by M. Katherton
“Did something happen with Kendra? She said she was here to study when I let her in but she didn’t stay for very long.”
“Oh.” I hesitated, searching my brain for a plausible excuse without burdening my mom with my friend problems. “She actually came to borrow something. A sweater.”
“A sweater?” Mom’s face crinkled suspiciously. “Which one?”
“Oh. I…I didn’t have one that she liked so she just left.”
Mom glanced up from wiping the table, giving me the mom-look that translated into calling bullshit.
“Alright, fine.” I surrendered. “She didn’t come to borrow a sweater. She showed up uninvited and grilled me about Ryan and accused me of never listening to her even though she only talks about herself and never listens to me.”
“Sometimes people have a hard time when their best friend starts dating. She’s probably afraid you’ll start spending so much time with Ryan that you won’t have time for her anymore. I remember losing so many friends when I was…” she was likely about to say with James then caught herself, not wanting to mention my father. “So don’t forget to make time for her too.”
I shook my head though it probably would have been easier to just nod along to her misunderstanding of the situation. “Kendra and me are done. It’s been heading that way for a while now.”
“Really?” Mom raised her eyebrows in suspicion, probably afraid it was a rash decision I had made today. “But I always liked Kendra, so outgoing, bubbly. A little nutty but well-meaning.”
I shook my head, shattering the character Kendra had spent the past two years portraying to my mother. “That’s just her front. Only cares about herself, controlling, annoying.”
“I don’t know, Jess. Maybe give it some time. I don’t want it to be like Emelia where everything gets blown out of proportion.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I shut her down quickly, not wanting to be reminded of the night Emelia’s mother Barbara came to our house and screamed at my mom, accusing her of being a bad parent after I told her precious daughter off. Then Emelia wrote awful things about me on social media. It contained accusations that I was jealous because she was a cheerleader, that I would never be as pretty as her, and that I was a loser with no friends. Had I told Mom, she would have likely gone to their house and started another war with Barbara Christiansen, but I was too embarrassed at the time. Therefore, Mom never found out and I didn’t want to confess it to her now.
“Alright.” Mom concurred. “Just make sure that’s really what you want before you cut her off completely.”
I promised Mom I would though my mind was already made up. Kendra was done.
Friday, February 22nd, 2019
“Can I ask you something?” I braved on the ride to the bowling alley in Ryan’s truck. He had worn a black t-shirt every day since we had met and there was no way it was the same one because the one he wore yesterday was more stretched out around the collar than the one he wore today.
“What’s up?” He asked, one hand on the steering wheel and the other resting on the console.
“Do you have a whole set of black t-shirts in your closet? That one’s different than the one you wore yesterday.”
He pursed his lips as though visualizing his closet to recall anything that wasn’t a plain black t-shirt. “I have a couple of dress shirts…also black. Oh and I have an ugly yellow knit sweater my grandma gave me a few years ago for Christmas. She always thought I wore too much black and needed to lighten up. I’ve never worn it. But it was her last Christmas with us so I can’t throw it out.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He assured though his dark eyes looked a little pained at the reminder of what he had lost. “She had lung cancer. Smoked like a chimney her whole life. She was pretty miserable towards the end and it was time. It’ll be three years in July.”
“You should wear the sweater one day.”
“Nah.” He shrugged. “It’s happy in my closet. I love and miss my grandma but I don’t need a sweater to prove that.”
Though I wanted to see what Ryan looked like wearing something other than black, I didn’t push it any further.
I found my dad right away when we got to the bowling alley. This time I told him ahead a time I was coming, not wanting to shock him again. He was only on his first beer of the night and just lacing up his custom lime green bowling shoes that matched the team shirts.
“Hey, you made it!” He exclaimed, greeting me with a hug. He then looked to Ryan beside me and extended his hand. “You must be Ryan. I’m James.”
I was glad my dad introduced himself because we still hadn’t established whether I should call him Dad or James or something else.
“Nice to meet you. Jessica’s talked a lot about you.” Ryan replied, cool as a cucumber about meeting my dad though I still felt nervous every time.
My dad introduced us to all his teammates whose names I would probably never be able to keep straight, beaming every time he told them I was his daughter. The more time I spent around my dad, the more trouble I had fitting him into the asshole picture Mom had painted of him. He didn’t seem like the type that would encourage his high school girlfriend to get an abortion and treat her poorly.
Though I thought Ryan would want to watch his brother’s team bowl, we got seats by Strike After Strike. My dad got a strike on his first turn up then looked back at me to make sure I was watching. I gave him a thumbs up then watched him high-five his teammates like they had won the world series. Strike After Strike out-bowled their opponents for the first few frames though they got a little shakier the more beer they drank. After watching my dad bowl in the fifth frame, I confronted Ryan about his growling stomach that had been prevalent all game.
“Do you want something to eat?” I asked, eyeing the snack bar across the bowling alley.
“I don’t have much money.”
“I have some. I’ll buy you something.”
“You don’t have to.” He hesitated, either conflicted because he thought the man should always pay or because he felt bad for making me spend money on him.
“I want to. You took me to the movies over the weekend. It’s my treat.”
He grinned and leaned over to kiss my cheek then glanced at my dad to make sure he hadn’t seen. He hadn’t. We trailed to the snack bar and waited in line behind a couple in their early sixties that reeked of cigarettes. The man ordered a pitcher of beer and four hotdogs and the woman lectured him about how he was going to have another heart attack and then she ordered a diet soda and slice of pizza. Once they received their order, Ryan and I stepped up to the counter only to find Emelia behind it.
“Hi.” She greeted awkwardly, adjusting the red visor with a Sunshine Bowl logo on it. Of all people from school I expected to see working here, Emelia was the last.
“I didn’t know you worked here.” My voice wobbled. We hadn’t spoken since the fateful day in ninth grade when I accused her of being a bad friend and she told me I was jealous. Ever since then, we had strategically avoided eye contact in the hallways and the one time we coincidentally had a geometery class together on the first day of sophomore year, Emelia’s schedule randomly changed the following day and she was transferred to another class. The moment had finally arrived where we could no longer avoid each other, at a bowling alley of all places.
“It’s not really something I advertise.” She mumbled, her pale cheeks reddening slightly. “Heard you had a boyfriend. This him?”
I nodded. “This is Ryan. Ryan, this is Emelia.”
Ryan, as he had been with both my dad and Kendra, was poised and polite. He then ordered nachos and while originally I had planned to order something too, seeing Emelia killed my appetite.
“Who was that? I’ve never seen you clam up like that before.” Ryan commented once we got his nachos and returned to our seats. While I had told him Kendra’s saga, I hadn’t gotten around to telling him all about Emelia yet.
; “My childhood best friend. We fell out a couple years ago. That was the first time we spoke in over two years. I didn’t know she worked here. Otherwise I wouldn’t have gone to the snack bar.”
“You have a lot of skeletons in your closet.” He joked as he scooped up a jalapeño with a soggy cheese-covered nacho.
“I promise that’s it. My dad, Emelia, now Kendra I guess. No more awkward interactions. I mean, you still need to meet my mom, but she’s relatively normal, I promise.
“You’re not boring. I like it.”
“I’m glad you think so. Kendra and Emelia would beg to differ.”
He shrugged. “Who cares about them?”
“What about you? Have any skeletons in your closet?” I changed the subject.
He pursed his lips, probably deciding whether he should pull them out. “Well, part of the reason I left Maryland was because of someone. Not just because my mom got remarried.”
“Who?” I inquired, though I figured it was an ex-girlfriend and that unnerved me a little.
“Laurel. My ex. God, she was a mess. Never knew what she wanted. One day she wanted sex, the next she was too tired, then would get mad at me for not magically knowing what she wanted. She broke up with me because she was paranoid I was cheating on her. I wasn’t. Then she got with some other dude and got pregnant a couple months later. Dodged the bullet but I was tired of seeing her and hearing about her. Garen invited me to move down to Texas to finish school and I took him up on it. It was nice to have a clean start.”
“Wow.” I commented, expecting something a little less dramatic. This also answered my curiosity about his sexual experience. Eventually I would have to tell him I was still a virgin and sexually inexperienced but I didn’t think the bowling alley where my father could approach at anytime was the place for that.
“Yeah, it’s a pretty big skeleton I guess. You have any crazy exes?”
I shook my head as most of them were too insignificant to mention. There was my short fling with Rory Chang in ninth grade, a two-month relationship with Eric Valdez in eighth grade, and Leon Baxter that I had my first kiss with at the seventh grade school dance after being pressured by Emelia. When it came to relationships, I was more boring than the off-white counter in front of us.
“Consider yourself lucky.”
After the bowling match, which my dad’s team won by a landslide, Ryan drove me back to his house. When he pulled into the driveway and I reached for the handle, he instead grabbed my arm and pulled me closer, placing his lips over mine. Though it was late and I imagined Mom and Ross were probably parked in front of the television, I kept an eye open to make sure no one came out of the house or peeked out the window. Ryan slid a hand under my purple sweater, cupping my right boob over my bra in his hand. This was the farthest I had ever gone with a guy and felt a little self-conscious about my small boobs. Kendra, who was naturally blessed with D cups, constantly made comments about how small I was. Though I tried to pretend like it didn’t bother me, it did. Ryan didn’t seem to mind though. He guided my right hand to his jeans where I discovered a rock hard boner. I had never touched a man’s penis before. I didn’t know what to do. Once he came up for air and removed his lips from mine, I blurted out,
“I’m a virgin!”
Ryan burst out laughing but not mockingly. He removed his hand from underneath my shirt and instead held my hand. “That’s okay. I can teach you everything you need to know.”
“Can we take things a little slower? This is a little fast for me.”
He nodded, leaning into kiss my cheek. Earlier I had considered taking him in to meet Mom and Ross after the bowling alley but now I couldn’t risk him walking through my living room with a giant boner bulging through his jeans. We had only been dating for a week now but things were already getting serious. I didn’t know if I was ready.
Monday, February 25th, 2019
The Seaview High School student body quickly moved past the rumors and fascination that someone as nerdy and boring as me was dating someone and onto juicier gossip. The new rumor flying around was that head cheerleader Grace Baldwin was caught by some guys on the football team giving a blow job to a freshman under the track field bleachers. Considering she had been dating star quarterback Zach Greene for the past year and a half, it was an absolute shitshow. I hadn't seen it happen, but Paige told me that before school this morning, Zach publicly broke up with Grace in the cafeteria, then stormed through the main hallway yelling about how she was slut.
I couldn’t think of a time I had ever personally spoken to Grace but she was one of Emelia’s good friends. They often walked together in the hallways and snuck off campus with other cheerleaders at lunchtime. However, today Grace walked alone, dressed in a slouchy blue hoodie with the hood pulled up, staring down at the ground as she walked. Though we came from two different worlds, I felt bad for her. All the stories Mom had told me about being ostracized and bullied when she was pregnant in high school came to mind. People were cruel.
Though I had done my best to strategically avoid her, I ran into Kendra in the hallway after lunch. She had theatre class on the opposite side of the campus so I knew it wasn’t some random happening. She sought me out, sacrificing her own timeliness.
“Can we talk?”
“I have to go to class.” I insisted though there was at least four minutes left in the passing period, leaving me plenty of time to get to my classroom just six rooms away.
“But Jessica!” She whined, grabbing onto the sleeve of my cream-colored sweater like a child begging its mom to buy it a cookie at the mall.
“I have class!” I stammered loud enough to make passersby turn to look.
“Can we talk after school then? Please.”
“No.” I growled, picking up my pace and disappearing into the sea of students. I didn’t know what part of being done Kendra didn’t understand.
Mom cut some of her hours at work after Macy had a breakdown about dance a few nights ago. She cried in Mom's lap on the couch, claiming Zoey and her crew were still picking on her and that she wanted to quit dance. Mom gave Macy a spiel about how she couldn’t quit dance in the middle of the season because it was unfair to her teammates but they could revisit it at the end of the year if she still felt similarly. Though I knew Mom hated going, she had started accompanying Macy to rehearsal to keep an eye on things.
Therefore, I had dinner most nights with just Ross and Spencer. Sometimes Ross tried to cook but most days he made sandwiches or quesadillas since it was easy. Tonight he claimed he was too tired to even do that so he took Spencer and me to Alfredo’s Pasta and Pizza. I hadn’t returned there since the fateful night when Kathleen confessed to me that my dad wanted Mom to get an abortion. I didn’t know if I would ever be able to dissociate my childhood favorite restaurant from that information but now being on good terms with my dad made eating there slightly more tolerable.
Ross asked Spencer and I the typical questions about how our days were. I gave the usual generic answers, certain they didn’t want to hear about my drama with Kendra or that the head cheerleader was caught giving a blowjob to a freshman under the bleachers. Had Spencer not been there, maybe I would have confessed to Ross that I had met my biological dad three times and that he was a nice, normal guy. I couldn’t talk about it in front of Spencer though. He couldn’t keep a secret even if that meant winning a lifetime supply of chocolate cake and toys.
Mom came up to my room that night as I scrolled through social media before bed. Though most of the time she wanted to talk about my siblings or school, now every time she came in, I worried that she had somehow found out about my dad. However, I inferred from her calm demeanor that she had different reasons for being here tonight.
“How are things going with Ryan?”
Between work and all the drama with Macy’s dance, Mom and I hadn’t had a lot of one-on-one conversations lately. Besides, though we were close, I wasn’t the type to spill every detail of my relationship to her. I’
d shown her a picture of him and told him the basic details like that he was from Maryland and had a cat named Garfield, but she didn’t know about the car kissing and fondling.
“Good. I told him I want to take things slow.” I answered, figuring this was her gateway into a sex talk.
“Good.” She replied, pausing for a minutes as if recalculating what she needed to say. “So I’m guessing nothing has happened yet.”
“No. Except kissing.” I wouldn’t tell her about him touching my boobs or me touching his boner over his jeans.
“Do you have questions about anything?”
“Not yet.”
“Okay. When do I get to meet him?”
“I guess I could invite him over after school one day.”
“I promise I’ll be cool.”
I chuckled, more worried about Ryan accidentally spilling the beans about my father than I was about him thinking my mother was a loser.
“Really though, everything’s good? I feel like we haven’t had much time to talk lately.”
“Everything’s good.” I promised.
“Good.” She kissed my forehead, signaling the conversation had concluded. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
I would invite Ryan over after school soon just to prove to my mother that he wasn’t a serial killer. Due to her own poor choices in high school, she had always been iffy about me dating and spending time with guys. Hopefully she would approve and let her guard down though. Just because she got knocked up at seventeen didn’t mean the same would happen to me.
Tuesday, February 26th, 2019