Collateral Damage | afi

4: the king of confrontation

Loganne Hidalgo

Anxiety was a feeling I've come to know very well since it's been building a nest inside of me to foster many more sickening emotions for years.

I felt uneasy walking into school on this gloomy Monday morning, it's almost as if mother nature was paralleling my emotions and showcasing them in the sky. From the second I ran out of the hospital Saturday evening all I could think about was Luke and everything he overheard. I could just be in my head about the whole thing and only be assuming the worst and jumping to conclusions that he listened in on the short conversation I had with Sandra, when in reality he didn't but I could see it on his face that he did in fact hear everything.

He knows something which was not what I wanted, but the silver lining was that he doesn't know everything.

Like always, the first half of my day droned on, and on, and on, and on, and it felt like the stupid bell would never ring for class to be dismissed and for everyone to head to lunch. I found myself once again sitting in the back corner of Mrs. Beyer's class tearing into a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while I mindlessly doodled on a scratch piece of paper.

I was letting myself get sucked into drawing on this piece of paper that I hadn't realized someone magically appeared in the seat next to me. With my head still down looking at the scribbles in front of me, I shifted my eyes quickly to the right to see who the person was; at first all I could see was a black zip-up jacket, and and jeans, then I slid my gaze down a couple of inches to see ratty black converse planted on the floor. This was the moment I did a fast double take and landed all of my attention to the boy I had been dreading to see.

This classroom was just the shitty gift that just kept on giving. I seriously need to find a new place to eat lunch.

With big doe eyes I stared into Luke's soul with a panicked expression on my face. My fight or flight response was being ignited and I was ready to jump up out of my seat and bolt out of the room.

Had I not been sick, I was almost positive I could keep up with the top girls on the varsity track team considering the consistent speed I've been going at as I run away from people and my problems.

I tore my eyes away from him and began packing up my things. I couldn't do this right now, and if I stayed any longer there was a very good chance that he would have to finally throw out his shoes after I paint them with my throw up. I was wrapping up the remaining contents of my sandwich and throwing my notebook and pencils into my backpack ready to walk out of the room when Luke put his hand on my arm causing me to freeze.

His touch felt like a hot iron burning into my arm. I looked back up to him and locked my eyes with his blue ones, and swallowed the lump in my throat.

"Loganne," He said my name slowly and cautiously like I was dangerous. Like I was holding a gun in my hand, and pointing it in the spot right between his eyes, trying to coax me out of pulling the trigger.

I didn't understand why when I was sitting here feeling the complete opposite. I wasn't holding the gun, I was getting ready to strap on a life vest and jump ship. As much as I wanted to push the flight button and flee and cower and hide, I knew that wasn't an option right now because Luke was here in front of me and if I left now, he would surely find me later. I would have to fight.

"About Saturday..." he started this dreaded conversation, and I knew it was coming and I should have prepared myself because Luke was always someone who would go out of his way to get answers for himself. He was the king of confrontation, and for a long time I was able to get out of it by building a wall of lies that were convincing enough for him to believe but I feared that my wall was about to crumble down after Saturday.