“I was wondering if you wanted to go to homecoming with me.” His question came out in a jumble and for a second I was wondering if I had heard him right. Mark, who was on the mathletes team with me, was asking me to homecoming. Homecoming where guys took girls they liked and were expected to dress up, possibly go to dinner, dance, and, oh Lord, possibly kiss.
I scrunched my nose at the thought of kissing Mark and his hands on me as we danced. I didn’t like the image.
“You could have said no.” Mark put his hands in his pockets, looking defeated, and I realized that everything I had been thinking in my head I had let show on my face.
“Mark.” I tried to reassure him that it wasn’t him, but in general any guy, but he cut me off.
“It’s fine, I get it.”
“You do?” I straightened up, my shoulders relaxing and a sense of relief washing over me. He understood why I couldn’t go with him. I held a smile on my face for what felt like half a second before Mark continued.
“Yeah, I do. I’m not good enough.” He scoffed at his words, like he couldn’t believe he was saying them or that he even thought they were true.
“Mark, it’s not that. I promise.”
“Then what is it? I’ve never seen you with any guy before and have never heard about you going on a date, so what is it then?” His attitude was becoming more harsh. Words sharpening that felt like daggers in my heart, and they shouldn’t have been. I knew I shouldn’t feel bad for how I felt and Mark had no reason to make me feel that way. If he wanted to know so badly, then he was going to know.
“There’s someone else.”
“Don’t lie. I told you, I know you.”
He tried to take a step toward me, but I put a hand up to stop him. I looked up into Mark’s dark brown eyes and saw anger and curiosity there. He was trying to figure out what game I was playing, but I wasn’t playing any game.
“I’m not lying, Mark. His name is Chase.” I put my hand down and looked at my shoes, white Converse I had gotten recently. The only shoes I actually owned. In fact, I had multiple of the same pairs. After Chase first left when I was so young, I had clung to the shoes I had worn that day and when it was finally time to get a new pair, I just always seemed to gravitate to the same ones. “I met him when I was seven, but he left Atlanta when I was nine, then I saw him again when I was a freshman, and haven’t seen him since, but I know one day I will and until that day, I’ll wait for him. I’ll always wait for him, Mark, no matter how long it takes, because that seven-year-old who fell for a boy in still inside of me waiting.”
I wrung my hands in front of me as the two-minute warning bell sounded and when I looked up at Mark, his look had completely changed. His expression was soft and the smile he held I knew matched the one that was plastered on my face.
“I was wrong, Erica.” The smile on Mark’s face grew as our last minute before class counted down and the hall emptied. “You clearly care for him.”
“I more than care for him, Mark.” The last bell rang and I moved to my class room door with my hand on it and pulled it open. I looked back one last time before entering the classroom. “I love him.”
