“If you’re not going to give it up, I’m going to find someone who will,” he’d told me when I confronted him.
I didn’t bring it up again. Five months until graduation. I could make it.
February.
“I hate Valentine’s Day. It is a day for nothing but disappointment.” ~Larisa Oleynik
The month of love and all that crap. It made me want to vomit. Whoever said time heals all wounds didn’t know what the hell they were talking about. It still felt like the breath was sucked out of my lungs every time I saw Brody.
I just wanted to talk to him one more time. Touch him. Feel him touch me. I needed to tell him I loved him. He’d never listen and I didn’t blame him.
The month of love. Yeah. Blah, blah and frickin’ blah.
March.
Three months until graduation. Things were the same. Brody was still dating Kara, and Jaden and I were… whatever we were. I didn’t even know anymore. He barely tolerated me. He hooked up with some skank whenever he got the chance. Once again, I wondered why he didn’t just let me go. I thought he got off on making my life miserable.
Chess club was coming to an end. The regional tournament was held at Cassidy High on the last Saturday of the month.
“Are you ready for this, chickie?” Tim asked.
“Yeah. It should be cake.”
“Good luck.”
“You, too,” I said.
I shook hands with my opponent and sat down in front of the board. My eyes traveled over the squares as I mentally prepared my strategy. The buzzer sounded, and the game began. The girl I played made her first move. I knew exactly what her strategy was as soon as she placed her first piece. I scanned the board, working out my next three plays. I’d have her in checkmate in five moves.
It took seven moves, but I won the game. I moved up in the rankings. Everyone from Cassidy won their game. We were in first place going into the second round.
My second game took longer to win. He was a good player, but made a stupid mistake that cost him the game. Once again, everyone from Cassidy won their game.
By the third game, I was really in my zone. I ignored the other games around me, blocking out the sound of the pieces hitting the board and the clicks of the timers. The game was over quickly. That round two of our players were eliminated. We were still in first place.
By the sixth and final game, Cassidy was still ranked number one. I won my game and walked to the table where the PTO had laid out snacks and drinks for the players. I grabbed an energy drink and turned to watch the games still being played. Movement in the bleachers caught my eye, and I looked up just in time to see Brody slip out the side door on the other side of the gym.
My heart skipped a beat, and then another. I was out the door before I had time to think. I ran down the hall and around the corner, but the hall was empty.
Maybe it was someone else. He wouldn’t come to my chess tournament. It’s not like it’s a big deal. There are barely a handful of people here to watch. It wasn’t him.
I shook my head and went back in the gym to wait for the games to end. Cassidy won the regional championship and went on to win state.
Jaden never came to the tournaments or even asked about them.
April
The first day of the month, Brody’s birthday. Yeah, that day totally sucked. I tried to hold back my tears, but more than a few leaked out. The pain of losing him tore through me, slicing my heart along the way. Almost like it was happening for the first time. I knew I should ignore his birthday. He didn’t want anything from me, and why would he?
But I couldn’t ignore it. I bought a birthday card, not too mushy, but with a short poem that talked of love and friendship.
I kept what I wrote simple:
“I miss us. Happy Birthday, Willow.”
“Write something more, Willow. This is your chance to really say something.” Jenna slid the card across the table to me.
“Like what? Please come back to me. I lied to you, but I still love you?”
“Well, no. We’ll think of something great,” she said.
“No. This is fine. I don’t want to garf it up with a bunch romantic crap and fluffy apologies.” I put the card in the envelope and closed it with the envelope seal that came with it. “There. Done.”
“Do you want me or Tim to give it to him? We see him at lunch. He always has that growth attached to him, though. I mean, Kara is nice and all, but she is so ditzy. I can’t believe he went from you to her. Talk about dating down, and down, and down, and down the dating scale.
I had to smile. Jenna usually found a way to make me smile. “No, I’m going to slip it in his locker. But thanks.”
I slipped the card in the vent of his locker. I wanted to do more, so much more, but I settled for the card. If he actually read it and didn’t toss it in the trash, it’d be a miracle.
April was also the start of baseball and softball season. I played softball on the varsity softball team. I was surprised to learn Brody tried out and made the cut for the varsity baseball team. I went to every one of his home games. I’d show up late and sit on the ground next to the bleachers where he couldn’t see me, and I’d leave early. If he knew I was there, he never gave any indication.
He was a good player, strong and fast. Watching him, seeing his muscles flex as he hit the ball or ran the bases, was torture. The sight of him still warmed places in me only he could touch.
I never saw Kara at his games and wondered if they were still dating. I asked Luce. If anyone knew, it would be her.
“Nope. He’s a free agent,” Luce told me.
“Did he break up with her or did she break up with him?”
She looked at me for what seemed like minutes before asking, “Does it matter?”
“No, I guess not. Thanks, Luce.”
“Anytime.”
Brody is single. Would I stand a chance if I could get away from Jaden?
My heart did a funny dance inside my chest. I had to remind myself that it didn’t matter. He didn’t want me, and I shouldn’t want him.
It was the middle of April. My mom, Ralph, and I were having dinner and I mentioned that Jaden and I weren’t a happy couple. That he’d been hooking up with other girls, and he didn’t bother hiding it. And maybe it was time we went our separate ways.
I don’t remember much after that, other than the blinding pain of the first punch that sent me flying out of my chair. Then Ralph was on top of me, slamming my head against the floor over and over and over.
I woke up alone in the hospital the next afternoon with a concussion, three broken ribs, and a punctured lung.
Within an hour of my regaining consciousness, the same case manager from the day my shoulder was dislocated came into my room. She asked me what happened, and for once, I didn’t have to lie. I couldn’t remember.
After the case manager left, I sat on the side of my hospital bed, looking out the window. It was raining and I stared at the fat raindrops as they hit the window, trying to forget where I was. The world seemed to slow, the raindrops pulling me away from my life. Just away.
I closed my eyes and tried to hold onto that feeling, but the smell of illness and antiseptic filled my nose, the constant beeping of machines in other rooms made my head pound, and the tubes hooked in my arms kept getting in my way. And I was pushed from my solitary world back into the hospital and the life that put me there. I just wanted to run away screaming.
I’d been there three days. My mother visited once. Ralph didn’t come at all. I didn’t really expect him to. Jaden was there nearly every hour. It’d been torture. Visiting hours were over in a little less than an hour. Jaden had just left.
I knew he was in the room before he spoke. I didn’t turn around.