Till We Rise

by Camila Cher Harmath

  I find it kind of odd that we are standing at the corridor, we aren’t in the hall nor in some decent place we can wait for Theodore to decide to make his appearance whenever he feels like doing it. Roth doesn’t seem to bother about our setting so I think that I don’t need to worry about stupid things like this anymore.

  "So... What happened?" he asks uninterested while looking at something on his phone. Oh yeah, Roth, your technological device is obviously more special and important than your best friend, which is an actual human being, standing in front of you.

  "Nothing," I answer trying to make him believe that nothing had really happened.

  I realize that I always attach weight to my beliefs on over exaggerating every single fucking situation, and I am one hundred percent right. Nothing happened, it’s just him feeling a little bit sad and I act like if the world was upside down. But let’s be honest, he is the one who did not want Roth to see him with puffy eyes and red cheeks. And Theodore is the one who is making me exaggerate right now.

  The worst thing is that I can't stop thinking about it and that makes me feel even more annoyed than I was before this. Please I am begging for some pills to calm myself down or I will never take care of my stuff if other one’s stuff concerns me in such way.

  Focus, Calypso, it's not that hard.

  "I grabbed some stuff to eat," I let him know.

  "Okay," Roth answers "How’s my bed?" he asks pretty serious, seconds later he starts laughing like a total dork and I don’t understand what’s the funny part about it.

  Now I get it...

  "Your bed’s fine," I say laughing a little bit.

  "Great," Roth makes a stupid gesture with his right hand that seems to express victory or something idiot like that.

  "If I wanted to fuck a guy I wouldn’t ask a friend to lend me his bed, you know," I say a little bit disgusted, not about the part of fucking someone but because fucking someone at Roth’s place makes me feel uncomfortable just with the thought of it.

  "Oh Cal, you’re a saint," he says sarcastically.

  "I am," I agree with him. I am. I don’t know what he means.

  "Why are we standing at the corridor like total dorks?” Roth asks joking, pulling a little smirk.

  "I just don’t know what to do with The—"

  "With whom?" Theodore speaks by the room’s door. I turn around surprised to look at him, who is standing with his hand on the nape of his neck. Theo’s eyes are less puffed up than they were before but his jowl is still bittersweet, his hair is all messed up and so are his clothes. It seems like we had had some action in there, I wish we had, to be honest.

  "Woah, woah, woah" Roth begins to yell at both of us "It looks like you did something over there, Calypso," I know what he means, I feel you, Roth. Now he is looking a little bit pissed off at me but I know when Roth gets assuredly angry and for sure this is not the case.

  "It’s not her fault," Theodore exclaimed, approaching me.

  "It’s your fault then?" Roth inquires looking directly at Theo.

  "Yes," he answers.

  "No" I shout.

  "Yes, Calypso," Theodore says to me with a look of happiness. Why is he smiling? I don't get it. Why is everybody so weird? Including myself, obviously.

  He is nearer me now and when he settles himself behind me, he grabs my waist and places his head above mine. I don’t know if I am going to faint, start running and shouting that I am the happiest girl in Boston or maybe I am just going to scream that I am the happiest girl but of the entire world. All I know is that I am smiling and all this happiness is making my face ache, it seems like if I had never smiled before.

  His hands are warm and soft, and I can barely feel the beat of his heart, which is not as accelerated as my own. From time to time, Theo moves his fingers tenderly caressing my waist and the back of my spine, just where his hands are perfectly settled.

  I would love to see his face at this moment but it is impossible, so I decide to look at Roth, who seems confused. He is staring at Theo’s hands as if it bothers him, which I know it obviously doesn’t since he is gay.. I look at him crooking my smile because there’s nothing else I can do.

  "I don’t know what's going between the both of you guys but would you mind if I, uh, ask you to leave?" Roth asks out of place.

  What? My best friend is kicking me out of his place? Not only me but also my other friend or whatever me and Theodore are. It’s just disrespectful and I can’t accept any of this shit from Roth. First the argument before he told me his thing with Terrence and now this?

  "No, we were about to leave," Theodore kindly says to Roth, taking his hands off my waist and instantly starting to walk directly to the hall.

  "Yeah, we were, but I can’t believe it," I add furiously staring at Roth with anger.

  "Believe what, Cal?" Roth asks innocently but at the same time he knows what I mean.

  "THAT YOU ARE KICKING US OUT", I yell at him crossed. "I am disappointed, Roth, I can’t believe the way you are acting lately," I add; now I am not feeling angry anymore, I am beyond question disconcerted.

  I resent when I get displeased at Roth because I hate everything about his fucking name thanks to its shortness and friendliness. The thing is that I can’t shout "Roth" and sound furious, it doesn’t sound like I am pissed off and it pisses me off even more.

  "It’s my house, I want to be alone," he adds pretty calmed. SHOUT TO ME, I AM SHOUTING AT YOU, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

  "GOD, ROTH," I add totally frustrated. That's the thing with his name again.

  I take a look at the hall and Theodore has already grabbed our stuff; he is now standing beside the entrance door with his coat –that I love so much– and my backpack over one of his shoulders, such a gentleman.

  He is looking at me peacefully, it seems that he doesn’t want to get into trouble so he just stays quiet and does whatever Roth wants us to do.

  I start walking fast towards Theo and when I reach the door, I turn my gaze to Roth –who is smiling like an asshole– then I nod closing my both eyes. I am trying to make him feel like a total failure but he obviously doesn’t care because I am only one of his more than two thousand friends.

  "Take care, Cal," Roth says kind of shouting.

  "Don’t you ever call me Cal again," I speak while staring at Roth from the distance with a look of sadness and furrowing my eyebrows, trying to look as if I am hurt; I am, but I am more annoyed than hurt. He is acting like a total dork, he did not even say hi to Theo and come on, we are not in kindergarten anymore. We are in college, we are adults or at least we should act like if we were one of them.

  I open the door and walk straight to my car, Theo is still inside the house and I wonder what he is doing. If he was one of those shitty boyfriends he would now be punching Roth’s face but he is not like that, or that’s what I believe.

  I am waiting him inside my red Trux. I am a little bit ashamed for the whole situation and the fact that maybe Theo is having a bad argument with my "friend".

  I have to admit that I appreciate that he let us stay at his house for some hours, but he has to be a little bit nicer with me because when he confessed that he was in a relationship with a man, I really supported him. But now I told him that I am kind of going out with a possible-something-more-than-friends and he doesn’t give a shit. That’s not the way I would like to be treated by anyone, especially by Roth.

  Suddenly, Theodore opens the door and gets inside the car, sitting on the passenger seat. I did not notice him walking towards the car because I was concentrated on my thoughts and some birds flying.

  "What happened?" I ask him immediately. I am absolutely curious.

  "Nothing, really," he answers listless.

  "What took you so long?" I ask him again.

  "I apologized to Roth," Theo says in a tone of shame.

  "What for, Theo?" I ask without understanding why.

  "Because I felt like doing it," he says emotionless.

  "Interesting
…" I start talking "He doesn’t deserve your forgiveness, Mr. Kowalsky," I approach him a little bit.

  "Woah, Calypso, are you sure you want to call me like that?" he inquires with a mysterious smile on his face.

  "Absolutely," I confess.

  "It’s strange, nobody, except professors and stuff, has ever called me Mr. Kowalsky before," Theodore speaks while touching his messed up hair. He is looking so damn sexy, to be honest, I don’t want to look at anybody else but him for the rest of my life.

  "Nobody? Well... Nobody ever called me Lypso," I add in a low tone of voice, I am kind of whispering. I want to make everything more special and try to be a little bit sensual. I am so stupid I want to laugh at myself.

  "The first time I heard your name, I instantly thought about Lypso, I don’t know why," he is quietly staring at me, his both eyes are on mines “But now I look at you and that’s the only thing that comes up into my mind. Lypso… Amazing," he smiles, not at me but to himself, as if he is proud of what he has just said.

  "You are weird," I say "But I like it." I feel partially uncomfortable right now, indeed, I have just confessed that I like him. Well, I did not say literally I like you but it’s the same to me. I like something about him and that means I like him or at least like ONE thing about him. Okay, I need to be honest with myself; I like him a lot, end point. I should stop thinking about liking this guy because maybe it’s showing and he already knows how much I crave him.

  "Do you?" he asks several seconds later.

  WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO ANSWER?

  "I mean... Do you mind if I call you Lypso?" Theo adds.

  Oh my God, thank you.

  "I prefer Calypso. Nevertheless, I told you that you could call me whatever you wanted to," I try to sound calmed and not like those annoying bitches that remember every little detail of everything, in fact, I am one of those but I want to pretend that I am not.

  "I don't want to bother you," he asserts, making a nice grin that I have seen before but don't know what it's supposed to mean. Is he serious? Is he joking? I will never know.

  "Theo, you don't bother me," I take a look at his face and try to figure out what's going on inside that little head of his. "The last thing you do is annoy me," I give up, I don't know what he is thinking, I wish I had some of those powers to read people’s minds, that would be cool, except for the fact that I would be able to know how much of a failure I am, because people think a lot and they are cruel.

  "Why are you so nice to me?" Theodore interrupts my deep thoughts.

  "What?" I directly answer his question, he is the one who is nice with everybody and I am not. "What do you mean?" I add afterwards.

  "You are absolutely nice to me," he repeats "I mean, I was sad and you tried to console me and that's so nice from you," he adds intertwining his fingers, looking charming. "Also, you bring me food, now you are taking me back to college. Besides, you had an argument with your best friend because of me and you're still he—"

  "It was not because of you," I reject his response. It was definitely not about him, something is wrong with Roth and it has nothing to do with me or with Theo.

  "Yes, he was mad at me because he likes you." He says lowering his voice.

  "What?" I ask "WHAT?" I repeat "Ew, no." Just the thought about it makes me sick. God, Roth, no.

  "Yeah, the way he looks at you," he keeps speaking like if he is murmuring shyly.

  "He is my friend," I affirm, crossing my both arms and taking a deep breath. I can’t even think about having something more than a friendship with him. Why is Theodore capable of thinking about it? He genuinely did not realize that I am so into him yet.

  "But that doesn't mean he can't be in love with you," he seems a little bit sad and confused, I don’t know if this is right or wrong. Maybe I should feel special because he is feeling low about Roth liking me.

  "He is not, Theodore" I laugh because I don’t know what to do, as always.

  "I bet he is" He challenges me.

  "No, please" He doesn’t realize that there’s no chance that Roth can look at me that way. He barely cares about me as a friend and he doesn’t even think that I am pretty or something of the sort.

  "What's wrong with it, Calyp—?"

  "He's gay," I interrupt him.

  "I didn't see that coming," his face changes completely, he is now smiling like a little kid, as if I had told him that we are going to Disneyland.

  "Oh my god, I am such an idiot," I start screaming and regretting what I have just said. "Oh no, I screw everything up." I press my face into my hands, nodding and sighing.

  "It's okay, I won't tell anyone. I can forget about it," Theo says while caressing my right cheek with his soft and gentle hand.

  "Can we just don't talk ever again about this?" I ask him with a tone of regret. I hate myself and I don't understand why I always end up screwing everything.

  "About what?" He says curious, pulling a face that shows uncertainty.

  "Thanks" I let him know, crooking my smile. He is looking back at me expressing tenderness, making me feel cherished.

  I start the engine and make my way to college. It's not supposed to be this way, I am not the one who has to take care of anyone, I need someone to take care of me and l know he is the one whose support I want to provide myself with at the moment. Anyway, I know it's not the time yet.

  Probably we are not ready.

  Maybe I am not ready.

  Perhaps I am over thinking.

  I don’t know what I am doing.

  I keep doing it anyway.

  I might be in love.

  Who cares? It’s already done.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Theodore has already gotten into campus and I am now about to arrive home. I knew that I did not have to think about what it was likely to happen with him, I mean, I guess that he likes me but that is not the reason why I should have believed that he was going to kiss me right away.

  I felt that in the moment he said “good-bye, Calypso” and “thanks for the ride” he was literally going to kiss me, and I was right; he did kiss me, but in my forehead. It was pretty nice, to be honest, but I expected a lot more, not from him, but from me. I expected maybe that my inner woman would be able to face her issues and insecurities and passionately kiss the man I believe to be in love with, before leaving myself alone as a cow in the car.

  I feel that I have two persons inside my body (or my head, I don’t know); one is for words –who is genuinely stupid, because stupid things always come out of my mouth– and the other one is for actions –and that side of me is stupid too. I define my “persons” as different types of stupidity, one of them is always more stupid than the other one. When I speak, this thing makes me say something stupid and when I act –or I don’t– I act even more stupid because obviously someone inside me makes me act in this way.

  In conclusion, I don’t have anything in my body, it is just me pretending that I am not stupid by blaming some weird entity I guess I have inside me and the only thing I can assure is that I am the only one who is certainly stupid.

  Lots of stupidity in one thought.

  I hate my stupid self.

  I do not know why I didn’t kiss Theodore. God.

  We did not kiss because, of course, this stuff is not destined to ever happen to Calypso Von Steemberg, I am not that type of a lucky person. You ought to know that, because I do.

  I do not want to stay inside my car wondering what the hell to do with my life, I need more adventure because surely I have lots of drama, I am kind of a drama queen; I can turn a lovely situation into a dramatic one just with my thoughts. That’s how I work; If something is going okay, I will freak out and make it bad, really bad.

  Now I think is time to review what had happened ten minutes ago with my lovely friend, boy, something, partner, hottie, whatever the hell our “relationship” –if we have one– is assumed to be.

  We were not speaking at all, all I could hear was his stirred breathing.
He seemed completely tensed with no apparent reason; his hands were closed as fists. Maybe he was afraid of my driving. Well, Theodore, next time I think you should take a bus if that is the reason why you were acting so strange and making myself feel like I have done something extremely out of place, because I don’t get it, truly. And I am not that kind of person that somebody can mess up with, because whatever you do, I will take it a hundred percent personally, even if it is not about me at all.

  The first time he spoke was when he gave me the directions to get to campus, I knew how to get there but anyway, I shut myself up and listened carefully to his say.

  “Turn left onto Cummington Street,” his voice spoke softly and a little bit trembling.

  I was conscious about what I had to do, I kind of drive to this fucking university every single day of the week, but I am glad he decided to speak to me after a while.

  I have a little affection to Boston’s city, it’s always pretty crowded and traffic is hideous, but I like it. If you ask me, I believe that is like a little New York or Los Angeles; it’s nice to the eye but not as big as them.

  I have lived here for my whole life, I never moved from home and I have no intentions to, so that’s why I know every single street from head to toe; sometimes it’s great because I don’t need a GPS but I don’t believe that human beings are perfect machines and they don’t make any mistakes, because I am human and I make mistakes, and when I do, I always end up blaming my lack of GPS.

  Whatever, we reached one of the campus and I parked somewhere I thought I was allowed to but I wasn’t; I didn’t realize that I was definitely in a wrong place until I decided to leave and some bald ass-face officer told me that next time I will have to pay some penalty. Let me think about it officer... HOW ABOUT NO?

  “Thanks for the ride,” Theodore approached my face, staring directly at my both eyes and lips simultaneously. He seemed calmed, he was pulling that peculiar smile of his; I wish it was eternal, though it actually is, in my mind.

  He grabbed my face from the nape of my neck with his warm hand and pressed his lips tenderly in my forehead, right above my scowl, for a matter of seconds.