by Ni-Ni Simone
“You can take number fifteen.” The go-kart attendant is talking to me, but it’s like his voice is in a vacuum. I can barely hear what he’s saying, and it sounds like he’s speaking in slow motion.
Cheyenne drags me to the go-kart and helps me get in. “Are you okay?” she asks. “Because we can just leave.”
I smile up at her. “I’m cool.”
“You sure?”
I nod slowly. “I’m sure, I’m sure!”
I am sooo not sure.
Mario walks right past me, holding hands with Dorie, as they go to two go-karts of the row next to mine. I feel a wave of sadness sweep over me. It feels like a blanket on a summer night. Totally uncomfortable.
How could they be at the holding hand stage already? It took us forever to get there. Well, at least two months. How long has he been creeping with her?
OMG! Why did this chick just kiss my boyfriend on the cheek before she gets in her go-kart? This is utterly ridiculous. Either they’re putting on a show, or they are for real.
Either way, I feel this sadness morph into something else. That something else has my blood feeling like it’s about to evaporate. I’ve never been so furious in my life. All because I saw a little kiss on the cheek.
“Hey, Zoey,” Mario calls from his go-kart. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
Hey? Hey! He’s going to act all nonchalant like he didn’t just stick a knife in my heart and twist it? I can’t believe that this is the person that I spent half of my Christmas money on. I should’ve bought something for myself.
I hear the starting gun pop, and I floor the gas pedal in my go-kart. I channel all of my rage into my foot, like I want to press the thing all the way through the floor.
There’s a red haze in front of my eyes, and I only want to do one thing . . . ram this go-kart right into the back of Mario. If I can get Dorie too, it’ll be great, but my first target is Mario.
Mario who lied to me. Lied and said he was my best friend. Lied and said his father thinks I’m clingy. There is no way his father said that.
I cannot stand Mario right now.
A hot tear blows out of the corner of my eye and into the wind. I’m going so fast that it doesn’t even have time to trickle down my face.
Mario must feel that I’m in hot pursuit of him, because he puts the pedal to the metal too. He’s a few car lengths ahead of me, but I know I can catch him. I’ve got to be able to catch him. With so many other things going wrong for me today this has to go right.
I’ve got his complicated! Complicated! There is nothing complicated about what he did. He lied and pretended to be my boyfriend while he was creeping with Dorie for who knows how long.
Doesn’t sound too complex to me! Actually, it sounds pretty simple. And I’m simply about to put the front end of this go-kart, right into the back of his! That’ll teach him.
I turn the wheel to the right and slide past a little kid who’s in my path to smashing Mario. Move! Get out the way!
Now, I’m just one car behind him. Right within smashing space. I’m going to get him, and it’s not going to be pretty. I chuckle to myself when I think of his go-kart and the ruined tires on the side. They’ll have to walk him off the track like they do the little kids that crash and burn. He won’t be hurt, but he’ll be embarrassed.
And maybe that will make him feel just a little bit like how I feel.
Because more than anything, this is humiliating.
Everyone knows we were together. And then he would just show up somewhere holding hands with Dorie? He could’ve at least given me time to get over it, before he went public with his new chick.
Now, I’m right on his tail. There is no escaping my wrath. The backside of that go-kart is about to feel the pain! I press the pedal hard and feel that extra burst of speed. It’s like I’ve got a turbo boost button. All the better to ram you with my dear ex-boyfriend !
I’m so focused on tearing Mario up, that I don’t realize I’m coming up on a curve. He rounds it effortlessly, because his go-kart is not flying by at its maximum speed. I, however, am in no position to slow down. I try lifting my foot off the gas, because if I hit the brake, I’m going to go skidding across the track.
Unfortunately, lifting my foot off the gas does absolutely nothing to slow me down. I think my go-kart is being powered on pure anger. I can’t even feel the wheels touching the track right now.
Why can’t I feel the wheels on the track?
OMG! My go-kart is airborne!
After a few seconds that feel like forever, I hit the track with a thud and spin out in the middle of the track. After about four spins, I do exactly what I wanted Mario to do . . . wipe out in the tires on the side of the track.
This totally sucks.
Now the top of my go-kart is smoking like one of the race cars on NASCAR. The attendant blows a whistle and waves traffic away from me as he runs out to save me. Tears stream down my face. No, I’m not hurt. I’m mad that I didn’t get Mario.
When the attendant gets to me he screams, “What the heck are you doing? Are you trying to kill yourself out here? You are totally not driving in a safe manner!”
I just look at him, and wonder if he ever thought in a million years if this was where he’d be working after he graduated high school. A place where a bunch of raggedy teenagers try to ram each other with go-karts when they go kissing their new girlfriend in public when they were only your boyfriend just yesterday!
AAARRRRGGGGHHH!
“Come on,” the attendant fusses. “Out of the go-kart.”
I step out of the wounded contraption gingerly. The smoke rising up from the wreckage hurts my eyes, and the track is super slippery so I hold the attendant’s arm when he holds it out to me. I’m starting to think that these ballerina slippers were not the most practical choice of shoe to wear go-kart racing. But that’s what happens when you let someone else pick your outfit.
I hear people laughing as I slip and slide off the track. Someone yells, “Wipe out!” I scowl in the general direction of the shout. Mario better be glad it doesn’t sound like him.
The attendant sees someone start to press the gas on their go-kart and he yanks his arm away from me to give them the signal to stop! As he yanks his arm away, he literally propels me across the slippery track. Just like my go-kart, there is no way for me to slow myself without crashing and burning. But this time, I end up on my behind in the middle of the track instead of in the tires.
“Get her off the track!” Someone screams.
The attendant looks at me and frowns. Then he practically drags me off the track, holding one of my arms and one of my feet. I’m almost one hundred percent sure that this is not protocol.
I glance over at the go-kart riders and feel so ashamed. My cream leggings are now all skidded up with the dirt from the track and my wrist and ankle are sore from where the crazy attendant dragged me off the track.
Then, horror of horrors. I look up and see Dorie taking a video of the whole thing with her iPhone. Could this day get any worse?
Cheyenne and Todrick both abandon their go-karts and follow me off the track. They take their time walking, but Todrick has on Timberland boots and Cheyenne has on sneakers, so they’re not slipping at all. I’m the only nutsy noo-noo with ballerina shoes on.
Once I’m off the track, I make a beeline for the door. I hope that Cheyenne and Todrick are behind me. We get to Cheyenne’s car and I hear her click the locks open.
I jump into the back seat and as soon as I plop down, my sobs start. Horrible, loud, ugly noises that scare me. This is the worst day ever. Someday, I’ll probably look back on all this and have a good laugh. But it won’t be today. It won’t be this week and it won’t be this year.
Cheyenne sticks her head in the door. “I’m so sorry, Zoey. I’ve got to go and get my little brother, but after that we can leave.”
“Th-thank you,” I say.
Todrick slides into the backseat next to me and puts his arm around m
y shoulder. He pulls my head into his chest and moves the hair out of my eyes, while I cry.
“Try to pull yourself together in case they come out here,” he says. “You don’t want Mario and Dorie to see you like this.”
Right now, I don’t care who sees me like what. This has got to be a dream, right? Things this ridiculous only happen in dreams.
“Pinch me,” I say to Todrick.
“Huh?” he says. “Oh . . . I’m sorry, Zoey. You are wide awake.”
Worst. Day. Ever.
4
I haven’t come out of my bedroom since the gokart incident. Both my mom and my dad fussed at me for the stunt. They both told me I could’ve been killed. They both said that they had no idea what I was thinking. My mom said she was ashamed of my actions. My dad said that I’m grounded until he forgets what I did.
Blah, blah, blah, whatever.
When they asked me why I ignored all of the safety rules of GoKart Heaven and drove like a maniac, there was nothing I could say. And the manager of GoKart Heaven made sure to tell my mother that if I ever tried something like that again, I would be banned from their facility and that she and my dad would get a fine.
So, yeah, I’ll probably be grounded until college. But who cares about being grounded? I never want to go out of my room again anyway, so they can do all the grounding they want. I really don’t care.
My mom threatened to take all my Christmas presents back. Christmas is in three days. Looks like I might not get to have my shopping spree. But who cares about shopping when I’ll never need a new outfit again?
I pull the covers up to my neck and close my eyes. This bed is the only sanctuary I have right now. I snuggle down into the warm spot that I’ve made from being here for the last twenty-four hours.
I hear a knock at my bedroom door. “Mom says that it’s time to eat!” my sister says.
“Not hungry!” I yell at the door.
I can tell she’s still standing there because I can hear her breathing.
“Go away!” I shout. “I don’t want anything to eat.”
“Mom says that you have to come down anyway. She said you can’t stay in your bed forever.”
I let out a big sigh. I know if I don’t go downstairs and show my face, that she’s just going to come up here and annoy me even more.
I stand up and wrap my comforter around my body. I don’t stop to brush my teeth or smooth my hair which is standing up in the air. I put on my glasses, because I’ve been crying too hard to put in my contacts.
When I get to the dining room, my little sister takes one look at me and bursts out laughing.
“Mom!” I say.
“Layla, stop laughing at your sister.”
“But she looks like the creature from the black lagoon!”
My mother looks me up and down and frowns. “Zoey, you do look a hot mess. I’m giving you some green tea. I think you need a laxative, too.”
A laxative? Why does she think that getting rid of poop is the cure to every ill in the world? I do not need a laxative for crying out loud! My boyfriend dumped me for a big-booty cheerleader !
My dad is the only one who shows me any pity. He genuinely looks sad for me.
“Zoey, go on back upstairs. I’ll bring you a sandwich later,” he says.
My mother glares at him, but I run over and give him a hug. My daddy! My hero! At least this proves that not every male on the planet is evil.
“Zoey,” my daddy says, “please brush your teeth when you go back upstairs, your breath smells like a sewer plant.”
I blow some breath in my hand and smell it. Whew! He’s right. Raw sewage. Maybe I do need a laxative.
Once I’m back upstairs, I do brush my teeth, but then I get right back into my still warm spot on the bed. I take out my cell phone and with much trepidation, I pull up Mario’s Facebook page. I’m afraid of what I’ll see, but some morbid thing on the inside of me makes me check it anyway.
Involuntary tears spring to my eyes when I see his wall. Now his status says, “In a Relationship”. And guess who hit the ‘like’ button. Exactly. Miss Big Booty Cheerleader herself. Dorie.
How in the heck can they be in a relationship? They’re just using that word too randomly for me. A relationship happens once you get to know someone, and you realize that everything you say around them is okay, because they totally get you. And that sometimes it’s okay to not say anything because you’re comfortable just chilling in each other’s company.
A relationship is what I thought Mario and I had. I was wrong. I think I was in a relationship, but he was not. And that’s the other thing about a relationship. It’s got to involve more than one person.
I remember the first time Mario asked me to be his girlfriend. It was at the end of last school year, our tenth grade year. We were on the bus, coming back from a glee club competition. We lost, but we were all still in a pretty good mood because we did our best. We’re really good sports about stuff like that.
But anyway, I was eating a Snickers candy bar, when Mario asked me, “Can I get a bite of your candy?”
“No!” I said. “Hungry here! This is my only dinner. I didn’t get to eat before we left the school.”
He slid in the seat next to me, which made me kind of nervous. I’d been out a few times with Mario and some other people from glee club, and he seemed cool. He also seemed like he was digging me, but I couldn’t be sure. Neither Cheyenne nor Todrick were there for me to bounce any ideas on, so I just went with what I was feeling.
“I bet if I were your boyfriend, you’d let me share,” Mario said.
“Maybe. But if you were my boyfriend, wouldn’t you care that I hadn’t eaten since lunch? Wouldn’t you want me to enjoy my candy bar?”
Mario shrugged. “Maybe I would. But boys are pretty selfish. I’d want some just to say I got my girlfriend to share. It would make me feel like a man.”
I laughed out loud. “But you’re not a man. You’re a tenth grader.”
“That’s almost the same thing. So are you going to give me a bite?” he asked.
I took a big bite of my candy bar and chewed. “Nope. You’re not my boyfriend.”
Suddenly, Mario stopped laughing and gave me a serious look. “Do you want me to be?”
I almost choked on my candy bar. He was staring at me so hard that I thought he was going to bite me instead of the Snickers.
“Are you for real?” I asked.
“If I was would you say yes?”
I swallowed the candy and tried to read his face for a clue that he was playing or tripping. But he just grinned at me and kept staring.
So I shrugged and replied, “If you were serious, I’d probably say yes.”
He laughed. “What do I have to do to get the probably into the definite category?”
“You’d just have to come out and ask me, without the games, I guess.”
Mario got up from the seat then, and went back to the rear of the bus with his friends. He said, “Enjoy your candy bar,” as he walked away.
The entire ride back to the school I thought about our conversation, and it made me feel warm inside. I definitely wanted him to be my boyfriend, and I hoped, hoped, hoped that he’d ask me again . . . the right way.
As we got off the bus, I listened to Mario joke with his boys. Someone made a fart joke that had gone on entirely too long. I guessed that the moment was over. Maybe he’d had a lapse of insanity and didn’t really mean what he’d said about the whole boyfriend request.
We all waited outside for our parents to pick us up. We were back from the competition early. We were supposed to be picked up by nine o’clock, but it was only eight thirty. Since neither Cheyenne nor Todrick is in glee club I just chilled by myself on the curb.
I remember sending Cheyenne a text. I think Mario likes me.
Her response was: He’s a jerk and a player. Tell him to step.
As I was reading her reply and laughing, Mario sat down next to me. “What’s so funny?
” he asked.
“Nothing. My friend said something cute.”
He lifted one eyebrow and grinned. Oh, how I loved when he made that face at me. That was his cutest face!
“Was it a text from your boyfriend? Is that why you’re giving me such a hard time?” he asked.
I feigned innocence. “Me! I’m not giving you a hard time. I answered all of your questions.”
“Okay, you’re right. You did. So, now, I’m asking you for real. Will you be my girlfriend? I really like you, Zoey.”
I gulped, and looked down at Cheyenne’s text. What did she know anyway? If I knew then what I know now, I would’ve listened to Cheyenne and her wise text. But at the time, I wasn’t thinking about wisdom. I was thinking about having my first boyfriend.
And that he was gorgeous! His dark hair was in a low hair cut, but it covered his head in thick waves. Then his eyelashes were so long that they brushed his cheek when he blinked. I honestly was surprised that he was interested in me. I wondered what he saw in me.
Then he told me. “You’re pretty, but you don’t go around acting like you’re the stuff, you know. You’re nice to everybody, and that’s hot. So, I want to kick it with you.”
I could barely get the words out when I replied, “I want to kick it with you too.”
But all of that is over now. It seems like it happened so long ago. I just kills me that I didn’t see any signs.
Like shouldn’t you be able to tell when someone doesn’t like you anymore?
I send Cheyenne a text. :(
She sends me one back. I kno. It’s gonna b ok. He sucks N E Way.
Since I’m stuck in my room, I turn on my music. Music always makes me feel better. And it’s Christmas time. Christmas songs are the best!
The first song that blasts through my iPod speakers is the Chris Brown version of “This Christmas.” As soon as I hear, “Hang all the mistletoe . . .” I burst into tears. That was Mario’s solo in the glee club Christmas concert.
Next track!
Now, I’m listening to Mariah Carey’s sweet voice singing “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” This is so obviously an immediate sad face. All I want for Christmas is to go back in time to when Mario was still my boyfriend.