Airel (3 page)

Chapter IV

I made it to school without any more bizarre episodes, but I still wondered why I was getting sick all of a sudden. It was irritating. True to form, the rain was just a light drizzle and it made the wipers chatter across my windshield,
bdraaaap, flaaaap
. So I walked the dangerous line between embarrassment and annoyance and the need to see where I was going. I was clicking them on and off all the way to school.
Lame…

I cringed when I pulled into the parking lot. Kim had told me that Michael Alexander drove a sweet, white Chevy truck, and there it sat gleaming, even in the rain. My heart stopped for a split second like everybody’s always does when they’re in love. Or when they think they are. Or when they are, but aren’t ready to be
.
My stomach did a flip and I sucked it in and found a parking space.
Isn’t that great! Here I am...  I haven’t even hardly met the guy and I’ve already had an entire relationship with him in my imagination. Just go in and get this over with. He’s just a dumb boy like all the others. Get a grip, Airel!
 

I made it to my first class with no sign of the mysterious new boy. I was a little glad about that because I didn’t want to face him and risk the chance of a repeat of yesterday’s disaster. I felt off my game. My body was fighting this illness—no doubt brought on by my idiotic and uncontrollable feelings—and even the thought of him made me panicky, or worse, made me want to cry. 

I knew I would have to see him in the hall. We would probably have more classes together, too. I ran ideas through my mind about how to avoid him. That seemed to work for most of the morning.

Kim found me in the hall on my way to lunch and wanted to know if I was feeling better. “Are you going to live?” She had that familiar smile on her face.

“Yeah, I think I might make it today. You may want to stay away from me though. I could be contagious.” I coughed in my hand and felt my forehead as if I had a fever. 

“Ha! Only if you can catch the
love bug
.” Kim’s eyes sparkled and she had yet another dumb grin on her face.

“Funny. He’s way out of my league. Besides, he doesn’t even know I exist.” 

Kim was silent—which should have been my first clue. She was looking past me with a blank stare on her face. Like an idiot, I turned around to see what she was looking at.

There, standing two feet from me, was Michael Alexander. My heart jumped and—I swear—it stopped. Now he was right in front of me, with a slight smile on his face. He had the most gorgeous crystal blue eyes I had ever seen in my life. I didn’t know how I kept from fainting. 

Kim stepped into the middle of all of us, cutting in between us. Some other jock guy I hadn’t noticed was standing next to Michael. “Hi, I’m Kim…you new to town? How do you like it here?” I groaned, hiding my face behind my locker door, secretly peeking out, wondering what I did to deserve this.
Kim and her big fat mouth.
 

Michael looked at her, then around her, in my direction, and smiled. “Hey, I’m Michael Alexander.” Clearly, he was answering her politely, but not talking to her at all. I looked at him from behind my locker door and flushed. 

“Michael…” Kim said as if pondering his name for the first time. “Good to meet you! This is my friend Airel.” She pointed to me and I could see the wicked smirk on her face. I was going to kill her. Murder, kill—and then for sport—unfriend her on Facebook.

“Hi…” I trailed off
.
Yep. I said, "hi," and probably sounded like I had some disease—which I wasn’t ruling out just yet. Nothing cool. Nothing memorable. Just, "hi." I tried to say my name but Kim had already spilled those beans, and besides, I couldn’t for the life of me remember what my name
was.
I flashed back to the coffee shop, blushing even more, which made Kim giggle. From the smirk on his face I could tell Michael was enjoying my discomfort.
Boys are just evil.

“You’re Airel? I heard you got sick yesterday.” The smirk took on just the slightest hint of compassion, which nearly killed me. “You okay today?” Great, he knew I was a sicko… that meant the whole school knew.
Perfect.

“Yeah, she’s doing better today. Her name
is
Airel, and she’s glad to meet you.” Kim jumped in to save me, which made me even more embarrassed.
Say something. Get that mouth moving and stop gawking at him like he’s perfect. 

“Uh…”
Nice start, stupid!
“Yeah, much better. Must have been a… a twenty-four hour… sort of… thing. And yes, I am Airel, like she mentioned—this is Kim.” I deflected to her and hoped Michael would just go away and not notice that all the introductions had already been made. No wait—I wanted him to stay. 

He had this way about him. Something magnetic; I couldn’t place what it was. All I could think about was the way he looked at me. His eyes were like a deep pool of the bluest water I’d ever seen and there was something in them that moved me deeply, shook me. I liked it as much as I feared it.

“Kim, nice to meet you...  again.” The smirk once more, directed at me,
God help me.
“I guess I’ll see you around, yeah?” He smiled, looked at me, then Kim. He lifted his hand with a half wave, then turned and walked toward the cafeteria. His jock friend followed, and I could hear them laughing. I saw Michael hit the other guy in the arm. 

I didn’t realize until then that the hallway looked like a scene from a side show. Everyone had stopped to watch this new very gorgeous boy talk to the resident sicko. Then, as he walked away, giggles from the girls filled the stifling air and a few football players rolled their eyes.

“Hi? Way to go Airel!” Kim was a little beside herself. “Good thing I was here! You might have stood there just gawking at him.” Kim shoved her backpack into her locker and stood now, grinning from ear to ear, looking like a stupid cartoon character.
What is it with her lately?
It seemed she was full of dumb looks.

“Whatever, Kim! I wasn’t ready for that. Thanks for totally setting me up! You could have warned me!” I stuffed my backpack into my locker glared at her. Great—now everyone will be talking. This was a bad start to a bad week. All I wanted to do was go home, curl up under the covers, and sleep the rain away.

Chapter V

So I made it to the weekend without embarrassing myself any further, thank God. The school was buzzing about the new guy on set, and it made me—well, I guess I’m not sure what it made me. 

I caught myself trying to be jealous, but I wasn’t! Then again, I had this thing: if I had a friend, felt like I had a small claim on someone, then they were mine—dibs. 

From what I hear, guys have this so-called "code" where they can’t date a girl if their buddy dated her. Well, we had our code as girls, too. If you put a claim on a guy, he was yours until you released him. Whether or not he liked you back had nothing to do with it. 

I went over to Kim’s house pretty early to pick her up. We were both up for a day of retail therapy, and since I had the money I decided that I needed a new pair of jeans. Okay, maybe "need" was too strong a word, but I wanted to go shopping. 

As I drove the Honda into town, Kim chatted up a storm. We were both
so
over all the lame and weird events of the past week and I had to admit that I was looking forward to a day of nothing but girl time.

It was nice out, unlike the day before, and the sun shone in full force. Kim was going on about her latest crush, James Carver. He was the new star quarterback, a transfer from another school, and way out of her league. But who was I to burst her bubble? 

I pulled in to the Sunrise Café and parked. I needed breakfast and a cup of coffee with lots of cream. I guess Mom was starting to get to me. The unrelenting rants on breakfast were beginning to sink in. Maybe she was right anyway, and I should take more time in the mornings to eat. Then again, maybe she was just being a mom. 

“Did you see him at practice yesterday? Like, he had his shirt off, and man-oh-man was he buff! I wonder if he saw me? I think he was waving at me.” Kim smiled and tugged on her purse strap as we went into the little mom-n-pop café. 

“Kim, you do realize that he’s the quarterback? He’s the one that all the cheerleaders and every other bimbo are after. Believe me, you don’t want that guy anyway, he has a big enough head as it is.” I grabbed a booth and looked at the menu, hoping she would wise up. Knowing her, it was a lost cause.

Kim shut her mouth and stuck out her lower lip. “Thanks for raining on my dreams. You can’t help who you fall in love with.” 

“Come on, Kim. Love? You’ve talked to the guy like what—once?” I hated to be the voice of reason. I was beginning to think I should take some of my own advice. I tried to stop thinking about
him,
but everything I looked at, every billboard, sign and newspaper, all reminded me of him. It was as if his face or his name was everywhere.

“Look who’s talking, miss 'in love with the hottest guy in school!' No—in the entire town!” She had me.
Busted
. I hid a smile behind my menu. Just in time the waitress came by to get our orders.

“I’ll get the Sunrise breakfast and a coffee.” There were lots of little individual creamers in the little dish on the table, plus Splenda to drown out the bitterness. I’d learned how to make coffee my grandpa’s way—he loved cream and sugar. Now I couldn’t take it any other way, except I substituted Splenda for sugar. 

Kim looked at the choices and had decided, but she was still trying to hold on to her pouting lip. It made me laugh. “Give me the French toast with a side of bacon—lots of bacon. And OJ, please.” Our skinny waitress hurried away with a smile. 

I sat back and looked through the crowd. Local farmers and regulars reading the
Thrifty Nickel
. The place had a hometown feel to it, with a huge wagon wheel on the wall, painted saws with mountain scenes on them, and old West stuff. We were a bit out of place surrounded by farmers and construction workers, but I loved eating at the Sunrise Café. It was nostalgic. I used to pop in for breakfast with my dad back when he had more time off. 

I loved my dad, but somehow he and I had grown apart over the years. It might be that I was growing up and that’s just what happens, but I missed him and our little dates
.
I was thinking about the first time I came here with him, when I noticed that Kim was not talking. That was not an everyday occurrence with her. 

“What?” I asked a bit defensively. She was looking at me as if I just had a nose job or something.

“Did you change make-up or do something different today?” She was leaning closer, and just like her, had to touch my face. People talk about their bubbles. Kim’s bubble was much bigger than mine. Actually, she had no bubble.

I sat back as politely as I could, just out of her reach. “No, just the same old thing I always do. Why, what’s wrong?” I pulled my compact out and looked at my reflection to see what all the fuss was about—did I have a zit coming in?

“I don’t know… just something looks different. Like, in a good way. You look like you have a smoother complexion. No little blackheads and tiny bumps like normal.”

“Oh, well thanks. I didn’t know my face was inspected every morning by the zit patrol!” I didn’t see anything worth getting all worked up about, but I did look good, considering how I had jumped out of bed and just pulled my hair back in a pony. It was Saturday, I was going shopping with my best friend, and who cared about anything else.

“Hmmmm. Well maybe it’s that new cream I got you. Anyway, you look good. Maybe I’ll have to use it some more. We all know I need it!” Kim flipped her reddish hair and it bounced like a shampoo commercial. She was pretty. She had three faint freckles on her right cheek. She hated them. She plastered on the cover-up to hide them but I thought they were cute.

Our food came. I took a bite of my fave—the wonderful scrambled eggs. I savored the flavor, when like a freight train, barf-o-matic showed up in full force.
Come on! Not on my weekend… I need a break—please…
My chest felt tight and a wave of nausea flooded over me. I almost lost it right there all over my delicious eggs. I jumped up, knocking over my steaming cup of coffee, and ran to the bathroom. Yet another great start to a perfect day—spilling coffee and puking in the bathroom.
This is starting to get old!

Seconds behind me, Kim burst into the bathroom and saw me hunched over a grungy toilet, having a close conversation with the porcelain bowl. “Awww! Airel, what’s wrong? Girl, you need to see a doctor. This is not normal! I mean, you’ve got some sort of bug or something.”

I heaved one more time, then started to feel like it was going away. I walked to the sink and avoided looking in the mirror. “Whatever it is… it sucks!” I splashed water on my face and washed out my mouth. The water tasted sickening and sweet.
Ugh! Probably better ask Kim if she has any gum…

“Are you pregnant?” 

I looked up in the mirror at my friend, shocked, and shook my head. “Kim! A million
other
girls…” Only Kim would blurt out
that
question, and at a time like this, in a dingy café bathroom after I had just thrown up. “Pregnancy requires sex, which I haven’t had. I am not pregnant!” I was wondering, was she just joking around or did she really think I could possibly be pregnant? 

“Hey! I had to ask. I mean, hello, it’s the most obvious question.”

“Yeah, but do you understand what asking the question
means?
”

“Okay, fine. I’m sorry. But you need to go see a doctor. Something is definitely up.” Kim fiddled with her hair and looked at me with her big green eyes. She looked really confused and concerned all at the same time. 

“I hate doctors.” It made my stomach hurt just thinking about going to a doctor. “I’m fine, it’s just the flu or something like that.” I stood up all the way, testing things. “See? All better. Got any gum?” Kim gave me a stick of some over marketed tropical-vacation-in-a-wrapper, and I took it, chomping into it savagely. “Let’s go. I’m still hungry and I need to get to the mall quick. I gotta put this bad start to the day behind me.” I lifted my hands in the air and spun around like a little girl in a summer dress, as if this would show how good I was supposed to feel.

After one last look at my hair, we left the bathroom and headed back to our booth. I tried not to look at the grizzled old people, other customers, who were regarding us as if we were from Mars. I didn’t care at the moment. Besides, they were all scrappy old men anyway. But I did have a feeling, an undeniable sense of being watched. It took over all my senses and I felt the hair on my arms stand up on end. I didn’t even know I had any hair on my arms, but it was all excited about something. 

Standing in the doorway were two guys. One was James,—yeah—
the
James, as in, star quarterback… and walking through the door right behind him was Michael Alexander. It was a slo-mo moment. He was
gorgeous
and I probably looked like I was about ready to drool, my mouth hanging open.

Kim and I both stopped dead in our tracks. As soon as we did, they both looked at us. Michael looked like a Greek god as he stood tall in the doorway with a light colored t-shirt on that made his shoulders look like they were going to rip the fabric apart. 

I looked away quickly, as if I hadn’t seen him, and started for our table. My face flushed yet again. Kim, on the other hand, gushed and giggled as only Kim can do. “Hey, I can’t believe you guys are here! What are you doing?” She walked toward them invitingly, which was a bad thing. That meant
he
was going to end up at our table, and then… 

You can do this… don’t be a baby. Act normal for once in your life and talk to him.
Don’t think about what to say. Just act like you’re not a total idiot.
Michael had an easy walk as he moved toward our table. He was wearing a faded pair of blue jeans. I can’t remember what James was wearing. Who cares?
 

I sat down, smoothing my hair, regretting that I had not spent more time on it this morning. I was caught with a grab-a-handful-and-be-done-with-it ponytail and there was nothing I could do about it. My hair was probably sticking up everywhere, like I was seriously one of those girls who went out in their pajamas. I cringed inside, hoping he wouldn’t get the wrong impression.

“Kim and Airel, right?” Michael’s voice was deep and smooth, sending unwanted shivers up my spine. This was just plain stupid, not to mention the way he seemed to not even notice my discomfort. I thought that he was a nice person and that he probably made every girl feel like this. Maybe I was the one with the problem. 

Kim was a little breathless. “Yeah, Michael Alexander and James Carver. Who doesn’t know your names?” She stood and looked at James as if he was on clearance at Vanity, which was her favorite store at the moment. 

James looked at me and smiled but didn’t say anything. Michael slid into the booth and looked at Kim, who then joined me and pushed me in toward the window. I guessed they were joining us. Not like I was having a bad day or anything. Then again, seriously, not like I minded. I just wish I would have known. I was glad for that stick of gum, though. I tried not to chomp it.

“Mind if we join you guys?” 

Now that you’re already seated!
I smiled.

“Oh, we’d love for you to join us. We just got our food and… well I’m sure they can get you a menu.” Kim couldn’t wipe that retarded smile off her face and James looked as uncomfortable as I was.

So now we were sitting. James and I were looking at each other like caged animals. Kim and Michael chatted it up like old grade school friends. My heart was beating faster than I thought possible and I tried not to think about the guy who sat a few feet from me. I could see his eyes sparkle as he talked. The way he held his glass of water...  every movement was flawless, like he was some billionaire’s son who spent hours learning how to hold and drink from a glass in the most perfect way. But there was more to him...  something fine and sinewy and cat-like. I had to look away and try not to breathe hard. Looking at him was like drinking from some forbidden pool and I could not get enough, ever.

“So, Ariel.”
He said my name!
I tried to look as calm as I could, but I responded clumsily. “What are you and Kim up to today?” He gazed into my eyes, and for a second I felt like I knew him or that maybe he knew me. It was so weird how he seemed so familiar. 

Don’t just sit there, answer him!
“We’re going to the mall and then we thought we might go see a movie.” I was amazed. I talked like a normal girl, no hint of a stutter or of my voice cracking.
Yay.
I even sounded calm and collected. “What about you guys? What brings you to our favorite café?”

“Well, James here offered to show me around. My dad and his dad know each other from high school. I used to play with this guy when we were like four.” He smiled at James, who was loosening up, or so it seemed.

“Yeah, we even got my sister to eat mud after we convinced her that it was chocolate!” James smiled and hit the table as he laughed, making the forks and knives clink a little. He was shorter than Michael and had dark wavy hair. He glanced at Kim every now and then to see if she was still staring at him. She was.

Kim was not shy. She was not subtle, sensitive, or secretive. She didn’t play games because she wasn’t sure of herself—no, she played games on her terms, for fun. She liked James and she would not hide it, even if she could have. “You should
so
come with us! We could use your opinions as guys. It’ll be fun. We’ll show you around.” Kim’s big, fat mouth. I could have killed her. I wasn’t just terrified to the bone...  I prayed fervently that they would decline her offer. What had happened to girl time? Besides, what guys wanted to hang out with a couple of girls as they went shopping?

Michael smiled and looked at James. I was relieved to see on James’ face a hint of the same horror I was feeling. Michael took a sip from his glass and grinned crookedly. I began to melt, but recovered quickly.

“That could be cool. We wouldn’t mind, right, James?” he elbowed his friend, the quarterback. “James here isn’t much for conversation and he drives even worse. It would be nice to hang with somebody interesting.” James half-smiled and looked over his shoulder for the escape hatch.