“Fine, fine,” he said with a pouty expression, then he turned back to his locker, and I headed off to mine.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I heard someone say from behind me as I stepped up to my locker. I turned around, and it was Brooke, standing there alone.
“Excuse me?”
“Flaunting Chris in front of Amy like some prize? She saw you kissing him just now. How could you hurt her like that? She’s crying in the bathroom,” Brooke said, seeking empathy for my sister.
“Just so you know, I do feel bad. I didn’t mean for things to turn out this way, and I tried to explain it to her, but she didn’t believe me,” I said, as I turned back to my locker, trying to take Chris’s advice and ignore her.
“Some sister you are,” Brooke said as she walked away. Her words stung. I did feel bad, but Amy was treating me terribly, and it wasn’t my fault that Chris liked me. I pushed Amy out of my mind, grabbed my books, shut my locker, and headed to my first class.
Throughout the day, I kept running into Amy, who refused to talk to me. She only shot me looks of disgust. I guess I had really wounded her, but it was starting to get to me. It was time for French class, and Chris was waiting in the back like always. He patted the seat as I got closer, and he could tell something was wrong.
“What is it?” he asked as I slid into my seat, but I just shook my head. My hair fell into my face, and he reached over to move it behind my ear as he asked again. “Hey, what’s wrong? Look at me, Allie.”
I turned to look at him, and he looked worried. I shrugged but flashed him a smile fake enough for him to believe that I was okay. Madame Holly called attention to the front of the room, and I was happy for the distraction. I ignored Chris for most of the class, but I could feel his eyes trained on me regularly, and I couldn’t tell if he was trying to get my attention or still trying to determine if I was okay, but either way, I wasn’t going to acknowledge his curiosity. I looked straight ahead and participated in class as much as possible, which he knew was out of character. When the bell rang, I collected my things, put them in my bag as quickly as possible, and got up to leave, but Chris stopped me.
“What’s up with you?” he said, not buying my weird behavior.
“Just some stuff at home,” I said. It wasn’t a lie, and I was thankful when he nodded but left it alone. Once we were out of the room, he threw an arm around me, and I walked down the hall in a daze, numb to the possibility that I needed to let him go and let him decide for himself who he wanted to be with. He might not understand why I was making an irrational decision based on the trauma of my past, but it was something rooted in the way my Dad had left and never come back. The way my Dad had pushed me away as a child and made it clear that I wasn’t worthy of being loved. My Dad walked out the door and chose to love someone else. Maybe I needed to let him do the same. I looked up with an empty gaze as he looked around at his friends.
“I need to go get my books for tonight,” I said through words that might not have been so believable if he had been more honed in on me in that moment. I was relieved that he wasn’t.
“Okay, yep, I’ll see you at the game,” he said, as he looked back down at me and kissed me on the forehead with a playful tussle of my hair. I was in my head again, which was a destructive place to be.
As I unloaded my books into my locker, I calculated my plan for attending the game that afternoon. I assumed Amy and Brooke would be there, and I decided that I was going to give her all the space she needed. I planned to give her the opportunity she had been begging for to shower Chris in attention, even though it wasn’t what I wanted and it wasn’t something Chris would see coming, but I wanted to give him the chance to decide for himself, so I braced myself for the jealousy I would feel. Just then, Isabelle walked up.
“Hey, you’re going to the game this afternoon, I assume?” she asked.
“Yep, you want to go with me?”
“Yes! Let’s sit together.”
“You know me, I’m more of a pacer, but I’ll try to chill and sit still,” I said with a forced smile.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good. Let’s go,” I said, as I hoisted my heavy backpack onto my back and reached to tighten the knot of Chris’s hoodie around my waist.
“I’m jealous that you’re in a relationship,” she said, as she looked down at the hoodie. “Chris is so hot. I’ve had my eye on Walker since Freshman year,” she said. I keep hoping he’ll ask me out,” she continued, trailing off, which I was thankful for so that I could stay deep in my own intrusive thoughts.
Was it a relationship? Maybe not. I didn’t reply, and she didn’t notice. When we crossed the parking lot and the Soccer field was finally in sight, my stomach turned into a mix of nerves and sudden sadness. Once we got there, I spotted my sister and Brooke leaning over the black chain-link fence at the front of the bleachers, talking to some of the members of the team. Chris was out on the field practicing penalty shots, and he saw me arrive, so he waved me over to the fence. Isabelle walked down to the fence with me, and I could see Amy watching me like a hawk.
“Hey, Superstar!” he said loudly as he closed the distance between us.
“Hey!” I said, with fake enthusiasm. I didn’t want to let on how I was feeling, but I stood back far enough from the fence that he couldn’t reach me, and Isabelle noticed.
“Come here,” he said with a confused smile, as he leaned across the fence and reached a hand around the back of my arm to pull me gently towards him. With my hands resting on the top rail of the fence, I let him pull me in for a kiss, but I didn’t linger; I abruptly pulled away.
“You have to focus. Good luck out there,” I said, with little emotion. He looked hurt.
“Something’s up with you. Let’s talk later,” he said, then he turned and ran back out onto the field to finish warming up. When I turned to Isabelle, she was staring at me with a cocked head.
“Just leave it,” I said, and she nodded with a look that said she had one hundred questions, but she obliged, and we turned to go sit down.
Once we found a spot on the grass away from all the others, Isabelle pulled a small blanket from her backpack and laid it on the ground. Before sitting down, I untied Chris’s hoodie and pulled it over my head as I looked out onto the field to see him looking back at me. He ran his hands through his waves of hair, but he looked worried. I looked away to see my sister cast a blank stare at me, her eyes boring into his hoodie, and then she turned back to gaze out at Chris. He didn’t seem to notice her. I finally looked at Isabelle.
“I don’t get it!” I said. “Am I really such a monster?”
