Chapter 2 - The morning after

“How did your date go?” Kelly whispers next to me. I look ahead at our substitute teacher to see if he heard her whisper so loudly. He looks up at the class but he doesn’t look in our direction. I don’t know why Kelly chose this precise moment to have this conversation with me. She can wait until lunch break to ask me about it. We don’t have to go to detention because she wants to know about a date.

“Can we talk about this during lunch? I don’t think this is the right place to have this conversation.” I whisper trying not to be too loud. This teacher I nervous and he has very good hearing. Three people were sent to detention for whispering during class. Anyone can tell this man doesn’t want to be here and he will empty this class out by sending every last one of us to detention. And I don’t want to be one of those people to be sent there.

“Lunch is too far, I want to know what happened. And besides he won’t hear us, come on tell me what happened.” She says doing a terrible job at whispering. Not that she was ever good at whispering. To come to think it, why is she even trying to whisper at all?

“Kelly I don’t want to end up in detention, so can we please not talk about this right now.” I say and she looks at me shocked. Her mouth is open wide and her eyes are popping out.

“You’re still mad at me.” she says so loudly, the girl sitting in front of us turns around shocked at how loudly she spoke.   I close my eyes when I here everyone else I class exclaim in surprise. There’s no way Mr. Super hearing didn’t catch that,

“You two!” The substitute teacher says looking straight at me. I cuss in my head when I see the look of anger evident in his eyes. I look at Kelly who is staring at me angrily. I shake my head at her as the teacher stands up walking towards us. “I thought I said no talking in my class.” He says pointing from me to Kelly. I sigh annoyed. This is exactly what I didn’t want t happen. I’m going to miss poetry class because of this, I never miss poetry.  

 I hate to be dramatic but my life is falling apart. This has to be the start of my life going downhill, me going to detention? This is a new day indeed.

At detention

“I’m not mad at you and I was never mad at you.” I say when Kelly and I sit down next to each other. I know we’re not supposed to be talking in here but there’s no one here to make sure we don’t. The teacher in charge of detention is not even here. She couldn’t be bothered to keep an eye on us. I guess everyone hates being here. The students are sleeping on the desks. Everyone is waiting for the clock to run out.

 Kelly and I might as well hash this out and get it over with. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Oliver has been a constant in my life for the past two years. It’s time to put him t rest. His ears probably hurt from us talking about him so much.

And I don’t blame her. They have detention in one of the oldest classes in the school. It’s dusty and wet. They could make the kids clean the room as punishment to make sure it’s habitable but they couldn’t bother.

“Lies.” Kelly says giving me the side eye. I sigh looking away.  I wish she would take my word when I tell her things. Why would I lie to her? There’s no point in pretending I’m not angry when I am. It’s such a waste of time.

“Okay, I was annoyed when you brought up my date with J and Patient O there but other than that couldn’t care less about all that.” I say and she looks at me sucking her teeth at me.

“Are still using code names? I doubt the people in here care what you do in your spare time.” She says whispering to me and she actually succeeds. I smile at her happy she decided to respect my boundaries. She might not agree with them but at least she can appreciate the fact that I don’t want people knowing about my business. The kids in this school talk about everyone, I would hate to be the running joke here. I know for a fact the comments about me won’t be kind, especially when I’m being mentioned in the same breath as Oliver.

“Please, I don’t want my name to be a headline tomorrow.” I say and she nods.

“Are you sure you’re not mad at me?” She asks looking at me sad. I shake my head no and she lets out a long breath. “I wasn’t trying to be messy but I can see how it looked at the time. I was just trying to make him jealous.” She says and I frown. I don’t want Oliver to be with me because he’s jealous of someone else. I want him to be with me because he feels it in his heart.

I don’t find jealousy attractive at all. I want a genuine connection. I don’t play games because I’m not good at them I don’t want to be the one in tears at the end of all this.

“I will never let a boy come between us. If I have a bone to pick with you, I’ll definitely let you know.” I say looking at her and she nods in understanding. “And I don’t think you should try to make Oliver feel anything anymore. He’s set in his ways and no one can make him feel or do anything different.” I say and she nods over and over again.

“Are you going to tell me about the date?” She asks smiling at me. “I would really like to know all the details.” She says winking at me and I smile, her excitement is infectious.

“It was interesting…” I say and she leans in closer. “He was kind, he was a gentleman and he was very interesting.” I say and she looks at me expectantly.

“Is that it?” She asks when I don’t say anything else. “There has to be more. What did you guys do?” she asks looking at me a bit disappointed.

“We had doughnuts and then we took a walk a walk in the neighborhood.” I say and she gives me the same, tell me more look. I could tell her more but I’m not good at telling stories. It was an interesting date and that’s it. I have nothing else to add.

“Did you hold hands? What did you talk about?” she asks raising her arms up in question.

“There was no hand holding but there was a touch on the shoulder when we were sitting on a bench but other than that no touching.” I say and she nods optimistically. “He likes to surf.” I say smiling and she smiles too.

“That smile lets me know that the two of you might have had a little fun.” She says looking at me cautiously.

“We had fun and I enjoyed his company.” I say and the same look of concern continues. I look back at her concerned. What is she suddenly so worried about? She was rooting for us a few seconds ago. What changed when we sat down in our chairs?

“But?” She asks after a breath

“There’s no but.” I say and he shakes head at me.

“Oh my friend there is a but. Look for it in there, it might be deep inside of you but its there.” She says and I look at her trying to figure out if there is a but. I don’t know if there is, Trevor and I had a great time, and we had a great conversation. Once I got Oliver out of my head and allowed myself to be present we had a really good time.

“It was a first date, I didn’t have much expectation but he made it enjoyable.” I say and she looks at me her face blank, she doesn’t believe me. “I fact I expected it to be a disaster but I had a good time.” I say and she opens her mouth to say something but she stops herself.

“I’m glad you had a good time.” She says but I know that’s not what she wants to say. She has so much more to tell me but she wants to hold on to it. I’m going to let her do that because I don’t have the energy to deal with whatever maze is in her head. And besides she’s going to tell me eventually, there’s no point in rushing her.

“Me too.”  I say and she nods.

“Do you have a second date planned?” She asks smiling but it’s not her usual bright smile. She has thoughts about this Trevor thing and suppressing them is making her fake smile.

“Yes we do. We’re going out next weekend.” I say and she sighs. I look at her smiling, she just say what’s in her heart.

“Great.” She says smiling.

“Oliver showed up out of nowhere last night.” I say and she looks at me confused.

“He came to your house?” She asks trying to make sense of what I’ve just said.

“No, I mean we ran into each other while I was on a date with Trevor.” I say and her eyes literally jump out of her skull. I reach out to touch her face worried they are going to fall onto the desk.

She moves out of the way staring at me.

“How in the hell did that go?” She asks looking at me like I’m an alien.

“H e didn’t say much. He said hi, gave Trevor a death stare and then he was gone.” I say and she shakes her head, her face wrinkled with worry.

“I don’t think that’s’ good. I think it would have been better if he had some reaction.” She says sounding so worried.

“I didn’t know we were concerned about how he felt.” I say and she frowns at m.

“We’re not? I didn’t know we don’t give a shit about him anymore.” She says looking at me surprised.

“That’s not what I mean.” I say and she raises her brown at me in question. I can feel the judgment in her eyes. But she can’t make me care about someone if I don’t want to. And by the look in her eyes she knows she can’t make me.

“What do you mean then?” She asks looking at me confused.

“I mean we won’t waste time trying to analyze what he’s feeling, what he’s thinking or what he wants. I don’t want to waste any more time on him.”  I say and she looks at me for a long time and then she nods.

“Okay. We won’t do that anymore.” She says looking away. “I think you and Trevor should go on a double date with Charlie and I.” She says out of the blue and I look at her surprised.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I say and she smiles.

“Why not?” She asks staring at me.

“Trevor and I just started going out. I don’t think we should overwhelm him like that. We’re not even boyfriend and girlfriend.” I say and she raises her brows at me.

“Do you want to be his girlfriend?” She asks smiling again. Her smile is confusing me. Her body language says she’s not enjoying this conversation but she smiling at me. Did she have a change of mind about Trevor, she was all happy and giddy when she found out I was going on a date with him and then suddenly she’s acting weird. Am I over thinking this? It feels like I am. 

“I don’t know.” I say and she tilts her head to the side looking at me closer. “I want to have fun with him and see. I don’t want rush into anything. I tend to rush things when I meet a guy, I have to learn something from this Patient O situation.” I say and she nods her head awkwardly. She still has it tilted to the side.

“Take it slow, I hear you.” She says smiling again; only it’s even weirder because of the position of her head.

“But I would love to go on a double date with you and Richard eventually.” I say trying my hardest to ignore how weird she looks right now.

“I will look forward to that day/ I bet the two of you look so good together. Trevor is a cutie in his own right.” She says placing her head the right way up.

“He is handsome isn’t he?” I say smiling. “He called gorgeous and I choked on my ice cream.” I say and she smiles surprised.

“So he’s a gentleman, sweet, thoughtful, cute and he good with his words. He sounds like a good catch.” She says like she’s trying to figure something out. If she wasn’t acting so weird I would be smiling at her words but she sounds like she’s trying to solve a mystery. None of this sounds excited and butterfly inducing.

“When you put it that way he does sound very datable.” I say smiling. If I’m being honest with myself, he does sound very cool to be around. I enjoyed my time with him.

I wasn’t questioning myself at all the whole time I was with him. I had a good time.

“I’m happy you like him and I’m happy you had a good time with him.” She says the only genuine thing she’s said since we started this conversation.

“Thank you.” I say but I can feel there is a shift between us. I don’t know how we went from TELL ME ABOUT THE DATE!  To I couldn’t give three shits what you do with your life.

“How long do you think we’re going to stay here?” She asks looking at the door.

“I genuinely don’t know.” I say sighing.