by Nessa Morgan
Neither do I but I won’t say that out loud in front of her.
“Is that jealousy I hear?” I ask. My hand cups my ear and I lean closer, giving a sarcastic illusion. You know the spiel. “Because, surely Alexia Cavanaugh—head cheerleader, Homecoming Princess—can’t be jealous of little Joey Archembault?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snaps at me, waving her hand through the air, her way of dismissing me. She takes one step closer to me and leans forward so her mouth is next to my ear. As she breathes, I can feel her moist, sticky breath against my ear. “If I wanted him, I’d still have him, honey,” she whispers, I can hear the malice, the anger, seeping into the tone of her voice. She is near seething.
The mere thought of me and Ryder is enough to force her to threaten me.
Now, I’m sure you are wondering how this little feud started. I’m still wondering the same thing myself nine years later. On my first day of school here in Washington, the teacher announced to my future class—before I even stepped through the door—that I was fragile and in need of friends. Thanks teach. Other than Zephyr, who was in a different third grade class, I had no one. There was no little child on my side when I stepped through the large door.
Alexia was in my third grade class and she was the spawn of Satan. She would kick my chair away from me before I sat down, she would tape signs on my back, she even stole my glasses once. I had to get a new pair because no one could find them. Jamie tried to handle her, tried to change her, to no avail. Her hatred for me just stuck. I still don’t understand why she hates me so much—she’s never had the courtesy to tell me.
“Uh huh,” I reply as I cross my arms and take a large step forward. I try and intimidate her, stand a little taller, look a little meaner. It would be so much easier if she weren’t taller than me by at least four inches sans heels.
We stand like that for a full minute, maybe two, just staring at each other, sizing the other up, before she backs away, taking a long pull from the beer in her hand, the beer that I didn’t see in her hand, the beer that could’ve been my hat had this ended horribly. Thankfully, I won’t have a beer shower tonight. Not yet.
“Nice to see you, dear,” she says with a smile, taking a step back to disappear into the drunken crowd.
Rolling my eyes, I pull my HTC Sensation from my pocket to send Zephyr a quick text. Mostly, it’s for my entertainment—I’m bored.
Me: If I ever agree to do this again, you have my permission to slap some sense into me!
That should be enough to let him know how horribly this date is going. Trust me, if I could be anywhere on this planet—the opening of the Mariana Trench, the Sahara Desert, the eye of a tornado—I’d be there.
Zephyr: Do I need to inflict some pain?
His instant reply makes me giggle. No one notices.
Me: Easy, Thor. It’s okay, you don’t need to Hulk out.
Zephyr: I’d rather be Thor. I have the hair for Thor.
“There you are,” Ryder announces when he walks up, two beers in hand. He acts as if I haven’t been standing here, in the exact spot that he left me in twenty minutes ago. “I brought you a beer.” After sliding my phone into my boot—I have no pockets—I take the can from his hand, noticing the tab has already been popped. Many a teacher and adult has said the same thing: Do not trust any drink at a party someone has given you. That’s very sound advice, but tonight, I don’t listen to it.
I take a drink, trying to numb myself from this party, from these people that surround me. The long pull places me in a slight haze, the buzz beginning almost instantly. That should be a problem for me—perhaps he put something in my drink?—it’s a problem for me and I ignore it, and the beer, placing it on the nearest table, claiming later that I lost it.
Throughout the night, the party loses its appeal—if it ever had any—and no part of it gets interesting. The girls get sloppy drunk and start kissing anyone that accepts it, I watch Kennie start kissing various girls on the cheek. One moves in to the get a kiss on the lips. If she’s going to kiss people that her boyfriend would approve of, it’d be the girls. The guys start hitting on everything with a pulse, begging any girl to go with them upstairs, I even saw a guy trying to make out with a lamp.
Insert Anchorman reference here.
I am getting more attention than I ever had, ever wanted, before. Let me be honest, I’m not a fan. I prefer my invisibility.
I get my own beer, just to be sure that it’s safe for me to drink, and nurse it in the corner while Ryder’s talking to other football players.
This is his crowd, not mine. This is where he belongs while I belong in the back of the library. I’m ready to go home. I was ready the moment we got here.
“Avoiding me?” Ryder asks, leaning against the wall. He doesn’t look unstable, he looks fine, he looks like the beers haven’t affected him at all. Has he been drinking at all tonight?
“Nope,” I answer, tucking loose strands of hair behind my ear. After an hour here, with the temperature rising with every new additional drunk body trying to dry hump someone else, I tied my hair back away from my face in a low loose bun.
“Then why stand in the corner?” he asks, leaning against the wall next to me, close enough that his bare arm touches mine. I can feel the heat from his skin, soft and warm, against mine, but it does nothing for me. I feel no spark, no longing. I just want him to stop touching me.
Someone runs by screaming Whooee! Whipping a piece of fabric over their head like a colorful lasso.
What the hell was that?
“I’m not the mingling type,” I tell him, flatly.
A large football player—still wearing his grass-stained jersey from the day before, go figure—barrels into another one—one slightly smaller in every way—at full force, knocking the other off balance. “Dude,” he yells even though the smaller one—I think he’s a sophomore, he looks like a sophomore—is close enough to hear the upperclassmen without the ringing in his ears. “I’m so gone, totally fucking wasted, man,” he tells him loudly, giving a hard pat on the back for good measure.
The smaller football player, also wearing a jersey but his is spotless, laughs and smiles. It looks like he’s in awe of the larger dude, happy to be acknowledged by someone older, someone I bet wouldn’t acknowledge him if sober.
A topless cheerleader wanders by, her hands covering what little breasts she has. Her platinum blonde hair, definitely in need of a touch up, is crazy about her head. “Have you seen my top?” she asks someone next to her, no embarrassment on her obviously drunk face. I’d be so embarrassed; I’d also not be wandering around a group of horny high schoolers, my peers, topless, hoping that someone was nice enough to procure my teeny weenie bikini top.
Now that I think about it, I’m sure I know where it is.
“I’d like to say that I avoid this crowd,” Ryder begins, close enough to my ear that I can feel his warm breath with every word he speaks, close enough that his hand brushes little tendrils of hair from my neck. “But…” he trails off, letting me finish his sentence.
“You’re here every weekend?” I guess aloud, knowing I’m right about him. I turn my head to face Ryder, noticing how close we are. He could kiss me if he tried—if he wanted to—I wouldn’t recommend that he try, I wouldn’t really want the entire school pissed at me for maiming the star quarterback when we’re on a winning streak. But he’s close enough.
“No,” he says close to my ear. I can hear his grin, cocky with a glint of smartass. “Not every weekend,” he defends lightly, a little humor added to his voice. “Sometimes Samantha throws the party at her uncle’s place in Martha Lake.” He points to the topless girl with raccoon eyes still wandering aimlessly in search of clothing. Three guys openly stare at her, practically salivating. It’s obvious they hope she drops her hands.
I’m pretty sure they’ve seen the show before.
Pervs.
Tired of the party, tired of the stupidity surrounding me, I turn to Ryder and say,
“I think I’m ready to head home, now.” I set my half-empty beer on the table beside me, hoping no one knocks it over. The carpet is too nice but I bet that a spilled beer is the least of my worries. I feel a little bad that I didn’t finish it—I didn’t want to, I’m not much of a drinker—but I heard it’s bad to leave wounded soldiers lying about. “Are you okay to drive?” I ask. I refuse to get into a car manned by a driver under the influence. I’m not going out like a statistic.
Ryder balances on one foot, holding his arms out to his sides, and touches one finger to his nose with no struggle. “As you can see”—he continues to demonstrate his balance—“I’m perfectly fine,” he tells me with his signature cocky smile. The one that makes me want to wipe it away with my fist. It’s just my reaction to him.
He walks me out to his car, leading me with his hand on the small of my back, and opens the door for me, still playing the gentleman. I slide onto the leather seat, trying to smooth out the fabric of the tight skirt, and buckle my seatbelt before he joins me in the car. As he walks around the front of the car, one of his friends run up and stop him. They have a short conversation, one complete with laughter that booms through the windshield and a complicated handshake that confuses me. Ryder motions to me in the car, maybe telling the friend I don’t know the name of that he’s about to take me home—take me to my own house while he goes to his—before he joins me in the car.
“Sorry.” An instant apology when he drops into the car. “Brett just wanted to make sure that I was cool to drive.” So the friend has a name and it’s Brett—as if I’ll need to know that for long. “Don’t want to lose the quarterback in a car accident, do we?” He forces his laugh thinking that he’s made a joke.
Especially, I want to add, when the quarterback is the only reason our school win games.
We ride in silence for most of the way to my house. I’m too tired to engage in any stimulating conversation; to make it sound like I want a second date would be stupid. The thrill of home edges in and I can practically see my bed when I close my eyes. Though, I feel that I need to say something, anything, just to be nice.
“I had a nice time,” I lie, forcing a smile on my lips even though I don’t want to look at him. That doesn’t stop him from looking at me.
As first dates go, I believe this is the worst that could’ve happened to me—although I’m certain there are worse. It seemed like Ryder didn’t care much about me through the night. The entire time it seemed like he was more into himself—his football future, his friend’s party, him, him, him—than making me feel comfortable or even hoping that I enjoy myself in his company.
He didn’t even ask me a single question. It’s like he didn’t even want to get to know me at all. What I’m saying? He doesn’t want to know me. Not as a person, anyway.
“Me too,” he tells me as he checks his side mirror before he switches lanes. “Can we do this again?” he asks—wow! A question for me—his face splitting into a sly grin, one that I also want to punch from his face.
The way that he’s looking at me. It’s as if one smile will win me over.
Never going to happen.
“Do you want me to honestly answer that?” I ask, my gaze fixed out his window as we pull onto my street. Passing Zephyr’s house, I can see that all the lights are out, all the windows dark, like they went to bed early. I know Zephyr’s probably sitting in his dark room with the television on, maybe listening to music, anything to pass the time before he sees my window light up with my return.
“I think I just got it,” he murmurs with disappointment as he pulls into my driveway. He looks to me, smiling, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. I wouldn’t exactly expect it to; I just turned him down. Why does he think I’d agree to a second date? After the date we had tonight, the crappy one, he should be surprised if I want to speak to him again.
Spoiler alert: I don’t.
I leave his car, not looking back when he backs out of the driveway and drives down my street. Looking back—watching him leave—would mean something so much greater than I’d want to convey. I walk through the front door and see Hilary sitting on the couch, almost asleep, wearing her usual weekend outfit, oversized sweatpants that she’s rolled over three times, and a baggy purple University of Washington t-shirt. She piled, as best she could, her orange hair on the top of her head in a messy bun, most of it escaping the hair tie and falling around her face. Her eyes connect with mine when she hears the door open and a lazy smile, still large and toothy, splits her face as she wakes up. She’s been waiting her entire life for me to return from a date just so she can grill me.
“How was it?” she instantly shoots, sitting up on the couch and muting the television. “Was he a gentleman? Was he polite? Did he treat you nice? Was he mean?”
“Any other way you want to rephrase that question, Aunt Hil?” I ask, plopping down on the ouch next to her and letting out a large sigh. Home never looked so good.
“Sorry,” she sputters. “I’ve just been waiting up for you.” Just so I can ask all these questions burning in my mind. She yawns, her face contorting oddly as the loudest sound escapes her throat.
“It kind of sucked,” I tell her honestly, shrugging my shoulders. I don’t want to go into any detail; she doesn’t need to hear anything more about it, really. That’ll just create more questions I don’t want to answer. “But, oh well.”
“Oh, honey.” Hilary wraps her arms around my shoulders, shaking me with a hug that I don’t want, a hug that I never gave any sign to wanting. “I’m sorry,” she whispers into my ear. It’s either for my horrible date or for hugging me, though I know it’s for the former more than the latter. Hilary’s a hugger—blech.
Hilary’s dated more than me—obviously—so she knows about bad first dates, good first dates, average first dates—first dates in general. We’re having a moment, we’re bonding, I can tell by the way her hands lock together and the way her eyes look me over, and she’s trying to be my mom, or at least mom adjacent.
I shouldn’t ruin this.
But I do.
“Can we not do this right now?” I ask, prying her arms from around my body despite the warmth and, I will never willingly admit this again; I liked her hugging me. I like the feeling of being loved and what that meant. “I just want to take a long, hot shower and climb into bed.”
Her smile drops as she feels I’ve rejected her. In a way, I have. In a way, I’ve pushed away another attempt to be closer. But that isn’t the case, not this time.
The smile is quick to return, even if forced. “You do that, sweetie.” She releases my arms, calling me more pet names, and lets me stand up and away from the couch. “We can talk tomorrow, if you want.”
I won’t want.
I climb the stairs to my room, kicking off my boots as I go, and strip from the borrowed outfit leaving everything in a messy pile on the floor by the door. I know I should be nicer to Jamie’s clothes but the only thing that seems worth the effort is a nice, steaming hot shower, one where the water peels the layer of bad decisions and booze from my body and the disappointment and regret from my bones.
After my shower, I take the clothes to the laundry room—or garage as we call it here—and start the washing machine. Hilary won’t mind the noise. I know because she’s already in bed, snoring lightly. I can hear her through the door as I walk past toward my own room, my bed calling my name.
The sheets, the blankets, the pillows, everything is soft and cozy as I climb beneath and between, burrowing until I’m comfortable. Soon, I’m asleep, entering the dark world I dread.
Four
Sunlight streams through the open curtains—the hideous off white venetian blinds that I forgot to close last night—warming my eyes before I even crack them open, alerting them to the painful signs of morning. I moan and groan loudly, objecting to all things ante meridiem. It’s Sunday; my final day of freedom before the week starts anew and I find myself confined within the cement walls of the prison we teenagers call
high school.
Excuse me while I briefly turn into a melodramatic teenager.
With that scary thought running from my mind, the sweet chocolate scent wafts through the crack in my door, another thing that I forgot to close last night. There’s a hint of banana and I know, as I shoot up in bed and fight the smile blooming across my chapped lips, that Hilary is making breakfast for the first time in months.
I swear the heavens have opened and the angels are singing.
Not only just breakfast—my favorite breakfast.
I trudge down the stairs, still in a morning daze—which isn’t a good thing for a person with klutz-like tendencies to do. I walk into the kitchen, taking in the full aroma, my mouth watering before I can even see them.
“I smell pancakes,” I moan like a zombie in search of brains, only I’m in seeking pancakes. My eyes zero in on the target on the counter, a full plate of them. Ah, I think this is the best Sunday of the year.
Hilary laughs to herself, the metal spatula in her hand flipping a cake in the pan. She deals with this every time she makes breakfast, whether it’s pancakes or eggs. However, when bacon is involved, I’m funnier, and I steal the plate, sneaking it up to my room before she can notice that it’s missing.
“I was in a breakfast mood,” she tells me as she slides the plate of pancakes over to me. I move toward them, my arms outstretched, mouth still watering. You’d think that I haven’t eaten in days with how I’m acting.
I lift it gingerly from the counter, because it’s the most precious thing to me at right now, and take a deep, deep breath, smelling the chocolate chip banana goodness that I have loved since I was a kid. Since I was a little girl… I think. I’m not sure but I do remember that these were the only things that Hilary could get me to eat when I started living with her. For some reason, they remind me of my mother; that’s when I start to wonder if she ever made them for me as a kid.