Growing Pains

Chapter 69 - Desperate, unbearable hope

T R I S T A N

I would avoid the cafeteria on any given day. If I could, I would avoid lunch altogether. If I couldn't, I would just buy something from the vending machines to avoid passing out in class. Caitlyn agreed with my cafeteria bashing. It was too loud, and too crowded, and we were already upset we were at school in the first place, we didn't need more reasons to want to burn the place to the ground.

She had skipped lunch today in favor of falling on her ass in the school's parking lot. Ethan had given her one of his old skateboards and promised to teach her how to use it before the end of the school year. I had taken the opportunity to make myself disappear.

I didn't want to end up in the cafeteria, especially not at lunchtime, but I had found Daisy on her way to class, and she had pointed me in that direction, of course, not before giving me her unsolicited take on my own life.

"You should let her talk this time."

She was wearing all the colors in the world, and I wanted to tell her to mind her own business, like how to dress when you're color-blind, but I held my tongue. She was right.

I just rolled my eyes instead, and asked, "Did she tell you everything?"

She showed me a big smile and shrugged, "I'm half of her soul."

I watched her walk into class, be made fun of, and throw herself on the floor, pretending to cry about it, up until the teacher told her to get up and find a seat. I rolled my eyes again and made my way to the cafeteria, just as loud and crowded as I expected.

I wasn't even all the way in and already a football was flying my way. I watched it fall on my feet and then kicked it in the opposite direction it had come from. Someone cursed at me. I didn't care. I just kept walking and looking for her.

I had made a point of not getting to know anyone in high school and so I recognized almost none of the people in the cafeteria. The sun hitting the windows made the whole place hot and humid and impossible to be in. Everyone was breathing the same air and most of it was pestered with the stink of cafeteria food. I couldn't wait to leave.

By the time I found her, a headache had started brewing in my temples. She was at a table in the very back, sitting next to the guy who had punched her in the face months ago, watching something on his phone, sharing his earphones, and ignoring the food going cold on the table in front of them. She had her hair up, a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, like she had just rolled out of bed and came straight to school. 

I stopped in front of them, my hand on my forehead, where the headache had started to boil, and asked, "Can we talk?"

The guy looked up first and frowned, "About what?"

I frowned too, "I wasn't talking to you. Obviously."

Zoey looked up at me, confused, and then took her earphone off and said, "Of course."

I watched her get up. When the guy asked if he could keep watching, she shrugged, and said if he wanted to, yes, but after some thought, he shrugged too, and said he wouldn't, which made her smile and my headache get a whole lot worse.

She grabbed her things and followed me out of the cafeteria.

"Are you actually friends with that guy?" I asked. I couldn't help myself. I imagined her going to prom with him, kissing him under a mirrorball, all her shine reflected back on him. I promised her I wouldn't be jealous, but only because I would be dead. I wasn't yet. 

"He's Daisy's brother," she said. "We grew up together."

I walked into the art room. It had been open for everyone ever since school had started again because of some club's mediocre exhibition, but no one ever went in. Zoey followed me inside and closed the door behind her. I leaned against a window. She stopped where she was standing in a corner, and crossed her arms over her chest.

I said, "I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"That day in the hospital." I started. "I know you're not a kid. I know I don't get to decide what's best for you. I just think –"

"I know what you think," she said, looking up to smile at me, a warm, tender smile that almost made me give up my whole selfless agenda. "You think you're doing the right thing pushing away everyone who cares about you, so they won't hurt so much when you're gone, and I understand, Tristan, I do, but it's too late. You're too late. You can push me away all you want, but I'm not gonna stop caring."

I shook my head, "It's not worth it, Zoey."

"For you, it is," she said, looking down again. "But I understand if you don't want –"

"I never said I didn't want this," I stopped her, "You have no idea how much I fucking want this."

She looked up. I reached out and grabbed her hand so I could pull her closer. The sunlight filtering through the window seemed to reflect off her when she stepped into it. I didn't let go of her hand.

She looked at it, then up at me, and said, "I've lost count of how many books I've read, how many movies I've watched. I think at some point, I just accepted that I was going to spend my life on the outside looking in, that there was always going to be this great distance between myself and the life I could be living, or should be living, I don't know. I just accepted that I was a secondary character in my own story, sometimes worse, sometimes really just an extra. But with you, it's different. You make me feel like I'm the main character for once."

I pulled her in, and said, "You should. You're the kind people write books about."

I touched the scar on her bottom lip and then pulled her all the way in. She put her arms around my shoulders, and I put mine around her waist, and pressed her against me to kiss her, both our mouths open and our eyes closed. I had her smell all over me, and her hands, warm and tender just like her smile, and hope, desperate, unbearable hope.