Always on Your Side (NaNoWriMo 2019)

20.

I'm sure there's a lot more to be found on the Chatter app, but there is only so much of that I can take at once. All the effort of the day has coming crashing back down over me, leaving me physically and emotionally exhausted. I make a pitiful attempt to do my math homework, but after nodding off mid-problem several times, I give up.

I dream that Mom and Dad are fighting again. I'm in my old house, trying to run away, but everywhere I go I run into them and have to turn back around before they see me. They are somehow there in every corner. I look for Brendon, but I already know he's dead. The dream isn't scary so much as it is exhausting. I wake up with teeth sore from grinding. I assume my dream is just a symptom of grief, or maybe some anxiety over the argument Marina and I got in yesterday. That is, until I get up to get ready for school and see Adam is sleeping on the living room couch. Then I wonder how much of the screaming in my dream was happening in real life, too.

I don't want to deal with the aftermath of Mom and Adam's fight. I don't want to face Adam when he wakes up. What would I say to him? So, even though I don't know how to face Marina either, I bike to school early again today. I avoid the cafeteria and the library, both places Marina frequents. Instead I go to the gym, which is occupied by the students who have early PE. I sit on the bleachers and watch them do sprints. A few people glance at me, but no one really questions my presence. Every teacher assumes I'm someone else's student, sitting out because I forgot my P.E. clothes or something.

I left Brendon's phone at home, but now I wish I'd brought it. Now that I've had some sleep, albeit terrible sleep, my mind is clearer and I'm burning to know what else he left for me. I only looked at the music and the Chatter app; was there other information in his other apps? Would he answer my questions? To distract myself, I pull out my own phone, putting it not-so-subtly in my open backpack on my lap as I hunch over it. Phones are supposed to be kept in lockers when you're at school. This is the one rule Mom is fine with me breaking - "What if there's another shooting or emergency and you need to reach me, and you can't because your phone is in your locker? No, forget that. I got you those phones so you can be safe. If you're texting in class, your teacher can take it for the period. No one is confiscating your phone for the whole day; and they can take it up with me if they try." Luckily, I don't usually text in class anyway, and usually no one bothers to enforce the rule as long as you aren't distracted in class.

I mindlessly scroll through Facebook, which is conspicuously void of Marina. Marina doesn't actually comment on Facebook all that much, but she's linked every other account to Facebook. So usually I see every book she reads and YouTube video she watches. A glance at her profile reveals she tweeted something yesterday, something about a K-pop band I'm unfamiliar with. That's enough to fulfill my need to check on her, but I'm filled with anxiety over the inevitability of seeing her later. I thought it would be best to wait until I see her and apologize in person, but what if she's mad that I didn't make time to text her last night? What if she doesn't want to talk at all? Relationships are complicated. When I used to fight with my best friends, we'd mostly wait until the next day and then we would call each other and just be like, "Hey, wanna make up again?" and that would be that. How is this stuff supposed to work when you have mutual secret romantic feelings?

I don't see her for my first two class periods, but that's normal; we don't have class together and the campus is big enough to not run into each other if we're not trying to. I'm a bit more concerned when I swallow my anxiety and go over to the table where she and her friends always sit at lunch, and she's not there.

Her entire friend group (except for those two girls who never shut up about manga, who aren't paying attention) looks at me with facial expressions that range from accusing, to awkward, to intentionally trying to be indignant because they want to start drama. Great. She told them all that I hurt her feelings. I guess this means we're officially fighting. Still, I have to ask, "Have you guys seen Marina?"