After about a month back at school, things were very slowly getting back to normal. Well, I was readjusting to a new normal. I could never go back to my normal. Life without my mom was so hard. I had to figure out where I wanted to live because I just couldn’t live with my grandparents forever, they were getting old and ill. I didn’t know what to do. My mom and I had talked about this once before when she was about to have a huge surgery, but I’d just cried and prayed and it worked. That always used to work. But unfortunately that wasn’t the case anymore. What had happened had happened now I needed to put on my big-girl panties.
When I was younger my mom was about to get engaged to Dave. I loved Dave. He was, hands-down, my father. Ok, so he wasn’t my father. He was about to be my step-father. He was more of a dad than my dad had ever been to me. I was too little to understand why my mom and Dave broke up. I thought he ditched us. But when my mom died he came back into my life. When this happened, I learned that he was waiting for the love of his life to get better. And she never did. Here I was throwing this huge pity party for myself, but I’m not the only one who lost her. Dave lost the love of his life, Liz lost her little sister, my grandparents lost their youngest daughter, and Bel’s mom, Laura, lost her very best friend. A lot of people lost my mom.
But back to Dave. He was now driving me home from school because it was such a long drive out to the island every day, he was doing my grandparents a huge favor. He and Liz were close friends. He wanted me to live with Liz.
I was always told that it would be MY choice. That I would get to choose where I wanted to live when my mom passed away. But this could not have been farther from the truth. After everyone in my family tried convincing me to live with Liz and I still said no, I was forced to. I love my Auntie Liz very much but you have to understand, she isn’t the warm and fuzzy type. She hates children. The only little children she ever loved were Richard and I. Richard is my uncle’s son and Lizzie’s step-son. She never babysat me. Her house is always flawless. She cleans every surface, every day. When I was little she always nagged at me for this and that. Still does. She’s obsessed with perfect table manners. So you can see why I was like, no way jose, when everyone was trying to get me to live with her. I guess I could see where they were coming from. Liz and Dick (yes, that is my uncle’s name. It is indeed short for Richard) could support me, give me a good education, and a good life. But we’ll get more into that later on.
So I had to decide where I was supposed to live. My other option was Aunt Jojo. Which was just, no. I love Aunt Jo but I hardly knew her because she abandoned our family for most of my childhood. I probably would have lived with her in a heart beat though if she wasn’t married to a man I hardly know or had two teenaged boys of her own. Ugh, if only my mom could be here to help me make this decision.
So back at school, things were getting better. And then one day, I ate lunch with Kim and Connor. Now, I so wish I could take back that one lunch. Kim=best friend. Connor=hottest guy in school. Let’s keep in mind that the school was TINY. But still. He was pretty easy on the eyes. We always kind of flirted but he flirted with everyone and I flirted with everyone so it wasn’t like, OMG I AM FLIRTING WITH HIM. No. We were friends, whatever, no big deal. We’d known each other since I came in the seventh grade and occasionally came to each other with relationship problems.
We were sitting at lunch and Kim and I were trying to guess who he liked. I loved this game. First I named all the sluts. I probably shouldn’t tell y’all that. But he had a history of being a man of many women. Big red flag. Anywhoser, we had guessed every girl we could think of. It was after lunch that Kim caught up to me and told me, “Connor likes you.” Those three words. Just like that. I really was shocked. Usually during those guessing games, I always kind of consider myself being an option, in the very back of my head. But for Connor, I didn’t even think about it being me at all. I tried brushing it off, maybe she was just making it up. I could not get myself into this. Because I knew I would come out of this black and blue. That’s what happens to normal girls, all love-sick and happy, and then by the time Connor gets done with them they are ruined. Did this stop me? Nope. A few days later he plopped a note right on my desk like, no big deal, I’m just Mr. Cool (I wish y’all could see me rolling my eyes). The note read: Who do you like? I wrote back in my big, bubbly handwriting: No one, why? I had to think about this before I wrote it, actually, because a few days before we got a new kid. His name was Tanner. Let’s be honest here, he was pretty darn cute. But I pretended I didn’t think so because he acted like such a big shot. His second say there he was already trying to get with me. I was sitting in Social Studies totally minding my own business when he hit me with a crumpled up piece of paper that said: You’re hot. I felt my face get hot and a smile spread across my face. I looked up from my notes and realized every single person including the teacher was staring at me. And then of course Josh had to exclaim, “Katie’s bright red! Awwww.” Thank you Josh. I didn’t know Tanner too well but I didn’t really get a chance to give him a chance.
I threw the note back at Connor. He read it and kind of half-grinned. I wasn’t sure if I liked the way he did that. I was trying to pay attention to Mrs. Bernal but I was awaiting my note. When it came back, I unfolded it and sure enough it read, in sloppy, boyish handwriting: I like you. Just that simple, huh? Yeah. Just that simple.
No comments:
Post a Comment