Hoops and Dreams

[22] Choosing violence

I'm ashamed to admit that in the aftermath of my impromptu meeting with Darnell and Leah I'm a little shaken. Shaken is the wrong word to use. I feel more like I've been poured into a blender and blitzed into puree. But that's on the dramatic side so I'll stick to shaken.

I manage to hold it together long enough to place my tray of drinks onto a nearby table and hightail it out of the party. Heading back the same way I came, away from the events garden and up the path to the main building.

My ability to compartmentalize is all screwed up leading to an oil spillage of thoughts. Darnell kissed me. He may or may not like me. A piece of information he confessed to on a date with another girl. The facts weren't at all consistent with the image I'd built up of him in my head. Not consistent with the boy I'd known when I was younger, the boy who went out of the way to be kind to a stranger.

"My theory is she's just toying with him."

Anika told me that and now I had to wonder if she had it all wrong. If he was the one toying with us, with me.

Timothy offers little resistance when I tell him it's time to leave. He has a mini Peter Parker painted on his cheek and his arms are laden with two gift bags. When I comment on the fact his response is vague. I don't grill him too hard though, one of them is going to me anyway.

*****

Monday rolls into my life like an uninvited guest. And I'm about as prepared for her as David walking into a fight with a giant, armed with three stones and a slingshot. But that story ends well so it's not all bad.

In the time it takes me to get ready for school I spill a gallon of milk on my shirt and have to search through dirty laundry to find a clean one. I know, the irony. I lose (and find) Timothy's geography project counting for half his grade and I stub my toe in the hallway and proceed to cry like a baby for a full five minutes.

A typical Monday.

It's just my luck that this Monday happens to fall into the most hellish week of the year. Hellish for a few reasons in particular:

1. Midterm fever is in full swing punctuated by an increase in the number of Starbucks coffee cups littering our hallways and trashcans.

2. My parents are set to arrive by this afternoon bringing with them my Come to Jesus moment.

3. Anika is still icing me out in the longest cold war of our friendship. Except this one is a war of No words.

And no. 4 with perhaps the most painful reason. A boy. It's always about a boy.

I don't think I've ever felt more naked or exposed than I do right now. Except in that dream where I'm at our senior prom clad in nothing but my underwear. But there were too many unicorns in that dream for me to ever take it seriously. After an entire weekend of obsessively stewing over the current state of my life the only emotion I can confidently identify is embarrassment.

I'm embarrassed that I wore Darnell's hoodie all night on Friday like some kind of idiot. I'm embarrassed that I let him kiss me, that I started to believe it meant something more.  I colour with shame every time I remember that I told him that I wanted something more than friendship.

What the hell was wrong with me? Had common sense escaped me?

The entire encounter had uncovered the insecurities I'd long buried. Leaving me raw and volatile. Seeing him with Leah made me feel something I didn't want to name just yet. It made me feel less. Less than, less worthy. I don't know. All I knew was sometimes it took standing next to someone in silk to realize your shirt was made of cheap polyester.