"There you go, I've removed its feet," he said.
I smiled, relieved. "Thank you so much, Derek. I honestly appreciate this."
He nodded. "Follow me back to my house and I'll see if I can get that marker off the window."
"Okay," I said, walking over to my car.
"One more thing," he said, following after me.
I turned around to face him obligingly. "What's that?"
He grabbed me, bracing one hand around the back of my neck and pulling me into a quick but thorough kiss that actually left me a little off-balance when he pulled back, and I dipped toward him before opening my eyes and regaining my composure.
I blinked at him curiously, but he merely said, "That's all," and climbed into his car.
A bit stupefied, I stood there for a few more seconds before I finally got into my car and followed him back to his house.
I knew they didn't live in the same house they had lived in before the accident. I had heard from my grandma that Mike bought a new house with Sarah's life insurance money, but I had never been interested in hearing how he had benefitted from the death of the two women who loved him most, so I usually ignored her when she would talk about it.
Pulling into Derek's driveway, however, I paid a little more attention. As Derek went into the garage to grab something, I stood outside and looked at the beautiful house they lived in, thinking he had come a long way from the trailer he lived in when my mother met him, and honestly, it was all because of her. They had a two car garage with a basketball hoop in the middle of the two garage doors, and a big, beautiful house that looked from the outside like a log cabin, but a very nice log cabin.
Derek saw me looking at the house, and he remarked, "I would take you in and show you the inside, but my dad's home, so..."
He didn't have to finish the sentence, I understood the rest.
I watched as Derek scrubbed away at the marker on my window, and pondered who might have done it. If it would have just been my tires that had been flattened, it could have been anyone playing a cruel joke, but the word "whore" written in capital letters across my window changed things.
Somebody had a problem with me, and apparently they thought I was a whore—which was ridiculous.
Derek finished getting the marker off my window, making my car look as if nothing had ever happened to it. I was just about to give him a hug, whether he wanted one or not, and thank him for helping me, but I no more than took a step toward him and I heard a man's voice say, "Derek, the burgers are—"
Time stood still, or perhaps rotated backward, and I saw once more the man from the grocery store, but he was older now, and his face had gone white as he stared at me, as if he had seen a ghost.
I swallowed, thinking he probably felt like he had. I wasn't exaggerating my similarity to my mother; we looked eerily alike.
He didn't move, just stood there and stared until I felt so uncomfortable that I just wanted to flee.
Derek finally cleared his throat, and I looked over at him, realizing he looked pretty similar to his dad, too, although not in the spooky way that I resembled my mom. They had the same mouth, the same strong jawline, the same golden hair and the blue same eyes, but Derek had a different nose and he was taller, plus he didn't have the little mustache that his father had.
I still felt like we were in some sort of twisted deja vu though, and Mike must've shared the feeling, because he finally managed to croak, without having to ask who I was, "What is she doing here?" referring to me with the same tone that I usually used to refer to him.
The wind suddenly blew, giving me chills, and I couldn't take it anymore. I looked at Derek and said, "I really have to go."
Derek nodded, understanding.
"Thank you," I added, nearly running to get to my car, as if the ghosts of our mothers might appear any minute, and I wanted to leave before they showed up.
The following day in class Derek slipped me a note. Instead of demands that time, he said he was sorry about his father's reaction to my presence. I didn't get to respond because the teacher was paying too much attention. I also missed him at lunch, because Kayla seemed to be glued to the side of his body.
After school Alex took me up to get my money, so I called Derek and told him I wanted to reimburse him. He told me he was busy just then, but to meet him up at the park at around seven.
I was going to suggest somewhere else, because the previous day, seeing Mike and everything had creeped me out. I was certain that Derek didn't know it, but that park with the bridge was the park Mike and my mom went to when they were about to start dating, the park where they had first kissed. But Derek rushed me off the phone before I could explain.
When I met him at the park, the sun was already going down. I had his money in an envelope with a thank-you card, although I knew it wouldn’t mean much to him.
"I want to show you something," I said to him, wanting him to understand his father's odd reaction to me as well as I did.
He lifted an eyebrow as I held out a slightly worn photograph. Taking it, he looked down at it, then looked up at me oddly, not understanding why I was showing it to him. Since the only person in the picture he didn't recognize was a small baby, he asked, "Why are you showing me pictures of you holding a baby?"