Not Exactly What it Seems

It was comforting to know that she didn’t hate me too much, but she was still really hesitant to have me as a guest at her house. And I couldn’t imagine why. If I had a house like that I would be showing it off to everyone I knew. But she seemed almost embarrassed by it, as if having money was something to be ashamed of. How could I have been any more of a freak, though? She must have thought I was completely mental because of the way I acted. I wanted to get to know her, but she was still pushing me away. Why was she constantly on edge when she was around me? Was she hiding something? Or was she just that shy? But that didn’t make sense because she was always busy.

Halloween was a big thing for my family. Ever since I was a little girl, we had a huge party at my house that was just open to the public, no invites needed, no social status requirement. Most of the kids from my school came without knowing it was my house, without knowing I was even there. We all dressed up so no one even knew who owned the house which was a really good thing. It was safe for Hayden to come because my parents never took off their disguises. One year they actually dressed up as themselves which was hysterical, I’m sure I laughed about it for a month.

So as usual, the fliers were posted all around the area and some ended up in my school somehow. Hayden knew it was my house, but agreed not to say anything about it to other people. He knew already that I was hiding something, that much I could tell, but he seemed content with knowing that much. It was more than anyone else knew. I would never have been satisfied with that, but he was a better person than I apparently.

Mr. Haner was impressed with the effort I was putting forth to be nice to Hayden, but I felt as though he was patronizing me. More and more it felt as though he had some other motive behind getting me to befriend Hayden, but I just could not figure out what it was. So I let it go, feeling as though it wasn’t too much of a concern at that point. He had always confused me in some way.

So Halloween night came with a huge number of people at my house, marveling at the amount of food and candy and drinks we had. As if we had ever had a shortage of anything like that at our parties. We always bought a surplus of food and then donated it to the food bank if any was left over. We had a great DJ who played not only his fair share of Top 40 and techno, but also some good rock music as well. That was a requirement that I made all too clear to him before I let my parents higher him. He was willing to oblige.

Many guys were hitting on me even though Nathanial stayed by my side the entire night, and let me tell you that he was becoming very angry. So I took him down to the basement (I had enough sense to lock the door so no one would trash my sanctuary) and we talked, just the two of us. We always enjoyed the time we had together when we weren’t pressured by society and could just be ourselves. But he wasn’t really in the talking mood, if you know what I mean. More than once I had to push his hands away because I did not like where they were and continually had to tell him to stop.

“Why don’t you want me baby?” he asked with resentment. “You never seem to care about me the way I like you. Why can’t you like me? I’ll change if you want me to, I can be more like the guy you’d expect to like.”

This made me really upset; I couldn’t imagine him liking me enough to be willing to change to stay with me. “Nate, you need to stop this right now. Are you hearing yourself? No one is changing for anyone, okay? I don’t ever want you changing because you think that’s what I want you to do, alright?”

“But you don’t like me the way I am now, I know you don’t. Why won’t you-”

“I will not sleep with you because I am a virgin and intend to remain as such until I get married. It has absolutely nothing to do with not liking you; it has everything to do with my morality. I thought you knew me better than that.” At this point, I was so mad that he would even insinuate that the reason I would not sleep with him was because I had no feelings for him. Even though I did not have strong feelings for him, it was not for that reason that I would not sleep with him.

“Please don’t be mad at me,” he begged. He was so overbearing that night- so clingy. “I just want to be with you.”

“Nate, what is wrong with you tonight? You are never usually like this. What have I done to make you doubt me so much?” I was such a hypocrite that it sickened me. Why would I ever lead someone like Nathanial on like that? He deserved so much better.
“I don’t know, Fee, I really don’t. It’s just that lately it seems like you don’t want to be with me. If that’s true then tell me. I don’t want to weigh you down.”

Though my real name is Onyx, society knows me as Felicity, my middle name. No one would respond well to a girl with the name of Onyx.

“You really need to get over yourself Nathanial. You told me recently that if I wasn’t confident in myself then no one else would be. Why don’t you follow your own advice? I’m tired of you always being on my case just because there are stupid guys who can’t take a hint.”

Nathanial stared at me for a while, looking as though he was debating about whether to tell me something or not. Then he sighed and I guessed he decided to just tell me. “I have something that you probably aren’t going to like hearing,” he informed softly. I waited, but he said no more.