You Should See Me in a Crown(15)
“Jennings, is this your girlfriend?” one of the older guys asked, elbowing him in the ribs a little too hard. I could tell because Jordan’s face screwed up a bit as he did it. “You like ’em wild, huh?”
The guy reached out and pulled on one of my curls, and I jerked my head away quickly.
“Don’t touch me,” I said, looking between him and Jordan, waiting for Jordan to say something.
“Ooooh, so she’s feisty too!” The guy was really going now. He narrowed his eyes and reached for me again. “Aw, you don’t want to have some fun? I just wanna see how you get your hair like this. Come on, what’s your secret?” He pitched his voice up and imitated a seventies commercial announcer. “Nothing but a little Afro-Sheen!”
“You’re crazy man; I don’t like her!” Jordan laughed. It was nervous but bitter. “I don’t even know her. I wouldn’t hang out with her.”
It felt like I used to feel all the time after my mom died: scared, unsure, out of control. My stomach flipped, and my heart felt like it was in my throat. My chest got tight, and I knew what would come next. I didn’t wait around for it. I ran to the bathroom as fast as my legs could carry me, and I cried through the first period of my first day of freshman year. Eventually, Gabi found me camped out in a stall between periods, helped splash some water on my face, and got me to my next class.
I couldn’t even make eye contact with him the next day when I passed him in the hallway. I couldn’t put a name to it, but I felt ashamed in a way I never had before. I was suddenly embarrassed about everything that made me, me. What memo had I missed that said everyone was supposed to change overnight? Suddenly everything came into focus for me: The outfits were cooler, the haircuts more Pinterest-worthy, the cars in the senior parking lot shinier than I’d ever seen.
And Campbell Confidential meant that all of it—the good, the bad, and the embarrassing—would be caught on camera. I learned what Jordan had figured out over the summer: He had his place in school and I had mine. So I started wearing my hair slicked back in a tight bun nearly every day. Switched from bright colors to quieter tones so no one would spot me coming. No one was going to make me feel that way again.
I figured out my place in the social hierarchy at Campbell, and I stuck to it.
I swallow the lump that forms in my throat at the memory. As annoyed as I am about standing around and pretending to clean a basically already-clean park, I’m even more annoyed by the fact that I have to do it next to Jordan. So the moment the alarm on my phone buzzes to tell me it’s time to go, I’m out of there. I turn on my heel and power walk to the park attendants’ station like my breathing depends on it, leaving Jordan holding the bag.
“Well, time flies when you’re having fun, huh, kids?” The snarky park attendant holds our signature sheets in his hand and uses them as an impromptu fan.
I feel Jordan appear behind me at the same time as the urge to knock the attendant upside the head with the trash claw washes over me.
“Yo, just sign the papers, man.” Jordan’s voice is clipped, way less happy than it was when we started. I almost feel guilty that I had something to do with that. “We don’t have all day.”
“Well, not with that attitude, you don’t.” The attendant tucks a too-long, stringy bang behind his ear with a smirk. “I don’t have to sign these, you know.”
My body immediately tenses, and my heart rate spikes. My stomach starts churning. I can’t redo these hours. I don’t have time, I can’t not get credit for this afternoon, everything depends on every one of these stupid volunteer things, I—
Jordan places two fingers on the inside of my wrist and holds it in place with his thumb on the outside. His grip is firm but gentle as he taps out the beat of my pulse with his foot. It’s familiar. I settle without meaning to, without realizing it, and Jordan’s voice drops an octave as he leans into the attendant’s space. Into his tiny, glorified port-o-potty.
“Look, I don’t want to have to do this. But I still have that video of you from my Fourth of July party last year, and something tells me you wouldn’t want it to mysteriously end up on Campbell Confidential, would you?”
The guy’s face drops its smug smile and goes slack. He reaches for a pen and signs the sheets quickly before pushing them into Jordan’s outstretched hand.
“There. Okay? God, I was just joking.” He shakes his bangs out of his eyes. “Please don’t post that video.”
“I was bluffing, man. I would never do that.” Jordan lets go of my wrist and smiles as he hands me my sheet. “But it was nice doing business with you.”
We’re halfway to the parking lot before I get my voice back.
“You remembered.”
Jordan slows.
“Yeah. Of course I remembered.”
I rub my wrist where he held it. I saw a counselor for a few years after my mom died, back when my anxiety first got really bad. It was terrible. I was getting sick at the smallest changes: a pop quiz, having to pick my own partner for a project in a class where I didn’t have any friends, you name it. My heart would start beating so fast it would feel like it was about to jump out of my chest. Until my counselor came up with a trick.
I would place two fingers on my wrist and try to feel my pulse, and if I could, count how many beats were occurring per minute. I kept time with my foot as I went along, just like I did when trying out a new piece’s rhythm in band. It was supposed to ground me, help me find my center—and it worked. I still do it even now.