Freshman Year (14 page)

Kate, Sarah, and Isabella are waiting for an answer, but I don't even have an answer for myself, let alone for them. I'm so angry that they believe any of it, though. I've played along with all their straight games all these years, so there should be no doubt in their minds that I'm just like them. None. All I have to do is deny it, laugh and say how dumb people are. But my friends have let me down, and I'm getting tired of their laughter at my expense. So instead of playing along as usual, I say, “You guys suck.” And as I struggle to push myself up and limp away from my
friends
, I finally get what my dad was trying to teach me about the ant and the grass.

I end up in the locker room in the familiar dark row where the lights don't work. The bell rings for fifth period, but I stay. It rings for sixth period, and then the final bell of the day rings, but I stay. I can't face the hallway. I can't stand the thought of seeing Kate. So I lie there wondering how my friends could believe those rumors; then I have my second epiphany of the day and understand why Stef and Garrett are so tough: they have to be. They're guarded because they can't really trust anyone. They trust me, though, and that just makes me feel worse.

So here I am, swimming in the middle of my ocean of sorrow, slowly sinking into the dark, icy core, when a voice calls me back to the surface.
“Estás bien, Amara?”

I sit up quickly. How did she know I'd be here? I pretend that I'm brushing my hair out of my face, not wiping tears away. I feel too embarrassed to look at Keeta, so I stare at the ground. “I'm fine,” I say quietly and think,
Now that you're here.

“Okay, if you say so. Well, I brought you your guitar. It was getting late and I know you wouldn't want anything to happen to it. Anyway, here.” She places the guitar carefully against the wall. Then she stands there beside me like she's waiting for something. “You sure you're okay?”

“Yeah, thanks.” My voice cracks. Why does she have to be so nice to me? “I'll see you later,” I manage to say, as tears roll down my face again.

“Amara, Amara, Amara.” She whispers and gently takes my chin in her hand, moving my head up so I can see her when she speaks. “It's just gossip.
Chismes
. That's all. It'll blow over. Next week they'll be tearing up someone else. That's how it works around here.”

Even though her soft vanilla-lotion-scented touch is making me feel so much better, I lean back against the metal lockers when I remember why I can't let myself do whatever it is we are doing.

“Entiendes, Amara?”
Keeta says softly.

“Yeah, I understand, but you don't get it. Even my friends believe it.” I hate myself for letting her see me like this. I always look hideous and puffy after crying, so I'm glad it's dark.

She kneels in front of me. “
No te preocupes, Amara.
Really, don't worry. It will get better, and hey, I do understand. Believe me.” Her hair falls forward and slides across my knee. It feels cool and soft like silk against my skin. And it's just like Garrett described to me that day in the gym. All I want is Keeta's touch, all her attention on me.

But I can't have it. I promised I'd be loyal to Stef. I know firsthand now what it feels like to have crappy friends. Plus, I don't want them to be right. I just need to ignore these feelings, and then (eventually?) they'll go away.

I brush her hair off my leg. “Keeta, what are you doing here? I mean, you can't do this. I'm Stef's friend. We can't act like this. You're just…”

“Just what, Amara?”

Just making me feel like I'm special and beautiful and happy.
“You're just confusing me.” I look back at the wall. “Please, just leave me alone.”

“How am I confusing you?” Her breath grazes my neck and sends a shiver down my back. “
Dime
. Come on. Tell me, Amara.”

What am I supposed to say? I mean, she obviously likes or, I should say,
loves
Stef, since they are back together again. And even so, there was that love letter Keeta wrote to someone who wasn't Stef and I'm 99.9 percent sure it wasn't to me.

“Nothing,” I say. “It's just that I don't know what to say to you. I'm really…I don't know. Besides, I'm not like you, Keeta.” I don't know what I mean by that. Nothing's making sense. “Just leave, okay?”

She ignores my request, leans forward on her knees, and looks down at my ankle, which is now aching with pain. And then, as if she can read my mind, she picks up my foot and puts it in her lap. My lip starts to quiver again. All those nights I've wished for her warm touch, and here she finally is. And here I am, crying and being a total bitch.

“Eternally beautiful,” she says, looking down at my swollen foot.

I swallow down another round of tears. “You think my foot is beautiful?”

She laughs and looks up at me. Even in the dim lighting, I can see a thousand pieces of gold scattered in Keeta's eyes, like a treasure chest spilled open. And, just like always, the rest of the world disappears. No more padlock jamming in my back, no more throbbing in my foot, and no more confusion. “Amara. The
apodo
I chose for you that day at the mall. It's Greek and it means eternally beautiful—like I'm sure you will be.” Then she takes my hand in hers, turns it over, and kisses my palm.

The instant her lips touch my skin, electricity shoots through me, and the queasy feelings I've been having all year explode into something that no words in any thesaurus could describe. I'm being lifted away, far from Gila High, far from the smelly hallways, the mean cafeteria ladies, and the scary truths. I let myself briefly melt into this moment. This must be how floating on a cloud feels.

Then there are footsteps and voices. I jump out of my dreamy state and open my eyes, which I don't even remember closing.

Keeta carefully puts my foot back on the ground, stands up, and looks over her shoulder to judge their distance. Then, still holding my hand, Keeta whispers the five words I secretly dreamed that I might hear: “That letter was for you.”

Yesterday my doctor
finally
cleared me for basketball practice. Now I'm in the mood to celebrate all sorts of things, so this morning I abandon my boring khaki shorts and hooded sweatshirt to put on black capris and a tight blue boob-shirt Kate made me buy on one of our summer trips to the Tucson Mall. And for that extra special touch? I wear my hair down instead of in a ponytail and spread some sparkly lip gloss on my lips.

“Morning, Mom,” I say with more cheer than she's heard in weeks.

“Well, good morning,” she says, looking up from the paper and raising her eyebrows. I think she notices the new look but stops herself from making a big deal about it, which I appreciate.

I kiss her good-bye and walk out to Jenn's car before her second honk.

“Wow, you actually look halfway decent. Way to go, Chunks,” Jenn says to me after I get settled in the passenger's seat. Kate stopped riding with us the day after Derrick got his new Mustang, so it's just me and Jenn from now until whenever. And because of Kate's absence, Jenn and I have actually been becoming friends. Her almost-compliment is my proof.

“Ahh, shucks,” I say. “I'm pretty sure that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me.”

“Well, don't get used to it or anything, okay dumbass?”

“Okay, but the Eggies are on me today.”

“Right on,” Jenn says and heads over to Rickey D's.

As we sit idling in line at the drive-through, Jenn lowers the volume on the radio, turns her body my way, and then looks—very serious-sister-like—at me.

I look back at her, very scared and skittish-like. “What, Freak?”

“Nothing.” She pulls up a little closer to the ordering screen.

“Okay, whatever.” I'm used to her oddness by now, so I go back to pretending to read the billboards, though I'm actually wondering if Keeta will notice the smell of my fruity-scented lips or my new hairdo.

“You know, Abbey,” Jenn finally says, “I've been playing basketball at Gila for four long years.”

Information I do in fact already know. “Uh huh,” I say.

“I'm just letting you know because…” She releases the brake to let her car coast up in line, but instead it dies. She uses her favorite swear words to command it back to life. On her third turn of the key, it finally obeys. “After all those years, you start to get a sense of people.”

You know those instincts everyone is born with? Like running away when danger is near? Well, at this point I know I should flee like a gazelle galloping across an African prairie escaping the jaws of a hungry lioness, but I'm a moron lacking all natural instincts. “Yeah?” I say in my usual stupid way.

“I'm just saying, Abbey, I know a lot of the girls on the team.” It's finally our turn to order, so she shouts our usual into the speaker then slowly coasts forward. “I know a lot about what they've gone through, things they've experienced. It wasn't always this easy to be yourself at Gila High. We've had to fight a lot of battles and we stick together. You know what I mean?”

“I guess,” I say, trying hard to sound confused, but I know just what she means and who she means it about. And I know I'm lucky that I don't go to school in some scary conservative hick town.

“I'm telling you this because I want you to know if you need to talk, I'm here for you.” She smiles sweetly and pats my knee for the second time in her life. I wonder briefly if she smoked out in the basement before picking me up. “I mean, if you need someone, okay? I know it must be hard going through life without a fabulous older sister like me.”

I check her pupils while she stares at me; they appear normal and she seems like she actually means it, so I let down my guard. “Does Kate know?”

She pays with my money and hands me my Eggy breakfast sandwich. “Well, she suspects, but she's convinced that there's no way you would keep something this huge from her.”

I have to force myself to swallow my first bite.

“I mean, that's what you told her when you guys made up from that weird lunch thing, that it wasn't true. So what's there to know, right?”

I grip the door as if what I'm going to say next might cause Jenn to veer off the road and kill us both. “Well, maybe there is something to know. But what I don't get is how everyone else can seem to know when I'm not even sure myself. I've never even…” I look out the window, embarrassed because I've said way too much. “I mean, I don't know what I am, so why is it anyone else's business and why is everyone talking about me?”

She pulls onto Dodge Road, cutting off a carload of Gila High students who honk and flip us off. “Well, you're always hanging out with Stef and Garrett, who are, like, the lesbian poster children of Gila. And some chick in my physics class said she saw you getting close with Stef in the varsity locker room, and that's how that one got started. Dude, you might want to chill with the cuddling in the locker room if you don't want people to talk.”

“I was just consoling her,” I shoot back and throw my Eggy back in the bag. “That's so stupid. I don't think of Stef like that.”

“I know, okay. I get it all the time. I never thought I'd have to prove my straightness as much as I do.”

“But she's just my friend. Can't I just be friends with someone?”

Jenn pulls into a spot in the back of the parking lot, and her car dies before she has a chance to turn it off. “Nice timing,” she says to it then turns to me. “Abbey, I don't know why this stuff never gets old, but it doesn't. You just have to decide what matters more to you. Do you care what everyone else thinks? If so, then quit the team and stop talking to Stef and Garrett. And if you don't want things to get worse, stop crushing on Keeta. It's that simple.”

“Who says I like Keeta?” I can feel my face turning as red as ketchup.

“That's my point, kiddo. Whether it's true or not, you have to decide if it matters because they'll eventually find out or they'll make it up. Just make sure you don't let the people who care about you the most find out in the hall before you tell them yourself. That's the kind of thing that can ruin a friendship.”

I know she's right. I have to face some truths. But I hope I have time to figure out exactly what they are before everyone else does.

There's a sudden increase of activity on campus, which means the bell's rung and we have to wrap up our mini-therapy session. Jenn grabs her backpack and slams her door. “Laters, Abbey. And try to stay out of trouble.”

“Yeah, I know. I'll try.”

*

Garrett and Stef both called me last night, so they knew that I'd be able to practice today. That's why, when I get to Spanish, there's a cupcake on my desk decorated with little candy basketballs. I bite into it right away and thank Garrett. Stef's not in class, again.

“Hey, G,” I say in between bites, “we really need to get our act together in this class. I haven't done any homework in, like, a week or two…okay, three.”

She points at my new outfit and nods. “First of all, I like what you've got going on here.” Then to respond to my previous comment, Garrett makes a frowny face. “Yeah, I'm so behind.”

“We're screwed,” I say, then ask, “So, where's your BFF?”

“Hey, I have a plan to get us out of grade trouble in
Español
.”

“I'm listening,” I say, aware she's avoiding my question. “What's your plan?”

“It will unfortunately rely on you developing skills as a liar. So I'm feeling less than confident, but I think maybe you've changed. You up for it?”

Finally, a chance to move up a rank or two in coolness levels. “Yep, I'm in.” I don't ask about Stef again. Besides it's obvious she's with Keeta somewhere since Keeta never came to guitar class this morning. What a waste of my special outfit and flavored lips. “So, what do I have to do?”