Till We Rise (4 page)

"What? Hey," I state confused “I don’t get it." He is now further than he was before, and I am more confused than I was earlier.

"You’ll see," he exclaims, reaches the staircase and disappears.

“Why won’t anybody tell me what the heck is going on today?” I mumble to myself.

CHAPTER FOUR

"Hello, Mrs. Von Steemberg," says the man with a loud voice while coming out of the principal’s office. He is pretty handsome for his age; I think he is over forty years old. That suit he is wearing makes him look absolutely stunning.

Honestly, I kind of hate my surname this days, everyone at this fucking college says “Von Steemberg” in a really creepy way, as if they were calling an absolutely important person. I don’t know, it’s just the way they pronounce it, I guess.

"Hello, sir," I say and pull a little smirk. I don't know if I am supposed to stretch my hand to him or give him a polite kiss on the cheek or just stare at him smiling like an idiot, like I am doing right now.

"Come inside and take a seat," he demands and I nod as I start walking towards the room.

I take a seat and realize that he has a nice sign at his desk that writes
"Joshua L. Abernathy"; that is definitely an interesting name.

"How is your day going?" he asks politely after taking a seat. He grabs his hands and stares at me with a look of interest. I start to feel less uncomfortable than I was before.

"Fine, I guess. I am just confused, sir," I speak and take a deep breath. "How are you?"

"I am brutal, thank you for asking," Joshua smiles at me and I smile him back as if I were trying to say
you're welcome
. "Why are you confused?" he asks.

"I don't know what's going on." I try not to get stuck while speaking because I will look like I don't know how to speak in front of adults and that would be embarrassing.

"I called you for a reason, but this is not a punishment, it's just a call of attention," he states and I stay completely quiet because I am dying to know what I have done.

"Some people, including students and few teachers, saw you coming out from the men’s bathroom," he comments, takes a short pause and waits for an answer, which I can't give to him because I am absolutely clueless.

"The guy who was here before was seen with you and—"

"It was my fault," I interrupt the beginning of his speech.

"Mrs. Von Steemberg, I appreciate your honesty but I just want you to know that this is not like school anymore." He coughs and changes position silently. "We are not going to put you in detention or suspend you for a week because you are in college and we feel that you are mature enough to learn from your mistakes and try not to repeat them afterwards." He seems so nice and kind that I don't care if he puts me in detention, to be honest.

"I, um, didn't realize I was in the men’s bathroom until I saw him, I mean, Theodore," I hissed and he laughs a little bit.  I am utterly ashamed about it but if it wasn't for my clumsiness I wouldn’t have gotten into the wrong place, therefore never getting to talk to Theodore or see him.

"Are you sure?" he asks doubtfully.

"I am not lying to you."

"I know, he told me. I was just testing you," he giggles and pulls a little smirk. I don’t really get his point. "I am sorry about my misplaced attitude towards the situation but when something like this happens, we always set our mind with the most dramatic situation for us to be ready to face the worst. For example, when a professor told me that he or she saw two teenagers getting out of the same bathroom, I started looking for some condoms, you know. So when I found out that it was a misunderstood I was relieved. Because under our roofs, you are my responsibility, and I will help you as long as you need my help." He is really into this speech and seems proud of what he has just said. While he waits for me to speak, he is smiling like a little kid, showing his perfect and shiny white teeth.

The last sentence seemed like a shitty motto he is bounded to say when talking to students, maybe to make them feel a little bit important and to generate trust among them; It works, to be honest, whatever the intention it has, it really does work, because I am feeling special, as if I am the best student and that he cares about me the most, but sadly, I am exactly the same as the other ones, and he probably doesn’t give a shit about me.

Regarding what the principal has just said, I wish it was; I wish it was sex that we were having in there, I wish it was more than a confusion, I wish it actually was something. But it wasn’t.

"What’s on your mind? You are very silent," he says, and I blink twice like he has just woken me up from a daydream.

I am thinking about sex, you know.
"Nothing, really," I lie.

"Okay." We remain in silence for about two minutes and everything about him starts feeling legitimately awkward.

"It’s everything alright at home?" he asks breaking the silence as if he certainly cares, but he is obviously just trying to get out of this awful situation. And besides, why the heck he has the guts to ask me about my private life?

"What’s the point? We were talking about other stuff," I tell with a tone of disinterest.

"I know but I moved on, and now I am asking you something else," he says and several seconds later he adds, as if I am okay with the fact that he decided to move on and I would love to answer all his inquiries, "Is everything okay?"

"Yeap," I tell.

"Are you sure, young lady?" He is seriously starting to annoy me.

"Why you keep underestimating me?" I question him.

"I am not," he denies.

"So please, stop making me feel like I am such a liar."

"I am sorry, it is not my intention." He is staring at me all serious, and I have the urge to punch him directly in between his big eyebrows just above his nose.

"Sure," I say sarcastically.

"It truly isn’t. I just want to know if everything is right on its place."
It is but your face won't be if you keep talking to me like that.

"Why wouldn’t it?" I ask while tightening all the features of my face and also hardly clenching my fists. I am not angry at him, by the way, I just feel that I have many emotions trapped inside my body which are taking over now.

"Don’t be rough, Von Steemberg. I care about you, we all do." He is now talking to me as if I were a psychopath who has a terrible mental illness that can't be cured and as if he was giving me emotional support and trying to make me feel important and loved. CAN HE JUST STOP?

"I am okay. Endpoint," I sigh angrily.

"I know your dad left you and your mom lots of years ago. I want to help you, Mrs. Von Steem—"

"HELP ME? SERIOUSLY? WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP ME, HUH? HOOK UP WITH MY MOM IF YOU WANT TO MAKE HER FEEL BETTER, BUT SERIOUSLY?  DO YOU WANT TO HELP ME? I DON’T HAVE A FATHER AND THAT’S IT, YOU CAN’T HELP ME. MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. JEEZ." I get up from that fucking chair and yell directly at him, I don't care if I interrupted him. His eyes are huge and his lips, tensed. He was definitely not expecting such a scandalous reaction like mine, but I feel kind of relieved, to be honest. Now I understand why Mr. Montgomery hasn’t been kicked out yet; I was completely right and everyone in here is arrogant as hell.

"I think you need to take a deep breath and calm down." I can't understand how he can stay calm and still. If I were him I would have already kicked my ass and get me expelled from fucking college. But I am not that reposeful like he is and that’s the reason why I could never be on his place and respect some random freak teenager girl a.k.a. Calypso that starts yelling at me totally out of her mind.

"And I think you should shut the fu— Shut up." I know that I am overreacting but I love drama and I am not scared of him because he is definitely not going to kick me out from his own college because that means less money and a worse reputation. If something like this happens, I am totally capable of making it a huge scandal and beyond any doubts I will publish something like "Joshua Abernathy —principal of a college in Boston— has kicked out an innocent girl with no father". Awesome.

"You are seriously struggling at the moment because; let me tell you that if you weren't, you would definitely not react that way. We have some specialists in college that may give you a hand." I seriously can't believe how he is still trying to help me. Give up already, dude. I decide to stay quiet and look like I am pissed but at the same time I pretend that I don't care, although I don't need to pretend, because I honestly don't care. I am just arguing and shouting at him because is fun. I sit back on the chair.

"I am sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you," he apologizes kindly. How does he do it? I want the antidote; I bet he takes lots of chill pills between hours.

"Well, you did. And I don’t need any hand," I let him know for approximately the fifth time straight.

"Aright, lady, when you decide to seek some help, please come to me," he says while writing something down on a little yellow post it. When he finishes, he gives it to me and it turns out being his number, I think. I literally grab the piece of paper in one hand with no intentions of looking interested on it, because I. Don't. Need. Help.

"Is this some kind of prank or something? Cause I feel that you are totally trying to get me even more pissed than you already did," I say after taking a deep breath to calm a little bit down my nerves.

"Let me tell you it is not," he speaks warmly.

"This is useless," I affirm straight after he finishes talking.

"I don't think so," he denies, moving his head repeated times from left to right.

"Ugh. I am done," I gasp, stand up from the comfy chair and start walking through the door; wishing this situation was over twenty minutes ago.

"Von Steemberg, let me tell you that your anger shows that yo—"

"I SAID I AM DONE," I interrupt him and get out, slamming the door as I leave, which makes some people look directly at me and start whispering things. I couldn’t do anything more intelligent than look at all of the ones that were looking with a fuck-you-all face. I tried to hear what Mr. Abernathy was about to say but I was getting extremely pissed and wasn't enjoying the conversation anymore.

As I walk I take several breaths to calm myself down. I approach a litter bin and throw the post it the principal gave me, I won't ever need that shit and I assuredly couldn't care less.

CHAPTER FIVE

As I walk down the hallway I realize that our debate class is over because I see some faces of people who were before in class. I wonder who won the debate, I am not that interested but I am the most curious person in the world and I always want to know everything as long as it is not mine.

Sometimes I want to know every little thing about other people just because I don’t want to think about my life and my problems; it’s like an easy way to run away from my can of worms. However, I always end up screwing the whole thing up because my plan of skedaddling and pretending that I have no things such as problems –that are completely common because every single person has at least ten of them and if you have less you should consider yourself a really lucky and blessed person– always ends up failing. I can’t avoid them completely but I can’t keep up with them either, so I prefer acting like I don’t give a shit and LOOK, A BIRD. Basically that’s how it works.

Maybe he was right, maybe I do need help but I am a coward, that’s why I have this ability to curse at everything and everyone; I don’t want to show myself as if I am hurt, I don’t feel comfortable crying or making me look vulnerable in front of other people, even in front of my mother, I can’t.

I am afraid of acknowledging the truth, I don’t want to know certain things about my past, or even about my present because I don’t know how I would react. I don’t want to know either if I am capable of listening to things, which obviously I am not prepared to listen. I truly don’t know what I need but I am sure that whatever it is, it will come by itself sooner or later. I wish later.

I see Roth across the corridor, and think that yesterday I would have tried to hide myself from my friend, but today I need to come up against him. I keep walking towards his direction and, the nearer I am, the more uncomfortable I feel.

He is standing beside the wall and his eyes are looking straight to the floor; he is obviously feeling my presence, but he is not brave enough to look at my eyes. I am not either, but, come on, he is the man and he is the one who disrespected a woman, something I find slightly disgusting.

I stop beside him and wait for him to look at me, he seems nervous and disturbed. I don’t understand what the hell is wrong with him and if he doesn’t tell me I will never find out. It’s okay if it’s something extremely personal and has to be kept a secret but I find it definitely NOT OKAY TO TALK TO ME THE WAY HE DID EARLIER.

Roth is completely still, so I cough on purpose just a little bit louder than normal because the college is crowded at this time of the day and lots of people are talking and walking. I know he could hear me but he doesn’t move. I don’t know what else to do because I don’t want to start the conversation; he is the one who has to.

I put my backpack over one shoulder and lean against the wall; I am tired of waiting, so I start to talk.

"Are you going to talk to me, or you are going to stay quiet for one hour straight?" I inquire with a tone of cruelty. I am really sorry, Roth, but you totally deserve it.

He turns his head a little bit and looks at me with fear. He doesn’t seem scared, he seems petrified. While he is looking at me I realize that his eyes are moving from left to right really fast. Roth takes a deep and almost endless breath and begins the sentence…

• • •

We ended up talking inside my car because he was afraid of everyone hearing it. I had to insist and persist for him to say a fucking word.

He’s gay. Roth is gay. On Monday, he had spent the whole day with his 21 years-old boyfriend at his house because it was his birthday, totally acceptable. Plus, their parents are on a trip, so Roth has the house for himself this week. He looked so happy when he confessed it to me; he was smiling and laughing while he talked about Terrence and how perfect he is. They met last Summer at a bar and since then they can’t live without each other, and they always talk over the phone before going to bed, which made me feel a little bit resentful because I always dreamt about waiting every night for my boyfriend to call and talk about stupid things, such as pigeons, for example, for a matter of hours.

One thing that amazed me about Terry (Roth calls him like that) was the fact that he has been studying biochemistry for about  four years at Harvard, he must be really smart and I am completely sure he looks like a sexy nerd with blond hair and trekkie glasses.

He also told me that he had reacted defensively towards me because he thought I was going to laugh and tell everyone about his homosexuality; I obviously denied it because (a) I am not homophobic, (b) he is my only friend, (c) I am not capable of telling someone his secret and (d) this whole argument is senseless.

I gave him moral support, told him that everything was okay and all that cheesy things friends are supposed to do and say. I am actually really happy for him because I know that he is a great friend, and he obviously can be the best boyfriend on the entire Earth.

We did not talk about why the principal was looking for me; he did not seem to care at all by virtue of his lack of interest in me, so he never asked about it. I kind of felt grateful because I was not going to tell him, of course,  otherwise our conversation would have lead to an argument and I was happy about the whole situation and everything, so I stayed quiet and listened to what he said.

I wonder if he has told his friends about his sexual orientation, because he is my only friend, but I am
not
his only friend. I am starting to feel a little bit more special than I should; maybe that’s why he was feeling extremely nervous, because nobody knows about
it
but me and Terrence.

Now we are getting back to college because our class is about to start and Roth is beyond all bearing with being punctual so if we had not gotten out of the car he would have freaked out and I don’t want to have a nervous Roth beside me.

We are walking in silence to the first floor and suddenly, I see Theodore and some other boys –I guess they are friends of him– walking in other direction, far away from me but every step we both make takes us nearer each other.

My heart stops and so do my legs; I can’t keep walking. I don’t understand what is wrong with me. He is a boy, not a serial killer that’s looking for girls like me to kill.

"What’s wrong?" Roth asks and stops walking. He doesn’t approach me; he just stands still two or three steps ahead of me.

I decide not to look at him because I am looking at Theodore. He follows my gaze to see the same as me, but he fails and quickly turns around and glances at me for the second time.

"Calypso, are you okay?" he asks again with a tone of concern.

I try not to be obvious about the whole weird situation, but I honestly can’t help myself at this moment.

"Roth, I, um, forgot something," I lie to him. My voice isn’t convincing at all but he seems to believe me; perfect. I don’t want to argue with Roth anymore.

I see Theo walking straight to my direction, he is now all by himself and I am freaking out on my insides. "Go to class, I’ll catch you later," I add instantly.

"Thank you about... You know," he says after nodding. I smile at him and he starts walking again at a slow pace.

"Hey, there," I hear his sensual voice right in front of my face. I freeze.
Wake up, Calypso, wake the fucking up.

"I was expecting a ‘hi’ back but it’s okay if you don’t want to talk," he adds sarcastically while crooking his smile. I know he is joking but I don’t need to look like a total dork in front of him. In just two days I have already made lots of stupid things so come on, I need to be smart now or I will lose him forever.

"Oh, hi. Sorry," I finally speak, thanks to God.

"Don’t be, I am kidding," he looks elegant but untidy; he has an extremely rare beauty and let me tell that I admire everything that is rare.

The way his dark eyes matches his nose, the way his nose matches his not-so-fleshy lips, the way his lips match his defined cheekbones and the way everything altogether matches everything.

He is the most perfect human being I have ever seen in my life, and I thank to God I’ve been offered the pleasure to see it with my own pair of eyes.

"What happened with the principal today? I am sorry about that too," I say innocently, as if I didn’t know what the principal had told him. I want to know his side of the story and why everything ended up alright with him and the principal because when he got out of the office he was laughing and Mr. Abernathy did not seem to push too harsh on him as he did with me.

"It was not your fault," he admits with a soft voice and his eyes looking at me tenderly as if he feels bad that I think it is actually my fault; it definitely is but it doesn’t matter as long as he keeps staring at me with those eyes.

"Yes it was, come on," I laugh a little bit and he smiles at me. "I don’t really care so don’t you dare feel sorry for me, okay?" I speak and while I do I realize that he is looking directly at my lips, which makes the whole situation extremely sexual and I’ve never experienced this feeling but I kind of like it. And I definitely love that Theo is the one who makes me feel this way; hope I make him feel this way too. I wish, I really do.

"What did Mr. Abernathy told you?" I don’t want to wait until he says something after me so I just ask him this question to break the silence that maybe was going to come.

"Um, we just talked about the
thing
in the bathroom, you know," he answers half serious and half joking but I can’t realize if he is actually being serious or if he is joking.

"And why were you both laughing like crazy when you left?" I interrogate him.

"We were just laughing about it, it was funny," he answers crooking his smile and touching his hair.

"Yeah, sure. You were laughing about me. Great", I tell pretending that I am partially angry at him but I am not. How could I be angry at him?

"No, Calypso," Theodore adds seriously, I start to feel that he is the one who’s angry. I stare at him perplexed, waiting for him to say something else.

"I am kidding, relax, girl," he laughs and grabs my arms to make me feel comfortable; it works and because of it, I sigh and then pull a thanks-to-God smile.

"Oh, God. You really like to joke around, huh?" I raise my eyebrows.

"Not really. You’re tensed up and I want you to relax," he admits. I find it kind that he wants me to feel comfortable around him.

"Oh." I don’t know what to say, he is totally right. I am afraid because I am trying to be someone else in front of him and that doesn’t work.

I find it really hard keeping up a normal conversation with people I barely know because I am not used to it at all. When I have the chance to talk to someone that I care about or that I want to have a chat with, I always end up trying harder than I should and therefore, I screw everything up. And it’s completely wrong, I shouldn’t; I just need to be myself or at least try to.

The bell rings, and consequently everyone around us starts walking faster, making everything even more annoying. Suddenly, Theodore approaches me and now he is approximately ten inches away from my face; we are both staring at each other in silence. I have to look up because he is a little bit taller than me. His eyes are sky-dark but bright and vivid at the same time, they have life, they look radiant.

I realize again that from time to time, he looks at my lips but I don’t do anything about it, I just keep looking at his darting eyes and observing his beauty –which is a lot of beauty– and wish that this has no end. I could live for ages staring at someone like him, he is like life itself, he wants me to be alive.

He slowly moves one of his arms and places my hair behind my left ear, such a cliché. I feel his warm hand besides my cheek and I start smiling at him, I can’t control it. Lots of emotions at once are pretty harsh to handle.

"You should go to class," he says between teeth, putting his arm back to its original place.

"I don’t care," I breathe.

"But I do care, you will, um, miss class," Theo looks really worried, maybe he is extremely responsible and doesn’t want me to skip class because of him, but as I said before;
I don’t care
.

"I don’t feel like going," I admit while grabbing the sleeves of my black pullover. Fuck, I am nervous.

"And what do you
feel like doing?"
he asks biting the edge of his lower lip.