Tired of Pretending

Halfway up the long granite stairs, he reached in his pocket to fish for his keys.

Like always.

When we reached the top, I already had my arms outstretched, waiting for him to hand me his books. Algebra II and American History.

Like always.

He stuck the key into the lock and jiggled it around. I take these precious few seconds to study his profile, unnoticed everyday.

Like always.

His long, dark brown eyelashes flicked up and down, and his olive green eyes were slightly squinted in concentration. His slightly blemished, slightly tan skin glowed in the fading sunlight, and again I was struck by how captivating he was.

All too soon, the lock clicked and he nudged open the door. The room was dark, for there was no one home. I followed him into the dark apartment, clutching his books to my chest.

He moved away to turn on the light at the end of the hall, and I stood still in the doorway, relishing these few seconds of being alone, in the dark, with him. The lights flickered on, and Dan was no where to be seen. I knew he was already in the bathroom, following his afternoon routine to the T. In a few minutes, he was going to come out, sit on the right side of the couch and turn on Cartoon Network. I will then sit in the middle of the soft, gray courderoy couch and slightly, over time, edge my way over to him discreetly. By the end of the night I will be curled around his right leg, and his hand will be running absent mindedly through my hair.

Finally, around ten, after Scooby Doo, it will be time for me to go. His goodbye hugs are my sole reason for coming back. I live cherished those five second embraces, nestling my head on his chest and breathing in deep the smell of his cologne and the sunshine-scented laundry detergent on his cotton shirts, the essence of Dan.

I set his books down on the end table by the couch, but did not make a move to sit at my place in the middle of the couch. I had the sudden urge to cry. I couldn’t keep living like this, pretending that everything was ok. Pretending like I didn’t want him with every fiber in my being. I fought back tears ferociously, taking deep, gulping breaths. I will not cry, I will not cry. Not here. I repeated the words in my head over and over again until they didn’t make any sense. Until they were just sounds looping on repeat in my subconscious.

Suddenly, the toilet flushed and I heard the water splashing in the sink as he washed his hands.

I quickly composed myself, cracking my neck and fingers, and giving my cheek a few hard slaps for good measure.

“Did you just slap yourself?” I heard him ask behind me.

I turned around slowly. He was looking at me incredulously, a sly crooked smile creeping across his face.

All of the sudden all I wanted to do was run over and wrap my arms around his rail-thin body. I wanted to kiss those soft-looking pink lips and run my hands through his dark, brown hair. I wanted to call him mine. I wanted him so badly it hurt.

His grin faltered a little at my expression.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

I bit my lip, not looking him in the eye, crushing the toe of my Converse into his wood floors.
It was silent for a minute, until I couldn’t hold my words back anymore. For six months I’d been holding back, and the dam had finally burst.

“Whydon’tyoulikeme?” I blurted finally.

His expression was like a blow to the stomach.

“What?” he said, looking uncomfortable.

“Just tell me what it is. What about me is undateable? I promise I won’t be mad. Just please, tell me what I’m doing wrong.” I was trying so hard not to lose it, fighting back hysteria like no other.
“You-- you aren’t doing anything wrong,” he whispered, “I don’t know what to say--”
“Say the truth, Dan. Please! I need this. Just what am I doing wrong?”

He didn’t say anything. Seconds of silence ticked by. He was looking everywhere but me. My entire body trembled with bottled-up emotion.

“Dan…please,” I whispered, stepping closer, closing the gap between us.

He lowered his eyes down to mine slowly, shaking his head. I clenched my fists and closed my eyes, waiting for the blow.

He said it. Slowly and emotionless. His words poured out like concrete on my open wound.
Unable to hold back any longer, a tear slipped down my cheek, opening the flood gates. I turned away quickly, not wanting him to see me cry.

“I-I-I- have to go, and--”

“Heidi, no. Wait,” he grabbed my hand, but I wrenched it away, running for the door.

“I’m late, I’m l-l-l-ate for a very important date,” I called back, attempting to save face.

I threw my enormous backpack onto my shoulder and yanked open the front door, letting it slam shut behind me. Then and only then did I cry freely as I ran to my car.

***

Shit. Shit shit shit shit. Daniel thought as soon as the door slammed shut behind her. Shit. He shouldn’t have told her. She looked super messed up. He could tell she had been trying to be strong and not cry in front of him.

But it was her eyes that he couldn’t shake from his thoughts. Her large brown eyes, normally had a sparkle to them, a hint of mischievousness in them. They were always full of life.

But as soon as he said those horrible words, they’d turned blank and melancholy, with little rivers of tears running down her smooth brown cheeks.

He walked into the kitchen, kicking the cabinets in frustration, and got a glass of orange juice. He gulped it down, not really tasting it.], getting lost in his own thoughts. Just as he was washing the glass out, the front door opened behind him.

“Dan! Where are you?” his mother called walking right past the kitchen, clicking and clacking her way down the hall in her heels.

Crap, he thought. His mother absolutely adored Heidi. They exchanged corny jokes to one other, baked together, and sometimes got coffee together. Daniel’s mom often called Heidi her ‘Little Miss Sunshine.’

He cleared his throat, “Here”, he said.

“Hey honey! I just bumped into Heidi on my way up here. Well actually, she bumped into me; she was crying her little eyes out. Big ol’ crocodile tears. Do you know why she’s--” she walked into the kitchen and stopped at the look on his face.

“Oh honey what happened?” she asked, coming into the room and pulling out a bar stool. The legs scraped loudly against the linoleum, and he winced.

She sat down and looked at him expectantly. He sighed and launched into his story.
She listened carefully and nodded occasionally, only interrupting him once to ask what, in fact he told her to make her so upset.
He told her, and she put her head in her hands and shook her head.

Dan found her lack of shock suspicious.
“So, you knew she liked me still?” He asked accusingly.

She gave him an exasperated look.

“Duh, I knew! Even if she hadn’t told me, I would have figured it out the first time she came over! Wait,-” she said, reading his confused face. “You didn’t know she still liked you?! Daniel Ryan, what is wrong with you?!”

He threw up his hands. “No, I did know she liked me before, when she asked me out in September. I didn’t know she STILL liked me”

“Dan, why do you think she’s over here everyday after school? It sure isn’t to see me! Why do you think she makes your favorite sandwich on Sundays after church, bakes your favorite brownies and watches that same stupid movie with you without complaint, even though she’s seen it a thousands times, just because you think it’s hilarious. Why do you think she burns you endless mixes of your favorite bands? Or always has your favorite brand of sweet tea waiting in the car in the mornings, even though they only sell it in the Wal-Mart across town? Or why she always seems to fall asleep in your lap while you play with her hair, Dan, how could you not see that she’s in love with you?” she ranted, ticking off a finger with each reason.

“I knew, right from the start. It was written all over her face. It just got more obvious over time.” she said softly.

He stood silent for a minute, letting all that sink in. Heidi, sweet, sincere Heidi. Who wore her heart stitched on her sleeve for a guy who obviously didn’t deserve it. For a guy who broke her heart.

“I broke her heart.” he said, horror-struck.

His mom nodded “Baby, yes you did. Bad.”

He looked at the floor, feeling like an emotionless cretin. He should be locked up, and never be loved again.

His mom hopped off the bar stool and came hobbling around to his side of the kitchen. She wrapped her arms around him.
“Honey, I’m not trying to make you feel bad, but-- I think you need to apologize to her.” she said, pulling back to look him in the eye.

“But she left. I don’t know where she is, and I doubt she will answer if I called her” he said.

“Well, she probably went home. Take my car. Its got a full tank,” she said, giving him a little shove toward the door.

"Just find her, Daniel."

Dan grabbed her keys from the hook by the door and ran to the white Honda Civic that was parked outside the apartment complex.

As he was driving toward the freeway, toward Heidi's house, a conversation he’d had with her a couple weeks ago came tumbling into his mind like a ton of bricks.

“I went to that elementary school right there!” she said, pointing out the car window at a long, one story brick building as we sped by in her little dented white Volkswagen Bug.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yup” she said nodding. “K-through fifth.”

“I haven’t seen my elementary school since I went to school there,” I said pushing the button to roll down to convertible top, so I could feel the cool fall air.

“I still go there sometimes you know.” she said turning off the heat and shaking her hair out of her ponytail, keeping one hand on the wheel.

“Why?”

“Well. There was this one time in kindergarten when my best friend told everybody in my class that I liked this guy named Willie one day during recess.”

I laughed, “Willie? That was his name?” I teased.

“Hey, don’t judge! Anyway, I climbed up this one platform, and like, cried my eyes out because I was so embarrassed. When recess ended I realized I couldn’t get down, because the only way down was to go across the monkey bars, which I’m hopeless at, or jump. And you know I’m afraid of heights.”

“Aww, poor baby Heidi.”

“I know, it was terrible. My teacher eventually got me down. Although she wasn’t too happy about it. So now I go to that platform whenever I’m sad or I need a good cry, So no one else will hear me. I hate crying in front of people,” she said, suddenly jerking the steering wheel to avoid hitting the curb, causing my head to smack against the window.

“Jesus! Why don’t you let me drive sometimes?” I asked tightening my seatbelt. A car honked behind us furiously, but Heidi didn't seem to notice.

“Because,” she turned to look at me for a split second, her warm brown eyes finding mine. “I don’t need anymore dents in my car!”

Dan made a sharp U-turn, causing an explosion of angry motorists to honk at him, but he didn't care. The school. Her elementary school. He pulled into a Wal-Mart parking lot and typed the name into his GPS.

His holey gray Vans crunched across the gravel as he made his way uphill toward the elementary school’s playground. Night had fallen now, and the sky was dark except for the crescent moon shining against a background of millions of scattered, twinkling stars.

Once at the top, there was a new-looking, shiny chain link fence that surrounded a playground of swings and one single, sorry looking set of miniature monkey bars. To the right, the playground stretched on out of his sight.

He jumped the fence easily, and set off walking toward a blacktop court. From there, he could see a humongous, colorful, jungle gym on the far right of the playground. His stomach gave a little jolt. If she was here, she had to be on that jungle gym.

He set off at a jog, running across another blacktop, stopping before reaching the edge of the jungle gym.

There were faint sobs coming up from ahead, and his heart started to race. He had no idea what to say to her when he found her. He walked gingerly across the gravel, not wanting to startle her and the more he walked, the louder the sobs grew.

“I’m so st-st-stupid.” she sniffed softly, her voice cracking so much that he could barely understand her. Dan’s heart twinged slightly.

He stopped about twenty feet away from her.

She was sitting, hunched over on a platform about five feet off the ground; her body shaking from the severity of her sobs. Dan had to stifle a laugh when he saw how low off the ground it actually was. He could just see baby Heidi crying and not being able to get down. Despite everything, he felt himself smile a little in the darkness.

“Heidi?” he called softly.

The figure on the platform froze.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered, so low he barely caught it. She lifted her arm to wipe her eyes.

He stepped closer, and a twig snapped under his feet. Like a frightened deer, Heidi bolted. She jumped off the platform landing on her hands and knees, she recovered quickly and tore off the playground, making the gravel spray in every direction.

On impulse he ran after her, chasing her all the way to the edge of the playground, weaving and bobbing in-between all the play sets.

She had gotten a good start on him, but Heidi wasn't a runner by any means. Her fastest walking speed was about as speedy as an elderly couple, walking in the mall. And she never ran but "speed-walked". This is the first time he had never seen her break a light jog.

So by time she had reached the fence he was just coming into sight. He could hear her panting, trying to catch her breath, even from the distance. She took a running jump at the fence and climbed it clumsily, hesitating at the top, before falling awkwardly with a loud clang on the other side.

“Ow, shit,” he heard her mutter. By that time he was almost at the fence, too.

Heidi limped the rest of the way down the hill, but instead of getting into her car, she tugged opened a side door that Daniel hadn’t even noticed and ran inside.
Fueled by curiosity, he followed her.

Inside the mysterious door was a long white cafeteria. Its chairs and tables had been stacked up and pushed to the sides, waiting to be unfolded again come Monday morning. He walked slowly to the door, out into the hallway, where he came to a fork. To the right was a long, gradual, slope that lead to, what looked like, classrooms.

Ahead was the main hall. Just as he was about to go straight, a trail of small dirty footprints, on the otherwise spotless floor, caught his eye. The footprints were leading to the classrooms.

Dan followed them all the way to the door of the second classroom. Carefully pushing open the door, he found a classroom with about ten little round tables set up around the room. Little cubbies were lined on one wall, a colorful behavior chart with tiny Velcro apples was on the other. There was no where to really hide in this room. He was about to turn around and go back when a cabinet on the left quivered. He hadn’t even taken a step in that direction when Heidi’s voice rang out, breaking the eerie silence.

“Please leave me alone.” she said.

He walked to the cabinet, and opened the door. She was so small; she could sit in the bottom of the cabinet comfortably. She was sitting with her face turned away from him, her head in her hands.

He squatted next to her, grabbing her hands, he gently tried to pry them from her face. She hesitated, then recoiled away from him.

“Please Dan, this has nothing to do with you. I’m not mad I swear. I’m just having a bad day and you’re making it worse. Please leave me be.” she said firmly.

Dan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. She was trying to tell him that it wasn’t what he said that made cry. Or maybe she was going to pretend that he didn’t see her cry.

“Dan.” she said choking back a sob. “Leave”

He backed away slowly from the cabinet. Just as he was about to turn and leave she called out to him.

“Dan?”

“Yes?” he said turning around, hoping she was going to forgive him. Hoping that they were just going to laugh at this and go back to his house for movie and popcorn and pretend this never happened.

He saw one large tear-stained brown eye, illuminated by the moonlight, peeking out at him.
“Close the door when you go, please” she said.

“Yeah, sure. Of course,” he said disappointedly, feeling his heart sink.

He closed the door, swearing that when he did he heard a soft,
“Thank you.”

***

The next day, on his way to class, he ran into Heidi in the hallway. She noticed him first, but didn’t bother acknowledging his presence. walking right past him without a word.

“Hey, Heidi, wait up!” he called, running to catch up with her.

She stopped, but didn’t turn around.

“Hey, did you-uh get home ok?” he asked, trying to catch her eye, but she avoided eye contact.

“Yeah.” she said sticking her pinky in her mouth and chewing on her already too-short nail.

“You, uh coming over today? I was hoping we could talk--”

She cleared her throat.

“Uh, no. I’m not actually. I uh have something to do.” she said finally meeting his eyes.

He could still see the raw, unfiltered pain in her large eyes for a split second as she accidentally let her guard down. But quick as a blink, it was gone and her eyes were blank and emotionless again, detached from the rest of her body.

She scratched her cheek. It was then, only then, when Daniel realized there was a faint, red, criss-cross pattern of the jungle gym imprinted on the left side of her face.

His gaze traveled from her face to her swollen caramel-colored arms, peppered with hundreds of little purple mosquito bites, down to her left leg, which had a nasty gash down the side. She must have never went home, and slept on the playground he realized, and at that moment he hated himself. Hated himself for telling her that awful untrue thing. He wanted to take it back. Or better yet just erase it from history.

He wanted to hold her in his arms, and rock her back and forth, and whisper that everything was going to be okay.

“I have to go to class,” she said finally, turning away, putting up an invisible brick wall between them, shielding her emotions, and tucking the hurt behind her eyes deep inside her.

“Oh ok. Bye.” he said opening his arms to give her one last hug.

She glanced over her shoulder at him warily, but accepted the hug.
He nestled his head on her shoulder, breathing in her scent. She smelled like the woods, and minty toothpaste.

Heidi let go of him quickly, and hurried down the hall, leaving Daniel still standing there. He stood there long after the late bell sounded, feeling empty.