David by Marisa Redhead16 (100 best novels of all time TXT) 📕

I felt terrible. And the look David gave me was enough to knock anyone on his knees. He was furious, and I was embarassed. I picked a random dandelion and offered it to him. His look softened and he relaxed. He took the dandelion, smelled it, and rubbed his nose. "Do I have any yellow on me?"

"Not anymore." I stood up, and he clutched my hand. I took him inside, turned on the television and poured us a couple glasses of chocolate milk. David drank it slowly, and turned the channel to MTV. There, some guy was going through an awful date with a girl who loved gossip a little too much. I love gossip and juicy stories as much as the next person, but I'd be horrified with this girl, too. Granted, I'm a Goody Two-Shoes. (Well, sort of.)

My brother sat on the couch next to David and started a conversation about football. David hates football, and he wasn't interested. David wants nothing to do with the "social norm". He considers himself original, he is, and he isn't fond of unoriginality, or popularity, or anything he considers mainstream.

Especially not sports. He also doesn't like pop music. (Why, I'll never know.) His favorite band is something I've never heard of, called Book Drawer. (Why would anyone listen to a band called Book Drawer?) I love David to death, but he irritates me with his obsession with originality.  He barely heard Tony as Tone spoke of statistics and passes.

David gave me a weak smile and pecked me on the cheek. "Does your bro ever shut up?" he whispered.

"Hey, Tony!" I said.

"What, Squirt?"

"Beat it!"

"Just trying to make friendly conversation with your boy." he innocently said.

"He hates sports anyway!" I told my annoying jerk of a brother.

"Whatever. FYI, my girlfriend is coming over."

"And this is news how?" I said sarcastically. I like Keisha, she's a complete angel, but Tony makes her sound like a Burlesque dancer. I wouldn't mind having her for a girlfriend, though. Keisha is African American, drop-dead gorgeous, very intelligent, and she is overall amazing. Hannah McFarlan may be hot, but she compares to Keisha.

Keisha happened to walk in just then. Well she knocked on the door and Mom let her in. "Hey, darling," Mom said, smiling. Mom likes Keisha a lot, partially because she broke my brother's bad habit of screwing girls over. She adjusted Keisha's vest slightly before she let her go upstairs to Tony's room.

David smiled a bit. "She seems all right, but  how come she didn't acknowledge us?"

"She probably didn't see us. She always says hi to me. I don't know why she wouldn't talk to me on purpose."

David looked unconvinced. Around eight o'clock, he had to go. He kissed me for three minutes exactly before he left. I missed him and wanted him back the second he left. I texted him quickly, telling him I loved him. He replied back with 'I love you too, sugar.'

I crawled into bed early. Girlfriend decided to join me, and jumped on my stomach when she got on. "Must you always jump on my belly when I go to sleep?" I asked her. She scratched her ears. Translation: I don't care what you say, I'll do what I want.

 I suddenly heard loud classical music. It was beautiful, haunting. The type of music you feel you've heard before. The kind of music in fantasy stories, when a lone woman is walking down a path to where she doesn't know ends. She comes to a fork in the road, she doesn't know which way is to her lover. She decides to take the path that makes more sense, the calmer path. It is chillingly quiet, as if haunted by a soul or more. I feel that way now about David.

I wanted him more than anything else in the world, but perhaps we are not meant to be. Heck, I was only fifteen and a freshman in high school.

I found that I couldn't sleep. I tried reading a book (The Scarlet Letter, required reading), and when that didn't work, I tried another, more calming book, (a dictionary). I tried listening to Native American music, which usually calms my nerves, but even that didn't work.

I was worn out, yet I was wide awake, if that makes any sense. I had drinked two cups of coffee that morning. Life was taking another downhill turn fast. And at the center of it all was...well, me. David didn't speak to me at all that morning, which hurt, as you can imagine or have already experienced. If you havn't yet had someone you love suddenly stop speaking to you, congratulations.

However, all of my usual friends were still speaking to me. My good friend Hafize is a relationship expert. She's so good that people have suggested she write books. She has not yet taken that into consideration, saying she's happy just to give advice. But even she couldn't figure out why David was acting strangely. Nina couldn't explain it, either. I decided to let her alone for a bit, not talk about it, because she was going through relationship troubles herself. She and Michael were on an on-again-off-again relationship. He wanted to keep going, but she wanted to end it for good.

I talked to Logan, he said he didn't know why, but I don't think he really listened, because he texted or pretended to text Lindsay, his cheerleader girlfriend.

Chemistry. My stomach took a huge dive when I walked in. David was sitting at my desk. Well, at Chester Chesterfield's desk. (Why on earth would you name your kid the same thing as his surname?) Chester was another guy who came out of the closet two years ago and he's kind of a loner. He's somewhat attractive, with black curly hair, washboard abs, and green eyes.

Anyways, Chester sits right next to me, and we've never talked, except for one time when he asked to borrow a pen. Now he was arguing with David in my seat, his hands gesturing towards himself. I could tell he was more upset than David.

"Dave, you need to tell Tobias, or I'm telling him myself!" he said.

"Tell Tobias what?" I asked. They both looked shocked to see me.

"Never mind. I'll let Davy tell you." Chester said, smirking.

David did not look happy to see me. "I-I have to go." he said. "Wait a second, David." I said, grabbing his arm. "Tell me what's going on." He glanced at Chester, then leaned close to me.

"I'm sorry." he said before leaving the room. I looked at Chester. He bit his lip, and turned toward the front. I touched his shoulder.

"Chester," I said, right before the bell rang. Incredibly, almost everyone was late.

"What's going on?" said the teacher.

"There's a brutal fight going on in two bathrooms." someone said. The teacher ran out the door.

"Chester," I repeated. He leaned close to me.

"I kissed David. He didn't stop me. He furthered it. I didn't even know about you until this morning, that's why we were arguing. I'm so sorry, Tobias."

Ouch. That hurt. I couldn't concentrate well, which annoyed Maia. People do use me, for my grades. I confessed nothing, knowing Maia would use it to score some popularity points. It seems like all anyone at my school cared about was popularity. Another reason I loved David was because he didn't care about that.

Yikes. I had never experienced something like this before, nor had I ever loved someone more.

David was waiting outside of the room. I figured he was waiting for me, but I didn't want to talk to him. I started to turn before he grabbed my sleeve.

"Wait! Tobias-" he said as turned me around to face him. "Toby, I need to talk to you."

"It's all right, David. Chester told me everything. He stood there, shocked, while I turned around and headed toward my locker to change books. While in Choir, it was a catch-up day, and I had a chance to go to the library. I like libraries, they make me feel comfortable.

While in there, I browsed and settled on a book titled Cosmos. It was a book about space, of course, but it also involved a girl in serious trouble for spraying graffiti and messing with people's grades. Her name happened to be Keisha, which I thought was interesting, because they are both African American, and the Keisha I know would never do anything so stupid.

I went back to the classroom to read it. It was so good that I decided that I'd do my book report on it that had recently been assigned and I had yet to find a good book that I haven't read yet.

I asked Tony to drive me home. He was surprised that I wasn't talking to David, until I told him what he'd done. Tony had nothing to say. Of course he was not so different until recently.

I kind of wanted to tell my mother, but then I decided against it in case I decided to let it slide. I ended up asking Nina's advice through text messaging. She suggested that I break up with David, and frankly, I agreed with her. I told Mom and Tony what I was going to do before I did it. I took a guiter pick of David's that he'd recently given me to remember me by.

Tony ended up driving me to the projects. David's house always made him uncomfortable, because first of all, he hated David, second, David's sister Daphne wanted Tony to be hers, even though she had a boyfriend. When she saw us, smoking on the porch (Why would you smoke when you're about to give birth?), she caressed her strawberry-blonde hair and smiled at Tony flirtily.

I asked for David, while Tony stayed in the car. David invited me to his room. I agreed, but only because we'd have some privacy.

"I don't know what Chester told you, but he was the one who kissed me."

"He said you deepened the kiss."

"He's lying. He wants my body, is what he wants." For the first time ever, I noticed a slight accent that I couldn't place. I don't know why I've never noticed it before. David could be a chatterbox sometimes.

"David, it doesn't really matter at this point. Honestly, I've been thinking about this for a while...." I clipped.

His eyes narrowed and put out the cigarette that he'd been smoking. He went over to a mirror, and ran a brush through his long blonde wavy hair. "I honestly don't care anymore. If you're going to break up with me, just say so." he said. This time I noticed an Australian ting to his voice.

"David, I...I love you. I'm not going to break up with you."

He stopped brushing his hair and looked at me with surprise. His mouth opened a bit. "I love you, too, Tobias. Come here." I obeyed him and went to him. He embraced me with a hug. I smelled fresh cologne on his wife beater. "Hold me, honey." He said, then he kissed my head.

"David, are you Australian?" I asked finally. I had to get it out.

"I kind of am. I'm a citizen of both the U.S. and Australia. I was actually kind of...never mind,