fantasies that will never come true. I didn't know why I liked playing and listening to the guitar so much. Ever since I was little, I've had one. Always updated one, but still, I made no improvement. All I could do was listen to it and sing to the little I did know how to play. But listening to what I want is not the same as having it.

I guess that satisfaction is enough for now.