by Gen Phan
It's pathetic. It's the epitome of absolutely everything I'm against and that's why I'm not going. But I'm hit by a sudden sharp pang when I started to wonder who Mike would take to the dance. He's probably hoping to find mystery mint kisser so he can ask her out. How ironic. How totally and utterly ironic this all is, and not ironic in a cool way. That I, mystery mint kisser myself, is tracking down this mystery girl for him. It seems like a bad plot line from a movie.
I put some of my books into my locker and that's when I had a moment of total madness. Another one. I had to tell him! I had to end this charade before it completely backfired and was blown out of all reasonable proportions. It was teetering on the brink right now - that's for sure. Maybe I could tell him it was a joke, that I meant it in some kind of postmodern ironic way. That it was a dare. That someone spiked my drink with something that completely lowers your inhibitions and that causes you to go temporarily insane. That I was insane?
But just thinking about opening my mouth and trying to get those words out, has me frozen in fear. The thought scares the living shit out of me. Especially when I think about the time we came close to kissing once. If that was anything to go by, the news that it was me would tank like a lead balloon.
It was a few years ago, we were all playing spin the bottle one night at a party. Mike was there and a part of me was desperate for the chance to kiss him, but also desperate not to see him kiss someone else. I kissed Brett first, it was short and quick, he tried to slip me tongue and I flicked it and everyone laughed. And then one of my sister's cronies, one of the blondes from her pack, Mindy, kissed Mike. Mindy, yes her name is Mindy. It sounds like the kind of name a manicurist might have, Mindy the Manicurist. I had to turn away, I couldn't watch it, she and Mike landed up going out for a few months after that- not one of his finest moments in my opinion.
And then he spun it and the bottle went straight for me. My heart decided to beat as fast as a pneumatic pump and my skin decided to tingle like it was on fire. He smiled at me. He leaned over and just as our lips were about to touch he pulled away. And then he said something that's basically haunted me till this day. "It would be like kissing my sister." He doesn't even have a sister.
Fuck. It was so humiliating. Perhaps one of the most humiliating moments of my life, and I remember hoping that no one had seen the look of disappointment that had flashed across my face. So I had to play along. I'm always forced to 'play along'. So I agreed.
"Like kissing my brother," I said quickly back and made some cringing movements and shuddered.
So...NO, I couldn't tell him. Because even though the kiss had been good, great, amazing and - what had he said - "mind-blowing," the second he found out it was me, he might just throw up. Incest after all.
The day was strange. It was as if time operated differently somehow , the hours seemed like days and the minutes like hours. And I was on the ever important lookout for gum. I was actually curious to see if anyone chewed it. I was hoping that maybe the Goth girl who si convinced she's a vampire chewed it, and then I could go back to Mike and present him with the truth and maybe he would drop this stupid mission. I was even hoping that one of the gay guys chewed it, that would also put an end to this thing. I was hating this day more and more as it was going by and desperate for some kind of distraction, luckily Brett caught up to me in the hall.
"Hey. What's up? You look all mopey today?"
"Maybe I am mopey. Maybe this is my new look?"
"Yeah, you going for the whole dark-twisty-mopey-Indie thing?"
"Perhaps."
"It doesn't suit you."
"Thanks. I'll bear that in mind." We turned down the corridor and headed towards math class, my worst subject. Worst teacher too. She's some kind of crazed math genius who wears mismatching shoes and even her slippers once.
"So did Mike tell you what happened?"
Did Mike tell me what had happened, HA? Was that the understatement of the century. It was all Mike had told me about since it had happened
"Yup."
"Who do you think it is?"
I shrugged, still trying to look casual, like this conversation meant nothing to me, like it didn't actually hold the weight of my entire world.
"Probably some vacuous blonde."
"And probably hot," Brett said. "Why does he always get the hot ones and I get stuck with no one, or the girl that I've had a crush on for like my whole life, who doesn't even know I exist."
"I know you exist Brett. I just don't want to date you."
He stabbed his heart dramatically and made a squelching sound. Brett has been telling me he's in love for the last two years. Of course it's a total joke, I don't actually believe him.
"Is that because you secretly pine for Mike?"
"What!?" At this I whipped around and walked Brett backwards into a locker until his back is pressed into it. I leaned in close, I didn't want anyone to overhear this conversation.
"Jesus. What did you say?"
"It's not like it's a secret, Maria. It's pretty obvious."
"What the fuck are you talking about? I'm not secretly pining for him, or anyone."
My blood boiled, not because I was angry, but because I was mortified. I wondered if he could really see it. Like my sister said this morning. Was it obvious? Was I walking around behind him like a drooling puppy?
"I'm not going to tell him, if that's what you're worried about," Brett said and moved out of my death grip. "There's nothing to tell, Brett. Just your over-active pervert imagination running wild again." I hoped my deflecting was working.
"Whatever you say Maria. Come, we're going to be late for class." Brett suddenly rushed off in front of me and I stopped for a moment or two gathering my thoughts.
Shit, did everyone know? Did Mike know?
Chapter 8 - Mike
"Is this seat taken?" I slid up to Maria at lunch. I always sit there, and I always ask, Is this seat taken? It's a stupid thing we've been doing for years. But it's comforting. I gave a quick nod to Brett who's sitting at the table too.
"So, what did you discover?" The suspense had been killing me all day. It was all I could focus on, and certainly all I thought about. No other thoughts had even entered my brain.
"About what?" Maria bit into something that looked like cardboard smeared with something green and pasty and strangley lumpy. Her face scrunched up as soon as the stuff hit her mouth. I don't blame her.
"Low fat?" I asked, knowing fully well that it was probably another one of her mother's infamous concoctions. When Maria turned her mother ordered a special gluten free, sugar free cake for the party. We'd landed up using the thing in a food fight.
"Low fucking taste." She said, spitting it out and immediately going for half my sandwich.
"So..." I pressed on, eager to know if she'd uncovered anything. "What did you discover?"
"About what?"
About what?
I couldn't believe she was even asking this. What else was there to discover today, or any day for that matter? It had been the only thing on my mind, I'd barely known what class I was in all day. I'd just moved from one to the other like an extra acting in an episode of the Walking Dead. I 'd been staring at all the girls all day, wondering which one it was. Every now and then one would catch me and smile, but this time I couldn't help but wonder if there wasn't something more hiding behind the smile. Was it a loaded smile that was trying to communicate something to me?
It was me. I kissed you.
I think I must have started at Mindy for way too long because next thing I knew she was walking with me from class to class, trying to talk to me while I was in full blown Zombie mode. Could it have been her? Doubtful, we'd dated for a while and she never kissed me like that, not even close. Unless she had recently started taking lessons?
I pulled my chair in all the way so I'm almost touching Maria and lean in.
"So...have you found my future wife yet?"
"Jesus!" Maria suddenly started to choke on my s
andwich. At first I thought it was a joke, but panic suddenly fripped me when I saw her grab her neck and start making some strange faces at me.
"Shit! Shit!" I tried to think back to those millions of reality TV shows where some dude chokes on something in the woods and his young daughter, son or Alaskan Malamute puppy saves his life by performing CPR or something. I jumped into action and all I could think of doing was smacking her as hard as I could on the back.
"OOOWWEEE!" She screamed at me as the offensive object was spat out across the table.
She rubbed her back and looked like she was in actual pain, "Dude, I think I would have rather chocked than have my ribs broken."
I tried to rub it, maybe I'd gone a bit overboard, but she pulled away. I glanced across the room and could see that her sister was smirking, she and he friends burst out laughing. Great sisterly love!
"You okay?" Brett piped up.
Maria nodded, still rubbing her back.
"What was that about anyway?" Brett asked, looking at us both with a strange look. What's up with people and their strange looks lately anyway?
"Did you not hear him?" Maria pushed the sandwich away and coughed a bit. Brett shook his head. "He said future wife! I mean... What the hell..... future wife. I've never heard such crap in my life. How dramtic can you get?" She turned and flashed me a look that could kill millions.
" Dramatic? I'd say you were the dramatic one. Chocking."
"Um..." She cocked her head and went for a good helping of Maria sarcasm, "Not as dramatic as saying that word. Wife. Wife. Please."
"Well you never know, it might be this cool story we tell at our wedding, or maybe even you can tell it since you'll be my best woman."
I burst out laughing, thinking Maria was going to join in at any minute and add to it by saying something about making me a bridesmaid at her future wedding and making me wear a peach colored dress, but she doesn't. I looked at Brett and he just shook his head.
"What's wrong with everyone today? Am I missing something?"
Maria looked down quickly and pocked a hole through the sandwich with a knife. I wondered what she was thinking , because it looked a little like she wanted to stab someone. Me?
"Dude, you're acting weird."
"You're the one that's acting weird." She sounded pissed with me. Properly pissed.
"I just can't believe you're making such a big thing of this, that's all. I mean you've practically got me riffling through everyone's stuff looking for a pack of gum and..."
"Look." I stopped her mid-sentence because I needed her to understand. "You weren't there. Trust me. If you'd experienced what I had, you'd also be looking for her, him, whatever."
Maria shoot another pissed stink-eye look just in case I hadn't picked up on her "unsubtle" signals yet... she was pissed with me.
"Fine. I will riffle through their gym bags and pat them down and pick their lockers and walk around asking to borrow gum."
The relied that washed over me as she said that was instant. So I hung my arm over her shoulders and pulled her into a hug. "And that's why I love you."
**
The week progressed in just about the same way, with daily updates from Maria, boring homework assignments that I couldn't focus on even more than usual and tennis practice in the afternoons. We'd ramped practice up. We're all training for the school championships. This time we're competing against each other so there's a less than social atmosphere on the courts.
The week also felt like it dragged and by Thursday, when she still had nothing to report, I was starting to worry. I knew there had been some girls from another school there, a Catholic convent that Maria's mother is always threatening to send her to. St. Benedictines, I wondered if I should try and get a list of the girls that were there from Brett. It was his sister, Brenna, who had invited them. His sister got caught smoking pot a year ago and her parents were convinced it was because of the male peer pressure here, so they whipped her out and sent her to an all girls school where she has to wear regulation underwear and her skirt has to hang exactly one palm's width above her knee. Any more and you get sent to the Home Economics teacher who lets out your hem right there and then. As the story goes.
And the ones that I'd met are were pretty hot. I just never pegged any of them to be the forward type that walked up to guys and spontaneously kissed them. But if it was one of them, I wasn't sure how I'd find out, unless I loitered outside the school, which wouldn't look good. That plan may get me arrested for suspicion of being some kind of perv, stalker. Not a great idea. Maybe I could have a casual thing at my house on Saturday night, invite Brett and Brenna and ask her to bring her friends. Suddenly a thought hits me... Maybe it was Brenna? God that would be awkward.
Tennis practice ended late that day and because I'm training, I decided to jog home. Speed, you've got to have speed on the court, that's my theory anyway. Winning tennis is about consistency sometimes, not fancy shots. If you're the guy that always gets the ball back, you'll win. If you're always consistent, you will eventually force your opponent to make a mistake. I have speed on my side, that's usually how I win. And this tournament is so important to me, as there are going to be scouts there.
And scouts mean the potential to get out of here and go to an out of state varsity. Although, I can't imagine Maria not coming with me. That would be a major downside.
As I jogged and my mind started to clear for the first time that week, it became more and more clear to me that I must have something at my house on Saturday, so I decided to take a detour and pop past Maria's house to inform her of my genius plan .
Chapter 9 - Maria
This was a mess. No, mess was an understatement. Mess is the kind of word you use to describe your bedroom or the kitchen sink before washing up. Mess was not the right word for the situation I currently found myself in. This was like my worst nightmare, amplified by infinity and beyon come to life and slap be though the face.
I'm not stupid either-someone was bound to get hurt. And I was pretty sure it wasn't going to be Mike, no, those honors were going to be bestowed apon me. He'd probably walk away from this with a spot of disappointment when he didn't find the girl of his so-called dreams. Me? I was probably going to need a heart transplant once mine was adequetly shattered into a million pieces.
I sighed loudly because it felt like something was crushing down on my ribcage. I felt nervous. Agitated and I was just about to stick my finger into my mouth and nibble on my cuticle when...
"It's unladylike to bite your fingers, Maria. What are you, a cannibal? Do you know how many calories there are in a cuticle? Wait... is a cuticle a carbohydrate? I must remember to ask my nutritionist. " It was Mike (massive internal sigh) and he was climbing through my window. I wanted to be mad at him. I wanted to hate him and push him out the window. But instead... I laughed. I couldn't help it; he was doing such a good impersonation of my mother.
"Didn't you know that cuticle biting leads to manly thighs and muscular shoulders?" he continued and I laughed even harder. (Damn, why did he have to be so funny. And good looking and... more internal sighing)
"Not to mention bad dress sense and boyfriendless spinsterhood," I added playing along. I almost added "and gay" following the conversation with my mother and sister, but I didn't. I could see that my mother was still terribly concerned. She'd been looking at me oddly and when I was in my dad's study the other day looking for a pen that actually worked, I saw that she'd been looking online reading articles with titles like "My child is gay. So what?" and "Raising a gay daughter."
Mike flopped down on my bed with such force that for a second I fell backwards onto him. The entire side of my body that had just come into contact with him, burst into flames. A sudden rampant bush fire that incinerates a whole field in seconds and burns so hot that it turns stones to glass.
I sat up as quickly as possible and moved away from the source of the heat.
"What? Do I smell?" he said and pulled his shirt up to his nose giv
ing it a big revolting whiff. I could see he'd been exercising, his face was glowing and his forehead was slightly damp. His eyes were lit up and his cheeks slightly flushed. He ran his hand over his forehead and into his hair and some of the wet bits stuck up in funny directions and I was suddenly overcome with a desire to flick a strand so that it sticks up ever further. I clenched my fists instead. God, he looked so cute right now. Maybe if he wasn't so good looking I wouldn't be such a hopeless basket case? Probably not though, because unlike .% of the female population at school, his looks are not why I like him.
"You stink," I said, playing along and swatting the air.
"Sorry," he suddenly jumped off the bed and then did something that almost caused me to faint (and was probably the worst possible thing he could have done under the circumstance.) He whiped his shirt off and fanned himself with it. He walked over to my window looking like a hot male stripper (not that I really know what one looks like) and proceeded to sit down on the windowsill. Heaven help me.
I looked away immediatly. Even though I'd seen him shirtless a million times before, it felt different this time. Especially when I thought about the fact that, just a few days ago, my fingers had been pressed against that chest. I cleared my throat unnecessarily and picked up something useless to fiddle with.
My heart went from beating fast, to feeling like it was breaking in a matter of seconds when I realized how sad this whole scene really was. You know you are totally friendzoned when he's so comfortable around you that he treats you like one of the guys in the locker room.
I sighed again. This time there was nothing internal about it.
"So, I had a thought," he said perched on the windowsill. I knew I needed to act normal, so I turned around an made eye contact with him, hoping my eyes didn't involuntarily move South.