Darius & Chayla - Bumbling
DARIUS POV
Chayla’s mom looked at me, shifted her gaze to Chayla then returned to me. I felt like I was a germ under a microscope, and Mrs. James was trying to figure out the best way to eradicate me from existence. And realizing she wasn’t shaking my hand, I retracted it, wiping the sweat on my pants.
“I’m sorry to come over uninvited, however, Chayla was telling me about these anime–”
“They’re not anime,” Chayla corrected me.
“Oh sorry.” I turned my attention to Chayla for a second before returning it to her mother. “And sorry, again, to you. But she wanted to show me these movies and I was intrigued to see them because I had never heard of Miya–”
“Miyazaki,” Chayla supplied.
“Right, Miyazaki. And I was just curious and now I’m rambling, so I’m going to shut up now.” I took a step back, praying for a blackhole to swallow me whole.
The silence seemed to stretch on for minutes when her mother finally spoke. “Chayla, how do you know this boy?”
“I’m doing a profile piece for the paper and we–I thought it would be a good idea to hang out so I could get to know him better. Really get the real Darius for the profile.” She answered in a blur.
I didn’t have to look over at her to know she was shaking. I could feel it radiating off her. While her mom just stood still as a statue, emanating coolness, like a frozen queen. I could now see where Chayla got her iciness from. Except Chayla could be warmed by him, her mother, I wasn’t so sure.
“So this is for school?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“How long do you think you’ll need to hang out?” Her mother didn’t use air quotes but I could hear them in her voice. Some how she made our hanging out sound stupid, when originally I thought this would be a good idea. Maybe I should just excuse myself and high tail it out of here now.
I never met a girl’s parents before. I never had to. I didn’t hang out with girls. I hung out. Past tense. Meaning we had a good time, if you catch my drift, and then I left before the girl or her parents knew I was gone. But I didn’t want to be that guy with Chayla. And as much as I wanted to turn tail, I couldn’t abandon her.
