Friday October 19, 2012
“Annabelle?”
Great…. not even an eyelid open and Mom was already hot on my case the next morning. I glanced at my alarm clock and groaned on the down low.
It was 6:30am.
There was a knock on my door again. “Annabelle?”
I took a deep breath and prepared. “Yeah?”
“Can I come in?” she asked from the hallway. “I want to talk to you.”
I grimaced. “You can come in.”
The door opened slowly and Mom slid in, closing the door quietly behind her. She shuffled in her blue plaid pajama shorts and grey shirt over to my bed. I sat up, leaning against the headboard.
She sat down on my bed and exhaled. “I know it’s early, but I woke up early and last night’s been on my mind.”
“It’s been on my mind too.” I murmured.
She just sat there and stared at me.
“Well?” I asked, wanting to get this over with.
“I’m sorry.” Mom whispered, sounding remorseful. “I’m sorry, Anna.
I exhaled and pulled the blanket off of me. “I don’t need you and Dad jumping down my throat for not doing what you want me to do. I’m not a baby. I know how to serve my own portions.”
“I know. I’m sorry. We all just got carried away, and I know it’s my fault for hammering it at you over and over again. I just don’t want you…. you know, going too overboard with the whole diet thing.” Mom confessed, sounding a tad shameful.
I wondered how she would act if her Mother treated her like this? Would she have reacted like me or would she have taken it like a good little daughter would have, not daring to talk back, obliging out of respect?
“Everything’s fine. I’m not going to go overboard.” I assured her. “Just stop stressing me out. I have to be the one who controls this, not you.”
“Okay, fine.” Mom sighed, sounding frustrated. “I’ll take a step back.”
I sighed in relief. “Good.”
Mom got off my bed. “Anyways, I’m glad we had this talk. Everything will be better again, promise. You’ve got some time before you have to go to school, do you want to go back to sleep?”
I nodded, even though I wasn’t tired anymore, but just to get her out of my room. She left without another word, closing the door behind her. I sighed in relief, feeling like a weight had been lifted off of me.
Last night, dinner was total drama. I was a crybaby, Mom and Dad were losing it over what I ate and didn’t. The mission from now on was to avoid situations like that… for the rest of my life. I had too many things to worry about already, and my parents breathing down my neck again was the last thing I needed.
I needed to control this, before it was too late. Lucky for me, I was good at bouncing back in times of trouble. I smiled, reaching for my phone, pulling it from the charger.
Annabelle: You awake, Tiger?
Tiger: Good morning, Fireball.
*~*~*
James was coming to pick me up.
My smile this morning was genuine.
The sappy, potentially soul-destroying God of Love had casted her rainbow shine over me. I wanted to jump high in the air, scream at the top of my lungs, twirl with the ferocity of a tornado to create a comparable electricity that I could pass on to everyone so they could all feel...what I felt.
I changed into my purple tank top and blue skinny jeans. In the kitchen, I forgo my healthy cereal in favor of a healthy calorie crazed nutrition bar as I was in a hurry. I grabbed two nutrition bars and showed them to Mom just as I was leaving from the bottom of the stairway.
“Why are you leaving so early?” Mom asked, still in her pajamas from the top of the stairs, her long hair in a tight bun.
“I’m meeting up with Jenna to go over some notes for History. We’ve got a quiz coming up soon.” I explained. I was totally lying to her. She didn’t need to know about James. We settled on some issues this morning, but that didn’t mean I trusted her with information of this nature.
Too sensitive.
Imagine if she brought it up the next time we fought?
I could picture it, and it wasn’t pretty.
So James would be a part of my private life.
Indefinitely…. or at least till Prom.
“You don’t have to eat two to make a point.” Mom sighed, sounding distressed.
I shook my head. “I’m not, this extra one is for later, in case I get hungry. Anyways I gotta go, bye.”
Without waiting for her to respond, I grabbed my bag and exited the house. James’ SUV was running idly a few houses down. I ran to his car before Mom could peek through the window. I opened the unlocked door and slid inside, a blast of air conditioning colliding onto me.
On to things warmer to the heart though, before I could even say hello or wow its cold in here, I was pulled into a tight hug as soon as I shut my door.
My baby missed me?
“I just want to hold you.” James murmured into my neck. “This is my spot right here.”
“Oh yeah.” I chuckled, rubbing my cheek against his searing hot skin. “Your air conditionings on full blast, but your skin temperature is crazy hot. Why are you so heated?”
“I’m a little on edge.” James sighed, letting out a deep breath. “But it’s all good. I’ve got you, here, with me. I just have to hold you and all the shit from home goes away in an instant.”
I squeezed his shoulder. “You got into it with your dad again?”
“That asshole had the nerve to stop me as I was leaving to lecture me on the proper way of giving respect and that my brain was small.” James explained, incredulous. “He got in my face after.”
“Why?” I asked, rubbing the back of his neck, trying to sooth the stress out of him.
He hummed into my skin, his arms growing tighter around me. “Because, I wouldn’t give him anything to use against me. My face was neutral. That asshole was so mad by the time I left. It was priceless.”
I chuckled at his description. “So I take it you didn’t have breakfast this morning?”
“No, I walked out before he could piss me off some more.” James grunted, sitting back into his seat.
I took the extra nutrition bar from my bag and handed it to him. “Here.”
He took the nutrition bar from me slowly and stared at it. After a few seconds, still staring at the bar, he murmured. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” I exhaled softly, leaning my head against my seat.
James began unwrapping the bar. Halfway through releasing the bar completely from the wrapper, he eyed me amusedly. “So Fireball, are you going to fix my wounds?”
*~*~*
“You ready, Fireball?” James placed both his hands gently on each side of my face.
I took a deep breath. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Just so you know, we are officially about burst Donna’s bubble.” James mentioned, widening his eyes like it was ‘big’ what we were about to do.
It probably was. Donna wasn’t known for not getting what she wanted.
I smiled at the news nevertheless. “So today just became the absolute best day of our lives?”
“You’re damn right it is.” James grinned, giving me a quick kiss.
“Let’s do this,” he whispered and I nodded timidly.
We entered the school’s crowded hallway. James held my hand tightly and led us towards the rest of the Kings. Peter, Tom and Roy, plus a few other players from the baseball team were hanging out a row of lockers away from English.
Peter was the first to spot us. He began clapping and the rest of the boys followed after eyeing us.
“Well, well, well, look who finally got back together.” He grinned as we halted in front of the entire group.
Tom stepped forward, high fiving James. “Congrats bro, glad things worked out for you.”
James gave him a smug smile and pumped out his chest. “Don’t ever doubt the master in anything.”
“Yeah boy!” Tom hollered.
My eyes rolled…. who was a master?
Of what?
I chuckled and decided to intervene.
“The only thing he’s a master of is being honest, sweet and heartfelt. Listen up guys, learn from James, he bared his soul to me last night, he cried a little too. My heart broke into a million pieces. It was so beautiful, my little fluffy bunny boy.” I cooed a smirk-less, shell-shocked James.
James coughed, eyeing his boys and shaking his head. “Yeah, my girl likes to joke…just so you guys should know.”
I burst out laughing as each guy broke through the shock haze of my little speech. Soon they were each sporting huge grins, joining me in laughing at a flabbergasted, yet very amused James. He was the man to them, but he was Tiger to me.
“Hey boys, looking good this morning.” Donna exclaimed, stepping in front of me with Stacey, a blonde haired ‘model’ wannabe right beside her, completely ignoring my presence. “What are you guys up to this morning? Class doesn’t start for like fifteen minutes, let’s go chill outside. James, you have to help me with English, I’m so going to fail if you don’t.”
What the hell did she think she was doing? And why was she asking James to help her with English? He was doing okay, but not enough to give advice on how to do better, and even if he did…. that wasn’t going to happen.
“Um excuse me?” I said to her back, crossing my arms over my chest.
Donna turned around, pumping her own chest out in the low cut, tight, blue sundress she wore to school today. She raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips in disgust at the sight of me. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there. What do you want, Annabelle?”
I smiled. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
She raised her eyebrow again and gave me a patronizing glare. “Then who were you speaking to, sweetie? One of your imaginary friends?”
James stepped around Stacey and Donna and stopped next to me. “No, she was talking to me.”
*~*~*
The bell signaling lunch rang. I left class and headed to my locker. James texted me earlier about an emergency meeting the baseball team was having during the beginning of lunch, Coach’s orders. So he’d be twenty minutes late for lunch.
I needed to find Jenna and have a face-to-face talk. I left my school bag in my locker, leaving my phone inside with it. I wanted no distractions. I needed uninterrupted time with Jenna so we could hash things out and get back to being best friends.
I turned the corner to the North West hallway where Jenna’s locker was. I quickly spotted her dumping her bag inside her locker. Four girls huddled around her all of a sudden, two of which were Dana and Tina.
My heart plummeted into my stomach. How was I going to talk to her now? Tina put her arm around Jenna and the entire group headed down the hall.
At this moment, I saw no way of talking to her in private. If I went up to her in the cafeteria, Dana and Tina might intervene.
Like, how dare I?
I scowled at the back of them.
Feeling a wet sting in my eyes, I made my way to the washroom back in my hallway. I entered and it was empty. About to enter my stall, the entrance door popped open.
“Wait, right there!”
I knew that voice.
I turned towards the entrance and came face to face with Royal Heights High’s Queen ‘B’.
“What do you want Donna?” I scowled at her.
“What I want?” she shrieked, eyeing her partner in crime who came to a stop right beside her, folding her arms over her chest. “Everything good?” Donna asked Stacey, who was blocking the exit.
Stacey nodded. “Totally.”
“What’s good?” I cringed, eyeing over their shoulders.
Donna took three long steps, coming to a stop right in front of me. “You and I, we’re about to have a talk.”
I raised an eyebrow. “We are?”
“Yeah,” Donna growled. “You need to know your place and I’m here to show you where it is!”