❛ He tells me about his night
I count the colors in his eyes ❜
- I'd Lie, Taylor Swift

The summer of 2003 is great.

I spend it with the Wilkersons and even though most of it is watching Jamie, it's still the best one we've had in a few years. It definitely beats last year, when I wasn't around for half the summer. Although the many months where I woke up at ungodly hours of the night because of Jamie's relentless crying from our connected backyards were terrible, I eventually got used to it.

This summer, we went to Vegas. I've been to Vegas with them before, and even though we did get in trouble with security, at least it wasn't the military like last time. The highlight of the trip was the ride in the car, I had prepared a mixtape of our favorite songs. Our favorites as in Reese and I's.

Malcolm did join in on our renditions of ABBA's songs—as did a glad Lois, but rolled his eyes when Reese and I rapped along to Beastie Boys and Limp Bizkit while shaking our heads. Lois was not so pleased about the not-so-family-friendly lyrics either.

"Sorry we don't have any Weezer on the mixtape," I teased when Malcolm complained about how nonsensical the lyrics to their songs are. He always listens to broody indie music, which isn't really the kind for a roadtrip.

Reese did MCA's verses, I did AdRock's, and surprisingly, Dewey tuned in for Mike D's. "We're going to Vegas, not New York," I remember Lois yelling while we were taking turns singing 'No Sleep Till Brooklyn'. Reese, Dewey and I should all have a band at this point.

Junior year has begun, and I was already dreading it, but the fall formal makes everything worse. Like usual, I don't want to go to the stupid dance, but I can't help but feel I missed out when I'm at home and I think of everyone there having fun.

The day of the formal isn't much different from any other day where the four of us are taking care of Jamie alone, except this time Stevie is over... and a group of popular girls I recognize show up to the door to ask the boys to be their dates. I knew this was all some scheme, and I warned them about it. As always, they didn't listen to me, and they faced the consequences. While I wait for them to come crawling back home, I let Dewey handle Jamie, and he does a fairly good job.

About an hour later, the three boys run into the house. Jamie starts crying but Reese immediately shuts him up with his pacifier—or as Reese calls it, his NuNu. I was wondering where that thing was. Not a few moments later, Hal rushes into the house loudly, Lois wakes up, and chaos ensues. Malcolm suggests we take Jamie for a ride, and at first I'm confused as to how we'd all fit in a car.

Turns out, even though I didn't end up going to qthe dance, I atleast got to ride a nice Limo.

It gets late, Jamie is fast asleep. Stevie goes home and so do I. I sit in my room to do my daily journaling. Well, I guess at this point it's more akin to writing in my diary. I hear a few familiar raps on my window. It's opened, but the culprit knocks regardless. My head whips toward the sound, it's Reese. I motion for him to come in, and he pushes up the window to enter.

I shut my journal and he plops down on the bed next to me. We sit in silence before he begins telling me about what happened with those girls, I quietly listen to him talk.

"So, her boyfriend shows up. And I'm like, okay, I'll make out with this hot girl—no matter how much it rips from whatever pride I have left. Then, she chickened out! That's also when I found out I have Jamie's NuNu in my pocket," he trails off. "I mean... It sucked enough that she couldn't even kiss me. But the fact that I considered it just so I could stop being a nobody, I don't know, I really stooped low." His voice drones off in my head, all this talk about kissing inevitably makes me think of when I kissed him at the bridal expo. There hasn't been a day since then where I don't think of that incident at least once.

Now, it seems like I'm listening, but I'm really not. I focus on the way he moves his hands when he speaks, a habit of his I've always found cute. I look at the way his eyes shine in the dim light, I count the colors in them—it's something I've been doing often lately. I've recently discovered he has some blue in his eyes and even some grey, so I count again.

One, two, three, four. Green, obviously. So much green it makes me understand why that's my favorite color. Gold, gorgeous gold specks. Some blue, and I can't see it right now, but there definitely is some grey in there. This will never get boring, I could do this forever.

"Tess? Are you even listening to me?" He says my name and I snap out of my trance.

"Yeah. Yeah," I lie and take a deep breath in.

"Well, like I was saying, I'm always telling you about my day and things I think about. But, you rarely ever tell me about what goes on with you. I mean, it always helps when I talk to you, so why don't you do it too?" he says. I stay quiet, I have no clue how to answer that. "Or is that diary your Tess? Do you just write it all down instead of talking about it. The school counselor told me to do that once, I never did." He's so relaxed, using his elbow to prop himself up as he looks at me. I'm unusually tense.

"Uh, I guess. But, I don't have much to talk about anyway. Most of it is stuff you already know." That's partly true, my life isn't as exciting away from him, and I do tell him most things. However, no matter how comfortable I feel around him, sometimes there are feelings I have that I just can't tell him about. I notice his eyes darting between me and my journal.

"Yeah, I know. I just like it when you talk to me, that's all," I know he doesn't intend for it to sound like that, but it makes my heart flutter and my stomach flip.

I want to tell him that girl is stupid—that any girl who wouldn't kiss him is blind and a complete idiot—but I don't. Something about the fact that I'm the only person he confides in makes my face flush. My heart aches for him, no one ever notices how great he can be. People don't talk to him at school and his family can't look past his destructive side. At least he'll always have me. I smile at that thought.

I want to tell him I love his silly jokes and how much he takes care of his spiky hair and how much I absolutely love the way his eyes sparkle when he gets passionate about something, but I don't.

AN:

sorry for the short chapter, the next one is better and i have two more chapters planned!
season 5 is a bit hard when it comes to reese, so i'm still trying to plot some stuff out.