The Tragedy of Loving Jamie Clarke (7 page)

Yours truly,

Jamie

Oh. My. God. I can’t believe Jamie Clarke just asked
me
to be his girlfriend. Damn! Why isn’t Amber in this class right now? I think it’s time to freak out now.

-8-

This is what I hoped for when I walked into class and now that it’s here I have no idea what to do! It’s too soon right?  No, this is high school. So what if Jamie and I only had one date? Most of the relationships at Perkins High start long before the first date and besides, my date with Jamie couldn’t have been better. We talked the entire time and never had any of those awkward silences where you’re both staring at the other desperately trying to come up with something to say.

After his great speech, I took Jamie to Lobsterfest, which on the outside looks like a hole in the wall, mostly because the exterior is broken pieces of lobster traps, but it is the best place to get a lobster roll. Even though I was dying to have one, I ordered a shrimp salad instead. The last time I had a lobster roll I ended up wearing most of it. We talked about everything and he even told me about the time he was arrested when his friends decided it would be a good idea to toilet paper the Chief of Police’s house. “I wasn’t even at the scene of the crime but I was arrested anyway when the police chief came to my friend’s house later that evening.” he laughed. It was weird hearing him talk about getting fingerprinted and being locked in a holding cell.  “It sounds like an episode of Law & Order” I say. My stories could never compare to his but I told him a few cute anecdotes about myself, nothing too crazy. I surely didn’t share my, I’m-crazy-obsessed-with-the-Backstreet-Boys story that I had decided to hold off for date number 10 or later.

After dinner we walked around The Cove and made our way to the beach. It was so romantic walking along the beach with the sand squishing between our toes and the waves crashing along the shore. If you’ve seen any romance movies then you saw a good portion of our date. We did the whole cheesy splashing one another with water thing. Jamie even picked me up and ran us through the waves, carefully of course because I can’t get the brace too wet. I’m sure if I was an outsider looking in, or if I were Amber, I would have been rolling my eyes at the two of us for acting like we were in The Notebook, you know minus the whole Alzheimer’s-thing. I’m totally into him and kissing him was all I could think about as he walked me to my door. As I fidgeted with my keys he, leaned in and kissed me on the edge of my mouth, where my lips meet my cheek, and said, “Goodnight beautiful, April.”

The minute I got into my room I wrote for hours; it was the first time I didn’t spend the entire night staring at that blinking cursor waiting for the ideas to come to me.

Hello! April wake the hell up! Jamie asked you to be his girlfriend you know what you want so just respond to the kid already. Stop worrying about your looks and what he’ll think of you when he actually sees the brace. The hard part is over you’ve won him. This is the easy part.
I’m kind of getting used to giving myself pep talks these days. I’m like my own little relationship coach. If I keep this up Amber will be out of a job.

With a shaky hand I spread the note out on my desk and write, very sloppily I might add, ARM (April Ruth Marks) next to my decision. Holy crap this is happening right now. Okay here goes everything. I fold the paper back into the triangle and not so subtly toss it at him. Mrs. Honor looks up from her notes right as the note is flying through the air.

“Shit, we’re caught. She saw me pass the note” I whisper to Jamie.
I cringe as she glides toward the back of the room. Jamie has the note clutched in his hand as Mrs. Honor stops in between our desks. She glances at him then at me. She is going to take the note from him I can feel it. She is going to have to pry it out of his hand though. He is holding it so tightly his fingers turn white. The anticipation is torture.

“Ms. Marks, if you wouldn’t mind,” Mrs. Honor starts. Here it comes. I brace myself for the embarrassment. “Since Mr. Clarke has decided that the summer reading of
To Kill a Mockingbird
was a meaningless suggestion, will you please provide him with the Sparksnotes. We will be having a quiz on this next week.”

I’m frozen. I knew that fear was a good silencer but I never realized that relief could be also. I glance at Jamie who is grinning like we’ve just been given a get out of jail free card and I suppose, in a way we have.

“Well, Ms. Marks?” Mrs. Honor is still staring at me and waiting for my response and she’s not the only one. I still haven’t given Jamie an answer either.

“Yes,” I reply but I am not looking at Mrs. Honor.

-9-

I have a boyfriend now! I swear I would go skipping through town shouting that out loud if I didn’t think I would look insane. I’m not usually the type of person to be this excited over something as ordinary as having a boyfriend but there’s something special about Jamie and I get those butterflies in my stomach when I think about him. I am sure that with time the nervousness and anxiety I get when I know I am going to see Jamie will fade away, at least I hope it will. One thing's for sure, getting ready for school will be a hell of a lot easier.

“April, get a move on it you’re going to be late!” mom shouts from downstairs.

I am, once again, running late. Because of the brace my routine has changed a lot and I need even more time to get ready for school. I have narrowly made it to class just before the bell rings for the last two weeks and I know that one of these days my luck is going to run out.

“Yes, mom I know. Thank you for the reminder,” I reply as I throw my hair into a ponytail, grab my backpack and rush out the bedroom door.

“I swear sometimes your father and I think you’re going to come out of that room as a fifty-year-old woman with how long it takes you to get ready in the morning,” mom says as I fly down the stairs.

Today is one of those weird days when the Anchor is unusually quiet and mom is given the day off. I envy how comfortable she must be in that pink robe and really wish I could wear bunny slippers to school. Most days my parents are out of the house long before I’m awake.

“Excuse me if this damn brace slows me down in the morning. If it bothers you that much I’ll happily stop wearing it.” Playing the guilt card is basically my go to for when I’m in trouble. I figure my parents’ sympathy for me will lessen with time so I might as well make use of it now while I can.

Mom’s shoulders roll and her face drops. Yes! It’s worked.

“I made you lunch so you don’t have to eat those stale pizzas today,” she says handing me a brown paper bag.

“Thanks mom. Bye!” I am out of the house before she can give me a daily pep-talk. For the last month mom has been leaving me little reminders that this brace isn’t going to be around forever and that I shouldn’t let it affect me in a negative way. She reminds me of how beautiful I am and that people will see past the bars and the plastic and remember that I am still the same person I’ve always been but of course, since Jamie and I got together mom’s notes have referenced him quite a bit. Yesterday she said, “
For everything we don’t think we can handle we get something so incredible we can do anything. You got this crappy deal with the brace but if you hadn’t then maybe you wouldn’t have met Jamie. Maybe all of your brace stuff came along so you could find something awesome. Life is beautiful April, as are you.”
If anyone saw these notes they would think I was suicidal.

Ding-Dong!
“Damn, I am late, that’s first period bell.”

Today is the day my luck runs out. Mrs. Honor is going to make a big thing of my tardiness like she did when Mikela Asher was late last week. She had poor Mikela stand in front of the class and read an entire chapter of
To Kill a Mockingbird
. I couldn’t imagine having to be in the front of the class and reading. When I read aloud I tend to read the wrong line or say a word wrong so Scout Finch would come out as Fout Sinch as if people wouldn’t be laughing enough as is because of my brace, let’s add in stupidity to the many things they can make fun of me for.

As I’m tearing through the hallway, I see the two freshmen boys who have been teasing me about my brace. They are nasty, immature boys but they are not violent. They are giggling like tween girls who are meeting Justin Bieber. One of them is holding a shiny object in his hand. And they are racing right towards me. “Hey move over before you plow into me you jerks!” I shout. As they get closer I see what the shiny object is; a master combination lock, and it’s open. The boy holding the lock raises it slightly and lunges towards me. “Here Hunch!” As Henry Mason ducks into Mrs. Honor’s class I can hear the lock clank onto the metal bar on the left side of my neck. Laughing, the boys bolt down the hallway and out of sight. The lock hums and scratches against the bar. The thing I feared the most has happened. I am officially the school joke. My only solace is that everyone else is in class so no one else can see this combination lock hanging off my brace. I frantically try to remove the lock and swing my shoulder around, which forces the lock to slide toward the front of the bar so I can grab it. “Oh my God! How can I get this thing off me?” I yell. Okay, only two ways that I know of to remove a combination lock.

1. Use the combination on the sticker on the back of the lock.
   
2. Cut it off with bolt cutters.
   

“Oh please God the lock combination has to be on the back! “I say and turn the lock over hoping the combination is still there. Nope.

When I was 13-years-old and, as my mother put it, reached womanhood for the first time, I had this crush on Andrew Slater. One day when we were waiting for our parents to pick us up I was wearing a skirt and I didn’t feel the trickling sensation down my leg. But my crush noticed and pointed at me and ran away screaming like I had some deadly disease. I was so embarrassed I played sick the rest of the school week. This might be worse than that because this is happening in
high school
.

The hallway is rotating around me and my legs buckle until I’m forced to the ground. “Please someone tell me this isn’t happening” I moan. I tug at the lock until my fingers are white. This is useless I am never going to get this thing off! I hear clamoring down the hall, shit! I forgot that Coach Stevens sometimes takes his class outside to the field to run laps. “I can’t let anyone see me like this” I say to no one in particular.

I know these hallways as well as I know my own house. There is a janitor’s closet next to Mrs. Honor’s classroom; if I can run fast enough I can get there without the gym class seeing me but I’ll also have to duck so no one, especially Mrs. Honor, will see me bolting by. Without further hesitation I make a run for it and leap-frog past her classroom. I duck into the janitor’s closet and slam the door behind me.

Now I am talking to myself. “There have to be bolt cutters in here somewhere. I mean of all people wouldn’t a janitor have bolt cutters?” Shelves of tools, paper, scissors and light bulbs surround me. It’s like a who’s who of school supplies and fix-it equipment. I start sifting through a few of the shelves but it’s hard with this freaking lock banging into my neck every time I lift my arms to look through some of the higher shelves. “No bolt cutter. What am I going to do?” I can’t hide out in here all day.

Knock, knock, knock.
This is not happening. It can’t be the janitor he wouldn’t knock. Wait a minute, who knocks on a closet door unless they know someone is inside? Oh my God someone saw me come in here! The door creaks as it slides open and I duck behind the shelf closest to the back wall.

“April?” Jamie says as he pokes his head inside the closet. “You in here?”

What? How does he know I am in here?

“Jamie?” I ask as I lean over a broom. I forgot how cute he is. I’ve never been one for the floppy-haired look but there’s something perfect about the way Jamie’s hair falls on his forehead that fits with the deep design of his eyes. I still don’t understand how I ended up with him. I lean further out and the lock slides down the bar scraping the metal and as it does the sound sends daggers through me. Go away, please.”

“What’s going on, April?” Jamie asks pushing into the closet. “Why are you hiding in here?”

“How did you know I was in here?” I ask, as if it matters.

“I saw you duck by Mrs. Honor’s class. I figured since it’s your favorite class that something must be wrong if you’re ditching,” Jamie explains as he approaches me. I clamp my hand over the lock in a poor attempt to hide it from his view. “What the hell!” He grabs the lock as his forehead wrinkles and his lips tighten. He pulls as hard as he can at the lock but it won’t budge. “How did this happen?”

Breaking down in the middle of a closet in front of Jamie isn’t how I pictured spending my day today. I thought I would come to school flying and excited to get to English class so I could kiss my boyfriend in front of the whole class. I imagined a million scenarios about today and not once did I imagine
this
. But here I am sobbing like Niagara Falls.

“Those two freshmen boys ….they thought it would be funny,” I am having a hard time getting the words out in between sniffles and sobs. “I tried but I can’t get it off and the combination is missing.”

Jamie is pacing back and forth between the shelves with his fists closed so tightly his knuckles are turning white. His breathing is heavy and he is mumbling something but it’s so low I can’t clearly make out what he’s saying. I can hear a few words like, “bastards,” and “kick,” and “asses.”

“Where are they now?”

“I don’t know, probably in class.”

Jamie clasps his fists together like a boxer preparing for a match and grabs my forearm and hauls me out of the closet. He’s dragging me down the hallway and I don’t know how he’s being so gentle about it. He looks like he is ready to kill someone. He has me out in the open for anyone to see this lock hanging from my neck bars. Wherever we’re going I hope we get there fast.

“Jamie where are you taking me?” I ask planting my feet on the floor, trying to use them as brakes but Jamie is stronger than I am and my efforts fail. “First period is almost over. I don’t know where you’re going but wherever it is can you please hurry.” I plead with him.

We finally stop in front of Principal Weist’s office. “No, Jamie, no. I don’t want to go in there.”

I tug at his arm forcing him to let me go. “I don’t even know their names.” “April,” Jamie says, spinning around to face me. “You have to say something, this is bullshit what they did.”

I’m standing in the middle of the hallway of my high school with only minutes before it’s flooded with my peers. I have this freaking combination lock attached to the worst-thing accessory I’ve ever worn, with a swollen face and lingering sniffles from the sob-fest I had in the closest and all I can think about is how sexy Jamie is right now. He’s all serious and brooding and determined to get justice for me. He’s like my knight in denim and cotton armor. Girls always fantasize that their dream guy is going to swoop in and save them but all they ever get are their fantasies; I however, am living it out. I am the damsel in distress and Jamie is my savior. A girl could get used to this.

“I need to get this thing off before I do anything else,” I whine. “Please.”

“Okay, April,” Jamie brushes the stray hairs out of my eyes and grabs my shoulders. “You’re going to think I’m really weird but I actually have bolt cutters in the trunk of my car. See, he really is my knight in shining armor. The stupid janitor didn’t have bolt cutters, which really doesn’t make sense considering they’re the only thing that can break through a combination lock to get into someone’s locker in an emergency, and yet Jamie does? I swear this boy gets more and more perfect every day. Although it is a little strange that he has bolt cutters in his car. I thought only mechanics, criminals, and so-called, bad-boys who like to cause a ruckus and challenge authority? I have only known him for a couple of weeks but Jamie is definitely not a bad boy.

Sneaking out of the school isn’t hard to do since there are no hall monitors guarding the exit, which according to Jamie is the opposite of how it was in his last school in Boston. Jamie and I bolt for the parking lot where his car is parked just out of sight. I can’t believe I’ve avoided being seen by anyone so far, I really thought the entire class would be pointing and laughing at me by now.

Jamie is digging through a slush pile of tools in the trunk of his silver Accord and it’s making me wonder what it is he does during his free time. He tosses a few wrenches aside and pulls out a pair of red and silver bolt cutters and it’s like the heavens have opened and are shining their celestial light on the tool. I am jumping up and down with excitement, which is making the lock somersault around the bar.
What the hell are you doing, April? Do you realize how ridiculous you must look jumping around with this brace on and the lock flipping up and down? STOP IT!

Jamie raises the tool and clamps the jaws onto the thickest part of the lock. The pressure of the cutters prying at the lock is rocking the brace and I’m getting a little nauseous. I thought this was the easy part just break the lock with the cutters and that’s it. Why is Jamie having such a hard time getting the thing to crack?

“I could kill those guys for doing this,” Jamie mumbles loud enough for me to hear him.

“Jamie, it’s okay,” I say as he continues to tug at the lock. “Calm down.”

“April this is not okay. They’re little shit boys who obviously have to pick on others to make themselves feel better. I hate people like that,” Jamie scoffs, as the weight seems to shift at my neck. “Almost got it just a few more seconds.” He’s completely focused on the task but I can tell he’s thinking about the boys as his forehead frowns and his face shifts from pale to red and back again.

“Can you really blame them though? I mean look at me, I am a prime target for this kind of thing,” I reply and I believe every word of it.