Not Exactly What it Seems

She saw me with Stephanie. I really didn’t want her to find out that way, but what was I supposed to do? She obviously didn’t really want me so I couldn’t just live in regret my whole life. I needed to find someone like she told me to, but she looked so upset when she saw us walking in. I didn’t even get a chance to tell her what was going on. Did she hate me forever now?

Emery texted me the next morning (way too early, by the way) to let me know that he was going to be at the skatepark if I wanted to go. I was dead tired because the dinner I was at did not end until close to two o’clock in the morning, but I decided to go anyway. Skateboarding really did help me and I was starting to enjoy it a lot so I figured I would get as much in as I possibly could.

He was waiting for me in the board shop adjacent to the park and laughed as he took in my bleary eyed appearance. After receiving the text, I threw on a pair of dark jeans that were at least two sizes too big (but I always wore a belt anyway so it was all good), a Volcom t-shirt, added an excessive amount of eyeliner to try to mask the dark circles under my eyes, and headed out the door. I must have looked a sight, walking around looking like that, but I was tired and I didn’t care what people thought of my appearance.

“Rough night?” Emery asked as I approached. There was a twinkle in his eyes as he watched me with amusement and it seemed to light up his face.

“You could say that,” I allotted. “Sorry if I suck more than usual today.”

“Well, I mean you’ve only been boarding for a day and you didn’t really suck too badly so I’m sure you’ll be fine.” He was trying to be encouraging, but I was not in the mood to be very chatty with him. Maybe after I drank the coffee I had stopped to buy before I came, I would be more willing to cooperate.

I don’t really care what Emery said, I did suck that day and there was nothing I could do about it. Being as tired as I was, I could barely see straight, let alone find my balance on a skateboard without looking like a complete moron. Let me tell you, Emery did a lot of laughed at my expense that day and I did not really appreciate it. I laugh at myself all the time, but I really did not feel like doing it at that moment so maybe it was my stupid stuck up habits at their worst but I didn’t want him to laugh at me when I wasn’t willing to laugh too.

He noticed that I was not in the mood so he was trying to be nice about my failure, but come on-I knew he wanted to laugh way more than he already did. It wasn’t like I didn’t know I looked horrible while trying to ride, it was just that I did not really want to be reminded that I wasn’t ever able to get away from being America’s daughter, even when I was just Onyx. It didn’t seem fair to always have Felicity hanging right there for me to see.

After a while, Emery decided that we had done enough boarding for the time being and I wasn’t going to gain anymore skill that particular day. So we talked for a while and got to know each other a bit better. He seemed like a cool guy that I would be able to relate to and hopefully have as a good friend in time. I knew that a new friendship would probably bite me in the butt, but I really wanted to have a friend like him.

“So why do you want to skateboard?” he wondered while we were sharing French fries.

I had to think about the best way to word my response so that it sounded halfway normal at least. “I wanted to do something different,” I started slowly. “Something not so by the book, I guess you could say. I’ve lived a certain way my whole life and I wanted to finally be who I want to be.”

“That’s really cool. I guess I never really thought about skateboarding as being anything but normal because I’ve been doing it my whole life. My dad loved to skateboard so he taught me how and we’ve just kind of all grown up around it.”

“I wish I could have been like that. I thought I had everything, but I don’t know, maybe they were all lying to me. It’s all just whatever though, it doesn’t matter.” Why I even started down that path was a mystery to me. As if Emery was really concerned with the woes of my life and the disadvantages of being famous (I would probably sound like a spoiled rich girl anyway, so not what I wanted).

“Well what happened? I mean, why couldn’t you just be yourself?” Why did he actually want to know? He shouldn’t have been interested in knowing about the mess I had gotten myself into, especially because I really did not want him to know I was two different people. Talk about thinking I’m a psycho.

“That’s just it though; I thought I was being myself. When I was younger I thought I had it all, but I’m not so sure anymore. Then I met a guy who showed me that I needed to step up and be myself, but that didn’t turn out very well.”

“Didn’t your parents like him? Was that the problem?”

“It wasn’t so much that they didn’t like him, but he just wasn’t really able to handle how complicated things became. I can’t say that I blame him, but it made me mad that he wanted to stop trying. I don’t know, that is probably super selfish and I should not even be thinking that way.”

“I don’t think that’s selfish at all personally. If he was willing to start a relationship knowing what you were going through then he shouldn’t have backed out right in the middle of the situation. Maybe I’m only hearing one side of this, but I think you’re better off without him if he wasn’t willing to help you make it through.”

We talked for a while more, but then I had to get home to get ready for yet another function, as usual. It didn’t seem possible that there could be so many different functions and galas and dinners that one family could go to, but there always seemed to be something new to do. Maybe my parents were just showing the world that they cared the most, even though that was a complete lie. I didn’t really feel like fighting with them though, it just wasn’t worth it anymore.

After the New Years blow out that had messed so many things up, I had heard nothing more about the problems my parents had with each other. Perhaps they didn’t really have any problems, but I guess they were just better at hiding it than I would have thought. There was no way that they could have that many problems and then just resolve them in one night.