Dear Diary...

by L. M. Reed

  Chapter 12

  Dear Diary,

  Felicia and I have dates.

  CeeCee

  By the time we finished our run, Mark had been fully informed about everything I wanted him to know. I couldn’t tell anyone about the weird mixed up feelings I was having about Nick, especially Nick’s roommate, brother or not.

  When we arrived back at the house, the mixed up feelings were even more indecipherable. Mom and Nick were sitting on the couch laughing and talking as if they’d known each other for years. I wanted to cry, throw up, and shake them both, all at the same time.

  Instead, I said goodnight, smiled—probably more of a grimace—and headed upstairs to take my shower. Mark would just have to wait for his.

  While standing under the spray, I replayed our “running” conversation in my mind. After regaling Mark with my fascinating tale, he had informed me that:

  1. He and Nick were spending the night. Nick had an inflatable mattress that he was going to put on the floor in Mark’s room.

  2. Church attendance in the morning was mandatory.

  He’d already invited Felicia for me; I didn’t argue. The first one was totally out of my control, and the second one was something I needed to do anyway. I had a lot to answer for.

  After cleaning off my bed, I fell asleep almost immediately, worn out from the day’s emotional upheavals.

  I slept like a log.

  Up at 5:30 as usual to run, I felt more refreshed than I had in a long time. As I reached the front door, I realized I had forgotten my cell phone. Turning around quickly, I ran into a brick wall.

  “Whoa,” the brick wall whispered, holding my shoulders to steady me.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I hissed furiously reacting violently to the feel of his hands and shrugging to dislodge them.

  “Following you,” Nick replied calmly releasing me, “or I was until you decided to turn around and ram me. Did you forget something?”

  “My cell phone…not that it’s any of your business,” I answered rudely, “and why were you following me?”

  “I jog every morning,” as if that explained everything.

  “So?” I asked belligerently.

  “You know where the jogging trail is,” he explained with exaggerated patience as if I were a child he had to humor.

  “Fine,” I huffed, “but don’t expect me to slow down for you.”

  “I doubt that will be a problem,” he replied in amusement, and as I attempted to get past him, he added, “I have my cell phone, don’t worry about yours.”

  With that, he spun me around and shoved me out of the house.

  Without waiting for him to close the door, and trying not to think about how muscular he looked in his white t-shirt and jean cutoffs, I took off running.

  I always did my stretching up in my room before starting out, but I spitefully hoped he hadn’t.

  Serve him right if he got a cramp, I thought angrily, pushing himself on me like this.

  As a general rule, I ran to the jogging trail in the mornings—which was approximately a mile away—and counted it as part of my run, but sometimes at night, in deference to my parent’s idea of safety, I used to drive.

  My mom had, unintentionally I was sure, taken away that option by being gone in the evenings—I certainly wasn’t going to drive that blue monstrosity that was sitting silently on the grass next to the garage—but since I preferred to run anyway, I was glad to have the excuse.

  Surprisingly, Nick stayed even with me the whole way there. I figured he would run out of steam, kept hoping he would, but he wasn’t breathing any harder than I was, and his legs were longer so he was taking fewer steps. I found myself hoping I would be able to keep up with him.

  Thankfully, he was silent.

  With Mark, I usually kept up a stream of chatter the whole time. There were a few reasons for that:

 

  1. I had to slow my pace for him; he wasn’t much of a jogger, so I had extra energy for talking.

  2. I hated to waste any of my precious time with him…he was home so seldom.

  3. He always said my chatting distracted him from the pain that the running was inflicting on him, equating it with Chinese torture.

  Running with Nick, it was all I could do to hold my own. Talking was out of the question.

  Suddenly, it was very important that I didn’t fall behind. The one thing that I did well, my one talent, and it was as if Nick was testing me. I was not going to give up the first time I had any real competition, especially since it was Nick.

  I had been so disappointed in my performance the previous year on the cross country and track teams. The blisters on my feet from the whole “dance incident” had made running so excruciating that I hadn’t even placed at district cross country.

  Then, of all things, I caught some sort of stomach thing right before the district track meet that spring and didn’t even get to compete. Felicia and I had it at the same time so in order for Dad not to catch it I was sent to stay at Felicia’s house until I wasn’t contagious any longer. Mrs. Blanton had taken very good care of us both, even though we had run her ragged. She was a very patient lady.

  Whenever I drove to the park, I always ran the whole five-mile length of the trail, but I would use the three-mile cutoff point if I were also running the two-mile roundtrip from the house.

  We reached the three-mile cutoff point and, as much as I wanted to see if he could last the whole seven miles, I wasn’t going to make it. Without a word, I took the cutoff, and he followed suit.

  By the time we returned home, I was exhausted, panting furiously, and drenched with sweat. We hadn’t said a word since leaving the house.

  “Do you want to shower first,” I asked politely, trying not to sound too out of breath.

  “Ladies first,” he answered just as politely and disgustingly not out of breath…either that or he was better at faking it than I was.

  That thought lifted my spirits a bit.

  I grabbed a cold water bottle out of the fridge and headed upstairs to take my shower.

  Mom was cooking breakfast by the time I got downstairs: eggs and bacon. As I put bread in the toaster, we chatted easily about nothing in particular.

  Nick came down first, and I could hear Mark in the shower. I seldom took a hot shower since my goal was to cool off after running, especially in the summer heat, but even so, our fifty-gallon hot water heater would be taking a beating.

  “Good morning, Allison,” Nick greeted her cheerfully. Since when had he started calling her Allison? “Anything I can do to help?”

  Brownnoser, I thought resentfully.

  “Why don’t you get some plates down?” Mom answered, pointing to the correct cupboard, “To the left of the sink.”

  I put the buttered toast on the table, and started with the silverware. Being a home economics teacher, my mom thought it vitally important that I knew how to set a table properly and had trained me from a young age.

  I used to grumble under my breath about it, wondering who would ever care about where the silly fork should go but, once again, I was thankful for Mom’s training.

  Mom and Nick carried the conversation…I was suddenly tongue-tied. With all of us working together, we had everything on the table by the time Mark got downstairs.

  As we sat down to eat, Mom asked Mark to bless the food. Whenever we had eaten together in the past, Dad or Mark would always say a prayer before the meal. We hadn’t eaten together in so long that just thinking about it brought a lump into my throat.

  Then my stomach started doing somersaults as I realized that Mom assumed that we would also carry out the other part of the tradition…all holding hands.

  She reached for Mark’s hand first, then Nick’s.

  I had no choice. Placing my hand in Mark’s, I felt Nick take my other one and my face suddenly seemed to be on fire. I fervently
hoped everyone had their eyes closed; I had mine closed so tightly I could feel the beginnings of a headache. Good, I hoped that would distract me from the strange feelings in my stomach as well as my whole arm.

  Nick’s thumb began absentmindedly rubbing gently across the back of my hand…not helping!

  As Mark ended the prayer and released my hand with the customary squeeze, he gave me a quick, questioning look. I had been squeezing the life out of Mark’s hand without realizing it, while desperately trying to keep my other hand limp in Nick’s…a fine line to walk.

  I ate very little. I seemed to be having difficulty swallowing. Downing a whole glass of orange juice since I was inexplicably dry-mouthed, I quickly excused myself to get ready for church. I needed time to pull myself together.

  I tried to stay as far away from Nick as possible for the rest of the morning.

  Mom insisted that she and I sit in the back seat of the car in order for Nick and Mark to have as much legroom as possible.

  After picking up Felicia and squeezing her in between us, we headed to church.

  We arrived in plenty of time for Mom to visit a bit, and I was happy to note that she had a bit more sparkle…greeting people, stopping to chat, and asking after everyone. While she was meeting and greeting, Felicia and I found seats in the auditorium.

  A small group of girls, probably somewhere in their twenties, waylaid Mark and Nick. Although Felicia and I rolled our eyes at each other, my insides were twisting into knots, and I was angry. I should have been glad, hoping that those girls would convince Nick to sit with them, but instead I was angry with him for stopping to talk to them.

  Mark must be the reason, I told myself firmly.

  That was it…I didn’t want anyone trying to take him away from me when we had so little time together. Yeah, sure, that was it. It had nothing whatsoever to do with Nick. It couldn’t have anything to do with Nick. I didn’t even like him.

  Mom sat down by me, and patted my hand. Mark and Nick showed up, finally, right as the service began. Mark slid in next to Mom and Nick took the aisle seat.

  Being two removed from Nick, I could actually concentrate on the church service.

  I loved singing. I hadn’t inherited the beautiful soprano voice of my mother’s, but I had learned how to sing alto. I secretly thought that alto was much more fun than soprano, but I did envy Mom’s voice at times; it was so sweet and clear.

  Although she never talked about her childhood, she had let slip that her mother had required her to take voice and piano lessons for years, which was why she never wanted to force me into that. I had allowed her to attempt to teach me piano, but I had barely made it to intermediate.

  Mark wouldn’t touch the piano. He had a nice tenor voice, though. Mom and Dad had insisted that he learn enough about music to be able to sing. He hadn’t inherited Dad’s deep bass voice, but I loved singing with him.

  Dad…I missed that bass voice. I missed him. That was one of the many reasons I’d refused to go to church; not hearing Dad joining in the singing had been too painful.

  Ironically, the sermon was about forgiveness. Grimacing to myself, I admitted that I could certainly use a lot of that. The preacher said that we were saved by grace, that nothing we actually did was going to get us into heaven, but we should always try our best to follow the Bible and do “good works.” At least that was my interpretation.

  I was going to need a lot of grace because I had no good works.

  He continued with his sermon, but my thoughts took a side road.

  Thinking about all of the things I needed forgiveness for reminded me of the pamphlet I had tossed into one of my desk drawers. I remembered the first three stages of grief; denial, anger, and bargaining but was drawing a blank on the last two. I had lived in denial and anger for so long it would be impossible to forget those, and I had just reached the bargaining stage when Dad died so that one was etched into my memory, but I couldn’t remember the last two.

  The very last one had to be the stage everyone wanted to get to, so it must have something to do with thinking everything was hunky dory, but the fourth one, that was going to bother me. I couldn’t remember what it was.

  Suddenly I was impatient to get home and look at that pamphlet.

  What stage am I in?

  I knew I shouldn’t rely so much on lists, but I just couldn’t seem to help it. Lists helped me identify and categorize things, and I felt lost without one.

  Was that the fourth stage, feeling lost?

  I still got angry—as long as Nick remained anywhere in the vicinity I knew that wouldn’t be going away anytime soon—but I wasn’t angry at the whole world. I could see other teenagers with their parents, like at church, and not feel as resentful.

  I had to admit that was another one of the many reasons I had stopped going to church. Seeing all of the happy families and comparing them to my family had caused such violently angry feelings inside of me that I just couldn’t handle it.

  School had been okay because it wasn’t a family thing, but church was all about families. Sometimes the pain and resentment I felt when I would see kids with normal parents were so intensely overwhelming that I could barely breathe. I would have to excuse myself to the bathroom and hope no one was in there.

  Once I regained some semblance of control, I would begin mentally yelling at God—I did admit it was only some semblance of control—but at least I could breathe again. I winced, hoping that the “grace all sufficient” the preacher expounded would be sufficient for me. Somehow, I doubted it. Apparently, I needed more than my fair share.

  Once church service ended, the single girls immediately surrounded Mark and Nick again. I hadn’t seen Nick interact in a group other than after the funeral, and I had a hard time tearing my eyes away from him.

  Mark came across as quietly amusing, in a wicked sort of way, and was the classically better looking of the two, but Nick held the girls’ attention. He had them all in stitches, laughing at his witty remarks.

  Felicia and I exited the pew in the other direction—neither of us wanted to see or hear them flirting—and Mom decided to follow us, since the group blocked the path to the middle aisle.

  Although Felicia and I made it outside without being waylaid, Mom wasn’t so lucky. Some people stopped her in the foyer to chat.

  Glancing around, trying to decide what to do next, we noticed a small group of three high school boys approaching us. Two of them looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place them.

  “Hi!” one of the familiar ones greeted us. “I’m Allen. I’m in your Government class,” he said, watching Felicia intently.

  Allen wasn’t very tall, about 5’9” or so, but he was very good looking. He had black hair and dark eyes.

  Looks a bit like Mario Lopez, I thought hiding a smile, without as much muscle.

  He certainly seemed interested in Felicia.

  “Oh yeah,” Felicia acknowledged, “You sit a couple of rows over. I’m Felicia, and this is CeeCee.”

  What…? Felicia had noticed a guy and not told me?

  She will pay for that one, I vowed. Then, thinking about Nick, I laughed at myself, like I should talk.

  “Yeah I know” Allen admitted, “I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to introduce myself since the year started. I saw you here last Sunday, but you left so fast I didn’t have time to introduce myself.”

  The guy next to Allen nudged him with his elbow.

  “Oh sorry, this is Michael and that’s Lance, Michael’s brother.”

  He indicated the boy standing to the side of Michael and slightly behind.

  “Lance is a sophomore,” he added as if that explained something.

  The one named Michael had been watching me through the whole Allen/Felicia interaction, but I wasn’t sure why, and it made me extremely uncomfortable. I wondered if my hair was sticking out all over the plac
e. Church was one of the only times I didn’t put it all up in a ponytail and since I hadn’t been to church in a long time, I felt self-conscious about it.

  “This is my best friend CeeCee,” Felicia began only to be interrupted by Michael.

  “I know, we’re in the same honors English class,” Michael said not taking his eyes off me.

  Ah, that was it, he recognized me.

  “Nice to meet you,” I offered politely.

  He seemed disappointed about something.

  “I sit two desks behind you,” Michael prompted hopefully.

  That was it. Felicia had noticed Allen so Michael had been waiting for me to claim to have noticed him. I wanted to tell him that since I walked around in a daze most of the time he shouldn’t take anything I do or say personally, but I thought that might be too much information on such short acquaintance.

  “We were wondering if you two would be interested in a double date,” Allen began, “with us,” he added as if he hadn’t made himself clear.

  Felicia and I exchanged a quick glance, each wondering what the other was thinking, but before we could answer, Mark and Nick were there, telling us it was time to go. I glared at Nick, angry that he could spend all his time chatting up a bunch of single girls, but the moment I started talking to a guy, it was suddenly time to go.

  Making a decision, I turned to Michael and Allen and said in a defiant tone, “That sounds like fun. Why don’t we make plans tomorrow at school?”

  We said our goodbyes and I headed towards the car. I could feel Nick’s anger as I walked away. I wasn’t sure how I knew he was angry, I just knew.

  Mark was confused.

  “What was that about?” he asked curiously.

  “Just some guys from school asking us out,” I replied airily, like it was something that happened all the time.

  “I think it would be safer if you said no,” Nick suggested solicitously, then ruined it by saying, “Safer for the guy anyway.”

  Mark chuckled, and I glared at both of them.

  “We haven’t told them a definite yes yet,” Felicia glanced at Mark hopefully.

  I recognized that look…it was the same one Michael had worn when he mentioned sitting behind me in English.

  Felicia likes Mark! How could I have been so blind!

  Of course, with me it was easy, I had to admit, since I lived in a constant state of oblivion.

  Mark didn’t seem to notice. Apparently, obliviousness was hereditary.

  “Sounds like you would have fun,” Mark commented, then added, “Double dating would keep it honest.”

  Felicia, valiantly trying to hide her disappointment in Mark’s comment said, “No reason not to say yes, then.”

  Mom met us at the car, finally able to break away from all of her friends. We drove to Felicia’s house to drop her off, and I got out with her.

  “I’ll stay and ride with Felicia,” I decided.

  “That will be fine,” Mom agreed. “Lunch will be ready in about thirty minutes. Don’t be late,” she warned.

  “We won’t be,” I promised.

  Sitting on Felicia’s bed a few minutes later, we looked at each other and both burst into spontaneous laughter.

  “What was that?” Felicia asked.

  “Our irresistible beauty at work of course,” I answered facetiously, then demanded, “You best start ‘splaining, girl.”

  “What?” Felicia asked suddenly wary.

  “Oh you know what!” I insisted. “You have been holding out on me…twice!”

  “Twice…?”

  I could tell she was stalling, and I wasn’t about to let her get away with it.

  “Not only did you notice this Allen guy in class, and didn’t tell me, you’ve been crushing on Mark, and didn’t tell me,” I accused. “Don’t bother to deny it. For me to notice it had to be pretty obvious.”

  “Okay, okay,” Felicia held up both hands in front of her as if to stop my onslaught. “I did notice Allen the very first day of class. He was staring at me, so I thought he might be interested.”

  “You thought he might be interested and you didn’t tell me?” I asked in exasperation.

  “Well you didn’t tell me about Michael in your English class,” she counterattacked me.

  “I would have if I had known. You know me, I don’t notice squat!” I defended myself. “Now about you and Mark…”

  “Alright, I admit, I have a huge crush on your brother,” she admitted, “but he only sees me as his baby sister’s best friend. Otherwise he would have reacted more like Nick did about you going out with Michael.”

  Darn it, she was too observant.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I replied stiffly.

  She was trying to sidetrack me, and it was working.

  “I’m not blind or stupid, CeeCee,” Felicia protested. “I can see that there is something going on there, but I’ll back off if you don’t want to talk about it.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it,” I hesitated, “I just don’t know what it is.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know, at times I almost hate him, then other times I have these weird feelings in the pit of my stomach.”

  I sounded like a cheap dime novel.

  I moaned, “I don’t know!”

  “Sounds like you have your first big crush,” Felicia suggested.

  “If this is a crush, I absolutely refuse to ever fall in love,” I decided. “It’s too confusing and painful.

  “We’ll make it through this,” Felicia promised, “together.”

  “So what do you do when you have an unrequited crush?” I asked. “Do you have any ideas?”

  “Well, the first thing we are not going to do is sit around moping over those two,” she said firmly.

  That sounded good.

  She continued, “I say we make definite plans with Allen and Michael as soon as possible.”

  “You really think that dating other guys will help?” I asked dubiously.

  “Yes I do!” Felicia replied confidently. “Don’t you think Michael looks like a young Paul Newman?”

  “I have no idea what a young Paul Newman would look like. You are the movie buff,” I replied in exasperation, teasingly adding, “but Allen could definitely pass as a Mario Lopez look-a-like.”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking!” Felicia agreed, surprised, “but how would you know what Mario Lopez looks like? You never even watch TV.”

  “I used to watch “Saved by the Bell” reruns at a friends house when I was young. I had the biggest crush on him, all the girls did.”

  I didn’t add that we all did because Serena had. Felicia knew nothing about Serena; it was still too painful to relive.

  “Well, you can’t have Mario, he’s too short for you anyway,” Felicia teased, “You’ll have to settle for Paul.”

  “Deal,” I agreed laughingly, “we’ll work it out with them tomorrow. I can’t mess up my running schedule, so if we are going to double date, we’ll have to work around it.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And we have to help each other avoid any embarrassing situations with Mark and Nick.”

  I certainly needed all the help I could get.

  By the time we got to my house, Mom had lunch all ready. We promised to do the dishes, since the guys had set the table. Even though we knew we were getting the rotten end of the deal, we realized it was our own fault for staying at Felicia’s house too long.

  Besides, Felicia and I didn’t really mind. It kept us out of trouble. The thought of trying to make small talk with the objects of our crushes, well, it didn’t bear thinking about.

  Reluctantly we made our way out to the living room. We’d stalled as long as we could, but there was absolutely nothing else to clean, put away, or rearrange.

  Thankfully, Nick and Mark were getting up to leave.

  For a moment,
I was resentful of Nick and Felicia. Because of them, I had given up precious Mark time, but unlike other times, I was able to let the resentment go. Sometimes sacrifices had to be made in the interest of sanity…mine.

  With their things already loaded into the pickup, all we had left were the goodbyes.

  Mom hugged Nick goodbye while I hugged Mark.

  I was definitely getting my share of questioning looks from Mark. I must have squeezed him longer and harder than usual.

  Please tell me that Nick doesn’t expect me to hug him, I anguished as I held onto Mark as if he were my lifeline. I just can’t.

  As I finally released Mark and stepped back, I felt a jolt of lightening rip through me as I watched Felicia hug both Mark and Nick goodbye.

  Felicia! What are you thinking?

  I risked a quick glance at Nick’s face and saw that he had that same amused smirk that he always wore when he was secretly laughing at me.

  I glared at him, but he was probably so used to my glares that he most likely assumed it was a permanent facial feature.

  “CeeCee, I haven’t gotten a goodbye hug from you, yet” Nick pointed out innocently, the smirk gone.

  I fumed.

  He knew full well that I couldn’t refuse to hug him, or everyone would wonder why. He loved torturing me. I tentatively took a step toward him. Closing the gap between us quickly, Nick put one hand in the small of my back and pulled me toward him.

  I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I set them lightly on his shoulders as he pulled me close. I could feel the muscles under his thin cotton dress shirt and my hands flinched as if burned but, if he noticed, he didn’t give any indication.

  Instead, he whispered, “You’re not wearing the bracelet I gave you.”

  “I forgot,” I hissed defiantly.

  Not for the world would I admit I had been too embarrassed to wear something so feminine that he had given me, especially in front of him; it was way too personal.

  “Have it on next time I see you,” he ordered as he pushed me away from him.

  I stood there gaping after him…speechless.

  By the time I had recovered enough to respond, he and Mark were already getting into Nick’s pickup. He was so bossy, and obnoxious, and annoying, and…and…words failed me at that point.

  Felicia and Mom waved them out of sight, but I was too busy yelling at Nick in my mind to notice. He always managed to have the last word.

  Nick was so frustrating!