The Boy Next Door Is My Nightmare

The most annoying thing about being invisible is that people only notice you when they need something. I learned that at Twelve, when Brianna Cole borrowed my colored pencil for an art project and returned them broken, without an apology. I learned it again at Fourteen when Tyler Mace “accidentally” knocked my lunch tray out of my hand in front of the entire cafeteria and the whole room laughed like it was a scheduled event. And now? I'm learning it again at Seventeen, standing in front of my mother's kitchen while she explains calmly, like she was reading a grocery list. That I would be babysitting the six years old brother of Chase Hendricks. Chase Hendricks, a Westbridge High's golden boy. Star quarterback. The kind of beauty that made girls forget their own names and boys straighten their spines without knowing why. He had a jaw carved out of arrogance and eyes so dark they looked like they had been specifically designed to make you feel small. He was also the boy who, just last Monday, had looked right through me in the hall like I was a smudge on the wall. “Mom” I set my fork down very carefully “Tell me you're joking.” My mother Linda Owens, did not look up from folding a dish towel. “His mother, Karen, is a good woman. She just went back to full-time work and their regular sitter cancelled at the last minute. She asked if you were available and I said yes.” “Without asking me.” “You needed a job, Zara.” “Yes I needed a job but not that job.” She finally looked at me in that particular look she had perfected seventeen years, the one that said this conversation is over. “Its four earnings a week and every other Saturday. She's paying well. “Very well” She named the figure and I felt my resistance wobble. That was almost enough to fix my laptop. The one Tyler Mace had knocked off the library table three weeks ago while his friends filmed it. I picked my fork back up. “Fine,” I said, and stabbed a piece of broccoli like it had personally offended me. The Hendricks house was twelve minutes from ours, which felt like a personal joke God was playing on me. I stood at the front door on Wednesday evening with my backpack on my shoulder and a very deliberate expression of neutrality on my face. I could do this. It was just a kid. Six year olds were easy, you gave them a snack, you let them watch cartoons, you made sure they didn't die. Simple. The door opened and I knocked twice. Chase Hendricks stood in the doorway in a grey hoodie and sweatpants, his dark hair pushed back like he's been running his hands through it. He looked at me. I watched the exact moment recognition landed on his face slowly, almost annoyed like the universe has played a trick on him too. “You're the babysitter?” he said. “You're the brother?” I replied. Something flickered across his expression. Not a smile or anything. He stepped aside without another word and I walked in. The house was warm and smelled like laundry detergent and cinnamon. A small voice screamed from somewhere upstairs and then a tiny body came barreling down the staircase and crashed directly into Chase's legs. “She's here, she's here, she's here!” The boy looked up at me with enormous brown eyes and a gap-toothed grin. “Are you Zara? Mom said your name is Zara. I'm Micah. I'm six and I lost a tooth.” He opened his mouth wide and pointed aggressively at the gap. Something in my chest loosened a bit. “That's a very impressive hole,” I told him seriously. Micah giggled and grabbed my hand like he had known me his whole life. I let him pull me towards the sitting room, sneaking one glance at Chase. He was watching us with an expression I couldn't name, unguarded in a way I had never seen on his face at school but gone the second he noticed me looking. “I will be upstairs,” he said. He eats at six-thirty. No juice after seven or he won't sleep.” He turned towards the stairs. “Chase.” He stopped and I wasn't sure why I had said his name. He turned halfway, one hand on the banister. I squared my shoulders. “At school, we don't know each other. That's fine but in this house, you don't get to treat me like I'm nothing. I'm doing your family a favor and I deserve basic human decency. That's all I'm asking.” The silence stretched long enough that I felt heat creeping up my neck. Then Chase Hendricks looked at me, maybe for the first time but something shifted in those dark eyes and its not softness exactly, more like recalibration. “Okay,” he said quietly. I stood there for a second, my heart hammering for reasons I don't know, and then Micah tugged my hand and demanded I watch him build a Lego castle, and I let the moment dissolve. At six-thirty I made Micah scrambled eggs because apparently that was “ the only dinner that counts” according to him. I sat across from him at the kitchen island while he told me in great detail about the dream he had where dinosaurs wore a hat. I was laughing, genuinely laughing when I felt eyes on me. Chase was in the kitchen doorway, still in his hoodie, holding an empty glass. He wasn't moving toward the fridge. He was just standing there, watching me laugh, and there was something on his face that looked almost like confusion, like he was trying to solve something he hadn't expected to be complicated. I straightened and cleared my throat. He moved to the fridge.”He gives you trouble?” he asked, nodding toward Micah,who was now wearing his eggs more than eating them. “No. He's actually great.” A pause. The fridge closed “He likes you already. He doesn't like everyone.” I didn't know what to do with that, so I said nothing. Chase poured his water,then stopped at the edge of the counter.”What you said earlier.” His voice was low enough that Micah's babbling covered it from across the island. “You were right. I should have…. He stopped. started again. “I'm not… at school, it's… He exhaled. “I'm sorry.” It wasn't polished, it wasn't the smooth, effortless version of Chase Hendricks that Westbridge got every day. It was clumsy and uncomfortable like he wasn't practiced at it and that somehow made it worse because clumsy apologies are beautiful, careless boys are the most dangerous kind. “Thank you,” I said simply. He nodded once, took his water and left the kitchen. I turned back to Micah and helped him rescue the remaining eggs from his shirt. Don't I tell myself firmly but the problem is that it only works when you actually want it to stop. And I was already very much not stopping.