Turtle

I patted Trevor’s back, he rolled his eyes.”Yeah whatever turtle.” I pulled my hand away and looked back at my music. I felt bad for Trevor, he wanted Stacy so bad. The truth was, Stacy didn’t like Trevor at all. She knew he liked her, but she promised that she would never date him. I knew he was upset, and I wanted to be nice to him but I couldn’t keep letting him be mean to me, I thought about saying something mean back but I didn’t have it in me. I really didn’t believe that he actually meant the things he said.

I glanced down the row past Trevor at Wut. He was cute, it was undeniable. He was tall, tan, nice, talented, and handsome. Blessing sat next to him, she was around my height, round and loud. She was never afraid to say what was on her mind, Tim sat next to her. I’d known Tim since kindergarten, we’d never gotten to be close friends but we were cordial. He once told me I acted like I was better than people. I apologized to him and he told me I was doing it again. Further down the row past the baritones were the tubas. I only knew 3 of them. Stacy, Allen, and Jake. Jake was a sophomore, I had a crush on him in seventh grade but all my friends called me weird for it so I stopped. Allen was staring at me, his big hazel eyes focused in on my dark almost black, brown ones. His thick eyebrows knit together making it appear as though he had a unibrow.

“What?” I mouthed to him

“Just looking.” He mouthed back

“Why?”

“You caught my attention.” Allen smiled, he had a lovely smile. I felt my face flush, my cheeks burned and my eyes watered. What was happening? Did Allen…like me? I looked back at him, he was turned toward Stacy laughing. Were they laughing at me? I was an idiot, they were laughing at me for blushing like a fool.

“Eve!” Blessing whispered, she was tilting backward in her chair so that she could look at me behind Wut’s back. “Are you and Allen together?”

“No” I whispered back to her, shaking my head hard enough to give myself a headache. Blessing smiled at me and returned her chair on all fours. Trevor looked at me out of the corner of his eye and laughed, I turned to face forward again, trying to figure out what he was laughing at.
---------------------------------------------
I sat at the table in front of the ice cream parlor quietly. I was waiting for Kayla and Allen to finish ordering our ice cream. I was a little uncomfortable; there were a lot of people out for ice cream today.

“Medium mint chocolate chip shake for the lady.” Allen came out of the parlor and handed me my shake, Kayla only a few steps behind him. I smiled and placed my shake down on the table. Allen sat to my left and Kayla sat in front of me.
It was Saturday; my mom had driven me out here to see Allen and Kayla about five minutes ago. Stacy went to the movies with some of her friends and May was at a birthday party. Allen chewed on his straw for a minute before opening his mouth to speak.

“So what’s with Trevor calling you Turtle Eve?”

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that too.” Kayla added, licking her ice cream cone in circles so that it wouldn’t drip onto her hand. I nearly choked on my own spit at the sound of my new nick-name.

“And don’t say you don’t know again.” Allen squinted at me.

“Um…It’s nothing really. Trevor just thinks I’m not a girl.” I whispered. Most people wouldn’t have understood what I was saying, but Allen and Kayla had spent enough time around me to be able to “understand my language.”

“So he thinks you’re a boy then?” Kayla questioned me, she was smiling.

“No idiot.” Allen spoke before me. “He thinks she’s a turtle. If he thought she was a boy he’d call her man, or dude, or boy.” Allen was always mean to Kayla, he thought she was dumb and ghetto.

“Yeah, he says turtles are unimportant, like me.” I felt like crying.

“You’re important Eve!” Kayla shouted, people at other tables turned to look at her.

“Do you want me to kick his-butt?” Allen caught himself. He swore all the time, but tried his best to censor himself around me. Swear words made me cringe. I’d been raised to believe they were wrong. I was used to hearing them since almost everyone at my school used them including Trevor, but I still didn’t like them.

“No, don’t beat him up.” I laughed. I doubted that Allen could beat anybody up. He was big, but he wasn’t the fighting type. Kayla laughed out loud and Allen began to laugh too.

“What?” I asked.

“Turtle is a pretty good way to describe you Eve. Not necessarily in appearance but the whole shell thing, and kind of the unimportant thing too.” Kayla put her head down on the table, pressing her ice cream cone against her forehead on mistake, Allen tried his best not to laugh at me.

“You just told me I was important!” I whined.

“Well….you’re more important than a turtle. That’s for sure.” Kayla managed to say between laughs. Allen couldn’t hold it anymore, he burst out with laughter. I stood up and grabbed my bag.

“You guys come talk to me when you’re done laughing at me.” I pouted.

“Yeah, we’ll see you in about twenty minutes.” Allen held his index finger to me and I turned on my heel and stormed down the street headed towards the park.

It wasn’t until I was at the park sitting on a swing that I realized I’d forgotten my shake. I contemplated going back to get it for a moment before I heard Trevor call me from behind. I turned in my swing to see him hop over the small wooden fence and jog toward me. I thought about moving away, and then realized that I wanted some company until Allen and Kayla came to get me.

“What are you doing out here turtle?”

“I was with Allen and Kayla, but…I’m just waiting for them to come over here.”

“Man, you’ve got some lame friends.” Trevor punched my shoulder playfully.

“You’re entitled to feel that way.” I responded. Trevor shook his head at me then looked down at his knees.

“You think my friends are lame?” He asked quietly. I thought for a moment, trying to remember if I’d seen any of his friends.

“I don’t really see you with anybody…besides Jake and your brothers and all of the trombone players…Their all okay.”

“Jake’s not my friend.”
“Well then why do you talk to him?”

“Because he loves me turtle, don’t you know? I’ve got to give the fans a little face time, even the male ones.” He laughed. I smiled, Trevor was funny, he could get a good girl friend if he wasn’t so weird.