Till We Rise (7 page)

"I prefer Calypso. Nevertheless, I told you that you could call me whatever you wanted to," I try to sound calmed and not like those annoying bitches that remember every little detail of everything, in fact, I am one of those  but I want to pretend that I am not.

"I don't want to bother you," he asserts, making a nice grin that I have seen before but don't know what it's supposed to mean. Is he serious? Is he joking? I will never know.

"Theo, you don't bother me," I take a look at his face and try to figure out what's going on inside that little head of his. "The last thing you do is annoy me," I give up, I don't know what he is thinking, I wish I had some of those powers to read people’s minds, that would be cool, except for the fact that I would be able to know how much of a failure I am, because people think a lot and they are cruel.

"Why are you so nice to me?" Theodore interrupts my deep thoughts.

"What?" I directly answer his question, he is the one who is nice with everybody and I am not. "What do you mean?" I add afterwards.

"You are absolutely nice to me," he repeats "I mean, I was sad and you tried to console me and that's so nice from you," he adds intertwining his fingers, looking charming. "Also, you bring me food, now you are taking me back to college. Besides, you had an argument with your best friend because of me and you're still he—"

"It was not because of you," I reject his response. It was definitely not about him, something is wrong with Roth and it has nothing to do with me or with Theo.

"Yes, he was mad at me because he likes you." He says lowering his voice.

"What?" I ask "WHAT?" I repeat "Ew, no." Just the thought about it makes me sick. God, Roth, no.

"Yeah, the way he looks at you," he keeps speaking like if he is murmuring shyly.

"He is my friend," I affirm, crossing my both arms and taking a deep breath. I can’t even think about having something more than a friendship with him. Why is Theodore capable of thinking about it? He genuinely did not realize that I am so into him yet.

"But that doesn't mean he can't be in love with you," he seems a little bit sad and confused, I don’t know if this is right or wrong. Maybe I should feel special because he is feeling low about Roth liking me.

"He is not, Theodore" I laugh because I don’t know what to do, as always.

"I bet he is" He challenges me.

"No, please" He doesn’t realize that there’s no chance that Roth can look at me that way. He barely cares about me as a friend and he doesn’t even think that I am pretty or something of the sort.

"What's wrong with it, Calyp—?"

"He's gay," I interrupt him.

"I didn't see that coming," his face changes completely, he is now smiling like a little kid, as if I had told him that we are going to Disneyland.

"Oh my god, I am such an idiot," I start screaming and regretting what I have just said. "Oh no, I screw everything up." I press my face into my hands, nodding and sighing.

"It's okay, I won't tell anyone. I can forget about it," Theo says while caressing my right cheek with his soft and gentle hand.

"Can we just don't talk ever again about this?" I ask him with a tone of regret. I hate myself and I don't understand why I always end up screwing everything.

"About what?" He says curious, pulling a face that shows uncertainty.

"Thanks" I let him know, crooking my smile. He is looking back at me expressing tenderness, making me feel cherished.

I start the engine and make my way to college. It's not supposed to be this way, I am not the one who has to take care of anyone, I need someone to take care of me and l know he is the one whose support I want to provide myself with at the moment. Anyway, I know it's not the time yet.

Probably we are not ready.

Maybe I am not ready.

Perhaps I am over thinking.

I don’t know what I am doing.

I keep doing it anyway.

I might be in love.

Who cares? It’s already done.

CHAPTER NINE

Theodore has already gotten into campus and I am now about to arrive home. I knew that I did not have to think about what it was likely to happen with him, I mean, I guess that he likes me but that is not the reason why I should have believed that he was going to kiss me right away.

I felt that in the moment he said “good-bye, Calypso” and “thanks for the ride” he was literally going to kiss me, and I was right; he did kiss me, but in my forehead. It was pretty nice, to be honest, but I expected a lot more, not from him, but from me. I expected maybe that my inner woman would be able to face her issues and insecurities and passionately kiss the man I believe to be in love with, before leaving myself alone as a cow in the car.

I feel that I have two persons inside my body (or my head, I don’t know); one is for words –who is genuinely stupid, because stupid things always come out of my mouth– and the other one is for actions –and that
side
of me is stupid too. I define my “persons” as different types of stupidity, one of them is always more stupid than the other one. When I speak, this thing makes me say something stupid and when I act –or I don’t– I act even more stupid because obviously someone inside me makes me act in this way.

In conclusion, I don’t have anything in my body, it is just me pretending that I am not stupid by blaming some weird entity I guess I have inside me and the only thing I can assure is that I am the only one who is certainly stupid.

Lots of stupidity in one thought.

I hate my stupid self.

I do not know why I didn’t kiss Theodore. God.

We did not kiss because, of course, this stuff is not destined to ever happen to Calypso Von Steemberg, I am not that type of a lucky person. You ought to know that, because I do.

I do not want to stay inside my car wondering what the hell to do with my life, I need more adventure because surely I have lots of drama, I am kind of a drama queen; I can turn a lovely situation into a dramatic one just with my thoughts. That’s how I work; If something is going okay, I will freak out and make it bad, really bad.

Now I think is time to review what had happened ten minutes ago with my lovely friend, boy, something, partner, hottie, whatever the hell our “relationship” –if we have one– is assumed to be.

We were not speaking at all, all I could hear was his stirred breathing. He seemed completely tensed with no apparent reason; his hands were closed as fists. Maybe he was afraid of my driving. Well, Theodore, next time I think you should take a bus if that is the reason why you were acting so strange and making myself feel like I have done something extremely out of place, because I don’t get it, truly. And I am not that kind of person that somebody can mess up with, because whatever you do, I will take it a hundred percent personally, even if it is not about me at all.

The first time he spoke was when he gave me the directions to get to campus, I knew how to get there but anyway, I shut myself up and listened carefully to his say.

“Turn left onto Cummington Street,” his voice spoke softly and a little bit trembling.

I was conscious about what I had to do, I kind of drive to this fucking university every single day of the week, but I am glad he decided to speak to me after a while.

I have a little affection to Boston’s city, it’s always pretty crowded and traffic is hideous, but I like it. If you ask me, I believe that is like a little New York or Los Angeles; it’s nice to the eye but not as big as them.

I have lived here for my whole life, I never moved from home and I have no intentions to, so that’s why I know every single street from head to toe; sometimes it’s great because I don’t need a GPS but I don’t believe that human beings are perfect machines and they don’t make any mistakes, because I am human and I make mistakes, and when I do, I always end up blaming my lack of GPS.

Whatever, we reached one of the campus and I parked somewhere I thought I was allowed to but I wasn’t; I didn’t realize that I was definitely in a wrong place until I decided to leave and some bald ass-face officer told me that next time I will have to pay some penalty. Let me think about it officer... HOW ABOUT NO?

“Thanks for the ride,” Theodore approached my face, staring directly at my both eyes and lips simultaneously. He seemed calmed, he was pulling that peculiar smile of his; I wish it was eternal, though it actually is, in my mind.

He grabbed my face from the nape of my neck with his warm hand and pressed his lips tenderly in my forehead, right above my scowl, for a matter of seconds.

I sighed sentimentally, full of emotions. My mind was –and still is– out of control, blown away, boom. I was thinking about twenty thousand of things at the same time, such as “what if I confess my attraction to him?”, “what if he doesn’t likes me back?”, “what if I pee myself?”, “why is he so kind?”, “who the hell am I to him?”, “what is air?”, “what?”, “am I in heaven?” and also “are you Jesus Christ?”.

All this brainless questions were wondering around my head from the time he decided to kiss my frown until the present, I mean, until now that I am rethinking my life lying on my comfy bed staring at the ceiling.

If my life resembled a movie, subsequently the gently kiss he decided to give me, he would have said “Do you wanna come to my room, girl?” and I would have agreed and made some illegal stuff with a sexy boy that wanted to break the rules with a random gal. We would have probably had some shitty sex, done drugs and of course the fucking principal would’ve discovered an extrovert girl in the boys’ campus, which is completely unacceptable nowadays.

I love imaginary situations, I always think about them. When you want something to happen you just can make it happen; in your mind, of course, but it still happens. I want a nice body, I imagine a nice body and I have a nice body. I want a boyfriend and I have a boyfriend just by imagining it; speechless. I wish real life was as easy as that, I would kind of be on the top of the world, but pitifully I am not the person I imagine I am, so situations like these would never happen.

I really do not understand how real girls manage to have a serious relationship with their so-called boyfriends. I am not saying that I am not
real
, I know I am a little bit odd but still common at the end of the day (I swear I am), but I really want to know what’s the formula to obtain or work out a boyfriend, I literally would pay for a boy to love me. To be honest, I would pay for anyone to love me.1

Come on, Calypso, It’s not
something
that you buy or win, you should fight for it, you should be ready for it. I think I am ready for everything but one thing: waffles getting extinguished.

Returning to the important stuff, Theodore walked away right after the kiss scene and, in the middle of his gentle trudge, he turned around and when he realized that I was still there he smiled at me and kind of winked. I am not sure if he did, though, but I find it kind of cliché, so I am praying that he didn’t because I hate clichés.

His walk was slow and peaceful as if he had nothing to rush about. At that moment, I would have liked to get out the car and walk beside him, gently grabbing his hand and lacing his fingers with mine.

I bet he hasn’t realized yet that he is the closest to perfection I ever had the pleasure to met; meaning “closest” because obviously perfection is something non-existent (as utopias, they are bullshit). He is so thoroughgoing, immaculate, flawless, absolute, but never perfect, and the best thing about Theodore is that he doesn't even have an idea how much power he radiates on me. This might sound weird as hell but I want to exploit that power together.

Theodore is like a charger and I am like a device that’s out of power and in need of someone to recharge me again. Without power I am hopeless; I have felt this way for a long time, but now I see brighter days, I see lots of unknown things coming, all thanks to the power I believe he has and which is being transmitted to me just with his existence.

Another of my many thoughts is that I should stop hating everything, I should stop complaining about all the things that happen to me because I know that if I stop, I will genuinely start enjoying my life and maybe realize that I am one fortunate human being.

I barely see my mom, I don’t have any siblings to bother or argue with, I also hate college and every single thing related to it, I don’t want to talk to my ex-best and only friend anymore, I can’t stop thinking about Theo and this weird power stuff, I need to take a bath, wash my clothes, try to cook some dinner because mother is missing, I have some homework to finish, an essay to write, tasks to complete, stuff to organize and a room to clean, but the most important thing is that I have a life too and I want to live it. From now on anything matters.

CHAPTER TEN

“
Calypso derives from Kalypto, in Greek Myth it was the nymph’s name, which fell deeply in love with Odysseus after he was shipwrecked on her island of Ogygia. Odysseus refused to stay with her so the nymph a.k.a. Kalypto decided to detain him for about seven years time until, presumably, Zeus ordered her to release him.”

I’ve been studying this myth for so long now that I’ve done so many hypothesis; the only thing I can truly identify myself to is Calypso meaning “to conceal”, which probably is related indirectly with my personality because I kind of hide my feelings and my thoughts from everyone, even from myself.

Maybe Odysseus did love Kalypto but he was afraid of declaring or accepting his love for her. In those times being in love meant literally dying for the one who you offered your love to. I believe nowadays having to “die” for the person you love it’s not literal as in those times, but it’s kind of a metaphor or a metonymy or whatever it’s called.

I have a strange addiction since the age of nine: my mom has made me be interested in names. She loves weird ones but what fascinates me is the meaning behind them. Whenever I meet someone, relevant or not, I need to know what his or her name means, because it tells a lot about the person, it really does.

I just do research; I have been keen of information from the Internet all my life, such as
Wikipedia
or pages that only contain information about whatever the heck you want to know.

I do it this way:

1.
     
I meet a person.

2.
    
I feel obligated to know what his or her name is.

3.
    
When I get home I look for the meaning.

4.
    
I learn about it and try to analyze what things I consider this person has and what I have to avoid about them.

5.
    
Later on, I write it down.

I have my own book, which I call “moniker book”; it’s not literally a book, it’s just a mix of written papers and sketches. I might sound like a freak but instead of taking drugs and being addicted to
Maui Wowie,
I kindly prefer my addiction over the ones that threaten my health.

I am used to it, I have been doing this stuff since I have memory and I like it. No one knows about it, I feel that if I ever tell someone about it, they would freak out and never talk to me again, because it’s weird as fuck, to be honest. Imagine you are talking to a random girl and she is like “Hey, what’s your name? Oh, yeah, Peter, I don’t know why but your name means Stone, okay, bye”.

                     Peter, John, Jessica, Amy, Lisa, Michael, William, Emily, Ryan, Anna and the list has no end. I know the meaning of every single common name, they are easy to learn and most of the people in the U.S. have one of them. It’s easier for me to cope with people, if I don’t like the meaning of their name, I just don’t speak or even try not to look at them. Weird, right?

That’s how I know Roth is the kind of person that wants attention and needs to have lots of friends or people around him, because of the meaning of his name; Fame. The thing is, when I first met him, I thought that being friends with him was going to make me have many friends as he does, but I was wrong, instead I ended up being known as “the antisocial” and I’ve never had the opportunity to talk to their friends because certainly, that’s not my destiny.

Also, I can tell why my mom thinks that she is still a teenager and never cooks me dinner or cleans my room. “Lady” or “Princess” in Hebrew is the meaning of Sarah. Or why the principal is so strange and bipolar, because names categorize persons and persons categorizes names.

The day I first met Theodore, I obviously did the research thing but I was a little bit confused, not because of him but about something else.

Theodore is a Greek name that means “Gift of God”, which I believe that is accurate, at least for me. In classical Greece, it was an ordinary name, two saints carried it and later on it became into general use in the Christian world, although it was rare in Britain before the 19th century. Irrelevant information, indeed.

I am not concerned about this theory; it is pretty genuine because personally, I think Theodore
is
a gift from God. But then I remembered that I’ve asked him for his second name; Douglas. I did my thing and I discovered the following: Douglas means “Dark” or “Black”. Boom.

At first I didn’t pay a lot of attention to it, then I started thinking about it and I couldn’t reach to a real conclusion. Theodore is not dark, he is not a bad person, and he doesn’t resemble darkness, so I cannot understand why his second name is so not like himself. Every single name matches perfectly with the person and it’s the first time this happens to me. I bet the Internet has something wrong or maybe Theodore is the only exception.

I wish I was smarter, I wish I could know the real meaning of this, but I am not. I need to know him better, maybe later I will find out.

At the moment, I am tidying up my room and trying to think about something else because I can’t think about a boy 24/7. I like to think about him, but I know it’s not right, because I don’t want to sound obsessed.

I have to look for Stephen, Chloe and Frank, those are the next names on my list, but I need to finish some stuff first.