Chapter 28 #2
I too was a thief once, just like him.
Past
It was the last day of school, end of my sophomore year.
Every year my family took an overseas vacation with my cousins.
This year we were going to Amsterdam. Our flight was scheduled for tomorrow morning and my cousins, Eamon, Jet, Mara, and Violet, were due to arrive at my house this evening.
We were going to have a sleepover and leave for the airport together early.
Eamon and Mara were one year younger than me.
Violet was ten but she acted like she was sixteen.
Jet was five years old and starting school next year.
Being the oldest kid in the house, I took my responsibilities seriously.
I adore my cousins and it was my job to keep them out of trouble.
“Are you coming home to pick up the dress?” Sadie asked me as I sipped my iced coffee. “I didn’t eat lunch because I was meeting you.”
“Mr. Bolton wanted me to drop some folders off at his office for the school audit next week. I’ll finish that and be at your place in an hour.”
“No, I have to go out this evening with my family, that won’t give us enough time. You can always drop them off later on your way back. You live like ten minutes away from school, Ishy. C’mon.”
Sadie had a little black dress with sequins that I was borrowing for the trip.
Sadie and I, we swapped clothes often. She wanted my red skirt for her holiday in Paris and we agreed to meet at her place and exchange stuff.
I considered and agreed to Sadie’s plan.
I could go to Sadie’s place first for a quick lunch and then drop the stuff off at school.
I meant to stay at Sadie’s only for an hour. But Sadie and I got chatting and we lost track of time. Next thing I knew, I was running late. Mama had texted me twice asking me my whereabouts.
I waved Sadie bye and drove straight to school. Mr. Peters, our security guard, knew I was coming to the office with the ledgers so he let me in.
I walked into the office in a hurry. I was lost in thoughts as Mama would be mad at me for being late.
I had been to the office hundreds of times before and there was no need to be alarmed. I entered the principal’s office and saw a silhouette as I turned to switch on the lights. In a flash, someone tugged me away from the door and held a knife to my throat.
I couldn’t believe it was him.
I knew who he was.
A bad boy with a bad reputation. The soccer god who always bended the rules. I right away assumed that he was there to steal money for God knows what. Maybe for alcohol or smokes. I couldn’t be party to a crime. I had to stop him.
“Negotiating, are we? You won’t like my demands, Princess,” he had warned.
“You don’t know that. I’m offering, take what you need. Whatever helps you move on from here. I’m ready to give it to you. Willingly—”
“True,” he said as his gaze dropped to my lips. Next thing I knew, his lips were on mine.
Mama had warned me about boys like him. Yet when his lips touched mine, it was barely a graze. I shuddered with want. My body leaned in for more. In that moment, time stopped still and a heartbeat later, my toes curled. I felt those darn butterflies flutter and create havoc inside me.
Ryan Harper.
He stole my first kiss.
He was a kiss thief.
They warned good girls like me about bad boys like him. That he was addictive and he had the power to turn an innocent girl into a wanton woman. He only touched my lips but I wanted him to touch me elsewhere. In that secret virginal place where no one had touched me before.
His kiss left me bereft.
It made me angry that I reacted this way.
Like a hussy. Because I had heard that word and hated it since.
I didn’t wish to turn myself into a woman with no control over her body.
Therefore, when Ryan left the room, I called the cops.
But I didn’t leave it at that. I cranked open the window and jumped out to follow him stealthily.
As I followed Ryan, I saw two men in dark hoodies flinging firebombs.
The guards came running toward the fire as the green lawn burned.
There was a lot of smoke that made the visibility poor, the guards were struggling to catch the trespassers.
Those men didn’t back down or run, they kept flinging glowing balls of fire in a synchronized fire play.
I suspected they were with Ryan and this was a distraction for him to get away.
I steeled myself and tracked him into the dark.
Ryan walked in the shadows and ran in the dark, trying to unlock doors.
He was looking around, searching for something in sheer urgency.
One of the rooms he opened and he went inside.
I peeked from my hiding place and watched him climb the wall, slipping something inside the vent.
The sirens from the police cars were loud and nearing.
The fire truck was nearing too with their blaring loud air horns.
I pressed my body to the pillars in order to camouflage myself as Ryan got out of the room and ran toward the back of the school.
I watched him turn toward the conservation area that had the sports fields on one side and lines of tall trees on the other.
He crawled on all fours into the bushes and disappeared from my line of sight.
I was hell-bent on getting him punished. I had to hurt him for the kiss he stole and the way he made me lose self-control.
How could I let myself want him?
I turned on my heel and went back inside the music room.
There was a ladder in the janitor’s closet adjacent to the room.
I climbed the ladder and extended my arm inside the vent.
At first, I didn’t find anything so I used the light of my phone to scan the surface.
My heart skipped as I finally spotted the object and reached for it.
My fingers curled around the USB stick.
I was going to hand it to the cops. This was going to be my ultimate revenge. He wanted this hidden, didn’t he?
God knows what awful things hid in this USB? It must be something that Ryan didn’t want the world to know about.
I ran after Ryan. But as I watched the officer tackle him to the ground and cuff his hands, my heart twisted in an unfamiliar anguish. I waited as they led him into the car. Ryan complied with the police without protest.
“Hey, aren’t you supposed to be packing for your holiday?” Brent came up to me.
“I was at Sadie’s. I was going home but then I heard the sirens,” I lied to Brent.
“I fucking hate that asshole,” Brent said and I followed his gaze.
I froze as I turned toward the police car. Ryan was staring at me.
His brow furrowed aggressively and his breath came out hurriedly as it fogged the glass on the window.
I shivered thinking about his lips again.
My feet wobbled at the thought of kissing Ryan once more.
My face felt hot when I felt Ryan’s eyes on me.
I grabbed on to Brent’s bicep for support and hid behind Brent, but I peeked at him again to see if he was still looking my way.
Ryan saw me hide behind Brent for cover and suddenly his expression changed.
He closed his eyes and turned away from me.
The officer drove off after a few minutes and the USB remained in my pocket.
I don’t know why, but I wanted to know more about what the USB hid before I handed it over to the cops.
When I reached home, my cousins had already arrived. After a few minutes chatting with my cousins, I told Mama that I would take my cousin, Jet, to my room and finish packing for the trip.
I was dying to know what was on that USB.
I had a babushka doll that sat on my study desk. Jet immediately took the doll and started playing with it.
I took my laptop inside my bathroom and locked the door. I inserted the USB, connecting it to my laptop but then it asked for an encryption key.
Shit!
I didn’t know what to do next. I needed to research this some more.
Maybe I could pay someone to unlock this.
“Are you chatting with your boyfriend?” Eamon asked outside my bathroom. “Who is he? Tell me, I demand to know. I am telling everyone if you don’t come out this minute.” He banged the bathroom door with his fists.
“Idiot! I’m peeing,” I screamed back at him, shutting down my laptop and hiding the USB back into my brassier.
“What kind of peeing requires you to take your laptop with you?” he yelled and banged on my door again. I finally opened the door and glared at him.
He snatched my laptop out of my hands and lifted it in the air teasing me. I whacked him with a pillow as he dropped on my bed and laughed. Just then the smallest of the babushka dolls flew from Jet’s hand and landed in front of my feet.
I picked it up as a plan started taking shape. There was no way I could see what was on the USB with Eamon in my room.
After Jet went to bed, I collected the scattered pieces of the babushka doll and placed the USB in the smallest doll. I took great care to hide the doll in a shoebox and placed it in my closet.
The next morning, I left for the airport knowing the doll was still safe. I had a month-long vacation on a cruise and some of the best luxury hotels in Amsterdam. The thoughts about the babushka doll blurred as my cousin’s shenanigans consumed my time.
I returned home after a month and got busy with my student volunteer role at the library.
I remembered the USB stick only a week later.
Meanwhile, my mother went on a cleaning spree of my room.
She donated my clothes and shoes without asking me.
Normally I was fine when she got rid of my stuff.
She only donated the things I didn’t use.
When I came home and saw how clean my room looked, I was ecstatic. However, a few days later I remembered what I had risked. How everything was in order, yet something felt missing. Terror pulsed through my veins and I ran to my closet. The shoe box and the doll were both missing.
“What did you do with the doll, Mama?” I cried out.
“What doll? I gave everything in the old closet away. You don’t play with dolls anymore. The charity truck took it away.”
“What? No! Do you have their phone number?” I asked, pressing for answers.
“What is this about, Ishy?” she asked alarmed.
“Mama, I need that doll. It was special.”
Mama and I called every possible number there was; but no one could help me.
I gave up hope ten days later when I ran out of people to call. It felt like I had wronged the boy who stole my first kiss.
That night I dreamed about kissing a boy under the moonlight.
Well, in my dreams, we were both naked in the principal’s office.
I was holding him captive with a knife to his throat at first, but then I threw the knife away as I had pressed my body to his and dug my hands into his hair.
My tongue licked and my teeth bit into his flesh as he gripped my hips.
That was the first night I woke up sweating profusely and with a throbbing need between my legs.
I had closed my eyes and remembered his lips as my fingers slipped inside my pink cotton panties.