“Oops! Sorry!” said a soft, fragile voice. I looked around and then up and found two unique brown-blue eyes staring straight down at me, now full of disgust. With them were two other pairs of eyes but I paid the rest no attention. Mickey marched down the bleachers and continued walking way, her friends in tow. Ali didn’t seem to care because she continued sucking on my lip. I untangled her feet and painful shoes from around me and reached down to pick up the fuchsia notebook. Mickey’s eyes kept flashing back to me, showing the disgust. I felt embarrassed and angry that her feelings still affected me.
“Where are you going?” Ali called after me as I ran in the direction Mickey and her friends went.
“We’re over Ali,” I called back to her.
“What? Are you breaking up with me?” she asked, her voice shriller than usual in shock.
“Yeah,” I shouted over my shoulder and kept running. I opened the notebook knowing I shouldn’t, but still I wanted to get in her head, see what she was thinking. Mickey often wrote what she thought or was feeling in her notebooks, it was like part of a diary but in little bits and pieces. There were notes, notes, more notes, and then two little words written in her small elegant script, ‘why hate?’ Is that a note? What is she talking about? Could it be about us, me? I wanted to look through more pages for any more insight and try to find out further but I’d already caught up with them.
“Wait,” I said, stepping in front of Emily and Tara. Mickey turned around, her eyes burning holes in mine. “You dropped this,” I said cautiously, holding her notebook out to her. She took it carefully, making sure our hands didn’t meet and then continued walking away. Her friends smiled at me, I guess they didn’t hate me or know why Mickey did, because then they would for sure hate me as well.
Michaela
I clutched my notebook to my chest and tried to control my breathing like all those yoga tapes showed. I know I’d seen James make out with some girl hundreds of times but it had never been in private or in some place things could go further and often did. I knew what happened under the bleachers. Did they go there to have sex? Everyone did, but with Ali! James was above that to me still for some reason. James was surely no virgin, so I guess if it wasn’t happening there it would be happening elsewhere, right? Seeing him about to have sex shouldn’t have shocked me because it was normal for him but it did. It made me feel sick to my stomach.
“What’s wrong with you, Mike?” Tara asked, closing the gap between us.
“Nothing,” I answered defensively.
“Then how come you were so mean to James? You could have at least said thank you,” Tara said, making me only angrier. I have a temper, when I’m mad, I get mad and that can go one of two ways, either I get scary silent because I can’t speak or I’ll get loud and shout or scream with all my rage, the later happened unfortunately.
“Because I hate him! Now would you either shut up and stop talking about James or leave me alone!” I shouted at her and then instantly felt bad. I stopped and looked into her green eyes.
“We know you hate him, you don’t hide it well. Why do you hate him?” Em asked, unfazed by my outburst. Why! Because of what he said to me and about me behind my back, because he betrayed and lied to me, because I loved him and he broke my heart. Because he was all I had and he took that away and most of all because the truth hurts.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Tara and then walked away.
I avoided Tara all gym class which was hard because I really wanted to talk to her and avoid going to my group. We would be playing basketball this month and then some of the next month, which really sucked considering I was only 5’3”, but I was happy to know I was still growing for now. I was quite short compared to all the guys and most of the girls in class. Cody didn’t talk to me much, he whispered stalker and fatty a couple times but besides that he totally ignored me. Derek was nice and would pass me the ball. Sam kept to himself, sometimes he spoke to Cody trying to act cool but failing and Lloyd, he was the same old goofball as ever. Every time I tried to shoot the ball in the net I missed. I really sucked at basketball.
“You suck at basketball.” Derek laughed at my fifth attempt, echoing my thoughts. I looked at him and smiled, shrugging my shoulders.
“You betcha,” I said, going for attempt number six. Miss. Derek stepped up and took a shot and got the ball straight through the basket on the first try.
“You on the team or something?” I asked, feeling slightly jealous.
“Nope, I just like basketball,” he smiled all toothy.
“Huh,” I sighed, spotting Tara alone at the end of the court. What happened to Shannon? I wondered. The question was soon answered when I saw her pink shorts run with a ball to a net.
“What?” Derek asked, dribbling the ball beside me.
“Oh, it’s just my friend Tara is alone over there,” I said a little dazed.
“She okay?” he asked, his voice not sounding too worried.
“I’m going to go check,” I told him, walking towards her with my ball in hand. I dodged the runners and people passing the ball to one another.
Tara was
