by Alice Carina
Mistake
"Keep staring at him for two more minutes and he'll have to – he'll just have to – come over, drop down on one knee, profess his undying love and ask you to marry him."
My eyes widened at her words and I quickly looked away, blushing at having been busted for the millionth time.
"Can that please be a real possibility?" I mumbled to my best friend as she chuckled at me. "Staring is as good as I'll ever get with flirting."
"Just go over there and talk to him," Chelsea repeated her every-day suggestion, "he talks to you all the time."
"Yeah, he talks while I just nod ridiculously and say the stupidest things." I shook my head, remembering the week before on the first day of school when he asked me how I had spent my summer and if I went somewhere and I just nodded and said 'fine, fine,' until Chelsea made an excuse about being late for class and pulled me away.
"He doesn't seem to mind," she shrugged, "otherwise he wouldn't keep trying to come up with topics just to talk to you."
"He doesn't try anything just to talk to me. He's just naturally polite and conversational with everyone."
"I bet if you ask him out it wouldn't be one of your stupidest things." She quoted me.
"I can't ask him out," my heart started beating faster and I felt myself sweating at the mere thought of such humiliation.
"Why not?" She asked, like we hadn't had that conversation a million times over the summer.
"What if he rejects me? Can you imagine how embarrassing that would be? I would literally die." Of course, Chelsea couldn't imagine that; she was proud, straightforward and confident. She wouldn't crush on a guy for a couple of years silently and let her friends join the pool of crushes and talk about him in front of her like he was already theirs and never say anything. No. Chelsea would walk up to said guy the moment she decided she liked him and ask him out, and she was so proud, straightforward and confident that the guys she initiated any moves with were flattered into falling in love on the spot. I wasn't like that.
"If he rejects you, then you'll just call it even and move on with your day." In her insistence that Chad actually liked me back, Chelsea never failed to point out the stupefying fact that I had once actually rejected him.
It was a long time ago, a little less than three years, when Chad first transferred to our school and asked me out after a few shared classes and projects. At the time, the world of boys and dates that my sister quickly joined that year like it had always been her natural habitat seemed too wild and messy and complicated and belittling for me to hide in like I hid in everything. The idea of being alone with a guy I barely knew and telling him things that he could humiliate me by sharing with others when he left me and being made fun of for saying the stupidest things I was never short of saying when I was nervous was enough to repel me from guys for my entire life, or so I thought.
He remained just as polite, interested, and friendly even after my rejection, like he still wanted to get to know me one way or another. He still opened doors for me, helped me with a project he'd promised to before I said no, asked about me and remained the same, he didn't turn rude and bitter like the guys I'd seen Josslyn reject.
With him being so nice and sharing most of my classes that first year, it didn't take long for me to start liking him, but by then it was too late; he never asked me out again, which somehow only made me like him more for respecting my choice and not pushing me, I probably would've panicked and said no again had he asked.
The more I got to know him, the more I liked him, the more awkward and taciturn I grew around him. Sometimes people wondered why he even bothered talking to me and treated me like a friend when I tried to avoid any face-to-face conversation with him.
I owed our somewhat-friendship to texting; he sometimes texted to ask about homework or a class that he'd missed and often during the summer or vacations to check on me. It was just so much easier to carry on conversations when I wasn't worried about my friends watching and teasing or someone over-reading the situation and when I actually had time to think of something worth saying. I could pretend that I hadn't immediately read his text and ask for Chelsea's help on something clever to say, it hid my nervous stutter, and it was so much easier to go on about it without being distracted by how cute he looked in certain colors most of the days.
Chelsea and I were heading over to class when I saw Emmet talking to Josslyn by her locker. I dropped my gaze and pretended that I hadn't seen them, but Chelsea could never let anything go without sharing her opinion.
"I can't believe that was your choice for a first boyfriend." She glared at him as we passed.
He wasn't my choice, but I thought that I was his. He was the only boy aside from Chad to ask me out without mistaking me for Josslyn and he treated me very nicely for weeks, letting me believe that, for once, someone who also knew my sister chose me and wanted to be with me instead of her. The relationship didn't last long enough for my ego to inflate, though. The dating world moved at a pace too fast for me to keep up with. Emmet wanted too much too soon, and when I couldn't give it, he blurted that he'd only asked me out because my sister had turned him down and he thought that I could replace her as easily as I did for some of her classes - like a relationship was just that; a small period of time that you endured passively, gratuitously filling a spot just because somebody else didn't want it.
"Stop staring at them," I mumbled when she craned her neck to presume her glaring after we'd put them behind us.
"I warned you about him, didn't I?" She turned her glare to me. "I told you that he looked at Joss too much and always asked you to try the things that she wore or did and be more like her. You were so silly you thought that he was just trying to help you get more involved and fit in better with whatever everyone else was doing. It was so obvious that he was more into her than you."
Chelsea never meant anything by her words; she simply had no filter and broadcasted her thoughts as the news people needed to know to go through their days better informed.
I remained silent, but something must've shown on my face because her voice turned apologetically tender; "You-you're amazing though, I'm sure you changed his feelings and he misses you a lot. He's probably just talking to her now because he thinks she's you."
That wasn't true and we both knew it, but I didn't say anything and pretended for the rest of the day that I hadn't seen them together. Even though Josslyn and I were identical twins, people never mistook between us; we dressed too differently, our features were enhanced on her by colors that I could only smear when I tried, and our personalities were so contrasting that they showed in the opposing ways we talked and walked.
It wasn't until later in the day after dinner that I confronted my sister about him. I hadn't expected the situation to bother me so much, yet it did. I hadn't been in love with Emmet or anything, I tolerated him at best, but he was my first boyfriend and was nice to me for a while and I didn't know that I was allowed to get out of the relationship simply because I wanted to for no particular reason.
"Are you gonna go out with him?" Of course, my sister knew that he'd dumped me, but she also knew that I hadn't had any feelings for him and was actually relieved when he did because I didn't know how to, so he wasn't technically off limits or anything if she wanted him.
"I didn't say that," she shrugged, "but I didn't tell him no, either." That was the way Josslyn was with most boys at our school. She rarely gave a definite answer; she usually kept them confused and circling for more confusion, hoping for her temporary approval.
"Did you break up with Kyle?" Even though Josslyn was a sequential dater, boyfriends were as out of her element as they were of mine.
We
were twelve years old when Josslyn started dating and fell madly in love with her first boyfriend. She spent every waking moment of their short relationship either talking to him or talking about him, and the talking about him lasted for a long time even after she found out he'd been dating other girls simultaneously. It was then that she realized that boys at that early age weren't ready to be the princes we read about, but that didn't shy her away from them. In fact, the simple realization of what it was that they truly wanted made her their favorite. She knew that stability and commitment and exclusiveness were things for older years, that at the moment they were just like her, looking for excitement and fun and wanting to feel special by earning an attention rarely bestowed on anyone.
She had boyfriends every now and then, guys that she just clicked with for a longer period than others, but Kyle was the longest she'd ever kept. There were bets going on about how long it would take for the two players to miss the game, but Kyle made it clear that he really liked her and I suspected that the feelings were mutual but that she was scared of admitting them because of the way she'd gotten rejected the first time she ever had them.
"No, we're still together," she smiled contentedly. "I just like to tease him with other guys. If he's too busy trying to figure out how to keep me, he won't have time or energy to think of anybody else."
"Oh," that was how Josslyn kept the guys around her; by giving them the competition they craved in every aspect of their lives. There was something thrilling about winning against others, about being envied than unnoticed, a since of pride in working hard and deserving the interest of Josslyn which had to be claimed by continuous effort and never freely given.
"You don't mind, do you?" She looked at me with the warm affection boys fought for almost every day.
"No," I quickly denied, not wanting anyone, not even my sister, to know how deeply I was hurt, not by a rejection of feelings because there truly hadn't been any, but by the rejection of me as a girl who was only Josslyn's shy twin and never just Katelyn. "I just..." I hesitated on how best to describe my hurt without sounding hurt. "I don't want him to win. I don't want him to think that he's so great the both of us said yes to him. I don't want him to think that he could use me to get to you and actually get to you."
"Oh, don't worry about that," she rolled her eyes dismissively. "I'd never actually say yes to Emmet. I can't believe you did! But I can make him work really hard and hurt him for using you." She winked at me.
*
I always wondered how that day ended the way it did. Was it the natural result of so many days before it or had it been just that day, a day that would always stand out on its own in which I was repeatedly pushed out of my comfort zone into comfortless chaos from which I could never return?
The beginning of the day didn't strike me as anything unusual. I'd been feeling a little down during the weekend because my sister was busy with Kyle and Chelsea was hanging out with her new boyfriend and my shyness had limited my friendship to those two. So, I was actually feeling a little bit excited about going to school and talking to Chelsea and hearing all about her date.
Bernetta – Josslyn's best friend – and Chelsea hardly got along, but – simply out of routine that was convenient because Josslyn and I always arrived together – they tolerated each other in the morning when the four of us sat together, each two in their own world, but together.
"Katie!" Chelsea snapped her fingers in front of me.
"What?" I blinked, startled.
"You're not listening to a word I'm saying." She complained, but her eyes were amused. "How do you get anything done in class?" She laughed at my embarrassment and turned her eyes were I'd been looking along with Josslyn and Bernetta.
"He's so cute," Bernetta gushed and I found myself sinking in my chair. I didn't like other girls talking about him around me, but I never said anything.
"He doesn't have a girlfriend," Chelsea pointed out. "I don't understand why you don't just ask him out."
"He's the guy; guys ask girls out, it's the first rule of dating." Bernetta lectured.
"I wasn't talking to you," Chelsea snapped, but Bernetta ignored her.
"Sylvia actually asked him a few days ago for the upcoming dance." She turned to Josslyn. "You know, the dance that's in like over a month, but she just wanted to call dibs or something before somebody else did. And he actually said no. She said that he turned her down very nicely and she's still really into him, the poor girl, but can you imagine the horror? Asking a boy out and being rejected? I would've imagined he would've said yes just out of politeness, but oh well."
I really didn't like hearing about him from other girls, it made me feel stupid and silly for hoping to stand a chance with him and it made my feelings – the only feelings I'd ever had for a boy – seem so common and stupid and silly.
"Maybe he has somebody else in mind," Chelsea teased.
"Or maybe he just didn't want to lead her on." I snapped, wanting the conversation to move on to someone or something else, and it did, only it got so much worse.
"Isn't that your ex?" Bernetta asked as Emmet walked up to Chad and they started chatting.
"Yeah," I hoped that was the end of boy-talk for the day, but it wasn't.
"You know, you're so strong dealing with the breakup the way that you did." She praised me. "When I got out of my first relationship, I cried for weeks, and I was the one who'd done the dumping. I can't imagine getting dumped by a guy who was never really into me and seeing him every day in class. I would just die."
I just shrugged when I realized that she'd paused for my response.
"Do you think he talks about you to his friends?" She asked me. "How weird would it be if your ex and crush are talking about you right now?" She looked at the two boys on the other side of the room. "What if Chad someday asked for his permission, because they're friends you know, and Emmet just told him awful things about you?"
There it was. That occasional little jab, letting me know that she knew that I had a crush on Chad just like she did and there were always things that condemned me and recommended her simply because she wasn't me or any other girl, she was prettier and more popular and never been dumped and boys were never believed if they talked badly about her.
"He wouldn't believe him," I mumbled to myself in private reassurance.
Chelsea changed the subject and was repeating to me what had happened on her date when Josslyn's words emptied the air in my lungs and I couldn't breathe.
"Hey, Chad!" She called out to him when he'd been passing by us.
"Hey Josslyn," he smiled politely. "Bernetta, Chelsea," he nodded at each one of them in greeting before finally turning to me. "Good morning, Katie."
"Morning," I breathed, my heart beating faster and my cheeks warming up from a simple greeting. I wished I could just get my phone out and text him instead of having to voice my words in proper tones and look at him looking at me.
"Did you cut your hair?" He asked me conversationally.
Both Josslyn and Chelsea insisted that I needed to change something, to do something new to get over Emmet. Even though I wasn't as hurt as they'd expected me to be and wasn't sulking after him, they asserted that the relationship could not be healthily concluded without some change, no matter how minor, so I cut the front of my hair into bangs over the weekend when I had nothing else to do.
Emmet had once commented on how much he hated bangs and Josslyn swore she'd never try them. I wasn't sure if I wanted yet one more thing to separate me from my sister and the boys who wanted to pretend to see her through me, but it felt against the point it was recommended to; every time I looked at the mirror, I thought about how much Emmet hated that style, which made me think of him and the fact that he now had a physical effect on me rather than only think about him momentarily when I saw him and forget him the moment he was out of my sight.
"Yes," I was slightly surprised that he'd noticed. Even Chelsea hadn't until I pointed it out.
"So, I heard you
broke poor Sylvia's heart." Bernetta pressed for his attention.
For a moment, Chad was too stunned by her bluntness for a complete sentence. "I didn't... Well, um... I didn't mean..."
"Oh, relax," her smile turned flirtatious, "she's probably over it by now. Everyone's saying that you'd already asked another girl out and couldn't take that back, nothing personal. Is that true?"
He could've just said yes and gotten away without further interrogation, but Chad was a very honest guy.
For some reason, he looked at me when he spoke; "Not really."
"No?" Bernetta feigned surprise, her tone still flirtatious. "Do you have any girl in mind?" His eyes quickly left me.
"I-um..." the bell rang, saving the day, "I should get to class."
Chad didn't talk to me that day. It wasn't unusual for us to go days without talking, after all, we weren't close friends, just classmates with a one-sided crush, but I felt guilty about the awkwardness Bernetta had put him through that morning and it seemed like my duty – as his phone buddy – to apologize on her behalf, but it was difficult to catch him alone.
I was following him down the hall after a mutual class to his, which was going to make me late for mine. I felt like a hunter, pausing whenever he did to chat with someone, hiding whenever I suspected he was about to turn around, and stalking him silently – even holding my breath – whenever he moved.
We were in a less crowded hallway when I finally called out to him, then instantly hoped he hadn't heard me so that I could turn the other way and run. I wouldn't be able to make it to my class on time, he was already late to his because he'd stopped so many times, and I suddenly realized that I had no idea what to say or a responsibility to say anything like I often tricked myself into thinking just to talk to him.
"Katie," he turned to me, surprised but smiling. "How are you?"
"I-I'm good." Despite being a stuttering mess whenever his eyes favored me with undivided attention, it was always easier to talk to him when no one was around – when Chelsea wasn't making faces at me or Josslyn studying my every move so she could later tell me just how obviously my feelings stupidly showed for him or Bernetta glaring at me then interrupting us so she could talk to him and later make fun of me for the way I couldn't.