Playing With The Big Boys Now

My little talk with Cara had taken the weight of things off of my shoulders, but did nothing to forestall the situation. The next day in art class, I caught Gerard at it again. And no, I hadn't been imagining things. The little glimmer of emotion was still there, hiding behind his hazel irises.

The moment I was dreading, however, came afterwards, when the bell rang and we were off to the next class. I couldn't avoid it forever, of course, unless I took a new name, got a face transplant and became a nun, but I was hoping it wouldn't happen this soon.

"Delilah!" Gerard breathed as he caught up with me in the hall, "I need to say something."

I decided playing dumb was probably my best bet in this situation.

"Sure. What's up, Gee?"

"Well, the thing is...see, I know I've only known you for about a week, but I really like you a lot, and I was just wondering...well, hoping actually, that maybe, you...liked me back...that way."

I had feigned my shock at what he had just confessed to me, but stumbling through my next sentence wasn't intentional.

"Well....I don't r-really know how to say....there's a good...reason I have to decline, but it's a long s-story and....you probably don't want to hear it anyways," I muttered, turning away from the disappointment that was made perfectly clear on his face.

"I have a study hall next period. Wanna skip? You can explain then," he offered.

I stopped in my tracks. Yeah, this could be good. For both of us. I turned back around.

"Sure, that sounds great."

We somehow managed to elude the frightening administration and slip out of an exit door whose alarm hadn't been working since 1967. Opting to walk instead of drive, we headed down the sidewalk, making our way to the nearest park. As soon as I found a clean bench, I flopped onto it and sighed (a bit melodramatically, I'll admit).

"Spill," he said, alternating between staring at the ground and at me.

I sighed again before beginning, "Before I came here, to Jersey, I mean, not just to St. James, I lived in Norfolk, Virginia. My dad was alive and well, my mom was happy, I was happy. At my old school there, I met this guy named Sam. He was pretty much perfect in every way. Or at least in my eyes he was, with his shiny red hair and big brown eyes. I was so surprised at the very idea of him possibly liking me back that I turned him down the first time he asked me out. Fortunately, or perhaps, in hindsight, unfortunately, he asked again and I said yes this time.

"Everything was going great for a while there. I had fallen hopelessly in love with him in such a short amount of time, but to me, he could do no wrong. We were perfect for eachother, I thought. Then one day we got the call that my dad had been in a car accident. My whole entire world had just been....flipped upside down and shaken upall at once. He was in a coma for a few days, but then he passed away overnight. And I wasn't even awake to say goodbye."

At this point the tears were flowing freely down my face, and I saw Gerard's eyes welling up as well. Unlike me, he had the self control to hold them in.

"Then what?" he asked patiently, his voice a little hoarse from holding back the moisture building up in his eyes.

"Naturally, I was devasted. My mom was holding it together for my sake, but I was falling apart. The whole time at the hospital, I hadn't heard from Sam once, though I'd called him several times, in tears. I needed him more than anything, so I thought to myself, maybe he's waiting for me to come to him, you know? So I went over to his house, looking for the one person who I thought would hold and comfort me, and do you know what I saw when I walked through the door?"

"I'm not sure I want to know," he whispered, looking at the ground again.

"I'll tell you anyways, since I'm already there in the story. What I saw was my boyfriend, lying on the sofa naked with some blonde whore on top of him. So I turned around and left."

"What did he say?" he asked, looking at me now.

"Nothing. He said nothing when I left, even though he most definitely saw me, and I never saw him again after that. Mom packed us up and moved us up here to Jersey to be closer to my grandparents. Then I met Cara in the girl's bathroom one day when she walked in on me having an emotional breakdown. She just comforted me and sat there, listening to my sad, pathetic story, even though she didn't even know my name, and we've been best friends ever since."

We sat in silence for a bit, staring at the nature all around us.

"So now what?" he said, breaking the silence.

"So now," I began, "I'm terrified of relationships in general. He hurt me Gee. He hurt me real bad."

"So is that why you won't go out with me?" he asked, looking the tiniest bit hopeful.

"That and....I think I may like someone else."

There. I had said it. The other half of my explanation that I hadn't even really wanted to reveal to even myself.

"It's Bob isn't it," he sighed.

"What?!" I shot straight up as a rocket.

"I saw how he was looking at you the other night, and vice versa. I just didn't want to believe it."

"Well, now you know I like him, but I think you're wrong in that he doesn't like me back."

"How do you know."

"I just do, ok?"

"Whatever you say, Del. Whatever you say."