Running Back To Him (18 page)

Coming to the cemetery wasn’t meant to make everything better, everything whole again. I needed to heal. And sometimes in order to heal, you have to acknowledge that a scar is even there in the first place.

Chapter 28

“You know you have a lot of power in your hands right now,” Micah Jones says as he lies face down on the mat, my arm coiled around his, slowly stretching his shoulder upwards.

Tonight I have the duty of doing some light mobility work on him. We’re finishing up the last few sessions of rehab on his shoulder.

“You’re lucky I trust you,” he says chuckling. “I’m in a vulnerable position right now,” he says with a strained voice.

“You’ve become more and more of an asshole over the weeks,” I say shaking off his remarks.

“I’m a point guard. Of course I’m an asshole. All athletes are assholes. We spend our time trying to beat the competition into the floor.”

“You’re right.
All
athletes are assholes. You should all go play in traffic blindfolded for all I care.” My tone is grating.

“Wow. Where did that come from? Who shit in your oatmeal and called it brown sugar?”

I clench his ankle and shoot him a steely glance.

“You know you’re right, one twist of my wrist and I
could
put you on the sideline. For the rest of next season if I try hard enough.

“Okay, okay. No more jokes. I’m sorry,” he says relenting near the point of squealing under the pressure I hold his arm with. “Hey, be nice to me. I let you drink with me for free. Tequila isn’t cheap nowadays.”

I blow harshly, bristling my lips. “Screw Northern and screw Kellen.” My anger causes me to pull his arm back a little too hard.

“Ahhh! Oh my God. Lady are you trying to kill me? Easy, easy.” He breathes a sigh of relief as I let go of his arm. “What does Kellen have to do with torturing my shoulder?

I release his arm and sit back, trying not to fall apart into tears.” He glances up at me, confused. “What’s wrong? Is it something I said?”

“Kellen broke up with me last night. He’s back with his ex.”

He sits up, hurriedly and concerned. “I’m sorry. I feel like a jerk. Here I am making jokes and—” His face curls. “Wait…you’re with Kellen?”

“It’s okay. You had no way of knowing.” I mash my teeth together trying not to get worked up into a fit of tears.

“I didn’t know you two were together.”
“We just broke up. Yesterday. We haven’t even been together that long. I knew he’d go back with Mackenzie sooner or later.” He sighs and it’s weird-sounding. The look on his face is troubling.

“Back with Mackenzie? Mackenzie Jacobs?”

“They’d been together like forever. Yeah she dumped him right after the game where he fumbled the ball. He and I got together for a little bit and now she’s back with him. I should’ve known better. I never had a chance.” I try to breathe through the tightness in my throat. “I can’t believe he’d take her back after she left him because he had a bad game. What a bitch.” A weird look contorts his face. “What?” I ask.

“Look…maybe it’s not my place to say.”

“Say what?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing. He stands up, smoothing his shirt down. “Are we done with the session for today?”

I don’t let him off the hook. “Just say what you have to say.”

He scratches the back of his neck and sighs heavily.

“The night before the first game of the season, Mackenzie showed up on my doorstep.” My eyes want to fall out of their sockets. “She was totally wasted. One thing led to another…”

“Seriously?”

“She’s not the innocent girl that she makes herself out to be. That girl is bad news. That thing about her breaking up with him because of the game is bullshit. She broke up with him because she cheated on him…with me.”

My knees almost buckle.

“That night she came over—totally wasted, wanting to hookup. She told me she didn’t have a boyfriend. I was game. My parents were gone and I already had a girl over that I’d been messing around with…one thing led to another…and the three of us…” He stops himself and smirks. “Mackenzie isn’t the innocent princess she paints herself out to be.”

My jaw drops even further towards the ground with every word he speaks. “It was all a regular night for me, but she was nearly suicidal the next morning. Yelling and screaming, hysterical about how she made such a mistake and this couldn’t happen again. That’s when she told me she had a boyfriend. I’m no saint, but I don’t mess around with another guy’s girl.” Pure shock colors my face to the point I’m unable to speak.

“I don’t know what’s going on between you and Kellen, but I just thought you should know. All of this is really not my business. But you’re a really sweet girl and I’d hate to see you caught up in this mess. Kellen too. Poor kid has no idea what he’s gotten himself into. Or maybe he does; guys do some crazy things over the fairer sex.”

I dig my hands onto the top of my scalp, my mind running in a million directions.

“I can’t believe what I just heard,” I say.

I had to tell Kellen. He was making a huge mistake. He has to know the truth. I’m willing to come to grips that he and I would never be together. But as a friend, I want him to know the truth.

Chapter 29

The first place I’m headed after I leave McLaren is to the mall. Sephora is the only place I know that has the type of hair dye I like. It’s one thing to say that I’m not going to worry about what people think of me and it’s another thing to actually
show
that the perception that people have of you means nothing to you.

I make it to Sephora and luckily there’s one more box of purple dye left in stock. Purple must be pretty popular nowadays. It was cherry red before I went back to my natural color; now I’m going for something ravishing. Purple is a royal color. And I’m regal all day baby.

Mom is at her Friday night spinning class, so I’m able to work my magic in peace. Before I lock myself in the bathroom, I slide under Mom’s bed and take a couple of swigs of her Jack Daniel’s.

I stand in front over the bathroom counter and queue up my favorite playlist on Pandora; 90’s hip-hop. If a girl is about to undergo a transformation, she needs her theme music.

I look in the mirror as “Funkdafied” by Da Brat blasts from my phone.

After repeating the near two-hour dizzying process of mixing, applying the bleach, running back to Mom’s room taking more swigs of Jack I’m finished with satisfied results.

I scrunch up my face, smiling into the mirror overjoyed. It’s a little weird seeing myself like this after wearing my hair’s natural color for so long. I pull out my phone and take a few selfies. My finger hangs over the icon to upload the pic to Instagram. My finger hangs there for a few moments and I bite my bottom lip.

Nah. No thanks. I didn’t do this for likes and comments—I did this for me. And that’s what truly matters. I put my phone on the back on the bathroom counter and began posing into the mirror, my hips swaying to the music and my hair, still a little wet bouncing against my shoulders.

It feels a little funny looking at it. But it feels like home. But as they say, home is where the heart is.

Chapter 30

“I swear this was a good idea when we were discussing this over coffee yesterday,” I say to Justine as we stand outside my car in the parking lot of the University of Michigan pavilion. I’m sweating bullets from how hot my Chewbacca costume is. Michigan weather in October is usually trending on the chilly side, but the day of Homecoming just had to be unseasonably warm. The ABC12 News weather team is going to get a nasty email from me tomorrow morning about my displeasure of them saying it would be low fifties, high forties. I thought the thick fur would keep me warm, instead it’s pushing me to a heat stroke.

“Here,” Justine says, handing me a juice bottle, “drink up, you need electrolytes.”

I take a swig of the bottle and I’m fanning myself with a manila folder I use to keep my U.S. History notes in.

“I have to tough it out, who cares that I might die of thirst or dehydration in the process? I have to wear the head of the costume. I can’t half-step this sort of thing.”

“It’s go hard or go home,” she says with her angry, game time face.

“It’s like sacrilegious if I don’t wear the head. George Lucas would roll over in his grave if I didn’t wear it.”

Her face scrunches in confusion. “I thought George Lucas is alive.”

“He is, but that’s not the point. The point is I have to do this. I said I was going to do this and I can’t punk out now.”

She’s lucky she’s going as the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz. At least she can get a breeze under her dress and her head is only covered by her pointy black hat.

I down the contents in the bottle and throw it in my backseat along with the dozen or so empty soda bottles.

We walk to the entrance, already getting stares from other couples who are dressed to the nines in silk gowns and well-tailored suits.

“Do you think we overdid it?” Justine says looking around at the giggles and confused looks arrowed in our direction.

“Not at all,” I say, totally unfazed by the attention. I welcome it.

“I just hope we won’t get in trouble for wearing these outfits.”

I hold the door open for her; the booming bass from a Taylor Swift song pelt us in the face. “Don’t worry, we won’t. There’s nothing in the rulebook that says that we have to wear a dress. The bulletin said no jeans and gym shoes, no alcohol, and absolutely no making out. I think we’re good to go.” I take a deep breath and place my Chewy head on my shoulders. “It said nothing about size twenty, furry feet or in your case, bare, green feet with warts on them.”

She releases a wicked, sinister laugh, only like a wicked witch could. “You’ve been practicing that haven’t you?” I ask.

“You kidding? I’m a natural, baby,” she says.

Mr. Alonzo, the gym teacher and Mrs. Ferriss, the vice principal, greet us at the door to the ballroom. I really shouldn’t use the word greet. Webster’s Dictionary defines greet as an address with expression of kind wishes upon meeting or arrival. Not a confused look, stretching the side of one’s face.

I take off my costume head and reveal myself. Mrs. Ferriss in her usual ‘I-have-a-twelve-inch-stick-lodged-up-my-butt-and-I-like-it’ face clears her throat and straightens her torso. “Ms. Graham. Ms. Adams,” she says in her usual prim and proper voice, “our Halloween dance isn’t until the end of the month.”

“Oh, we know that. This is Homecoming,” I say.

“Then where’s your dress?”

I smile, wide and bright. “It’s made of fur.” Justine and I walk into the ballroom while Mr. Alonzo tries his best to contain his laughter.

We step on the parquet floor into the immense ocean of partygoers. The dance is a casino theme and everyone is wearing their best. Guys with their suit jackets off, clutched in their fists, bumping and grinding against girls in tight satin dresses, hoping they don’t sweat out their hair that they’ve spent all morning under a blow drier.

In the ballroom, thousands of twinkle lights sparkle above, red dice tumbles across the green felt, decks of cards shuffle rapidly and tiny white balls bounce over slots on the roulette table. The band on stage is rocking the crowd with some kind of up-tempo pop/hip-hop mashup. People are shaking their butts off to the grooves.

There’s no sign of Kellen. Good. I hope he and Mackenzie decided not to come. That’s one less thing I have to worry about tonight. Telling Kellen what Micah told me has been on my mind all day long. I wanted to tell him, but I’m scared shitless.

I take off the head and take a breather.

“Awesome suit,” a girl says to me as she passes by us, her date lagging in tow.

“I told you this was a good idea,” Justine says. I look around and a few people are staring but most of the people here are too busy dancing, eating shrimp cocktail off of tiny Styrofoam plates from the long table of hors d’oeuvres or their faces are stuck in their phones.

Justine hooks my arm and pulls me to the dance floor. I nearly stumble in the process. Thank God I didn’t; this suit isn’t the most mobile, it’ll take me a couple of football players to peel me off the floor. “Oh my God, we have to dance to this,” Justine yelps, “This is my favorite song.” There’s a first time for everything and cutting a rug in a Chewbacca costume is definitely a first.

I start to do the Running Man and Justine busts out her rendition of the Robot. A small crowd forms around us, yells ‘go, go, go’ egging us on. All of a sudden we’re the life of the party. Our moves are stealing the show; until I have to stop mid-song, because I’m sucking on air and my vision is getting blurry.

I yank off my Chewy head. “Air,” I say breathless. “I need air right now. Or water. Whatever comes first.”

“I’m parched,” Justine says. “I’ll come with you.”

We make our way towards the table of hors d’oeuvres to the punch bowl to guzzle a few cups of red stuff with orange slices floating on top.

“I hope it’s not spiked,” she says.

I laugh, only to be greeted by the Three Little Pigs—Ashley, Dascha, and Penelope.

I slam my Chewy head on and grit my teeth, ready to do battle.

The moment is electric. There’s that calm, but tense static feeling in the air; the kind of feeling that’s present when a severe thunderstorm is brewing. The claws are protruding from my fingernails and the fangs are erupting through my gums.

I feel like this is a showdown at the O.K. Corral. Same type of showdown that my Dad used to watch on Sunday afternoons. A standoff between good and evil outside of some dusty saloon, in the middle of some dusty road, tumbleweeds ripping by us.

It’s where everything is slowed down and I have nothing but tunnel vision, seeing nothing but Ashley and her dim, hellish eyes.

My eyes narrow and my fingers are twitching and stinging. All I need is a toothpick in the corner in my mouth and a six-shooter.

“Well, well, well,” Ashley says in her normal speaking like she’s chewing her face voice. “I see you’re back to your loser ways.” Her minions laugh—as they always do when Ashley says something remotely funny.

They’re all wearing dresses that cost more than some people’s monthly wages. They all look pretty; I’m not too prideful to admit. They all spent the morning under a blow drier, frying their hair follicles to beautify themselves for tonight. I’m guessing it’s cooked a few more of their brain cells in the process, too. Honestly, Dascha looks the prettiest of all. Her flowing, chocolate curls tumble over her bare shoulders. Her rich bronze-kissed skin is glowing underneath her black satin gown. Deep down I always thought Dascha was much prettier than Ashley and purposely played down her beauty to not upset her and upstage her. Ashley, always the glory hog.

I tilt my head. “You know,” I say inching closer, “I could never find out if you have some type of wire attached to those two, that when you say something that’s nowhere near funny that you press a button and if they don’t laugh, that they get sent an electrical shock.”

Justine snickers. “It’s so Pavlovian,” Justine says.

“Pav—who? Is he the new science teacher,” Penelope says with a dumbfounded look.

I bury my fist in my mouth and bite down on it, wincing. “My goodness, how did I ever hang out with all of you before?”

“It was charity, trust me,” Ashley shoots back, arrogantly swinging her golden mane behind her shoulders.

“I was going to say what is a handkerchief and Chlorophyll for one hundred, Alex,” Justine says with a humorous scowl. I laugh.

“Just, your zingers are off the chain tonight. You’re rolling them off left and right.” I waddle closer to the table, parting Penelope and Ashley to grab a plastic cup and a plate. “If you’ll excuse me, Chewbacca needs nourishment.” I reach over to grab a plate but my paws are too big to be able to seize it. I say to Justine, “I really should have thought this costume thing through.”

“So how does it feel?” Ashley asks, as I continue to ponder how to hold a plastic cup and pour juice with ginormous Wookie hands. “It must really suck to have the life you’re having.” Her words make me pause. I know what’s coming next. “Let’s just look at what’s happened over the last few weeks. You’ve been dumped by not one, but two of the hottest guys in school.” Ashley folds her arms, tilting her head.

“And then you get ousted from like the coolest clique in school. It so much sucks to be you,” Penelope says.

“Penelope, I’m proud,” I say, smacking my lips. “After four years of high school, you’re actually able to form an opinion of your own without looking at Ashley for parental approval.” She furrows her eyebrows into a grimace at me.

I look over my shoulders and a small crowd is building around us. “You can get your jokes in Graham, but the fact remains, no matter how much you try to hide it you’ll always be a loser. That’s why you can’t keep a boyfriend. I’ll admit, beneath all the lame Lord of the Rings action figures you play with and the colorful hair, you’re a pretty girl. I’ll give you that. As much as it pains me to say. But aside from that, once a boy sees how lame and weird you are they can’t do anything besides dump you for a better option. Like me.” She checks her phone. “As a matter of fact, that other better option is on her way. Mackenzie.” She sucks her bleached white teeth and laughs pompously. “She’s not me, but she’ll do. I guess in your language, Mackenzie and I are like Magenta and Professor Z.” The two mutants to the left and right of her cackle—on command like she’s trained them to do.

I exhale an annoying sigh. My neck twists snake-like with an attitude. “It’s
Magneto
and
Professor X
, you idiot. If you’re gonna make an analogy, at least get it right.”

“Wow,” Justine says, “I hate her guts, but that’s a pretty spot on observation.” I throw a furry elbow into her side. “Ouch!” she yelps. “It made my stomach turn to admit it but it’s true.”

“It’s really sad when you think about it. Poor, weird, loner girl loses her Daddy and little sister—and decides to reinvent herself.” She snickers. “We all saw through it.” She pokes her chest out. “Like I said…charity.” She shakes her head in pity.

A chill of horror courses through my body, but it’s quickly replaced by bubbling embers of rage. The image of my Daddy in the backyard teaching me how to throw a punch flashes before my mind. Some girls didn’t have their father teach them how to ride a bike, mine taught me how to throw a punch. I ball my fist up and cock my arm back ready to knock her senseless. But I stop. She’s not worth swollen knuckles or a suspension from school. I decide on something better. Something more crowd-pleasing.

Justine seizes the punch bowl in her hands and tries to lift it up.

“No, Just, allow me,” I say, my furry arms moving her aside. I lift the bowl up and dump it over Ashley’s head. Through the red goodness dripping from her head to her toes, I see a look of shock on her eyes. Her eyes look like they’re moments from falling out and landing next to her glittery high heels.

“And that’s not just for me,” I shout as Ashley stands there frozen in sheer humiliation. “That’s for everyone you’ve tormented over the years.”

Justine picks up a biscuit and hurls it baseball pitch style at Penelope. It slams her right between the eyes.

“And that one’s just because,” Justine says. “Bull’s eye.” She balls up her fist in victory. “I told you I should’ve tried out for the softball team.”

My face is a mix of scorn and delight. “You really should. And maybe I should play volleyball or shot put something. That bowl was super heavy.”

My moment of triumph is short lived as I feel wiry, but strong fingers clench around my bicep.

Mrs. Ferriss steps through the buzzing crowd full of laughter and hooting and stands before us defiantly. “You two,” she barks sternly. She seizes our arms with the grip of an eagle’s claw. “You’re out of here! Now.”

“Fun’s over! It’s been a blast gals,” I say to the red dripping mess that is Ashley and her mutants. Mrs. Ferriss spins us around, and drags us through the crowd. All I see are smiles, cheers and pats on my furry back. I’ve never been showered with so much praise before. It was like there was a collective satisfaction from what I did to Ashley. Like everyone felt a sense of victory. I even see smile on Dascha’s face.

“So I guess this is what it feels like to be thrown out of a party,” I say, struggling to hold my giant Chewy head. “Let’s celebrate! I think Smoothie King is still open.”