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edited by: DecipleoftheForest & Aenae Enjoy the journey of a young man lost through life |
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The flight back home was one of the most miserable flights I have ever had. One of the assistant coaches sat next to me on the flight.
"Chris, you should just go to coach and apologize."
"Why should I? I meant what I said. I don't understand how he could question my loyalty in any of this."
"Well you shouldn't have stayed in your hotel room on Saturday."
"You know what. I don't care anymore. I just don't care. If that's the attitude that is going to be taken by you guys, then it's really not worth it for me to continue on the team."
"All I'm saying is..."
"No, forget it. I just don't want to talk about it anymore."
And with that, I just turned my head towards the window and tried to sleep. Or at least, pretended to be asleep. I really was tired of it. I didn't want to deal with any of this anymore. I was tired of everything.
We got off the plane and as had been earlier, everyone had distanced themselves away from me. They all knew that coach was pissed at me. And although they weren't doing it to be malicious to me, I knew that none of them wanted to incur coach's wrath. So I just accepted it. What else could I do? If I were in their shoes I would probably do the same thing. Right? Well, if that's right, then why do I feel so shitty? Why do I feel like they were all betraying me? Dammit I hurt everywhere. Physically I was still in pain, even with the Vicodin. Emotionally I was devastated with what had happened. And this was on top of the shit I was dealing with already. Mentally I was hurting from having to think so much this weekend about everything.
Everything from that point on was a blur. I don't remember anything about the bus trip from the airport back to school. Hell, I don't even know how I got home from school. I'm just glad that I had an automatic. It would've been a hell of a thing to try to shift and drive with one arm especially, since I was still a fairly new driver. But I didn't remember any of it. All I remember was finally getting home and just plopping into my bed. My parents welcomed me home worried about my arm, but I really didn't pay much attention to them. I mumbled some quick hellos and grumbled something about being really tired and that I would talk to them about it all later. They finally left my room and I quickly fell into a deep sleep.
I think I was so tired that I didn't even dream. Because next thing I knew it was Monday morning and my alarm was angrily waking me from my slumber. It was actually the first good night's rest that I had for a couple of days now. Last night's sleep felt TOO good. I didn't want to get up this morning. I especially didn't want to go to school and face Rick nor Cynthia. But my parents had unknowingly betrayed me and let Rick in.
"Man, you still in bed. Come on, you gotta get ready. We're gonna be late for 1st period. Danny and Dyl are gonna be here soon."
"Why are you here so early? It's only 7:10. You're usually not here until almost 7:30."
"Well... I wanted to get here early to... talk to you about something."
And in that one phrase, the nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach emerged. Here we go. We were going to have to talk about Cynthia. Dammit. I was hoping that I could get by without dealing with this. So I finally got up under my covers and that's when Rick noticed that my shoulder was bandaged up in an ace wrap.
"Shit, what happened to your shoulder?"
"My opponent tried to rip off my arm and succeed. He dislocated my shoulder. It popped out and the doctors had to pop; it back in."
I could see the sympathetic grimace clearly in his face. "Damn, that must've hurt like a mofo."
"Yeah. That's why they got me hopped up on Vicodin."
"Yeah? Hey, if you don't finish all your pills, we could sell them. I know a couple of guys on the team that would pay five bucks a pill for 'em."
"I know. I know. We'll see how much I have left. Anyway, before you say anything else. I need to wake up. I gotta take a quick shower."
"Alright, but hurry up."
I took a quick shower. Well as quickly as I could with one arm. I usually showered in 3 minutes or less. This morning it took me 5 minutes. I hate staying too long in the shower. I hate that pruney feeling you get in your hands and feet. Besides, I didn't have that much hair as I had most of it shaved off to a really short fade. So washing my hair was really easy. I got dried as best I could and threw on my jeans. I needed help with re-wrapping my shoulder so I went back in my room and asked Rick to help me while we talked.
"So how's the basketball season coming along?" I asked him this to try to keep the mood light. I really didn't want to talk to him about Cynthia. And I think he knew that I was trying to keep him off of the subject he came here to talk to me about.
"Well, it's going alright. We're going to the La Salle Tournament in a couple of days. So we'll see how we do there. Luckily league play hasn't started yet because we lost to some teams early on which we shouldn't have. But we're picking it up."
Rick was the starting point guard for the varsity basketball team. He was a decent player. Nothing too flashy or glamorous. He was just a typical point guard in the likes of John Stockton. You know the kind of guard that was effective, crafty and seemed to always be at the right place at the right time.
After a couple of seconds of silence, he looked at me as if he wanted to start talking. I knew what was coming. But luckily by that time Danny and Dyl came. So we never did get to have that talk. I was really relieved.
School was really difficult for me today. Carrying a backpack was hard because I could only put one strap on my right shoulder. My backpack was pretty heavy. So I was used to switching the strap every so often. But today I could only put it on the one shoulder. All the kids in school were asking me about my shoulder. I wasn't trying to be rude or anything, but I was just sick and tired of talking about it. So by the middle of the day, I was answering with a terse response of "wrestling accident" and just left it at that.
All throughout the day I was dreading fifth period. Fifth period meant that I would see Cynthia again. How the hell was I going to talk to her now? What could I say to her? Actually, what was she going to say to me?!
After fourth period was lunch. And I started to walk towards the cafeteria. I usually ate with Rick, Ernie, Gil and Dyl. Danny doesn't eat with us because he had first lunch this year. Walking that lunch line was sort of like playing Russian roulette. You never know which person would be lucky enough to get food poisoning. I got up to the entrZ�e section. Oh, goody. My choices consisted of green bean casserole, fish sticks or Salisbury steak surprise. I loved meat too much to choose the green bean casserole. The fish sticks were probably frozen in the middle. So that left the Salisbury steak surprise. Man, school food made government cheese look appetizing.
I paid for my food and walked out the side door to the cafeteria. We usually ate under the awning of the auditorium in the courtyard. I walked up the steps to get to the courtyard and immediately turned around. In our usually place to eat was of course the guys including Rick. But unfortunately Cynthia was there too. I didn't want to deal with them, so I went to go eat by myself on the outside tables of the cafeteria.
I kept looking at my watch wishing time to just stop. I just didn't want to go to fifth period. So when the bell finally rung, I looked up in the air with a large sigh. Oh well, here we go.
I got into class and immediately saw Cynthia already there. She looked at me come in and locked eyes with me. She had the look that said 'we need to talk'. My seat next to hers was on the right corner of the classroom. But I decided not to sit there today. Instead I went to an open seat on the left side of the classroom. It was in the back row. I saw Cynthia with a surprised look on her face as I sat down in my new seat. Even Ms. Calkins asked me about my seat change. I quickly answered something about not feeling well and maybe needing to go to the bathroom quickly. And of course the left side of the classroom was closest to the door. Ms. Calkins looked at me for a minute before she shrugged her shoulders and started her 'Duke' lecture.
All throughout class, Cynthia kept looking at me. I felt her eyes bore into my skull. I could see it from the corner of my eyes. But I did not want to look over there. I kept my eyes firmly to the front of class and on Ms. Calkins. It's funny. When I wanted time to stop during lunch, it didn't. And now when I'm finally in class and I want time to pass by as quickly as possible, it seems as if time stopped. That was the longest 50 minutes of my life. I just felt more and more uncomfortable. How was I going to survive this? Well, at least there are only a few more days until winter break. At least I wouldn't have to see Cynthia for a few weeks.
The bell FINALLY rung. And I dashed out of that class as fast as I could. Speedy Gonzales would have been proud of me. I ran before Cynthia could catch me. I was the first to get into my sixth period class and Mrs. Geldman welcomed me into class. I just said 'hi' quickly and slumped down in my seat and put my head down until the class would start.
I awoke when the bell rung. I looked up and everyone was getting ready to leave the class. Oh shit! I must've slept through sixth period. As I put my back pack on my shoulder, Mrs. Geldman said, "Mr. Liu, please stay after a little bit. I need to talk to you." Dammit, she must've been mad for me sleeping through her class. So I just sat back down on my seat and took the strap off of my shoulder. She waited until the last person left the room and then addressed me.
"Mr. Liu, did you stay up too late last night?"
"No ma'am. I don't know what happened. I just sat down and I guess I fell asleep."
She looked at me with eyes that seemed to be piercing into my soul. "Is there something you need to talk about?"
I stammered, "Uhh... no. No there's nothing. I just fell asleep, that's all."
She stared at me for another couple of minutes without speaking a word. When she finally spoke again, I felt a little shiver. I guess I was just surprised when she spoke again.
"Well, if you ever need to talk, you know I'm always here for my students."
"Yes ma'am."
And with that, I left her class. I walked to my car. Man, this was going to be hard to keep up like this. I couldn't stop thinking about the situation. It was hard trying to avoid my friends and Cynthia. And now my body was reacting to all this stress and shutting down. How was I going to make it for another one and a half years?
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