“Yeah...” I waited a moment longer, just in case she wasn’t finished. “And what about Isaac?”
Not sure why I cared; maybe I just needed some closure.
She put one last piece of hair into place and turned back to face me again. I couldn’t figure out her expression and it bugged me.
“I never speak for Isaac,” she said, “but he wants to talk to you and tell you himself.”
“What?”
“Yeah,” she nodded, “he sent me over here to pick you up. Damien is outside waiting.”
There was no way....
“If you don’t want to talk to him, I understand, but I really think you should go and hear what he has to say. Just my advice.”
I didn’t want to deal with this. It was bad enough I fell for a guy and then was completely humiliated by him. Honestly, I had never been so humiliated before by anyone.
“If he wanted to talk to me, why didn’t he come over here himself?”
Zia grabbed my sweater from the ottoman by the window and threw it into my lap. “You’ll have to let him tell you that,” she said. “Coming or not?”
I just stared at her.
I had nothing to say to Isaac Mayfair. I accepted he was never my boyfriend to begin with, but I was still hurt and bitter. I cursed myself for ever allowing myself feel this way. That I ever allowed myself to fall for Isaac at all. I had always been so careful...okay, the truth is that I never felt about anyone the way I felt about Isaac and it scared me. But it was wrong. That love at first sight stuff was, quite honestly, a load of crap and I never believed in it.
My mom used to say it was love at first sight with my dad, who left us when I was so young, and then later she said the same about Jeff Bradley.
I rest my case.
For a long moment I just sat there; distractedly clinging onto the sweater in my lap and that evil twin of mine trying her hardest to win this fight.
But I came out the victor this time.
I looked straight at Zia then and set the sweater aside. “No,” I said. “I don’t want to see him.”
Her expression failed under a shroud of defeat.
I stood from the bed and began picking things up from the floor. A pair of gently worn socks, a stack of paper which I had scrawled random notes and doodles upon when Harry had spent the night. I could still smell the ink that had been pressed over and over again deeply into the paper. I tossed my dirty clothes into the laundry basket beside the door and lined my shoes against the wall. It was all just to lessen the awkward feel of the mood. I thought about how Zia should come over more often on behalf of Isaac like this because at least then my room would stay clean.
“Adria,” Zia said almost pleadingly, “come on.”
“No,” I snapped, stopping in the center of the room and turning to see her at my left. “Sorry, but I won’t change my mind.” My voice trailed.
Zia’s perfectly manicured hands dropped lightly at her sides. She wore a form-fitting gray coat that tied stylishly around her hourglass waist and stopped just past her hips. I don’t know how she always pulled it off, but every time I looked at her I had to swallow a tiny dose of envy. I was the girl-next-door compared to her, who always, with powder-white skin and black bewitching eyes, looked like a walking Photoshop ad.
I went over to the mirror and pretended to be cleaning off the vanity when really I was looking at myself. I could see Zia behind me, finally deciding to sit down in the wooden chair near the nightstand and the bed. Absently, she poked her finger at the soft wax in the heart shaped candle holder beside the clock.
It never bothered me before this night, as I looked at myself in that brusque and spiteful piece of glass, that maybe I just wasn’t hitting the mark. Maybe that’s why guys always chose Alex over me. Maybe that’s why I spent every weekend night reading a book, or staring up at the stars alone instead of going out like every other girl I knew.
Maybe that’s why Rachel was with Isaac and I was not.
Suddenly I slammed the hairbrush I had unknowingly been clutching the whole time, against the vanity. The mirror shook and I could see Zia behind me in the chair, no longer interested in the candle wax.
“Where’d you get those boots?” I said, turning around quickly and stealing from her the open opportunity to question my little fit.
Zia glanced down at her black, lace-up boots and then back up at me. “Amazon.” I could tell she was still confused about the shift of reactions.
“I love them,” I said.
“Better love them a lot for one hundred-twenty bucks.”
“Ouch,” I said. “Well, I hope you don’t think I’m copying, but I’m definitely getting a pair.”
Still, I could tell Zia was trying to sort out what might have really been going on inside my head, but finally she took the hint and went along with it.
I was glad to have her back and so was Harry when I called him later that night after Zia had gone home. And like before, the three of us at school were inseparable. Zia and Harry had so much in common, I thought there was no way they wouldn’t end up together. But despite the amount of attention she gave Harry, I noticed too that she seemed to keep it at a certain level. She never made a move forward, or indicated directly or indirectly that she might’ve been interested in Harry for anything more than friendship. I could see it, but thankfully Harry could not. He continued to walk around the school with a beaming smile on his face even when he wasn’t actually smiling.
I couldn’t break it to him, that Zia seemed to have a lot on her mind and Harry wasn’t part of any of it. At least not in the way he hoped. I figured it was best to just let him believe there was still a chance. After all, I wasn’t sure myself even if my suspicions were right.
It was just an instinctive hunch.
On Thursday, Harry and I waited out front on our usual bench for Damien and Dwarf to pick Zia up from school. It had been only her brothers lately. Isaac was nowhere to be seen and honestly, I was thankful for that. I think.
But on this day, Isaac was in the backseat of the Jeep and the second I saw his dark hair and eyes peering carefully at me through the tiny window, my heart trembled and hardened simultaneously.
“There’s my ride,” Zia said, slinging her bag over one shoulder. I could tell right away she was trying to be nonchalant, knowing my comfort-level went down about a dozen notches upon seeing Isaac for the first time since I saw him with Rachel.
“Want a ride,” Damien waved at me from the driver’s seat.
“No thanks,” I said, warily skirting a glance at Isaac who, sure enough was looking right back at me.
I turned away and left with Harry toward the school parking lot.
It was the same on Friday. Isaac was with Zia’s brothers when they picked her up in the afternoon. And also like the day before, Isaac looked at me at least once and I looked back just before walking away without saying a word to him.
If Isaac had something to say to me, he had opportunities, but instead he kept to himself. I felt he hid some enigmatic need to say something to me each time his gaze passed over mine. It frustrated me to no end that he didn’t just speak up. That he didn’t demand Damien wait for him while he dragged me off to the side to explain himself. Isaac was way too controlled, so much so that it made him unreadable. But what I started to get from it was that maybe he was losing interest in me altogether.
Fine. I really didn’t care. Much. What I wanted was nothing more than an explanation. Closure. And I felt it was his obligation to make sure that was exactly what I got, no matter how much I avoided him.
“Hurry up!” Harry waved at me from his car window and I picked up the pace, gliding down the front porch steps. The sun was blazing, which made it feel about five degrees warmer. I took what I could get when it came to the tiny notches on that rooster temperature reader Beverlee had nailed near the front door. I was relieved I could get away with wearing my dark red jacket and just a sweater underneath. Winter clothes always made me somewhat claustrophobic.
I hopped in the passenger’s seat and shut the door fast as if trying to dodge a downpour. It wasn’t frigid out, but it was still cold and my Georgia blood wasn’t used to it.
Harry nudged me while I was preoccupied by adjusting the seatbelt. I looked over and saw Uncle Carl standing on the porch. I took a deep breath then, preparing myself to open the car door again and get hit with a cold blast of air. Really I was over exaggerating the situation. The wind was hardly blowing at all.
“What time will you be back?” Uncle Carl said from the porch as I looked over the roof of the car at him. He held a magazine low at his side; two fingers keeping his place.
“Before dinner,” I said, waving. “I told Aunt Bev.”
“Oh,” he said, “well then you have a good time.”
I smiled brightly, hoping to make him feel less awkward about always being the last to know things.
“I’m a little nervous,” Harry admitted as I shrank back inside the warm car.
He had the heat blazing inside now and it only took a few seconds before I felt suffocated by it. “Whoa, Harry,” I said, reaching over to turn it off, “way too hot even for me.”
I took off my jacket and set it on the seat between us, adjusting the seatbelt again afterwards, pulling the scratchy edge of it away from my neck.
“What’s there to be nervous about?” I said. “You’re awesome at skateboarding. A pro.”
Harry glanced over at me squeamishly.
I pursed my lips, looking at him with an incredulous upturn of my mouth. “Come on, you know you are.”
We drove away, hitting the pothole at the end of the driveway at just the right angle. My whole body jerked sideways and against the car door. Instinctively, my hand went up for the handgrip. Few people have ever missed that pothole, except Beverlee and Uncle Carl, who were so used to it that they never cared to get it filled in.
“But this is different,” Harry said, pulling onto the main road. “There will be sponsors.”
“Guess you better start sucking it up and get it together then, huh?” Like Harry, I was cruelly blunt when it came to telling him the truth.
Except when it came to Zia.
He just glared over at me and I grinned, satisfied with the result of my playful accomplishment.
When we arrived at the skate park minutes later, even I was a little nervous for him. The parking lots were packed full and we had to find a place on the grass, which clearly displayed a sign that read: NO PARKING ON GRASS. But we weren’t the only ones with the same idea, so I thought it was good Harry’s car wouldn’t be singled out for a ticket.
I got out, leaving the door open while I slipped my jacket back on and zipped it practically right up to my chin. I buried my hands deep in the pockets and bumped the car door with my butt to close it. My head was spinning there were so many people. I wouldn’t have chosen to come here on my own, but I wanted to be supportive to Harry, who had been waiting for this opportunity for two years. He said the last time they had a sponsorship skateboarding event in Hallowell; Harry was bedridden with the flu.
Harry popped the trunk and pulled out his skateboard.