Losing You Read online

  Stlkr has 2 wrk with Mrs. B. Lsr. Oh, that sucked, but the real loser was the one who texted half his words without the vowels.

  I feel bad, I texted back.

  Y? He questioned.

  Cause that’s punishment for anyone,

  We texted off and on throughout the day but nothing else was interesting, so instead I watched TV and ate ice cream, which reminded me of the events of the night before and made me sick all over again. The day passed by in a daze, I wasn’t actually doing anything but time kept moving on, not waiting for me to wake up from my internal summer. Mickey left in her dad’s Lexus, probably going to her grandmother’s. I envied that Mickey had a grandmother. My grandmother had died and then a month later my Gramps had passed away too. They were so close that Gramps died from a broken heart. I always wanted to die like that too, but my heart already felt broken. I’d never met my grandparents on my mother’s side but that’s just because her parents disowned her for marrying my father, they were still alive but wanted nothing to do with us. She gave up her whole life for my dad, okay not all of it but her family and that was a lot. Mom got home before dad and June. She came into the living room and sat down beside me.

  “You feeling okay?” she asked, worried, giving me a kiss on the cheek. I nodded.

  “Mom, how did you know you were in love with dad?” I asked her. I’d never asked her this before. She looked a little taken aback but smiled it off with a knowing smile.

  “Well, I guess just because I never needed to pretend with him and believe me, before I met your father my life was just an act, my whole life. He always made me feel good about myself and accepted me completely. Love has so many emotions, it’s hard to explain.” She smiled. Mom always smiled, but even brighter when dad was around.

  “How did you know he was worth it? I mean you left everything for him.”

  “James, love is always worth it, no matter the cost and you know what being with dad cost me but it was worth everything, even if it was twice as bad it would have been worth it. When there’s love in the matter there’s no question, you just have to go for it,” she said and then left me there to think. I thought back to Mickey who was probably pulled over somewhere still trying to get to her grandmother’s. I missed her grandmother, she was cute and feisty, tough but sweet at the same time. We got on great, I was always welcome to come over whenever I wanted. I remember Mick and I used to sleep until around ten in the morning together in her bed and then we’d go downstairs and her Gran would have blueberry pancakes ready for us.

  “Did you to sleep well?” she would always ask, passing us at least three types of syrup, all of them real.

  “Yep,” we would almost always answer. There was only a no if we didn’t sleep at all or if it was thundering real hard, on those nights, then Mickey would snuggle up real close, they were my favorite. Why was I thinking about sleeping with Michaela and even more important why was my body liking the thought so much, even if it was all clean.

  “Did you apologize to Mickey?” was the first thing out of dad’s mouth.

  “No, she went to her grandmother’s,” I said relieved. Dad nodded, he knew from the amount of times we went together that it was a whole weekend affair. He left without another word, which was weird because dad and I were pretty close, which meant he must have been very angry with me. Later that night I lay in my room with the lights off as usual. Dad walked in, without knocking and flicked on the light switch. I was surprised, I had expected it to be June, even though we still weren’t talking, but it was dad, this was highly unusual. He looked down at me angry but his gaze soon softened into pity.

  “Are you happy?” he asked, sitting down on my bed beside me.

  “Yeah,” I lied, not sounding believable even to my own ears.

  “You’ve been sad, angry, and hurt for a long time,” he said taking my hand in his own. I didn’t say anything or bother arguing, it was all true and there was no use denying it. He looked into my eyes and then continued speaking. “You used to smile and be happy, you never used to get in trouble, you didn’t used to hid and sulk. Why are you and Mikey still fighting, what did she do to you?” he asked. I nearly laughed in his face.

  “Dad, Mickey didn’t do anything. It was all me, I did it all,” I admitted for the first time out loud.

  “I don’t understand?” he said confused. “Why?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.” It was the truth; all I knew it was the biggest mistake of my life.

  I woke up around noon on Sunday morning and decided I’d better do my homework, something I’d been slacking on lately, even though it was important to do my best to get into a good college. I already had four messages and lots of missed text messages. I finished my homework and then began to read them. Most of them were from Laura saying things like I miss you or I can’t wait to see you. And the voicemails were all her rough voice saying call me when you want to get together, or I guess you’re busy, give me a ring? The last one from her said, I guess we’re not doing anything and you’re busy, I’ll see you Monday. The final message wasn’t from Laura like I was expecting, it was from Gert which surprised me. Her fake voice sounded even more fake in the message.

  “Hi! It’s Gertie, bet you’re glad to be hearing from me. I just wanted to apologize for Mickey stalking you and tell you it won’t be happening again. We had a talk and well there’s no more problems but maybe you should keep your blinds closed just in case. She always looks out her window, you want to go out sometime?” And then she hung up. Well, that was weird and stupid. For one thing, she of all people knew Mickey didn’t stalk anyone, much less me. This was old news, she’d already announced that Mick was a freak to practically the whole cafeteria. So, she phoned me to tell me old news? What did this mean, what did she want? Because with Gertrude she was always after something. I thought and thought about this. Do I want to go out? Definitely not, but why did she ask that at the end? None of it made sense but then again, she rarely seemed to make sense. She did stuff with purpose but no sense, or at least none that I could understand. Her logic was all twisted, much like her.

  “We need to talk James,” June said bursting in, very June like.

  “No,” I said and flipped through more missed text messages. Tiffany asked if I was going to a party last night, guess she got her answer. June stood in my room, hands on her hips.

  “Fine, be that way. I’ve had enough of your stupid friends and your new attitude anyway,” she said and left.

  “Me too,” I said sounding more like an idiot. I didn’t do well under pressure.

  I woke up late Monday morning and rushed out the door. I made it just in time for English, where the class was already seated. Mickey ignored my arrival and continued writing something in her notebook. Dad made me promise to apologize to her today but I could always lie. I just wasn’t good at lying to him. I looked at her, so determined to ignore me and took a deep breath. My pulse began to speed up.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered to her. She didn’t even look up from her notebook, so I figured she was still ignoring me. “Sorry,” I tried again. She continued writing, I was about to try for a third time when she answered, still writing.

  “Did your mom make you apologize?” she asked coldly. Yeah, she knew me that well.

  “No,” I whispered back, aware Cody was trying to listen in.

  “Did your dad?” she accused, still unbelieving.

  “Yes, but I am,” I told her truthfully.

  “You should be,” she agreed and didn’t say another word to me. We took a break from our projects today and learned about the Victorian era of literature.

  “Were you talking to Michaela?” Cody asked with confusion as we walked to History.

  “Yeah, I just told her not to stalk me.” I grinned, Cody laughed at that. History was my favorite subject, the class I did best in. It was boring as usual, but only because I had a teacher like Mr. Renner and he was awful. Mr. Renner the perv, was making another sexist joke about how
women should stay in the kitchen. No one found it funny but Trent, who laughed and agreed. Everyone tried to ignore them. Emily, Mickey’s friend, passed me note. I looked down at it confused, the folded paper had my name written on it, we were not friends and we’d never spoken before, so why should I read it but the small neat cursive was so familiar I had to open it. Written inside, was one word. Okay.

  Mickey never wrote anything longer than it needed to be but it always had to be grammatically correct. Like instead of using the number two, she would write two, and so on, there were no abbreviations with her. It was one of the many things I loved about her, but still the note shocked me. She forgave me. Why? I’d never apologized for other many things I did, but now I wondered if I did, would she forgive me? Could things be the same as they once were? No, I knew they’d never be the same but maybe, just maybe, they’d work. I quickly wrote back a message, it felt important to get it right, this was the most important thing I’d written, ever. Emily looked surprised when I tapped her on the back and handed her the folded note, she took it and put it in her pocket, looking shocked and blushing now.

  “So, where were you on Saturday?” Laura asked, eating a pack of saltine crackers. That was all she ate for lunch every day. First of all, doesn’t that get boring, the same thing everyday and second of all, how did you live off that? She was as skinny as she could get; no muscle, no fat, the only thing under her thin pale skin was bone. I took a bite of my 6-inch sub, feeling sorry and then answered.

  “Home.” And then took another bite. I saw Derek get in line at the cafeteria and then leave with a pizza, salad, and two chocolate milks. My eyes followed him down the cafeteria and to Mickey. He sat down beside her, I had to move my head to see them after he sat but I didn’t miss that million-dollar smile she graced him with. She used to give me that smile all the time and it made me jealous that he got the same one. But then again, he did give her chocolate milk. How did he know her love of chocolate milk? It was the only type of milk she drank and a secret that I still kept: is that sometimes she even put it in her cereal. Well when she had cereal, which wasn’t very often. I couldn’t get over that smile all throughout Math and Science, and then when we had gym and I had to watch Derek and her flirting as my team played against them. Derek stole the ball she was dribbling and held it up high, higher than she could reach. She tried to jump up for it but still couldn’t reach. Sam, Lloyd, and Derek laughed as she struggled.

  “Derek, give me the ball,” she ordered, trying to grab it.

  “This is too much fun.” He laughed. Finally, she gave up looking annoyed and poked him hard right in the belly button. That made me laugh.

  “Ow,” he said, protecting his stomach with the ball. She took that as a chance to snatch it from him. “No fair,” he complained, rubbing his stomach, which made me laugh again. Mickey stuck her tongue out at him and turned away.

  “Oh, and I’m not making you any more cookies.” She smiled. His eyes widened along with mine. She makes him cookies! Mickey made the best cookies and she was making them for him! I didn’t care how big he was, I wanted to pick a fight.

  “Come on Mike, please. I was just messing around,” he begged. She looked at him and shook her head. Haha! I remembered a similar scene, but it involved a lollipop. We were both eating lollipops and I decide to steal hers; she didn’t poke me but she stole mine and started eating it instead, it had never annoyed her and she never threatened to deprive me of her cookies. So why did this annoy her? “You make the best cookies! It’s not fair at all!” he argued. That made her smile. “Please, I’ll do anything,” he continued to beg.

  “Okay fine,” she said giving in. No, you’re supposed to be strong and never bake for him, much less talk to him, the arrogant jerk. Dammit! Mrs. Larson blew her whistle, capturing everyone’s attention.

  “Play ball!” she shouted. Our teams got into place and then we began to play. Derek had the ball and scored right away, dodging everyone and scoring from twenty feet away. Everyone had to score before someone could try to shoot again. After I scored my team could start all over again, but Mickey’s team wasn’t doing so hot because Mickey couldn’t score. She tried seven times and had the ball stolen from her three and time was running out. Cody jogged up to me.

  “My team sucks, Michaela can’t score if her life depended on it,” he complained annoyed. He was still mispronouncing her name. Derek walked up to Michaela and stood behind her while she tried to shoot but missed, he caught the ball on the rebound. What he did next surprised me, her and just about everyone. He gave her the ball and picked her up and told her to shoot, she did and she scored and then waited to be put down, we all waited and watched, some even gawked. She was blushing like mad but he just smiled. I felt my face heat up in rage. Who the hell did he think he was! I walked up to him and pushed him, too caught up in my fury.

  “Whoa,” he said looking at me with anger. I looked at him feeling like I could kill something. “You have a problem, pal?” he asked, making my anger spike.

  “I’m not your pal,” I said through gritted teeth. Mickey put her dainty hand on his arm.

  “Ignore him,” she said looking at him and ignoring me, which didn’t help my anger any. He looked like he was about to protest but she spoke quicker, “Anything, this is what I want,” she whispered, he sighed but listened.

  “Yeah, ignore me,” I said pissed and walked away. No one spoke to me for the rest of class but they all stared, everyone but Mickey did. I knew that because I was staring at her. When we got into the locker room after class, Cody and Neil jumped me.

  “What the hell?” Neil asked.

  “Yeah, what was that about, you went crazy!” Cody exclaimed. Did I really? I had no clue! I thought sarcastically. Instead I just acted cool and collected, nothing like before or how I was really feeling inside.

  “I hate Derek.” I shrugged.

  “Get in line, but man, that was crazy and not cool,” Cody said, really exemplifying how uncool it was, if it was coming from Cody. “Over Michaela?” he asked chuckling.

  “She stalks you,” Neil he added.

  “You remember the list?” I asked trying to play it cool, they nodded confused.

  “I’m just breaking a loser’s heart.” I grinned. They both slapped my back and roared with laughter.

  “Dude! This will be the best heartbreak ever!” Neil grinned.

  “You’ll go down in history, this is going to be epic!” Cody agreed energetically. If I’d learned anything today, it was that I was not only jealous of Derek but I was the one obsessed with Mickey. Mickey clearly couldn’t care less about me, it was me and no matter how many rumours I spread nothing could change that.

  Michaela

  I’d had fun with Gran but those legal documents and new information still weighed down on me over the entire stay and even while I baked chocolate souffle and we watched TV, I couldn’t stop wondering if we’d be doing this next year. When James came into English, I couldn’t look at him. Gran wanted me to forgive him but when he apologized, I knew it was forced but I also know he meant it. That’s why I gave the note to Emily who had History with him, telling him I accepted his apology. I was even more shocked when he wrote back. It wasn’t long but to the point. All he wrote in his sloppy writing was: I’m sorry. For everything. And my heart knew that I forgave him. I forgave him for everything.

  “Derek give me the ball,” I said, getting annoyed. At first it was funny but not now, now I was just frustrated.

  “This is too much fun.” He laughed. It was James, or rather I felt him watching and he didn’t look too impressed either, which only made me further embarrassed. I poked Derek hard in the navel. That ought to teach him, I thought, stealing the ball. When James used to steal stuff from me, I found it cute, not annoying.

  “No fair.” Derek complained but I just stuck out my tongue feeling victorious. I wasn’t into PDA, so him flirting with me like this was very embarrassing. When I threatened to take away my baked goods, De
rek looked so sad, he was begging me not to. He loved my baking almost as much as James did. I finally agreed under the circumstances that he would do anything I want and then we played ball. Derek was the first to score out of both teams which was no surprise, he was amazing at basketball. I still couldn’t score, even after everyone out of my team did and the pressure was only making it worse. James got the ball and dribbled it to the net avoiding everyone who tried to steal the ball, then he jumped and threw the ball into the net and scored, he was graceful in a way about it. I felt my cheeks get hot and quickly shifted my gaze to Tiffany who was sitting out. She looked at me with no smile, no frown either. After James scored Sam got the ball and passed it to me. I continued to shoot, getting both more annoyed and frustrated by the minute. Derek caught the ball on the rebound, passing it to me, I almost screamed when I felt hands around my waist, for some weird reason I thought they’d be James’ but they weren’t, they were too big. My face got hot and I really wanted to hit whoever held me.

  “Shoot,” Derek said in my ear. “You can do it,” he whispered. To any other girl this would have been cute, to me it was just a piss off. I scored and waited for Derek to put me down, which took a lot longer than necessary. I was blushing terribly, knowing everyone was watching, they were all quiet. Derek smiled at me and I wanted to yell at him and wipe the smile off his face, I felt so embarrassed. He may be a friend but that was out of bounds. I didn’t have time to let my temper get out of control because someone else’s already had, the person I’d expected the least. James. He pushed Derek pretty hard too, taking Derek and everyone else by surprise but really, I think mostly me.