The Tragedy of Loving Jamie Clarke (6 page)

My heart slams into my chest as I stare at my feet. I don’t look at him but reply, “Not really. It is more uncomfortable than it is painful.”

“How long do you have to wear it for?”

“I’m not sure. I guess until the doctors are confident my spine won’t curve anymore.”

“Scoliosis, right? Your spine is curving like an S?”

He must have done his research. Not many people, at least that I have come across, know what scoliosis is. I usually have to explain it to them. “Yup, lucky me. I never thought going to the chiropractor would lead to this.”

“April, I’m sorry,” Jamie says and smiles flatly.

I shrug and walk a little faster. “Yeah well what can you do? It’s the cards I’ve been dealt.” But I don’t feel this way at all. I’m pissed and feel like I am being punished for something and there are days when I don’t want to leave the house because I don’t want anyone to see me. But I don’t want Jamie to know that. I’ll look weak and Amber says weakness is an unattractive quality to guys.

“Hey, Jamie,”

“Yeah”

Ugh! This is going to suck but it is the only way I can avoid getting hurt when he comes to his senses and realizes I’ve ruined him.

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

“Do what?” he asks, genuinely confused.

“This, go on this date,” I stammer. “I’m the robot girl with the hunchback and you’ve only just gotten into town and you shouldn’t start your life here being seen with the town freak.”

He stares at me, stunned in silence. It’s better this way, right? I’m saving us both from ridicule and regret. I turn to walk away before he can say anything that might change my mind.

“April,” Jamie says grabbing my forearm and spinning me around to face him. “I’m not afraid of your brace and frankly I don’t give a shit what people think of me.

Waves climb the rocks and blanket the shore. If I could put this scene in slow motion I’d have some Celine Dion song blasting. I can see why these types of scenes work though. Jamie and I are face-to-face and through his furrowed brows and flat lips I can still see he’s nervous. I could say a million things right now and if I really want to I can put an end to all of this before it begins and avoid further embarrassment.

“You don’t even know me,” I fold my arms across my chest and stare out across the ocean. “Why are you being so nice to me? And why doesn’t my brace intimidate you? Most guys our age would run screaming for the hills.”

“Not all teenage boys are immature dicks, April,” Jamie says, throwing a flashy smile at me. “I am not like those guys who teased you in the parking lot. I don’t care about the brace. You got dealt a shitty card but that doesn’t define you. This,” he grabs one of the metal bars, “isn’t who you are. It’s is just a thing you wear to fix an imperfection. Like people who have to wear glasses or braces to straighten their teeth. It’s just a thing and it doesn’t scare me. Actually it’s what drew me to you.”

What a curious thing he just said! Jamie begins to walk further along the path, slowly so I’ll follow. He makes himself comfortable on one of the benches that overlook the ocean and tap the bench for me to sit beside him. I do.

              “Those guys were relentless yesterday and most girls I know would have ran right back to their cars and never come back. But not you. You continued on your way and acted as if it didn’t even happen and I had to know your story.”

I can’t move and I’m not sure I’m breathing. My hands are trembling so hard that I have to shove them under my legs to prevent Jamie from seeing. I should probably say something but words seem to be failing me. I thought this brace was some sort of social death sentence. That there was no way anyone could see past it, but Jamie did; he saw through it and saw me. The problem now is, I am going to have to tell Amber she was right and I’ll never hear the end of it.

“Okay now that the sappy speech portion of the evening is out of the way, shall we go see this Cove you were telling me about?” Jamie says as he stands up and holds his hand out for mine.

“You mean you still want to go?” I ask.

“Of course, I do. Why would you even think that I wouldn’t?”

“Because,” I start but I don’t have any ending. “My freak out.”

“I don’t scare easily. Besides, your freak out gives me another reason to find you intriguing,” Jamie says sweetly. “Haven’t you ever heard that guys like a challenge?”

I slowly place my hand in his and smile. I’m standing here with the sunset crashing hues of red and orange into the ocean, in front of this gorgeous boy on a date I didn’t think I’d go on. If I am going to do this I might as well commit. Besides, I feel like I can do anything. This must be how Amber feels every time she lands a new boyfriend. This feeling of excitement, mystery and suspense it’s like watching a really good television show and having to wait until the next week to find out what happens however, I think the anticipation of what comes next is worse than waiting for next week’s episode.

-7-

I have walked the halls of this school every day and most days I was convinced that this school was an asylum for the craziest people but today I am seeing it through a different set of eyes. I am sure it has a lot to do with the veil that Jamie has put over my eyes.

It’s been only been a day since my date with Jamie but I can still feel the crisp breeze in the air and I can hear the mellifluous sound of his voice as he proclaimed his interest in me before I almost ruined everything. Is that pathetic? Like I’m one of those girls from some young adult romance novel whose entire world spins around their crush. The type of girl I swore I’d never be. In fact, Amber and I made a pact before we became freshmen that we would never let our worlds revolve around a guy. I wanted to make a no-boyfriends-before-college pact but Amber wouldn’t hear it. She’s never been able to resist having a guy on her arm, which has inevitably worked out for me. It’s hard to believe that I haven’t spoken to her since the date although it is more of an in-person story. But if she doesn’t get here soon I might end up telling the first person to look at me!

“What the hell, April,” Amber says as she skips over, cradling a History textbook. “I texted you like fifty times last night.”

“I know I’m sorry. I was exhausted. I passed out when I got home,” I reply slamming my locker shut and slouching against it.

Amber fumbles through the stack of textbooks that have grown inside her bag. Amber is a party girl and would rather spend her time flirting with guys than doing homework or studying yet she still manages to pull in a 4.0 GPA. She hasn’t applied to any colleges yet but she is definitely bound for Princeton or Harvard.

“You passed out? Geez, what did that boy do to you to make you so tired?” Amber retorts as she thrusts against a locker. “Oh my God, did you sleep with him?” She beams. She has been campaigning for me to lose my virginity for months.

“No! God no. It was our first date and I’m not Liza!”

Amber shrugs and heads toward Mr. Claymore’s Statistics classroom. “Your loss. I’m telling you, that you would be a lot more laid back if you gave into it.”

“Okay, Amber, enough.”

“Fine,” she shrugs as we pass by the cheerleading squad.

“WHATCHA GONNA DO WHEN THE GULLS COME FOR YOU? BAD BIRDS, BAD BIRDS, WATCH OUT!” the squad cheers as they skip through the hallway.

“God, they really can’t come up with a more creative cheer than that?” I snicker.

“Not with Ms. Hailey as their coach they can’t,” Amber wraps her arm around mine and pulls me on the opposite side of the hallway. “You have Mrs. Honor now, right? Isn’t that the class you have with Mr. Romeo?”

“Oh my God, my first class is the one with Jamie!”

I have been so busy living in la-la land that I didn’t think about how to act when I saw him in school. I slump against the lockers. 

“Dude, get up,” Amber demands and kicks my feet. “What’s the matter with you?”

“How am I supposed to act when I see him?”

“Like a normal human being,” Amber laughs. She has always been so collected when it comes to situations like this. If only I could switch minds with her for one day. “What happened on that date that has you all weird and clammy?” She asks and pulls out her phone to check the time. “You’ve got five minutes before the first bell rings to tell me
everything
.”

“You mean when I finally decided to answer the door?” Amber’s eyes roll. “He kept asking me questions about myself, like right off the bat he asked me to tell him all about myself. I didn’t know what to say so I kind of babbled the entire way to the ocean walk.”

Amber’s eyes light up with fire. Her mouth drops open and she drops to the dirty floor as though I had shot her.

“Oh my God, April Marks, tell me you did not take that boy to The Cove!”

The Cove is what Amber has always referred to as “the date killer.” A few years ago she brought Michael Smiths to The Cove for dinner. Amber never heard from him again after that night.

“I didn’t know where else to take him,” I say defensively.

“Town maybe? The beach? The movies? The town dump would have been better than The Cove!”

“Had we gone into town or anywhere other than The Cove we would have run the risk of seeing Liza and the entire night would have been ruined.”

Amber scoffs. “Okay, April you have got to get over this whole Liza obsession. You can’t think every guy you like is going to up and leave you for her. Not all guys are that big of a douche bag.”

I don’t have an obsession with Liza and I have seen guys turn into babbling idiots around her. Guys who I liked and who claimed to like me too would take one look at her and act like I didn’t exists so how can I not be nervous about it happening with Jamie?  

“I know, that’s what Jamie said, but I didn’t want to risk it,” I reply as I slide back onto my feet.

I pull out my phone and check the time. We only have a minute before the bell and Mrs. Honor isn’t the most understanding when it comes to tardiness. I have no idea what Jamie is thinking and all I want to do is talk to my best friends about it so I don’t lose my mind. 

“Shit, the bell is about to ring,” Amber says staring at her phone. “Just tell me quickly, was there a goodnight kiss? Or any kind of a kiss, other than one you’d give your own father?” 

I shake my head. “That’s a bad sign, right? If he wanted a second date or wanted to be with me he would have kissed me right?”

Amber shrugs. “I guess you’ll find out. Now get to class before Mrs. Honor
hangs you
for being late,” Amber shouts as she bolts down the hallway toward Mr. Claymore’s classroom.

I wave her off like I would bat a fly and watch as Damian Webber and Mitchell Harper race Amber to class. They probably lost track of time because they were busy making out in the boys bathroom again. Damian and Mitchell are Perkins High School’s first gay couple that we know of, so the school made it a big thing. Perkins Harbor gets hundreds of tourists every year and many of them happen to be homosexual. We even have a bunch of bars with the gay pride flag plastered in the windows so I’m not sure why Principal Weist insisted on having an assembly about tolerance last year.

“Settle down class,” Mrs. Honor says as I dash into the classroom right as the bell rings. “We have a lot to get through today.”

I’m panting and sweating as I slide into my desk chair and throw my bag on the floor. I can feel his deep blue eyes glued on me already. Jamie. I haven’t looked at him yet but I already know he looks amazing. I allow myself a quick peek and I was right. The alabaster shirt with the sleeves halfway rolled conforms to his body perfectly as though it were designed specifically for him. His charcoal hair is falling over his eyes, and it dances with the breeze that has trickled in from the slightly opened window; his skin is slightly tanned, which reveal the muscle veins on his arms and neck, something that has always been hard for me to resist. I think boys have some kind of sixth sense. Like they know what to do in order to get a girl to do what they want. To drive us crazy enough to beckon to their every whim, if they’re the guys we have our eyes on of course.

Why does he have to be so perfect? Can’t he have one fatal flaw, something that will prevent me from feeling like the Lords of the Riverdance are holding a performance inside my stomach every time I think about him?

“Hey,” Jamie says, leaning toward me.

Okay I totally could have started with
that
.

“Hey,” I reply without taking my eyes off the front of the room.

“So last night,” Jamie begins in a whisper. “I had a lot of fun.”

I obviously can’t see my reaction but I can feel it burning through my skin and in the weight that has been lifted off my back as I scoot up straight in my chair. I sort of knew he had a good time because when he walked me home and before he kissed me goodnight he had said he had a good time, but hearing it a second time doesn’t hurt.

“You did?” Way to go, April. Way to not sound too pathetic. “I mean I did too.”

“I thought about calling you when I got home but I figured it wasn’t the best idea. I mean it was kind of late and I didn’t want to come off a little too forward.”

“Oh,” God he’s so cute. “It wouldn’t have been too forward.”

“I know for next time then.”

Mrs. Honor shoots us an, ‘I know you’re talking over my lesson,’ look and Jamie straightens in his chair. Mrs. Honor could call us out and force us to explain why Jamie is staring at me. Not that I would really mind the entire class knowing that we went on a date last night but I don’t really think it’s any of their business.

“Mr. Clarke, perhaps you can enlighten us as to why Scout is such an important character in 20
th
century American literature,” Mrs. Honor says, rather than asks.

To Kill a Mockingbird
was on our summer reading list and even though Jamie was technically not a student this past summer, Mrs. Honor still expects him to have done the reading. From what I have heard from students who had her in the past, Scout Finch is the character that Mrs. Honor obsesses over the most. She will bring Scout into nearly all of her lessons and always compares her to other characters. Amber thinks Mrs. Honor has a lesbian crush on Scout (but she also thinks that N’sync is better than the Backstreet Boys.)

Jamie looks like aliens are abducting him as Mrs. Honor calls him out for not paying attention. She gave him a hard time his first day and it didn’t seem to bother him but today his cool guy wall is down. He obviously didn’t do the reading, which doesn’t surprise me since I’m probably one of the only people who always do the summer reading.

“Sorry. Mrs. Honor. I didn’t get a chance to do the reading,” Jamie stammers.

Mrs. Honor doesn’t care how lost or pathetic he looks. “Well, then maybe you should pay more attention to class and less on Ms. Marks’ left earlobe,” Mrs. Honor says flatly.

“Yes, Mrs. Honor.”

It sounds bad but I am kind of glad that Mrs. Honor interrupted us because I am pretty sure I was about to ask Jamie if he was going to ask me out again. I have a tendency to assume and you know what happens when people assume things. I wonder if Scout Finch were a real person would she have the same fears as I do. Would she worry herself with boys or would she focus on following in Atticus’ footsteps? If she met Jamie, would she be as amazed with him as I am? Mrs. Honor is right, Scout is one of the strongest characters in any of our summer reading books but still, I can’t imagine that even she wouldn’t be weakened by the prospect of love. I can’t imagine many people would be able to fight that off and if they could, why would they?

Jamie is writing vigorously in his notebook trying to keep up with the lecture and trust me it’s no easy feat. Mrs. Honor talks about as fast as the guy who does those Matchbox car commercials. I knew taking notes would be impossible so after school on Monday, Amber and I drove to the CVS in Kittery so I could buy a hand recorder. It’s not much better but at least I can pause, stop and rewind until I have some idea as to what it is Mrs. Honor is saying.

“Psst,” Jamie whispers, when Mrs. Honor’s back is turned. He is cupping a triangular piece of paper. “April, take it.”

He was not taking notes, he was writing
me
a note!  “No,” I whisper to Jamie.  “We’ve already been caught talking once today and if Mrs. Honor catches us passing notes we’ll have a second date- in detention!”

I’m too nervous that Mrs. Honor really does have eyes in the back of her head. He glances briefly at the front of the room where Mrs. Honor is standing with her face buried in her notes. “Quick!” whispers Jamie as he tosses the note toward my desk. I watch as it floats through the air and lands just shy of my desk. Now it’s staring at me like a $100 dollar bill. I do a quick re-check to make sure that Mrs. Honor isn’t watching and sweep the note off the floor and throw it into my lap. You know that fist clenching, stomach churning, I’m-going-to-faint feeling you get right before you go down the first drop on a rollercoaster? Well, picture that and multiply it by ten and that is what I am feeling as I peel open the note.

April,

Beware the prying eyes of Mrs. Honor. She’ll rip your head off. So, what I wanted to say before the teacher so rudely interrupted us was that I’m really into you. Cheesy metaphor warning: You’re like my favorite song playing on repeat and even if I hear it a hundred times I will never grow tired of it. With that having been said (well written) I wanted to ask you a question and it might be a little too forward but unfortunately that’s how I roll. Any chance you’d be interested in going on another date with me or be interested in being my girlfriend? You’ll see I have reverted back to Kindergarten and provided three answers below, which represent your options. Please initial the one you feel best fits what you’re thinking.

1)
                     
Yes

2)
                     
No

3)
                     
Are you out of your mind?

As much as I hope you don’t pick option two or three, if you do please know there won’t be any hard feelings. I know it’s really sudden. By the way you look beautiful today.