Pull at my Heartstrings

It's Not Hard to go Public

The sound of a high-pitched, loud whistle wakes me.

“RISE AND SHINE, *********** Daisy screams.

I groan, slowly waking up. I feel Dirk shifting and I realize something.

I’m attached to him.

Not really attached, but our arms are around each other and holding on quite tightly. Light floods through the windows, and I get a better look at him. His face is lying on the pillow, close to mine. He’s sound asleep, still, and looks very peaceful.

Daisy blows her whistle again, “DON’T MAKE ME GO IN THERE AND DRAG YOUR ***** OUT OF BED.”

Dirk’s eyes flutter open inches from mine. My own eyes widen at the sight of his beautiful, bright red eyes. His eyes widen, mirroring mine.

I’m very comfortable, but my sister’s yelling and Dirk’s sudden looking away from me and sitting up ruins it.

“Dirk..?”

“I’m sorry…”

“Why?”

“You… didn’t ask to see that,” He stands from the bed and grabs his sunglasses from the floor, avoiding looking at me.

“What’s wrong?” I sit up, very confused.

He puts on his shades and finds his shirt on the floor. Seeing him without a shirt was nice as well… Bad Amber!

The door opens and we both turn our heads to see Daisy standing there, holding a polished whistle. Instead of saying anything, she just blows into it.

I cover my ears, sliding out of bed.

“I’M UP. I’M UP.” I yell against the loudness of her dumb whistle.

She stops blowing, gives us a smug look, and leaves.

Dirk looks at me as I pull some clothes from the closet, “Does she do that often?”

“Every morning… She named the stupid whistle ‘Jerry’. Thankfully, I don’t hear ‘Jerry’ on the weekends. Then I get to sleep in.”

“Hm.”

I take my clothes to the bathroom, change quickly, and find Dirk just leaving the room.

I put on some jewelry and makeup before hurrying downstairs. I sit down at the table next to Dirk and eat my cereal. Bro takes a drink from a mug of coffee, reading the newspaper.

I laugh at how cliché this looks.

Daisy joins us with her own cereal, without looking at me, she asks, “Do you remember anything from last night?”

I swallow my food and nod, “I do.” I rub my neck, “I’m kind sore…”

“Why didn’t you put up the baby gate?”

“I was worried you’d have trouble trying to get to your room. Being drunk and all…”

She shakes her head, “Don’t be worried about me, I’m worried about you.” She then looks up at me and smiles, “Do you remember Dirk wasn’t wearing a shirt?”

My face turns pink and I look at her, “Funny how you remember that part. As drunk as you were.”

She giggles, Bro looks up from the newspaper, and he eyes Dirk suspiciously. Dirk looks at him questioningly, “What?”

“You look refreshed.”

He shrugs, suddenly very interested in the remaining milk. I put down my spoon and pick up my bowl, drinking.

“So?”

I hear Bro shrug, “Ah, it’s just obvious that you slept with Amber last night.”

I choke on my milk.

Dirk sputters, “Define, ‘slept with’!”

“I know you didn’t go ‘all the way’,” He smirks at us, “It’s just that you shared a bed.”

Daisy is wiggling her eyebrows at us.

“How the **** did you know?”

“As I said; you look refreshed, as though you’d actually slept rather than the usual all-nighter, or waking up from constant nightmares.”

I had helped him.

I get up from the table and drop my bowl in the sink. I grab my backpack from the coat hanger by the front door. Dirk is surprised to see his there as well.

Bro buries himself in the newspaper, speaking, “I had to drive home to grab a few things this morning. We’ll be staying here a little while.”

“Why?” Dirk and I ask at the same time.

“Because,” He looks up at us, “Young love is brewing; I want to see where this goes.”

I head out the door with a red face.

We walk up my driveway to the road, where the bus will soon pick us up. Dirk paces and I just stand where I can look down the road. After a while, I look at him.

“Why did you freak out this morning?”

He stops, meets my gaze, “You saw my eyes… I’m sorry about that…”

“Why? They’re beautiful!”

He looks down, “That’s just one opinion of millions.”

I walk away from my spot, stopping just in front of him. “Well, I think my opinion matters.”

He nods with a small smile, “It does.”

I then groan, “You know how many girls are going to want to beat my ass?”

He chuckles, “I won’t let em’.”

“Well, yeah, but… before, it was, ‘Amber exists but no one really likes her, no one really hates her either’. Now it’s, ‘Amber exists and all the girls want her to rot in hell’.”

“If you ask me, you should just feed off of their jealousy. Has anyone ever been jealous of you before?”

“No…”

“Well then, this is a new experience!” He places a hand on my cheek and I cover it with my own, leaning my face into his hand.

Then something hits me.

“I have a boyfriend!” I yell, startling him.

“W-what?” He asks, thinking I’m talking about someone else.

“I have a boyfriend!” I repeat. “And his name is Dirk Knight!” He lets out a large sigh of relief. I rip his hand away and start squealing, jumping around. “Holy… ****!”

“There is no better **** than the holy ****.”

I stop, giggling. “We shall pray to the holy ****.”

He puts his hands together in front of his chest, “Of course! Have you not been praying already?”

I’m giggling as the bus pulls up, brakes screeching.

We turn and head on. Some of the younger kids going to the elementary school stare up at Dirk, and he just ignores them. In the back of the bus are the high schoolers. They, too, stare at Dirk. Normally, there’s always an empty seat for me to sit alone until we get to the high school, but now, as I slide into the empty seat, Dirk sits with me.

He looks at me at the bus starts driving again, “I’ve never ridden the bus.”

“Really?”

“Mhmm. This is new.”

The girl behind us sits on her knees on the seat, propping her forearms on the top of the back of our seat, looking at us. More specifically, she’s looking at Dirk.

“Dirk!?” She squeals. “What are you doing on my bus?!”

“Oh, I ended up staying with Amber last night after the concert.” He makes it sound like we did dirty things or something.

The girl looks at me, “…Oh..?”

He takes my hand, smirking, “Yup.” He turns back to he’s facing forward. After a long, long, moment, the girl huffs and sits back in her seat, not happy with me at all.

“Add her to the list of people who hate my guts.”

He chuckles, “You know, there is a bright side to this.”

I look at him, “Oh there is, is there?”

“Yup,” He ticks the points on his fingers. “One; PDA!” He’s smiling widely at that one, and I laugh. “Two; maybe all those girls will finally leave me alone.”

“Okay, that’s an upside for you. Are there any more for me?”

“Other than PDA?”

I chuckle, “Other than PDA.”

“Um… you have me. I don’t know how many times you fantasized us kissing, but now it can be more than a fantasy.” He says this in a deep, seducing voice.

I begin giggling.

The girl behind us speaks loudly to the person next to her, “And I recently became single! Interesting, right?!” Then she laughs really loud and fake. Once she stops, I turn to Dirk, quietly mimicking her and what she probably looked like when she did that. He snickers.

My phone dings as I get a text; I check it with a confused expression.

Victoria.

I just got a text telling me that Dirk got on the bus with you.

“Holy ****, how did she hear about it that quickly?”

Dirk leans over to read the text and smirks. I send the question I had just said out loud.

Girl, Dirk is popular. And I know a lot of people. News is going to spread.

Dirk nods, “She’s right.”

I smile over at him, “Stop reading my texts.”

“Fine!” he pulls out his phone and types something. I lean over and look at his phone; he pulls it out of my view, “Stop reading my texts!” He says dramatically.

I giggle, texting Victoria some more. I lean against him, resting my head on his shoulder with a dumb smile. The bus comes to a stop at the elementary school, and I look out the window. I sit up, and stand in my seat as soon as all the little kids are off. Dirk looks up at me questioningly and I usher him up too. We slip into the aisle, and walk forward until we’re in the first seat. It’s not until we’re sitting again, does Dirk understand what we just did.

High schoolers climb onto the bus, girls’ breath hitching when they see Dirk, then looking murderous when they see me next to him. Dirk pays them no attention, just frowns when he gets a call from Bro.

He picks up the phone.

“What? … No … At the elementary school … yes, they’re going to take us to the high school, calm your ****! … Look, Bro, it’s kinda loud in here … I can’t hear you … Yeah, yeah, bye.” He hangs up and gives an exasperated huff. I chuckle. “I don’t think Bro ever rode the bus, either.”

We chuckle and I lean back against the seat. I realize how uncomfortable this is and take off my backpack. I drop it in Dirk’s lap.

“What’s this for?”

“You get to hold it.”

Classmates that are watching gasp. Oh my god, The Nobody Amber has told The Almighty Dirk to hold her backpack!

He just chuckles, “Why?”

“Because I don’t feel like it?”

“Fine, but only because you’re really cute when you’re smug,” He boops my nose and I smile.

I lean back again and bring my knees up on the seat, sitting like that. Dirk sits there with his backpack on his back, mine in his lap. He rests his elbows on my backpack, watching me with a half-smile, and an eyebrow raised.

“What?”

He crosses his arms and lays rests his chin on them, “I’m just glad I can tell you how much I like you now…”

I giggle with a pink face, “You could tell me before.”

“Yeah, but then I’d get all flustered and ****.”

“Now you get to watch me get flustered.”

“That’s the beauty of it!”

I giggle. The bus is finally full of students and it begins the drive to the high school.

Once we get to school, I take my backpack and stand with Dirk. We get off the bus quickly, hurry inside, and begin walking around until the ten-minute bell.

Victoria finds us.

“You know what we’re doing in class today~.”

I smile, “Watching a recording of the performance.”

“Yes!”

Dirk looks at me, “When do we do it again?”

“This weekend. We have to perform Saturday night and Sunday night.”

“The point is!” Victoria yells, the attention going back to her. “We get to watch everything that happened on stage last night.” She then pauses, “Wait, why did Dirk ride the bus with you this morning? I thought he drove to school.”

He shrugs, “My bro wanted to stay with Amber and her sister.”

“Wait, you stayed the night at her house?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you do anything… dirty..?” She wiggles her eyebrows. I thwack her with a pink face, Dirk chuckles.

“No! There was nothing dirty!”

She giggles, “Well, I guess it’s too early for that. So, are you dating yet?”

I smile, “His brother made him ask me out last night, and my sister made me say yes.”

She giggles, “So you are dating?”

“Yeah, we’re dating,” Dirk takes my hand in his.

Next thing I know, Victoria latched onto my wrist and holds out hands high in the air, screaming, “THEY’RE DATING! AMBER AND DIRK ARE OFFICIALLY DATING!”

The entire hallway goes quiet and they turn to look at us. I grit my teeth and whisper/yell at Victoria, “That’s not something they needed to know…”

“Yes they did need to know, because now girls will back off Dirk SINCE HE’S TAKEN!”

I look at Dirk and he’s just smiling at her. I sigh and end up smiling myself.

Victoria lets go of our hands when the bell rings. Neither of us let go as we begin the walk to class.

We walk into class holding hands still, and Mrs. Crum wiggles her eyebrows at us. She really is a good match-maker.

We sit in our seats, and chat until the bell rings.

“All right guys, I have the video right here!” She pulls up the performance video and turns off the lights. All around the room, we stack the chairs in the back and sit on the floor instead. Dirk and I remain on the top row. He sits with his back against the wall and, after a lot of urging from Dirk, I’m sitting in front of him between his legs, mine crossed.

His arms wrap around my waist, but it’s hard to see him doing so in the dark.

While watching, I lean back against him, smiling widely and dumbly. Watching the entire group at once for the first time, I think we did awesome.

We watch the entire show, and our song comes last of course.

My smile grows as I watch myself dancing and singing. Dirk gives me a quick squeeze, but it’s not hard enough to make me lose my breath or anything, it instead comforts me.

I watch with a big smile as our first (and only) kiss is captured on camera.

“Watch your eyes,” Mrs. Crum says right before turning on the lights. Everyone moans at the sudden brightness, but Dirk just laughs at everyone. He’s wearing shades.

The teacher looks around at everyone, then finally us two.

“All right, well, I guess the rest of today we can relax, but tomorrow we will spend the period practicing for the weekend shows. Also, we must acknowledge the new couple in the choir!”

Awe ****.

Everyone looks at us and they clap, I raise my knees and bury my head in them. Dirk removes one of his arms from around me and uses it to wave at them.

I laugh pitifully.

We spend the rest of the period sitting like this; Victoria and Nathan come to join us. They don’t do anything cuddly, though.

“All right guys, this is starting to annoy me. Nathan, ask out Victoria.” I say. I’m gonna treat them like we got treated.

“Wait, what?” He asks, flustered.

“You heard me, ask the girl out!”

Victoria is blushing and staring at me.

“Well… I was going to wait until—nevermind! Victoria, will you go out with me?”

“Victoria, say yes.” Dirk says, slightly catching onto what I’m doing.

“… Um, yes?”

I clap, “Match made!”

Victoria giggles as Nathan pulls her into a hug.

“THERE’S ANOTHER NEW COUPLE IN THE CHOIR,” I yell, pointing at Victoria. I smile devilishly.

Another round of applause.

Finally, the bell rings and we have to go to our next class.