Silver moves in today. Silver moves in today and I'm not sure I can keep my fucking act together before exploding into a raging bastard.

For the past two weeks, I've been dreading this day. Two weeks of absolute angst has plagued me into near sickness. I can't eat, can't sleep, and it's all because her. Every day, I've stared at my calendar in despair as the row of red x's got closer to the square marked 14 in italics. August 14, the day Silver would be coming here as an official roommate of this household.

Ever since Chuck had announced her new living arrangements in the furniture store, I've been none too pleased about it all. And I've been so unpleased that I made it clear as fucking day every chance I got to like the ass that I am. Glaring at my two friends from across the room, ignoring their calls for help with carrying leftover luggage, even so far as to quit talking to them in all.

Yeah, I'm being an asshole, but it's not like they don't deserve it, right?

And ignoring Bomb and Chuck for three days straight is one thing, but locking myself in my room for 12 hours straight is another.

I mean, come on! Wouldn't you block out the rest of the world if a woman who you may or may not think is attractive—if not beautiful, even—will be sleeping just down the fucking hall from you? If you couldn't stop picturing her stupid smile curving ever so sweetly and hearing her stupid voice ringing inside your head like that of a siren's? That you have no means of knowing how to handle feelings you've never felt, feelings for someone so out of your league and you being so inexperienced with expressing said feelings to that girl you've been thinking of nonstop? Not that I've considered it, or anything.

Well, maybe…

Argh, it's… it's… whatever! Forget it!

Fuck fuck fuck fuuuuuuccckkkk! Oh my fucking god, this is a nightmare.

With this inner turmoil taking place, I sat alone in the dark doing everything in my power to come up with ways to not fuck things up when she got here. No matter how hard Chuck and Bomb pounded on my door or pleaded for me to come out, I refused to take a single step out of my room. For hours I laid in the darkness, listening to the AC unit's droning hum as it blasted over my pajama don body in its frigid chilliness.

At some point, I came to a conclusion—which had nothing to do with the fact that I'd been secluded to the confines behind my locked door and was in desperate need of a bathroom break. It was a plan, a simple, most likely problematic plan that will either end in victory or in disaster, hopefully the former.

When Silver gets here, I will not say a word. I will not talk, walk, or even breathe in her direction. I will not engage her for any reason necessary unless it is a do-or-die situation. That I will not, repeat, WILL NOT notice her. She is simply there, living, breathing, existing, nothing more to me than a speck of dust.

It's a good plan. A solid plan. A plan that can either go down in flames or wash over like water over stone.

…

Goddamnit! This is a terrible plan. But do I have any better ideas? No. No, I do not. Now I can only hope that I can convince myself of this by the time she gets here.

At the crack of dawn, she drives a rundown white Volkswagen Jetta into the driveway. Chuck and Bomb nearly barrel down the door as they rush outside to greet her. I watch them from the kitchen window as I spoon my bowl of dry, flavorless oatmeal. Bomb had forgotten to go grocery shopping the other day, so we had nothing to spice up our food. Outside, the three teenagers run around the tiny car like frenzied balls of giggling energy as they start to carry her stuff inside. I leave my half-eaten breakfast in the sink and slam my bedroom door shut behind me, waiting for them to be done.

This is stupid. This is so fucking stupid. I shouldn't have to cower behind a locked door to hide. I shouldn't have to hide from anyone, not even a girl who has been in my thoughts for the past few weeks. I shouldn't have to be so angry with my friend's surprise of letting his sister stay with us. I really shouldn't be angry at all, but I am. I am and I am because it's… she's… she's here! She's here, walking and talking in my house, parading around as if I wasn't on the brink of a fucking meltdown. It's much easier to tolerate her when she isn't down the hall or skipping past my door where each time I hear her name my heart skips a beat, my spine prickles with sweat, and I can only hope she won't get any closer to my bedroom.

Now, believe me, I'm trying my damndest to block out their shouts, their thundering footsteps as they clamber up and down the stairs, their bouts of laughter whenever one of them makes a cheesy, 2nd grade level joke. I do everything in my fucking power to ignore Silver's calls from outside, her firm yet gentle knocks on my door, her light footfalls, everything. Each time, I swear, I nearly have a heart attack.

Bomb and Chuck must know this. They have to, or at least somewhat. It's not like I've been doing anything to hide my anxiety of her arrival, if anything I've done just the opposite. And you'd think that by knowing this they would at least leave me alone to recollect myself from falling to pieces if I ever came face to face with the one girl who makes me want to hack a hole into a wall with an axe and run. Yet, just my luck, they're not so nice as to let me off the hook that easy. And as they always do, Bomb and Chuck manage to drag me out of the security of my room.

So it wasn't enough that I had been ruled out of letting a woman live with a houseful of boys, but now I have to heft her belongings up and down the stairs as punishment?!

Well, ain't this just a great, goddamn day.

It takes us a full three hours to get everything out of the trunk and backseat of her car, including the delivery truck of her newly purchased sets of furniture. By the time we drop off the last desk in her room, I've sweated through my shirt. Rivulets of sticky sweat tickling my temples, the back of my neck, my nose. My cheeks burn from exertion and I'm sure that an unpleasant stench is already emanating from me. Before I can even make eye contact with Silver for the first time today, I speed off to the shower and take my sweet time in washing off the morning's workout.

As the rain of steaming water pelts my back, I close my eyes and take a long drag of breath through my nose. I can still smell it. Even in the shower, yards away from her with barriers and doors to block it, I can still smell it. Her scent, her perfume, her very essence. I can smell it from all of the things I had carried today. From her pink and purple ombré bedside lamp, her collection of colored pens and markers, and especially her clothes. Oh god, her clothes were the worst. They emitted the most fragrance. Her neatly folded t-shirts and sweaters, her white-washed faded jeans, her fuzzy pajama pants, all smelling of something strangely familiar, sweet, and pungent. It's stuck in my nostrils, lingering in my nose canal. I lean my forehead against the tile wall as I think about where I know of it.

That's it! That's it!!!

I recognize it! I recognize it so fast and so hard I drop the shampoo bottle on my toe and I have to bite my tongue not to scream in pain.

Rosewater. She smells of rosewater.

Bomb bellows through the bathroom door that dinner's ready and I hastily rush to scrub out the soap in my hair. Reluctantly stepping out of the bathtub and into the frigid cold of the room, I dry myself off and wipe at the fogged-up mirror. Looking back at me is a sight I've seen way too many times and in no way satisfied at seeing again. A teenage boy with a shocking head of red hair tangled into a wet rat's nest atop of his head, his amber eyes lined with heavy, dark bags look back at me in a tired manner as if he'd gone many nights without rest. Giant clusters of brown freckles dot his cheekbones, the bridge of his nose, and nearly everywhere else on his pale body. I sigh, not exactly happy with what I see but accustomed to it so much that I no longer fret about my appearance. Like the old saying goes, "It is what it is."

Now sitting at the dinner table with sopping wet hair and the same hoodie I had worn to mine and Silver's speed date, I lazily spoon scoops of canned tomato soup and nibble on the crust of my half burnt grilled cheese sandwich. The others quietly chew on their food, all of them giving wary looks in my direction. Silver sits across from me as the two teenage boys eat at my sides, their gazes boring down on me.

Could they be anymore fucking obvious?

Well, it's not like they're subtle or anything.

I sip my now cold soup with a loud slurp, droplets of tomato washing over my tongue with little flavor. I can see the others flinch out of my peripherals. My eyes remain where they are, steadfast on the scraped innards of my bowl, the faux porcelain scratched from one too many harsh blows from metal silverware. The urge to look up and see Silver face to face has never been so tempting in all my life.

Don't you do it! Don't you fucking do it, you little shit! You've gone this long without looking at her, you can go longer.

I groan under my breath, biting down on the hard crust with a spray of crumbs emitting from my teeth.

Don't do it don't do it don't fucking do it!

You can do this. For once in your goddamn life, don't screw this up!

"So I, um…" I speak up.

What the hell are you doing?!

Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut uppppppppp!

"I hear you're some kind of engineering wizard or whatever." I voice to Silver, keeping my focus on the lip of my paper plate.

Oh… fuck it!

I look at her. For the first time in weeks, I look at her. There she is, a vision, her thin, petal pink lips slightly apart, turquoise eyes wide in surprise, perfectly waxed eyebrows raised high on her brow. The others' expressions match her own almost perfectly.

What the fuck, man?! What the actual, literal fuck was that?!

Oh god! Oh my god oh my god oh my fucking god! Bad idea, very bad idea.

"Oh," she ventures in uncertainty.

Bad idea! Bad idea! Why, oh god, why did I have to say something?! I did I have to open my fucking mouth and say something to her? Son of a bitch! What the hell is wrong with me?!

Silver, looking stunned, almost instantly regains her assured composure and I have to blink hard in case it was just a trick of my eyes. She's now smiling, sitting up straight; determined. Can't say I'm in any sort of similar state.

"I mean, I don't like to brag, but…" with a loud pop of her mouth, she produces a pristine yellow piece of paper signed in fancy cursive with a gold emblem proudly stamped in the corner. "Wait. Who's that?" She says rhetorically in an all too sarcastic manner, her eyes gleaming with playful mischief, pointing with a delicate finger at her name written in print. "And why is she all over these achievement awards?" And like unfolding a deck of cards, she reveals at least half a dozen or so of identical forms like she's unveiling a priceless shelf of trophies.

… and I regret opening my fucking mouth. You know, I regret a lot of things now.

"The kid's amazing, right?" Chuck comments, elbowing my shoulder. He seems more comfortable now that the tension in the air has thinned to nothing.

Yeah, and by amazing you mean she's a complete showboat, I think dryly to myself. Who the hell keeps fucking achievement awards stashed on hand?

"Not a kid anymore, Chuck." Silver says a little shortly.

"Toot toot!" Chuck suddenly exclaims, jumping out of his chair and pumping his arm in the air as if he were actually pulling the whistle of a train. "Tickle Train arriving at Sister Station!" He creeps around the table, wiggling his fingers playfully.

"Chuck, no!" Silver scrambles out of her seat, shuffling around the table to stay away from her brother. "I am a serious academic."

The blonde man rounds the table at lightning speed and before Silver can react, Chuck tackles the girl to the ground, both of them exploding into a writhing fit of laughter. Silver's forms, the forms she had handled with such gentleness and pride, flutter to the ground like confetti, the brother and sister rolling over them without a care.

"I am a serious…" Silver wheezes through giggles, kicking her legs up in the air as Chuck vigorously tickles her sides, nearly knocking the table over.

The scene below me, for some strange reason, seems a little… shit! What's the word… no not a word. A phrase… what is it what is it… oh, yeah! Out of place. Yeah, that's it! Out of place. Seeing two full grown siblings of the opposite sex having a tickle fight on the kitchen floor, laughing and wrestling and chortling, is a little out of place. Wouldn't you agree?

"Oh, look how cute this is." I retort above them, clearly stating how not cute it is. I look to Bomb, who seems to be enjoying the two's game, grinning from ear to ear, and see that I must be the only one to see it.

With a gruff, I take to my feet with a loud scrape of my wooden chair's legs against the floorboards and toss my plate in the trash and my bowl in the sink, my spoon clattering loudly in the bowels of the old fashioned steel sink. I then storm my way up the stairs, peeking out of the corner of my to see that the two are still going at it. I stomp all the way to the top of the third staircase and slam the door behind me when I enter my room. Unceremoniously, I plop down into my brand new desk and office chair, placing my head into my hands, my elbows resting on the cool surface of the sanded wood of my desk.

Said desk and chair were the cheapest set at the furniture store, and me being the cheapskate that I am, I was a sucker and bought it with no resilience. It's nothing fancy, just a simple, black wheelie chair alongside a long, wooden desk polished with a brown staining oil. Again, nothing fancy, but it's my very first piece of furniture I've ever owned. So I guess, to those who are sentimental, it may just be significant.

What was I thinking?! What was I thinking!

I… I broke. I fucking broke and I… I… Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh! This is bullshit!

After those 12 hours fighting with myself, devoting myself to ignoring her no matter what the cost, it all went to hell. It was a complete and utter disaster.

God-fucking-dammit!

It's okay. It's okay, it's okay. It was just a question. It meant nothing. Absolutely nothing. I'll just have to be more careful in the future. No talking, no looking, no anything. Ignore, ignore, fucking ignore and it'll be okay.

I take a deep breath and lift my head up, keeping my eyes close.

Yeah, that's what I'll do. I'll continue to ignore her, pretend she isn't there living and breathing and sleeping just yards away from me. I'll ignore her until I'm convinced she isn't there. That she isn't in my home, walking and talking by me, to me, at me. I will ignore her, and I will not give in, no matter.

I take another deep breath, this time to allow my chest to swell at my thoughts of perseverance, when I suddenly smell it.

There it is again. The scent, her scent, drifting to my senses. Traveling all the way from her bedroom, lingering from her clothes, her bedsheets, her hair and all the way to my nose, sending a shiver down my spine.

Rosewater. God! Why did she have to have that as her perfume?

I groan as I trudge to my bed and cloak myself with the thin sheets, burrowing my face into my pillow in a desperate yet ineffective attempt to block out the smell of her. Eventually, though, I find myself slowly drifting off, unknowingly taking in the rosewater fragrance by the lungful till my eyes slip shut.

This is going to be a really hard few weeks.

Author's note: Thank you all for your support and encouragement of the first chapter. It means the world to me that you guys like my story. And I also thank you guys for your patience, the past few weeks have been crazy. Anywho, like always, stay tuned for more chapters! I love you guys!