Losing You Page 4

  “I took a longer route,” I told her, kicking off my Walmart sneakers.

  “Why?” she asked, sounding completely put off.

  “More exercise,” I answered, not really feeling the need to explain to her. She snorted, one of Gert’s more annoying habits, she snorted a lot. I once tried to snort and completely failed; I still don’t understand how she did it.

  “God knows you need it if you don’t want to get fat again.” She snorted again. I was never fat, chubby yes, I had a potbelly yes, but fat no. I walked away, unable to bear another second near her. I hated it when people called me fat, even if they were referring to the past. It was still the same me, just different looking. Did they have to be so mean? I hated people who judged based on looks. I walked to my room, lugging my school bag over my shoulder. It was actually just a nice purse; it was not from Walmart. Reggie, Gert and Paix had bought it for me at Christmas. I closed my door a bit louder than necessary but that was only because I was having a bad day. I was happy I still hadn’t received any homework but it was only the second day of school, so that would be changing pretty soon. I wasn’t very hungry so I skipped dinner and ate some protein bars and curled up under the covers and put on the old VHS tapes I had of my mom, Miguel, and I. There was only thirteen of them and I knew what happened in each one off by heart, but still every now and then when I was feeling down, I’d put them on. I chose to watch the one where we went to Miguel’s mother’s, my Grandmother’s, for Christmas dinner. In the video I helped Gran bake cookies with mom’s help as well, while dad videotaped us. I was about five in this video, for part of the video dad had forgotten to turn off the video camera and had just put the cap on, so all you saw was black but I could still hear them talking. I let their voices lull me into my comfort zone. I listened as dad explained to me how Gran used to make him wear a suit every Christmas when he was a boy.

  “I’m sure you look good in a suit, Daddy,” I said sitting on his lap then. I still remembered sitting on his lap when we were at Gran’s. That was one reason I had such a hard time visiting Gran’s house, there were too many good memories there, it made me miss mom and dad even more.

  “That he did, my sweet,” Gran said to me in her gingerbread apron, brown eyes smiling like all was, full of wisdom. Gran always called me her sweet or sweets.

  “You should wear a suit,” I told him, playing with his curly black hair.

  “I don’t like suits hon, they make me feel silly being all dressed up,” he said gently rubbing my back.

  “I’ll wear one with you and then we can both be silly.” I giggled, delighted; they all laughed with me. I felt tears come from my eyes like they usually did when I watched our family videos, eventually dad realized he had forgotten to turn off the camera and shut it off. I switched to the next film, when I was in a play in kindergarten, I watched it through my blurry eyes.

  “Why are you being such a hermit?” Reggie asked, opening my door and flicking on the lights. I quickly turned the power off on the TV and wiped my eyes. “Are you crying again? What’s wrong this time, did someone else call you fat?” she asked, trying to hurt me. Reggie didn’t know about the tapes, no one but dad, Gran, and James did. I tried to ignore her but she continued. “Or is it because everyone knows you’re stalking James? Yeah, I heard that and I don’t even go to high school anymore.” She smirked. Gert had probably told her but then again Spring Hill wasn’t a very populated or big town. My anger flashed for the second time today.

  “Get out!” I shouted. She just smiled and examined her nails, making no effort to leave.

  “Didn’t your mama ever teach you your manners? I guess not. It’s rude to shout Mike but if you try and ask me nicer, I might listen,” she said and then realized her mistake but it was too late, I was already darting at her. I slapped her as hard as I could, right across the cheek. So hard it even hurt my hand. It made a loud smack as my hand hit her face.

  “Don’t you ever talk about my mom!” I warned her and then ran out of my room, down the stairs and outside. I could hear Reggie crying and everyone running to see what was wrong, they didn’t even notice as I pushed past all of them on my way down the stairs. I worked on my breathing and sat down on the grass in a yoga position. I was going to be in a lot of trouble when I came back in, so I decided I’d sleep outside tonight and avoid the punishment as long as I could. I lay on my back on one of our plastic lawn chairs, it was a nice warm night out, the clouds were all gone and the sky was full of millions of stars, the moon was still a half crescent like the night before. It was all so beautiful, James would have appreciated it if he still liked that stuff. I wondered if James was looking at it right now. I used to look at the sky at night and if it was beautiful, I’d call him and tell him to look at it, most of the time he already was and then we would talk about it and the constellations. On a perfect night like tonight, we would take out his telescope and lie on a blanket under the stars and watch the sky together.

  “Hey you! Long time no see,” June called out, walking across the lawn and coming to sit with me. “What’s wrong?” she asked, upset. Even in the dark, I guess she could see my swollen red rimmed eyes. I used to be able to tell her stuff when I couldn’t talk to James, she was the one who helped me when I got my period for the first time and showed me what a tampon was and how to use it, but I could never talk to her about James, he was her little brother after all. So, I kept it pretty vague.

  “I had a bad day today and yesterday too, and now I’m probably going to be grounded for a month or two at least,” I told her, trying not to sound sniffly. She put her arm around my shoulders and held me close.

  “What did you do? You’re always so good,” she said, sounding slightly excited.

  “I hit Reggie. Really hard. Right across the cheek,” I told her, feeling a little guilty but not too guilty, she almost deserved it. June actually started to laugh, first inside, making her shake but then when she couldn’t contain it, out loud.

  “I’m sorry,” she said as she stopped her little laughing tirade. “Why?” she asked, clearly delighted.

  “She was being Reggie.” I explained, knowing June would know well what I meant. June didn’t like Reggie, not one bit and the feeling between them was mutual. June knew pretty well how big of a bitch Reggie could be. “And she said something about my mom.” I informed her. That was enough for June to get the picture and not ask any more questions, which she loved to do.

  “You go, girl,” she said squeezing me tighter. Eventually, June left and went back inside and I let the stars and moon guide me to sleep.

  James

  Okay, so I felt bad for giving Mickey a dirty look when we were walking home but Tiff and everyone was really harshing on me for dumping Ali. They were all saying I was too rash with her or that I was crazy because she was a sex machine. So, when I saw Mickey behind me and I was already in a bad mood, I felt a lot angrier because every time I saw her, I felt guilty for what I did, even though what she did to me was pretty bad too but still not as bad, not nearly. I didn’t mean to make her leave but I guess the look I gave her pretty much told her, get the fuck away from me freak, so she walked an extra thirty minutes, which she somehow managed to do it in fifteen, which was pretty impressive. I waited on my front porch for her to come home and when she noticed me, I shouldn’t have left and acted like the sight of her repulsed me but I was still too pissed.

  June finally came back from the store after almost an hour. She had told me she’d be back in five minutes, so my day wasn’t exactly going well.

  “What took you so long?” I asked, losing my mind as she came back into the living room, where the TV still remained on pause. “Where are my Oreos, you took that long and don’t even have the Oreos!” I groaned in frustration and shook my head at her.

  “Oreos? Oh, I forgot sorry. I can go back and get them,” she said turning to leave again for the car. Well, my car but I wasn’t allowed to use it for another four months, until my sentence was revoked.


  “No stay, we don’t need them.” I said quickly. Who knew if she’d even return this time? “Where were you?” I asked, wanting an explanation.

  “Oh, Mickey was outside and I stopped to say hi and she was crying,” she said sadly. “I probably shouldn’t have told you that,” she said thinking it over and driving me crazy. Why was she crying? What happened? Was it because of me? I felt my stomach sink. “So, we talked. You should talk to her James, she’s been having a bad time at school and she seems really sad. Oh, and Reggie is being a major bitch, she even insulted Mickey’s mom!” she exclaimed. That sounded like Reggie but still it hurt to hear that she would do that to Mickey, that was low, even for her. “I know right, but don’t worry, Mickey slapped some sense into the girl, literally!” she laughed, making me laugh too. Mickey was not aggressive at all so it was really hilarious to imagine that. I realized it was the first time I’d had a good laugh for real, when someone talked about Mickey and it felt good, I didn’t feel bad about it. “So now, she’s grounded and sleeping outside to avoid punishment,” June summarized for me. I was grateful June was still close to Mickey; otherwise, how would I get my Mickey fix? We finished the rest of the movie, but I wasn’t really paying attention, my mind was reeling back to Mickey and when we would watch the stars and fall asleep under them. We used to do that almost every month at least once, if it wasn’t too cold out and the sky was pretty. I should talk to her, a friend would but I wasn’t her friend anymore and I never would be again.

  The weeks went by and Mickey and I didn’t speak so much as one word to another. But we did look at each other more often, like if we passed each other in the hall she wouldn’t look straight through me anymore, should look at me like it was all my fault, all me, like she had no part in any of it, which just kept pissing me off.

  “Today’s class is the first class that you are going to work with your partner,” Mrs. Becker said excitedly. Shit, I was hoping this day would never come or if it did, that I’d have another partner. “I’m going to give you a list of words that are popular themes and emotions we use when we write great English literature. You are going to get with your partner to write when you felt that emotion the most. You will describe to your partner, how you felt and what you felt that made you feel it. I want you to explain all the textures, the smells, the noises, all of it in great detail. This project will not only help you see that you need to understand and experience these strong emotions to really connect with the emotions of characters you are reading about, it will also be a therapeutic project, by sharing these times with someone,” she explained to us.

  I looked at Mickey, she was looking almost ghostly she was so pale. Just like the first day of school when the teacher had told us we’d be partners. I looked to Cody beside me and made one of, I want to kill myself faces, he laughed but Mickey also noticed, which made me feel like shit. Why did I do stuff like this? I always ended up feeling like a jerk in the end. Zach and Olivia passed out papers to everyone. We sat at the second to last table in the back so I took all the “no’s” and grimaces as a sign that it wouldn’t be pretty and when I looked at the paper, I was proven right. How Mickey knew what words would be on the list was beyond me. When I looked over to her, she was already writing the words down in her notebook, more than half of them but not in the same order. Not that it mattered but how did she know what the words would be, I knew she was great at English but still it was freaky. I knew love would be one of the words but horror, betrayal, and jealousy and the other words she had written down? There were fifteen words on the list but we only had to write about five.

  “What if these are personal questions?” asked Jessie. Mrs. Becker grinned at that.

  “Only your partner and I will know your answers and your partner and I won’t discuss these answers with anyone, otherwise they will receive an automatic fail and this project is worth 35% of your grade.” She smiled evilly. This wasn’t an option, if we didn’t do this, there was a good chance we would fail, well at least I would. “Oh, and this is serious, I don’t want any silly answers, I want the truth and I want details and specifics about the day too,” she continued seriously. I looked at the fifteen words and quickly chose my five. It was hard because some of them I’d never felt or had happened to me, so I got trapped into ones I didn’t want like love and passion. I didn’t want to tell anybody about when I felt that and why, especially not Mickey. She was the last person on the earth I wanted to talk about these two.

  “So,” Mickey said speaking to me purposefully for the first time in almost two years. “Do you want to start or should I?” she asked. My jaw dropped slightly, a full sentence and not even an angry look. Actually, she looked more scared than anything else.

  “You can,” I said and took the list, the first word was love.

  “Okay,” she said taking in a big breath of air, trying to prepare herself. I didn’t want her to be scared, I wanted her to feel how she used to feel with me -safe.

  “So, when did you feel love? How did you feel and what happened that made you feel it?” I asked, repeating what Mrs. Becker had said we needed to do.

  “Um,” she began, her lower lip quivering a little bit. “I felt loved when I was with my mom and my stepdad, Miguel. I felt it whenever they looked at me or tucked me in at night or just held my hand. Their love made me feel safe, special, and important, like as long as they were around their love would be all I needed. It was all I needed. I didn’t need them to tell me they loved me, even though they constantly did. I always felt their love, one small smile was full of enough love to last me a lifetime. They always made me feel like I was perfect to them and they wouldn’t change me for anything. Because who I was made them proud and there was nothing I could do to ever let them down. We were just happy to be together, even if there was nothing to do, because we were together,” she said speaking a little fast, I quickly jotted it down as she spoke, trying to keep up in my sloppy handwriting. She looked kind of lost when she finished. Her eyes were getting all shiny and her lower lip was shaking more rapidly, without thinking I put my hand over hers. I knew what a tough subject her parents were and for that, I was happy I was the one who had to ask that stupid question, because I already knew how much she loved them and they had loved her. She used to let me watch the films with her and her parents together when we were younger, my favorite was when she was a flower in the Alice and Wonderland play. Her parents really did love her and it broke my heart she had lost them and so young. She slowly pulled her hand away when she noticed and picked up her pencil. She looked at me still a little dazed and shaky.

  “Love?” she asked her voice almost a whisper, staring at the paper as she asked. Love, I didn’t know, my family but when, how and what was a good example?

  “I guess June because she’s always there for me, and even if we fight, I know if something happens she would still be there for me because that’s what families do. Whenever something happens, she always has my back and takes my side, she always looks out for me.” I answered, not giving much detail or specifics but Mickey didn’t notice, she was still too caught up in her memories of her family.

  “Next?” she asked uncertain. I looked at her list: hate. I didn’t want to get into this now, she was already so sad and I didn’t want to make matters worse.

  “How about I go again and we do two each before changing turns?” I proposed, she nodded and read the next one.

  “Betrayal,” she said looking at me with no clue on her face, which made me mad.

  “I guess it was revenge for being so mean to you and I am at fault for most of it but still you were my best friend and you got me arrested, you betrayed me.” I told her, looking at her confused little face. It felt good to finally say it to her and get it off my chest. Her confused face just caught me off-guard though, she was really good at acting but I had put her into shock.

  “What? What are you talking about James?” she asked, her voice utterly confused and genuine.

  “That�
��s why I’ve hated you, not only did I get my licence taken away for two years, I had to pay a huge fine and go to jail for a couple hours until my parents paid the bail and on top of that, it all went on my record, so when colleges look at my application it will show,” I said, getting angrier and angrier by the look on her face. She had to know how much her little action had cost me.

  “I never called the cops on you, James,” she said simply, her voice firm, no longer confused or scared or anything other than strong and sincere.

  The bell rang and she left, leaving me alone to think. What if she didn’t call the cops? It was a scary thought after everything that had happened. But then who did? Had I hated her and treated her terribly for no reason at all? I felt like I was going to puke. I remembered that night so well, I was finally popular and I had just got a car that mom and dad had bought me for my birthday, a black Honda Civic. I’d had my permit for four months and I decided to drive the guys: Brad, Chuck, Neil and Anthony to Frank’s party. From there on everything got a little fuzzy. Tiff gave me a beer and then so did the guys and some other people and then we had a beer chugging contest, after that we were all hammered. I’d never drunk more than half of a beer before that, so I didn’t know the effects, I didn’t even like beer that much. What I remember all came back in flashes. I saw Mr. Lesage’s car drive-by but Mickey was driving, which I thought was weird because she hated cars and driving ever since the accident. I remembered having a hard time driving and being very dizzy and having a major headrush and through the window, the look of horror on Mickey’s face, as she picked up her cell phone and dialed something, or at least that’s what it looked like, and then about ten minutes later, the police came with their sirens and lights flashing and pulled us over. That’s when everything went to shit.

  June arrived seven minutes after I was put into the jail cell and then my parents shortly after, I knew this because I stared at my watch and counted every second of it, thinking what now? What should I do? How they already knew I was there when it took thirty minutes to get to the station from my house was impossible, unless Mickey had phoned them too or someone else did. I remember the look mom and dad gave me, the disappointment was beyond belief, they grounded me for seven months and there was no going out at all. They weren’t that hard on me though, they blamed the fight I had with Mickey as the reason I drove drunk and my grades started dropping and my complete change in fashion sense. I suddenly cared about my looks and I started working out more. I guess that in some ways, our not being friends did make me change but it was all my choice. My head spun with confusion, knowing this changed everything.