Divine Chaos

Thirty minutes later we were still talking about pandas. I learned that when pandas (with the scientific name of Ailurus fulgens stjyani) are first born, they are only the length of one stick of butter. And they grow to be 900 times bigger. And their teeth are seven times bigger than a human’s and they also have opposable thumbs just like humans. Pandas are endangered, with only about a thousand left in western China.

“When a panda has cubs, she usually only has two or three at a time, but she picks one to take care of and leaves the weaker ones behind in caves or a tree to die,” Oliver said.
“That’s horrible,” I said, my mouth wide open.
“Yeah, but a baby cub needs a mother panda’s full and undivided attention because the father has no part in the raising of the cubs.” Oliver replied as if this was the simplest thing in the world to understand.

There was something different about Oliver. He seemed like a badass, but yet he liked pandas?

When our parents arrived, we were still talking. “What are you guys up to?” my mom asked walking into the kitchen, holding hands with Steve.
“Just talking about stuff,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.
“Like what?” Steve asked.
“Pandas,” I replied.
My mom laughed, “Pandas? Awe, I love pandas. They’re cute.”
I nodded, “Yeah, it’s actually pretty interesting.”
“It’s really dorky actually,” Oliver said, blushing and looking down at his hands.

I was about to tell him I didn’t think it was when my phone rang. The caller ID stated it was Hayden. I sighed, pressing ignore.
A couple minutes later my phone rang again. Hayden had called back.
“Who’s that?” mom asked me.
“Nobody important,” I said excusing myself from the room. I walked outside, sitting on the swing on our porch.

“What do you want?” I answered, not bothering to say hey.
“You. I want you,” Hayden’s voice sounded unbelievably pathetic over the phone.
“Well, you had me. And then you lost me.” I said, bitterness filling my voice by the second.
“I know and I messed up so bad. I am so sorry. She meant nothing to me sweetie!” he pleaded.
“Well then why did you do it? Why did you cheat? If I was everything and she was nothing it makes no sense that you would go and be with her.” I said, tears welling in my eyes at the memory of them together. Them kissing, laughing, him holding her in his arms. The arms that were meant for me.

“I don’t know baby. Because I’m stupid I guess. I don’t understand it either. She came on to me and I gave in. I jus—“
“No,” I said interrupting him and wiping the tears from my eyes. “You should’ve said no. I give you everything and you go do this to me?”
“I said I was sorry. It won’t ever happen again.”
“Sorry isn’t good enough Hayden. It’s not! And how do I know you’ll never do it again?” I asked, already tired of talking to him.
“Because I love you!” he shouted into the phone.
“Bullshit!” I yelled back before hanging up the phone.

I sat on the swing outside, breathing in and out, trying to calm down. Oliver walked outside and took a seat beside me. “You okay?” he asked. I heard a clicking sound and I looked over, surprised to see him lighting up a cigarette.
“No, my boyfrie—“ I stopped myself. “My ex-boyfriend is a douche bag.”
“Oh,” he blew out a puff of smoke. “Why?” he questioned.
“He cheated on me,” I said sniffling even though I had stopped crying.
“Wow,” he stated.
“Wow what?”
“I just don’t understand how someone could cheat on a girl as pretty as you,” he said, making me blush and look away. “Uh, I mean, he must be a real dick.”
“The thing is though, that he wasn’t. He was so great to me. This is why I’m taking this so hard because it just doesn’t even seem possible that he could do something like this. Just the other day things were perfect, and then I drop by his house Saturday after the lake and I see him with some blonde girl.” I said exasperated.
My phone chimed, I checked the message.

Take me back. Everybody makes mistakes Jade!!

Oliver read the message over my shoulder and then held out his hand, the one without the lit cigarette in it, “May I?”
I shrugged and nodded handing it over. He typed quickly as I read what he was sending.

You’re right & you made a BIG one. Fuck off!

I just looked at him as he handed it back to me and got up. “It seemed appropriate,” he said. I just sat there, watching him take in a puff from the cigarette and then blowing it out into the air around him. Every once and a while, he’d flick the ashes to the ground.

My mom called out the door that dinner was ready so we got up and joined them at the kitchen table. After dinner, mom and Steve went outside and sat in the lawn chairs sipping Smirnoff and talking, leaving me and Oliver at the table alone. I cleared my throat, trying to do anything to break the silence. Then an idea popped into my head.

“Can I ask you a favor?”
He looked up from his empty plate, “Depends.”
“Well I need you to help me with something,” I said getting up from the table and collecting the plates, putting them in the sink.
“And what would that be?” he asked smirking at me.
“Follow me,” I said, walking out of the kitchen and down the hall.

“Do you have an empty box you might have brought over here?” I asked him.
He thought about it for a second and nodded, disappearing across the hall into his room.

At my door, I waited for him to return. When he came back and handed the box to me he looked at me questioningly, confused. “Okay, what are we doing?” he asked.
I led him inside my room, making sure nothing (bras and/or underwear) were laying out where he could see.
“Well, I happen to have a lot of things in this room of me and Hayden. So much that I need your help getting rid of it all.” I went over and picked up my trashcan. “All the pictures of me and him need to go in here. And I’m going to box up his stuff and the stuff he gave me. You think you can do that?” I asked.

He nodded. “Are you sure you wanna do this?” he asked me, picking up the first photo.
I breathed in and out, “Yes, and if you don’t help me now, I’ll never do it. I haven’t even really been in here for the past two days because of all this stuff so now it’s time to get rid of it.”

He nodded and started taking all of the pictures off of my dresser and my nightstand. Then he moved on to my bulletin board, hanging above my bed. I noticed that at each one he looked at it for a while before throwing it in the trash.
“Gosh, you gotta take so many damn pictures?” he asked.
I just laughed at this, loving how he could be so dramatic sometimes.

I took the empty box he gave me and started packing up everything else in the room that was his, or even reminded me of him. There was his hat, a couple of his shirts, a hoodie he let me borrow when it was raining one day, the necklace he bought me for Christmas, the bracelet that had his name on it, three stuffed animals he had gotten me, a couple love letters he wrote me in school, and even this pen I remembered him using. I threw that in the box too. I found more photos of us in an old photo album and I threw those in on top.

When I turned back to look at Oliver, he was sitting on my bed, with the last photo in his hands. I came over to get a better look at the photo. In the picture, he was behind me, his arms wrapped around me and across my stomach. He was smiling, but last minute he whispered something in my ear and made me laugh. The photo captured him still smiling and me laughing, mouth wide open, the tips of my white teeth showing, and my eyed crinkled.

“You really loved him, didn’t you?” he asked, looking up at me.
I didn’t say anything, I don’t think I could have even if I tried. I just nodded.
“You have some scissors?” he asked me, looking back down at the photo.
I looked around, trying to remember where some might be. “Uh, top drawer of my nightstand.”

He reached in the drawer and grabbed the scissors out. Then he progressed to cutting the picture straight down the middle, throwing away, only the half that had him in it. He grabbed a tack not being used and put the photo of me back up on the board. I just continued to stare at him as he did this.

“What?” he asked when he detected my eyes on him. “I liked the picture of you,” he said shrugging.
When he saw my red camera sitting in on my vanity, he picked it up and turned it on. “Any pictures on here?” he asked.
“Probably,” I said, looking around the room for anything else I could have missed.

A couple minutes later Oliver called my name, “Hey Jade.”
I looked back and got flashed by my own camera. He started laughing and I walked over to him and slapped him playfully on the shoulder. I grabbed my camera out of his hand and turned it on him. He covered his face with his hands.
“Yeah, you don’t like it now huh?” I asked him. “Not so funny now,” I took a picture of him.
He spread his fingers apart, showing his eyes, and then sticking his tongue out at me. I scoffed and flashed another picture. “Stop,” he reached out to grab the camera back but I turned and ran from the room.
“Never!” I yelled.

After fighting over the camera for a while I eventually forfeited. Steve and mom had come back in and were watching us fight. Oliver had the camera held high over his head, and I was just too short.
“Fine, I give up!” I said storming from the room.
Oliver laughed and handed me back the camera, “I knew you would.”
“See, this is why I’m having mixed feelings about liking you.” I said teasingly. I glared at him, grabbing the camera and placing it safely back in my room.

Steve and Oliver left a little while later and before Oliver left, he slipped his head back in at me. “Bye loser.”
I flipped him off while my mom’s back was turned. He laughed before closing the door behind him.
I was walking back to my Hayden-free room, when my mom called out, “Well I’m glad you guys are getting along.”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling awkward. It’s not what she said, it’s the way she said “getting along”. I shrugged it off and returned to my room.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I walked in. I don’t know what it was, maybe the fact that all of his things were gone and out of my sight, that gave me the strength to tell him what I did that night when he called me back.