Losing You

by Corina Eichholz

  “It was hil-arious!” Tiffany laughed with Megan.

  “What’s so funny?” Cody asked, slapping Meg’s butt.

  “Hey!” she scolded, pretending to be angry but stepping closer to him. Girls like that annoyed me, especially when they already had boyfriends.

  “It’s just in history, Michaela,” Tiffany started, pronouncing her name wrong, before bursting into a laughing fit. I looked over at Michaela, who was wearing grey sweatpants and the mandatory gym shirt. She was just as skinny as Tiffany now, which was very skinny but I found her a lot prettier, maybe because she was natural. There was no makeup caked on her face or just because she was a genuinely good person. She was with her friend Tara, who was laughing hard as well and holding her stomach while Mickey looked neither impressed or happy. What’s so funny? I wondered about them curiously.

  “Mr. Renner made her stand in front of the class so he could stare at her boobs!” Tiff stated, doubling over, tears were coming out of her eyes. “It was so funny, she just stood there and waited and turned no joke, bright red and then covered her chest and asked to sit! And still he stared!” Tiffany continued to laugh.

  “That’s creepy,” I said feeling both disgusted and angry. How did they let creeps like him teach?

  “And hilarious, the only guy she can get is an old teacher!” Cody chuckled.

  “Guess she’ll have no problem passing,” Meg added. Mickey never had trouble passing, she was way too smart, smarter than all of them.

  “Let’s go see what groups we are in,” I said, having had enough. I was in group four, with Brent, Tiffany, Alex, and Sarah. Great, Brent hadn’t liked me since we stopped hanging out. I stopped hanging out with him because he was considered uncool, well more of a reject who loved Star Wars, we used to be good friends before I became popular.

  “Yay, we’re together!” Tiff said grabbing my hand and pulling me to the line for group four.

  “Yeah,” I said tiredly. Cody followed behind us.

  “Lucky you two. My group sucks, I’m with Lloyd the freak, Derek the giant, Sam the loser and worst of all Michaela, the stalker,” he said, mispronouncing her name again. “At least I can make fun of her,” he said as an afterthought. Tiffany laughed delightedly.

  I remembered when Mickey and I were still close, we always used to make fun of people like Tiffany and the popular group.

  “They’re all posers or they’re actually just a group of mean people, that are considered cool for some unknown reason. I prefer to believe the first, don’t ever let me act like them. Promise?” she said as we watched TV on her bed. I promised her I’d never let her become one of them but I never promised that I wouldn’t. Did it actually make Tiffany happy to know someone would be bullied? Because it didn’t for me, but maybe Tiffany was never bullied like I was or even at all. I gave a weak laugh, feeling a little sick again. Mickey and I had been avoiding each other ever since that day almost two years ago and now she was all anybody was talking about. All these feelings that I’d buried and had been keeping hidden resurfaced.

  “You okay, James?” Tiffany asked, putting my arm around her small waist, a place it didn’t want to go.

  “Yeah,” I lied, pulling her closer, not that I liked Tiffany like that but I had an image to maintain; hot, smoldering, bad boy. Brent watched me and Tiff walk over and then completely ignored me. Good start, I thought sarcastically.

  “Hey guys,” I said smiling at all of them, especially Brent, but there was no luck he didn’t even look at me. “What’s up?” I asked, trying to kill the awkward buzz around us but all I got were some shoulder shrugs, making it all the more uncomfortable.

  “Is Derek going to kick Cody’s ass?” Shannon asked that Tara girl who was friends with Mickey. What? I wondered a little worried about Cody, he wasn’t the smartest person in the world and he was often pissing people off, including me. If there was a fight, there’d be no question who would win: Cody the entitled rich boy or Derek the freaking house. I turned to my left to where Shannon was pointing and watched along with everyone else.

  “I hope he does, Cody’s an asshole,” Tara said, looking amused. Derek was up close to Cody and smacking his fist into his hand while Mickey stood behind, looking both embarrassed and stressed out. I could just imagine what Derek was saying, “this hand is your face and this is my fist, do the math, rich boy.” Except in my mind Derek’s voice sounded like Lou Ferrigno and Mickey wouldn’t be looking so embarrassed. I practically jumped on Cody the minute we were alone in the locker rooms.

  “What happened with you and Derek?” I asked frantically, instead of casual like I’d been planning to do ever since I saw them argue.

  “Whoa,” he said, stepping back a little. “I was just picking on Michaela and then Derek was like ‘leave her alone, she’s mine’,” he said making quotation marks in the air with his fingers. Hell no! He’s a jock, a complete meathead, he was definitely not good enough for Mick in the least. He couldn’t even keep up with her level of intellect if he tried.

  “He said that?” I asked, feeling weird all of a sudden.

  “No, but I could tell he was thinking it,” he admitted, putting on an orange polo shirt.

  “So what did he actually say!” I was getting really frustrated with all of Cody’s shit.

  “Just that he didn’t like bullies, jeez. What’s wrong with you? Ali holding out?” he asked perturbed.

  “What? No.” On the contrary the opposite, she was the one pressuring me but I wasn’t going to tell Cody about my love life or anything personal. We were not actually real friends, it was just for appearances, I wouldn’t trust him with anything.

  “Hey, baby,” Ali said, jumping into my arms at the end of school.

  “Hey,” I responded. She kissed me hard, not passionately just hard. Like ow, can lips bruise? Then she pulled back and licked her lips slowly but not in a sexy way, it was way too much tongue and much too slow, resulting in a huge turn off.

  “I haven’t seen you in forever. We don’t have any classes together.” She pouted, frowning. Forever as in since lunch, I hated it when people were so melodramatic. I nodded like I understood and shared in her sorrow.

  “Yeah, this year is going to suck,” I said knowing that’s what she wanted to hear.

  “No! It’s our senior year, there will be prom and we have lots of time to have fun.” She grinned seductively and started running her fingers down my body. I grabbed her hands before they entered private territory, we were in the middle of the hall for God’s sake. I saw Mickey’s brown-blue eyes walking closer and my heart started to quicken like it often did when she was near. I grabbed Ali’s face and started kissing her, she was all too happy and began to windmill her tongue in my mouth as she rubbed her body up against mine. It was not an attractive sight to see but Mickey was sure to notice. Why did I want to make her notice so much? She hates me, I hate her, we hate each other, the math was easy and math wasn’t even my best subject, so if I got it, it was definitely a no-brainer.

  Michaela

  What the hell is wrong with James! First, he gives me a compliment in homeroom, which was completely weird and then I find out he’s the one who started all the rumors! I know we both hate each other but still what’s his problem? I haven’t spoken to him in almost two years and he’s being an ass now! And Ali, ew. Everyone knows she can’t keep it in her pants but then again, I guess that’s why he’s with her. From the disgusting display of tonsil hockey and clothed sex, I guess they’re doing great and both getting what they want.

  “What’s up with you?” My evil stepsister Reggie asked.

  I have three step sisters, two older and one younger. Reggie, short for Regina, Gert or Gertie, short for Gertrude and Paix, no nickname. Her name was French for peace, even though she was the farthest thing from peaceful, so yeah, we all had weird names. I liked to think of mine as the least weird and for that I was grateful.

  “Nothing,” I said and headed for my room, homework free. That’s the one
thing I like about the first day, usually you don’t get a lot of homework, if any. I didn’t cry, like I had thought I would. Instead I turned on my music and let the song fill my room and bring me to another place and another time when I had my best friend who I was safe with and who didn’t laugh at my foolish mistakes. But that was another time, we were in the present and I had to learn to get over the past. The one thing I wasn’t able to do no matter how hard I tried. I looked out my window and watched the clouds move through the blue sky, nothing stopping them. I wished I were a cloud and I could just move on without anything stopping me, the wind moving me in different directions, new paths but never stopping. Even when you don’t see them, they’re still there, still moving, stopping for no one and nothing.

  The light in James’s room flicked on. I wondered when he got home and if he and Ali did anything before that. Stop, present not past Mickey, I scolded myself. But still my thoughts wandered to James no matter how hard I tried to stop them.

  “Mick, dinner’s ready,” Paix said startling me, standing behind me in full on goth clothes. I hadn’t even heard her come in. I hoped I wasn’t staring at James’s room for that long, trying to look into the place I used to spend almost the same amount of time as I did my own room. “What are you looking at?” she asked, moving closer to me now.

  “Nothing,” I said quickly, walking to the door and leaving. She went to the window to look but then followed me out as well.

  Dinner was quiet as usual when dad was off on business, which was often. Conversation consisted of mostly: pass the rice or I want the chicken leg. It was even the same if we had guests, unless dad was home, then we’d be allowed to talk. My stepmom Alyssa cut her food up small and ate very slowly, I believe they all had eating disorders but Alyssa was by far the worst. She barely ate at all and she would always try to make it look like she did. She would cut her food up very small, making it look like she had more and would take ages to eat it.

  Alyssa had curly strawberry blonde hair like all my step sisters, even though they all straightened it out flat, and all their faces were dusted with freckles that went with their blue Norwegian eyes. Whenever we went out it was obvious I wasn’t related, with my olive skin and multi-colored eyes and dark brown hair that was naturally straight.

  “Dinner was great, Alyssa,” I complimented when I finished and excused myself. I never called Alyssa mom. She wasn’t and never would be, even though she’d been in my life for almost eight years now, longer than I’d ever gotten with my own mother. My mom died when I was seven, my mom and stepdad Miguel died in a car crash. That’s when I came to live with dad permanently, and then a few years later Alyssa moved in. I have many memories of my mom and dad; well, stepdad but I never thought of him like that. I’d known him since I was born and he even saw me before my birth father. Hell, he even named me. My mom and Miguel loved me, Alyssa had never loved me, she was nice to me for my father but that’s as far as it went. I guess I never cared that much because I had my mom and Miguel’s love and that was enough for me to last a lifetime. I felt their love every time they looked at me, in every smile or kiss goodnight. In every whisper or even a frown, they still loved me and never let me forget.

  “Mike!” Gert shouted, coming into my room. There was no such thing as privacy here. We might be in the same grade and have the same classes together, but we were the farthest thing from similar and that was besides our looks. First off, Gert was a cheerleader. Yeah, she jumped around half-dressed showing off her body and then slept with half the football team. Not that all the cheerleaders did that, Gert just had no shame. She was popular, whereas I was the farthest thing from popular and she was mean as well. She was a poser like the rest of the popular crowd. She spent over an hour each morning getting ready, while I took ten minutes, maybe fifteen tops. Oh, and she was a real bitch to everyone, even her friends and as for me, I was a bitch only to those who truly deserved it.

  “What?” I asked, annoyed by her disgusted look at me.

  “You’re stalking James! I can’t believe you! How do you think this makes me look? We may not be related but we live together, what do you think people will say? Knowing I live with a freak. I have a reputation and you are not going to ruin it, after all I did to get it,” she said venomously, pointing her finger at me in an accusatory way, like I was a dog or something. All you did to get it? More like how many people you slept with and rumors you spread to buddy up with Tiffany and her crowd.

  “You must be off your freaking chariot if you think I’d ever stalk James!” I shouted completely pissed off now. If anyone knew I hated James it would be her, after all she was a major part of the reason he abandoned me and we stopped being friends.

  “Whatever, just stop being a freak and think about somebody else for a change,” she shrieked, storming out. Me! I was tempted to throw my bedside table at the selfish cow. Me selfish! Ha, that was a laugh. Who did the dishes and babysat Paix whenever Alyssa went out? Who helped her with her Spanish whenever she needed help and with any other subject? Me. And I got nada, zip, zilch, rien, nothing. I used to feel I had to help, she was my step sister after all, but now she was just a bitch who pushed me one step too far. I was already pissed before but now I was raging. I put on the mix CD James had made me once, it had all of our favorite songs on it and then at the end, three calming tracks. I chose the sounds of the ocean for now. The ocean sounds were the sound of the waves crashing lightly and if I followed the steps James had taught me, I’d start calming down. When my sisters were always pissing me off James would distract me or think of things to cool me down and make me forget.

  “Close your eyes now, breathe in, breathe out, listen to the waves,” he’d told me. “Now imagine you’re at the beach okay, the sun is shining. It’s a beautiful day,” he’d say.

  “What about seagulls? And those annoying children that are always crying and throwing sand at you?” I asked him, being difficult.

  He smiled at me, “They’re all gone and all the seagulls went to another beach, there’s no one around, it’s peaceful and quiet,” he said rubbing my temples.

  “I’m alone? That’s no fun, no one likes being alone.” I complained.

  “You’re not alone, I’m there.” He laughed quietly, like it was a silly thing to say. “I’ll always be there for you,” he whispered. Always my ass! I switched tracks to the windy one, with the wind chimes sounding every so often but that day was still in my head, that feeling I always got when I was around him still lingered in my bones, tattooed there for life. I just had to work around those feelings, work with the challenge and overcome it, like Mrs. Becker had told me.

  James

  I looked out my window and up at the moon. It was a crescent moon tonight and glowing orange, part of it was covered by clouds. It was pretty. I wondered what Ali would think, she probably wouldn’t care or would ask if I thought it was prettier than her. She was very insecure. There’s only one person I knew who enjoyed the moon and the stars as much as me and that was Mickey, but I’d lost her and anything we had. That night was kind of like this one and I remembered it crystal clear. It was a very dark night, not many stars shining, only the moon was lighting up the almost black sky. The chilly wind went through the trees every now and then, giving you goosebumps and Mickey, her face when I said all those hurtful words, the way she put a hand to her heart and stood there frozen and then all the tears that came from her eyes and how her lips quivered, they shook so much she couldn’t speak and then, the way I left her like that, crying on my front lawn and drove away with Gert, Tiff and the guys. It was cold, even the guys said I was harsh but they all got what they wanted and didn’t complain, and after a few beers we were all laughing about it and coming up with things we could say the next time we saw her and boy, most of them we did.

  I looked out to her room, our rooms faced each other, which used to have been useful because we could communicate by blinds or launching paper airplanes through our windows whenever we got in trouble or jus
t weren’t allowed out, now it seemed like a burden. Her curtains were open and her light was on so I had a perfect view of her sitting cross-legged on her bed. I wanted to ask her what she was doing, just sitting there. I even put my hands to the pulley for my blind subconsciously, we had communicated by them so many times but everything was different now. I quickly shut the blinds before she noticed me staring at her. That wasn’t okay, especially since I was the one who spread rumors about her stalking me. I’d spent more time today thinking about Mickey than I had in awhile and I felt terrible. The guilt ate at me.

  “Why are you sulking? It was the first day of school, new beginnings, fresh starts, they’re supposed to be fun and here you are in the dark, frowning and being Mr. Grumpy Gills,” June said, jumping on my bed next to me. As far as sisters went, June and I were pretty close.

  “Save your psychiatry for someone who needs it,” I groaned at her, annoyed.

  “If you tell me what’s wrong, grumpy gills,” she said in a childish voice, which I was used to ever since she decided she wanted to be an elementary school teacher. I groaned again, if there was one thing about June, it was how stubborn she was. If she had her mind set on something it was sure to happen, even if it seemed impossible. How was I going to lie my way out of this one?

  “I want to dump Ali,” I said, surprising myself. I hadn’t even been thinking of her and the words popped out of my mouth but what was more surprising was that it was the truth. I know Ali might be pretty and popular, but she was so whiny and complained about everything and never wanted to talk, it was only about hooking up. She wasn’t real and wasn’t into me, just my looks. We never did anything. God, I felt like I was acting like a girl, if I told anyone this, they would never let me live it down. My sister’s white teeth shone in the dark moonlight, telling me she had a big grin on. “What?” I asked.