Running Back To Him
Read Running Back To Him Online
Authors: Evelyn Rosado
Running Back to Him
Evelyn Rosado
Copyright © 2016 Evelyn Rosado
When I was younger, my Uncle Frankie pulled me aside and told me that it was okay to do drugs. But never do heroin because there was just no coming back from doing heroin. For the seventeen years I’ve been breathing, I’ve never taken his advice. But recently, I threw caution to the wind and got my first fix of another drug.
Popularity.
And now it’s coursing through my veins. Hindsight always twenty, twenty—I should’ve done heroin. The craving for heroin is probably easier to shake than wanting to be popular and boy did I get hooked. Once you get that first taste, you’re in for the ride of your adolescent life. There’s no other thrill like it. But the comedown is pure hellfire. And today I found out how harsh that comedown is.
Standing there in the crowded hallway before second period Economics, Lucas yanks the proverbial needle out of my arm.
“I’m breaking up with you,” Lucas says; my boyfriend of four months. Well, let me correct myself…my
ex-boyfriend
.
I should’ve known it would come to this. For those four months I was floating on cloud nine. Living the dream that every teenage, high school girl craved—being in a relationship with the star quarterback, who had All-American good looks to back up that All-American arm that could throw a football seventy yards. And I was a part of a coveted, exclusive group of girls that were the coolest in school. The inner circle. The trendsetters. The movers and shakers. The ones who were VIP at all the parties. The most envied. I was welcomed with open arms. Little old me. The one who went from geek to chic in little under a month’s time.
I stood before Lucas, puzzled, bewildered. “You’re joking right?” I ask, my face buzzing to the point of seizure. “Lucas, where is this coming from?” He’s only a foot taller than me, but right now I feel dwarfed by him.
He has the most nonchalant look on his face, like tearing my heart out of my chest and stomping on it doesn’t affect him the least bit.
Everything about him that I used to think of as sexy is now grotesque: his hulking shoulders, the thick muscles that traversed his forearms, and his outrageously sharp cheekbones which frame his smooth, olive skin-toned face. And his hair isn’t irresistibly brilliant blonde as I recall it to be. It looks piss colored and messy. And I won’t dare start on his eyes—honey brown. They now look hollow and jaundiced.
He opens his mouth to speak and then looks around the sea students weaving around us. He clears his throat. “It’s not you, it’s me,” he says in a more hushed tone. He knows if he continues to speak at the same decibel, someone would surely hear what was transpiring and it would be all over school like a virus within fifteen minutes, maybe ten.
But I can’t be as calm as he is; my life is tumbling like a house of cards.
“That’s such bullshit!” I scream. “You’re breaking up with me!?” The heads zooming by turn in our direction. I know the rumor train had just jumped off the tracks and was full speed ahead, but that was the least of my worries. I wipe away the tears hanging off both my eyelids with the bottom of my palms and then plant my hands above my hips, desperately trying to be defiant amidst the eye of the hurricane. “Lucas you can’t do this.” I grab his hands. They’re frigid. “Please. What did I do? Don’t do this…you can’t…we’re so happy together.”
His hands slip away from mine. My hand used to fit so smoothly nestled in his. Now it’s like touching a stranger—cold and prickly.
He sags his hands down his face. “Listen, this is senior year. Football season just started and I just need time to focus on football and not on a serious relationship.”
I back away from him inch by inch, confused, and afraid of being close to someone who I confided in and now saw as a stranger.
“I can give you space….really. I won’t be overbearing. I know this is a stressful time for you…things are hectic. Everybody wants to know where you’re going to college and—”
He places his hand on the side of my arm. “Magnolia,” he says cutting me off, his voice deadpan. “It’s over.” And then he walks away.
Here I stand, tossed out like a carton of last night’s Chinese takeout. I was there for him when he was at his most vulnerable, when he couldn’t trust anyone. Everything that I did for him—it no longer matters.
One day he walked into the physical therapy clinic I’m interning at, a broken person, literally and figuratively. He was there for the purpose of rehabbing his throwing arm he just had surgery on, and little did he know, also rehabbing his self-esteem. And I helped him. I was there for him. I challenged him, cheered him on. When it was all said and done, he walked out with an arm that was brand spankin’ new and with a newfound confidence that was ready to take on the world. And he came out holding my hand, never letting it go…until now.
The bell rings, but I barely hear it. I’m numb to it all. Numb to his unforgiving eyes looking down on me. And numb to the words he just uttered.
I spend the next four periods slumped over in the girl’s bathroom stall crying a lake of tears into my palms. I couldn’t bear to go to class and suffer all the snickering, the whispering, and the long, sharp stares from everyone.
This isn’t the first time I’ve hid in the stall for hours. Back in freshman year, I camped out here during third period Spanish because Tilda Walters used to punch me in the stomach if I hadn’t done her homework like she bullied me into doing. Needless to say, being curled up with a page-turner about werewolves from the Planet Risq, crouched up on the toilet, beats a knuckle sandwich to the kidneys. It also beat out doubling up on the Español homework any day of the week.
But for some reason I knew I would be back in this stall crying my eyes out. My Grandma Norma, (like most grandmas) always warned me to be careful what you asked for, because you just might get it. Granted, she’d always say that after polishing off a pint of Wild Turkey and I’d roll my eyes at her, but she was right. For the longest, I desired the spotlight and now I have to cope with the lows; like withstanding a nervous breakdown on a cold porcelain seat in a dirty bathroom. I just can’t make sense of any of this. “It’s not you, it’s me,” his words are like a wrecking ball between my temples.
Such bullcrap.
I pull out my phone and check all my social media accounts. I’ve never been tagged in so many posts before. And it’s all the same:
OMG @Lucazoid just broke up with @ItsMags. #totallysux #breakup
i feel so bad 4 @ItsMags @Lucazoid is #suchajerk
breakups are so terrible. Stay up @ItsMags
I look at my notifications and see that Ashley unfriended me on Twitter and Snapchat, and Facebook. I’ve been texting her since I’ve staked out in here and she hasn’t returned any of the thirteen texts I’ve sent. Not even the
‘text me back ASAP 911’
text I sent her. And that girl is
never
without her phone. Her iphone is practically gorilla-glued to her palm.
Between sobs, I hear a pack of girls slither into the bathroom, spinning yarns about the episode between Lucas and I. I pull my feet up and prop them against the door, so they won’t know I’m in here.
“You know I heard Magnolia spit in his face,” states one girl who sounds like she chews her face when she talks.
“That’s not what I heard,” another says. “I heard over the summer, she went off her birth control and didn’t tell Lucas.” My face scrunches in fury at hearing such stupidity. “She got knocked up so he could stay in Flint and not go to USC and play football.”
“Yup! The ole, get pregnant so he’ll stay, boyfriend switcheroo, huh,” the other says. I know exactly who it was that said that. Beatrix. She knows a thing or two about pregnancies. Her sister has more kids than the Kardashians have reality shows.
“To get dumped by the hottest guy in school is an honor for weirdoes like her,” Chew-face says.
“She’s not a weirdo anymore,” says Beatrix.
“She used to be,” says Chew-face. I’m still trying to figure out what Lucas saw in her. She should be lucky she got this far. This time last year no one would spit on her if she was on fire.”
I nearly wanted to punch the door open with my bare fists and tell them a few things about what
really
happened instead of letting this crap poison my ear canals. But I don’t. I just lodge my knuckles into my mouth and bite down and feel more tears waterfall down my cheeks.
As bad as that comment stings, it was the truth. Being with Lucas for those few months I felt so alive. Like I was finally somebody. Last year I was a nobody. Weird. Awkward.
I was what I dubbed the ‘would be girl’.
Magnolia
would be
kinda cute if she lost ten pounds and ditched the blood-red hair.
Magnolia
would be
hot if she didn’t wear those oversized Anime hoodies and knee length tube socks.
Magnolia
would be
dope to hang out with she didn’t really believe zombies and dragons were real.
Magnolia
would be
cool if she picked up a purse and put down that stupid ukulele.
Who cares that I found a ukulele at the thrift shop and carried it around everywhere I went for two weeks straight? I mean, I saw Zooey Deschanel play one on Youtube and thought it was the most badass thing these eyes have seen. Right now (Lucille, the name I gave it) it’s in the basement collecting dust, but that’s beside the point.
The point is, I wallowed in the milquetoast ocean of lameness. Its undertow was strong and everyday I longed to swim out of it. Unbeknownst to me, I was about to breast-stroke right into the mouth of a blood thirsty Great White Shark.
After I finish rubbing the cramp out of my leg from being in the stall most of the school day, I muster enough resolve to go to lunch. The old me would’ve sat on that toilet and cried until my tear ducts shriveled up. The new me will grin and bear it because this is what comes with the territory of having status; of being somebody.
In crisis times like these a girl needs her reinforcements. My besties would know exactly how to cope with what I’m going through and how to deal with the fallout. These girls had stories of boy troubles harsher than Vietnam vets or Taylor Swift.
Knowing my girls, they’d probably snatch me up, toss me into Ashley’s Range Rover to have an impromptu, emergency spa day. Ashley’s aunt runs a day spa in Grand Blanc and it would be totally on the house for us four. I’d have a hefty scream-out, tear-filled, boy-hating bitch session with them and all would be better.
My hand falls on the door handle to the lunchroom and I close my eyes and swallow hard before I jerk it open. I ignore my heart rocketing against my rib cage and stride defiantly towards the table where Ashley, Dascha, Penelope, and I sit everyday.
I pay no attention to the swarms of eyeballs and murmurs directed at me and stalk down the middle of the cafeteria like it’s a fashion runway show in Paris. All I need is a Beyoncé song playing in the background to ramp up my fierceness. All eyes are on me. And I strut with grace…right into the jaws of that Great White Shark.
“I’m sorry, but that’s not your seat anymore,” Ashley says scowling, her emerald green eyes blazing. She looks at me like she has amnesia. Like we aren’t friends. Like I don’t sit with her every single day of school and talk about boys and shoes and makeup.
Ashley Carmichael—Designated Queen Bitch of Flint Northern High School. One hundred and seven pounds of blonde, green-eyed fury. A Rottweiler in Red Bottoms. And my
supposed
best friend.
“I-I don’t get it,” I say with a squinted stare. Out of the corner of my eye, Lucas swoops around, kissing Ashley on her foundation-caked cheek and sits down in my seat.
My seat!
The entire cafeteria is silent; electric, quiet, and tense like the moments before a thunderstorm.
I swear I’d rather be doing heroin right now. The floor beneath me feels like quicksand and I’ll gladly surrender my body to sink right to the bottom to escape the horror that’s consuming me.
I swallow the dozens of cottonballs in my mouth and finally find breath in my lungs to utter a word again. “So,” I say, my voice shrill, devoid of any confidence. I clear my throat. “So, this…this is your way of
focusing
?” I ask Lucas. He averts my eyes.
“Certain things just have their expiration date,” Ashley says, flicking her buttermilk blonde locks away from her cheeks. Her treacherous eyes impale me. It’s like she’s looking through me. “Everyone has their time to play in the sun.” She looks at me up and down. “Yours just ran out. Sorry.”
“Yeah, your time just ran out,” Dascha says while looking away from me. Her tiny voice cuts through me. I wish I could rip the bangs right off her forehead. One hair at a time.
This was really happening. Just days ago we were at Genesee Valley shopping for outfits to the football game Friday night. Now this. Mist forms on the tip of my eyelid, but I clench my throat and force it back. I can’t comprehend the scene that’s playing out before me.
“But we’re friends…right?” I ask.
Ashley bites the tip of her bottom lip. “Friends,” she sighs, “are like hashtags. One day they’re so cool, the next…they’re so lame.” She purses her lips around the green straw of her iced coffee and slurps, her eyes never leaving my metaphorically tarred and feathered body. She sucks hard, rattling the ice in the cup, finishing the drink. “Uh, hashtag—loser.” Penelope giggles and forms her index finger and thumb into a L.
I think I’ve only been standing here but a few seconds, but it feels like eons. Just like that, it feels like I died a thousand deaths. For no reason at all.
“Just leave,” Penelope barks. Her voice is normally squeaky and bubbly, not it’s biting and cruel like this. “Just go back to your hole where you were nobody…where you were invisible.”
Through a quivering bottom lip, I ask as a question that some part of me—somewhere within a deep crevice of my soul—burns to know the answer to. I know I’ll regret it as soon as I ask it, but I force the words past my lips. “Just tell me what I did. Why did this happen to me?”
Ashley turns in her chair and faces me. The softness in her porcelain, Sephora-sheened face stiffens. “You really didn’t think we
liked
you did you?” she asks before snickering. “Get serious, dawg. You’re…
you
. You never were one of us.” She glances around the table at her minions for reference. “Once you and Lucas got together, you…elevated.” Lucas rests his hand on top of hers. “And now that he’s moved on to better things, you can go back to being…you.” Her eyes narrow and a slight grin splits the side of her mouth.
The line in the sand is drawn. I’m no longer welcome. An enemy on foreign soil. An outsider. She turns around and utters words to Dascha but I don’t hear them.
I stand there frozen, my cute, red flats stuck to the floor. I inch away slowly as every head in the cafeteria scalds me. The jocks, the nerds, the band members, the class clowns, the cheerleaders, the lunch ladies—all wait on my next move. I turn around and everyone is gazing at me, except Ashley, Dascha, and Penelope. I catch Lucas’s eyes fall on me. They’re forgiving, as if the weight of what he was just of part of is settling on his conscious.
I sprint out of the lunchroom, bumping into a girl and knocking her entire lunch tray of food over. I hurdle to the third floor, where my locker is my locker to grab my keys. The only thing on my mind is getting out of here—fast.
I get in my car and spin out of the parking lot, no destination in sight. I let the windows down and let the humid September afternoon air pelt my face.
I need it to penetrate the numbness. Anything to stop the numbness.