The Exact Opposite of Okay(45)
Faux-exasperated, she replies, “We’ll talk about this later. Now, I need deets. What did the old girl say?”
Even though the door to the classroom is shut, some scumbag sophomores have gathered behind the glass, staring at us agog. Without hesitation, Ajita strides up to the window, pounds it with her fist – causing several of them to flinch – then hastily wrenches down the blind that usually stays up until the end of the day. She rejoins me in our seats as though the last ten seconds never happened. Maybe they didn’t. Like I say, I’m pretty sleep deprived at this point.
“Honestly, Betty was awesome. For one thing, she didn’t bring up my lopsided boobs, which I appreciate. Some grandmothers would express concern at my lack of aesthetic perfection and haul me straight to the plastic surgeon, but not Betty.”
Ajita frowns. “I don’t think I know any grandmothers who would plausibly take that course of action.”
“Ajita, will you please stop taking everything I say so literally. Never in your life have you taken me seriously, why doth thine haben started now?” [Oh wonderful, now I’m throwing random German infinitives into my bastardized medieval sentences. Things just keep getting better and better on the intelligence front. I think my brain cells might actually be falling out of my ears in the night. Remind me to buy plugs.]
Before she can interrupt with another painfully literal interpretation of my strange answers, I add, “No, really. She was all kinds of amazing. At first she was super mad, but not at me, just at the scumbag who made the website and at all the other scumbag minions who do things like make paper airplanes out of my nudes.”
“Then?”
“Then she told me to stay calm, hold my head up, all that clichéd crap . . . and she’ll figure out what to do next. Whether that’s go to the principal, or to the police, since it’s harassment and all that, or string every guy on the basketball team up on her washing line by the nuts.”
“Hopefully a combination of all three.”
“My thoughts exactly, Ajita. My thoughts exactly.”
She smiles sympathetically. “Hey, so, um . . . guess what?”
“What?”
Her perfect little face lights up. “I made the tennis team! Turns out my hand-eye coordination is actually quite good thanks to a decade of ping-pong and video games. Who knew?”
“Oh my God! Dude!” I consider giving her a hug, but decide against it because unsolicited bodily contact gives her the willies, and even though I’m like a house cat who likes to be touching people at any given opportunity, I have to respect her wishes. “That’s awesome. I’m so fricking proud of you.”
And I mean it. I’m really happy for her. But as she skips off to meet Carlie before lunchtime practice, I can’t help feeling slightly abandoned. I know that sounds so selfish, and I hate myself for being this petty, but without her by my side, everything just feels so much more overwhelming.
Like I say, I really need to be a better friend. She deserves so much more.
6.58 p.m.
I hang out with Carson at the basketball courts again after school. I love late September. There’s all kinds of fall foliage around now, burnt oranges and dark reds and whatnot, and I can smell smoking chimneys on the crisp air. It’s almost beautiful enough to make me forget about the hellish implosion of my personal life. Almost.
We shoot some hoops together, even though I have the sporting ability of a concussed hippopotamus, as I fill him in on the latest developments. This time I manage to avoid a full-scale breakdown, which is good for maintaining the illusion that I am not certifiably unstable. Anyway, he seems genuinely concerned about my well-being, which is all new fuckboy territory. He is like a pioneer. A beautiful, beautiful pioneer whose bones I’m in mortal peril of jumping at any given moment.
“Anything I can do?” he asks. “To help y’all, I mean. You and Betty.” It’s such a small thing, but the fact he remembers my grandma’s name warms my heart.
Barely even looking where he’s aiming, he gracefully tosses the ball in the direction of the hoop. It makes a perfect arc then slides straight through the net, not even skimming the rim. Even as a nonsportsball lover, I have to admit it’s impressive.
He hands me the ball. I bounce it a couple of times, pretending to know what I’m doing, and say, “Nah. Don’t worry about us. Everybody has shit to deal with, you know? Even you, I’d imagine, despite your hot-yet-unintimidating demeanor.” He grins at this, and I grin back, before adding, “So I’m not in the habit of offloading mine. It isn’t fair.”
Clearly picking up on the fact I have no idea what I’m doing with a basketball in my hands, Carson comes up behind me and places his hands on my hips, tilting them toward the hoop. My pulse quickens as he angles my body perfectly to make a winning shot, even taking the time to rearrange my feet. I’m not sure why this feels so intimate, given that we’ve already had sex. But I like it. I really, really like it.
As he works, he says, “You know I have nine brothers and sisters?”
He’s back upright now, still behind me, a hand on each of my arms. I focus on steadying my breathing. “Wow. That’s a lot.”
“Yeah. A fertile woman, my mother.”
I consider this as he runs his hands slowly down my arms until his hands are cupping mine. “You probably know I’m an only child, and an orphan, and an all-round disaster,” I say.