“You really don’t know how good you had, have, I don’t know exactly what y’all are, but she was good for you. Liv called you two mommy and daddy, and hashtaged everything as relationship goals.”
I listen while Thing One and Thing Two finally open up and give me some of the answers I was searching for. I knew I still need to talk to her, but now I’m not in the dark anymore. I had a place to start, and though I don’t remember everything the guys were telling me, I felt secure, like I was hearing the truth for the first time. I wasn’t questioning anything, and it felt good to finally feel normal.
-April 17th-
Presley was back at school today. She smiled at me in the hall between second and third period, not knowing what it did for my confidence. Heather had called me last night, but I rejected her calls and left her text messages unread. I told her it was over yesterday, and I didn’t need to give myself a reason to go back there.
I call Liv and ask her about prom. It’s surprising how much she and the guys talk when Presley’s not around. It’s as if they are all afraid of her, but I don’t see it, she doesn’t have an intimidating bone in her body.
Liv told me Presley had agreed to coordinate dresses with her but refused to go dress shopping. Apparently, matching with your best friend is a thing in the girl world. Then she went on to tell me Presley mentioned not even going to prom. I could hear the disappointment in her voice. When I reassure her everything would be okay, her pitch rose an octave and caused me to pull the phone away. After hearing that squeal, I knew it would be safer for all if I told her about Heather in a wide-open field, about fifty feet away from her.
At lunch, the four of us are sitting around the table. Presley walks by, stops briefly and looks at the spot Heather used to sit in. She offers a smile and heads outside. I see Liv move to swat at me, but I’m up before her hand connects, following Presley outside.
She sits at her usual table and looks up at me before she pulls her notebook out.
“Come eat with us,” I blurt out.
“Why?” Her tone is quiet and sweet but sad at the same time.
“Because honestly, I’m getting tired of being hit in the back of the head by Liv.” And because I’m completely drawn to you and need to be near you, but she doesn’t need to know the last part.
She giggles, tilting her head and resting it on her hand as if she’s considering my request.
“Please, Presley. If you don’t, the chances of me sustaining another head injury are incredibly high.” Presley. Her name rolls off my tongue with ease, doing something to my heart. Can a name feel like home? Can a person be home? She feels right. Don’t fuck this up idiot, you might only get one chance at this. Mess it up and you’ll probably wish you were dead after Liv gets done with you.
“I don’t know if you would survive another head injury,” Is she flirting back? Of course she is you idiot. She blushes as she cast a downward glance before looking back up at me through her eyelashes. She hasn’t said no yet so maybe theirs’s still a chance for me.
“I’m almost positive I wouldn’t.”
She smiles, zips up her backpack and stands up.
I’m shocked and I know she can hear it in my voice. “Oh, you’re coming? I wasn’t expecting you to say yes.” I thought she would have put up more of a fight, would have made me beg her to come eat with us, but she didn’t, as the smile from her face fell I continued to make an ass of myself.
“If you didn’t want me to join you, then why ask me to have lunch with you and your friends?”
I can tell she’s hurt, the playfulness in her is gone, but instead of sitting back down, she grabs her lunch and heads for the opposite door. Shit, maybe I’m not ready to do this.
“Presley, wait!” I say loudly as I fist the top of my hair.
She turns around.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know how to do this?”
“Do what? Be a decent human being? You’re not the only one trying to figure this whole dynamic out, Robert. The only difference is you have your friends, and I spend the majority of my day feeling as if I have no one!”
“I never asked you to do that, Presley!” Damn, she’s good at getting under my skin.
“No. You didn’t. You didn’t have too. The look of fear on your face the first time you saw me made it clear as day I scared you. You can't heal if you’re scared, Robert. It’s why I stepped back, so that you would feel safe. But apparently those traitors in there don’t know how to leave things alone and now you’re out here, standing in front of me, clueless as to what you want.”
We’re standing quite a few feet apart from one another and the courtyard has fallen silent. She’s not this timid little thing I thought she was. Instead, she’s called me out on my crap, and has managed to make me feel about two feet tall, before going inside the building.
I’m standing there with a good half of the school staring at me. Students hold the doors open from the inside so they could hear everything being said. Our first fight was now public knowledge and those inside the cafeteria are now lined at the glass walls, staring at me as though I was a caged animal in a terrarium. It seems people are invested in what happens between the two of us. Clue number two hundred and seventy-three…people give a shit about our relationship. How long have they been watching us? Watching to see how this crazy story plays out, and yet no one cared enough to come and talk to me. To help remind me of things, it’s like she’s running the whole damn school. God what have I done?
“Well done,” Liv says, sarcasm dripping, as I make my way back to the table.
“Shut up. All three of you sung like canaries about us when she wasn’t around, and all three of you failed to mention how she doesn’t take crap. You fucking set me up for failure.”
“You did that all by yourself, dude,” Marcus muttered under his breath.
“We didn’t tell you, because we didn’t know, idiot, you’ve never messed up that big before,” as Liv’s hand connects with the back of my head. I definitely deserved that.
*****
I was thankful for the weekend. Robert had a game an hour and a half away, so I didn’t feel too bad about staying home tonight.
I thought today when he asked me to sit with them at lunch, maybe he was ready to be around me, but then he sounded shocked when I agreed to join him. I don’t know if I was more mad or sad at his reaction. But it felt as if he didn’t actually want me there. It was hard enough watching him and Heather together, becoming the butt of life’s evil joke.
I sat on my bed, three college acceptance letters waiting for a response, and I was hours away from needing to claim my scholarship offered by two out of the three schools. I could do this. I needed to pick a school and go for it. South Carolina. Ole Miss. Arizona University. I couldn’t wait on Robert any longer. This was a decision I had to make on my own and deal with the consequences later.
My phone rang, and I answered it without even looking at the caller ID.
“Presley, hey.”
“Marcus?” Well color me shocked.
“Yea. Hey, I wanted to call you and see how you were doing after everything that happened today.”