Anna+Final+Story

//This piece is dedicated to TC and SK, without whom this story would have never been told.//

Boy With The Diamond Earring

It'll be a grey-skied day, and the pool water will be cold, and there'll be sweat and chlorine on my skin after the 100-backstroke race. I'll have my towel slung nonchalantly around my waist, my hair let down from the confinement of my swim cap. You'll be passing by the pool in your basketball uniform, with sweat on your hairline and tired eyes. There'll be a long and awkward eye contact across 25 meters of pool and a fence. We'll try to break it, but it keeps a hold on us both. //I have a name, you know.//

One would have thought, with the way things looked at one point or another, that our story would've started out with something along the lines of: "It was a dark and stormy night," or, "I knew first thing they were up to no good," or, "The sky was ominously cloudy that day," or even, "It was a Monday." It doesn't. I figure, if it had started out that way, I might've been just a little more prepared. Instead, our story kicks off with the beginning of the middle, the first hint of the last, and the final moments of the first seconds. //This is what you missed; this is what you screwed up.//

Mrs. Ching, my fifth grade teacher, had a seating chart that allowed the black-rimmed analog clock to stare me down for the last five minutes of every Friday. Some days, it seemed to go peculiarly slow, but today was not one of those Fridays where it decided to taunt me. Mrs. Ching also had an affinity to assigning quite a bit of reading from our US history textbook, and today was indeed one of those days. In the final seconds of class, I lugged my textbook-weighted backpack up to the desk and onto my back. "Alright, make sure to do questions 1 through 5 now." Mrs. Ching wrapped up class, "that's it. You can g-" Without pause to listen to the end of her sentence, I, along with the rest of the class, dove out the door and into the hallway. Our classroom, 312, sat at the end of the hall, which meant I needed to make my way to the stairs in the middle, quite a feat. I dashed by, swerved around, cut past the 200 or so people—each and every one of whom I knew—and I finally reached my destination. Amy stood waiting there already, and probably had been for two or three minutes. She was in 305, meaning she needed only to cross the hall to get to the stairs. I considered Amy Tsuda my best friend at the time. A kind girl with a rounded out face, she appeared quiet to those who did not know her. I had been in her class from first to fourth grade, so needless to say, I knew her quite well. I knew her as sweet, giving, humorous, and funny. Moreover, I knew her as the person with whom I frequented the snack bar—morning and afternoon, doughnuts and sodas. That's why we were meeting, anyways—to go to the snack bar.

After we'd walked halfway across campus and waited in line for a half hour, Amy and I took our extra-large sodas to one of the six picnic tables in front of the soda machines, and I pulled out my history book and found the page. I looked up, and I saw him for the first time. I would like to say my first thought of him was unpleasant or at least slightly perturbed, but instead my first impression went right along the lines of, //Wow, that guy on that table next to us has an earring.// I tapped Amy on the shoulder. "That guy on the table next to us has an earring," I murmured. She looked, completely inconspicuous; I'm sure, seeing as she needed to turn around completely to see him. "Wow, he does!" She turned back just as he turned his head to look at us. His hair was a darker sandy blonde—not quite mouse brown, but close—and his chin sharp. He talked to his friends with a playfully dangerous grin, setting a devilish light to eyes sunk just a little to deep into his head and pushing lines across his face. His face sat like an awkward collage of parts of other people's faces, meant to appear attractive, made from the attractive, but put together all wrong. The tan on his face only emphasized the shadows on his sunken cheeks and the dark lines under his eyes. And, on his right earlobe, shined a small diamond earring. He traveled with two other guys, one with slightly orange-tinted brown hair that sat in tight curls and almost mouse-like features, and another with an innocent-looking face and a rice bowl haircut. None of the three reached past Amy's height. The most noticeable trait of all the three boys seemed that each possessed an attractive, sincere, yet still unique smile. The boy with the rice bowl haircut got up from his table and sat down uncomfortably close to Amy. "Hey," he smiled, raising his eyebrows with a sideways grin, "can I have a sip of your soda?" Amy looked over to me, eyes wide as she sat there, fazed by his question. The curl in my upper lip and the coil in my neck made clear my thoughts on the answer. Amy shook her head slightly, drawing out a long, "Nooooo," going up at the end just a bit, like a question. The boy's mouth dropped just a bit. Clearly, he was not one who often heard the word "no" aimed in his direction. Right then, there should have been a drawn-out silence in which no one could find the right words, but instead, there was person behind me. It was a person with a smile and an air of mischief to their voice. It was a person with a diamond earring. A person asking, "Can I see your history book?" No "please," no "hey," no introduction. Like the question itself was enough or all he could spare. I dropped my right eyebrow and raised my left as I gave him my answer, a curt and obvious-stating "No." "Well, I guess," he mock-sighed as I closed the book and started to lower it into my bag, "I'll just have to take it then." And with that, he snatched the book from my hands and took off. In retrospect, what I should have done was sat there until he realized that he was stealing my homework and gave it back. I was not a particularly agile person, as I had grown too tall too fast, I was unfamiliar with my own limbs. My shirt and pants both fit a size or two too big, not because of a botched self-image, but rather because I couldn't ever afford to buy anything exactly my size, seeing as I'd grow out of it in under a month. So, my clothes were set for movement. I was not. I was in slippers and undiagnosed ADHD and recognized lack of coordination and speed. If I had just sat there, I could've avoided a lot of conflict between the two of us in the future. Similarly, if I had just sat there, I wouldn't have chased him around the tables for five minutes as Amy sat useless and most likely in shock at our table and the curly haired boy back at their original table laughed his ass off like no tomorrow. I wouldn't have caught the back of his shirt collar and grabbed my history book from his hands, and the boy with the mushroom haircut would never have to state as we walked away, "Dude, she ripped your shirt."

When I got home, I looked them up in the yearbook. The curly-haired boy was named Mark Smiths, the one who'd sat next to Amy named David Kae, and the boy with the diamond earring Thomas Rheid; all in the grade above us, and, so far as I was concerned, none worth a grin. //"Smile."//

I would like to say, here in the story, "And we never talked again. The end," but I can't. There were, regrettably, several encounters, but none so vivid as the textbook's. Most of them remain blurs; several sections of frames cut from a damaged film reel pinned together to make a damn confusing montage. Me asking him if he failed history as he dribbled a basketball, his positive reply; cut to his friends next to me, surrounding him, as the middle school president talked to 5th and 6th grade before letting us in the building, "//So nice to see all your smiling faces//," elated the president. "//Yeah, Thomas, smile//," teased his friends as they pushed up the corners of his mouth and I tried not to laugh; cut to me trying not to laugh at his jokes; cut to them calling out to me as I walked past the basketball courts, near the Lily Pond, "//Hey, chick with the orange backpack//," me bitching to them, "//I have a name, you know,//" them calling me Cici thereafter, even though I told them Cecilia; cut to Thomas singing, "//hey baby, hey baby with the black sandals on"//; cut to me trying not to fall for him; cut to me in complete denial about liking him, insisting that I simply despised him instead.

Somewhere in there, we passed through the 5th grade, and I started maturing, physically, mentally. My clothes got tighter and I started worrying about the way my jeans fit, started caring what other people thought of me and the way I looked.

Clearly, Thomas noticed, because somewhere in there, I found myself at a snack bar table, with Amy, Kara, Thomas and one of his more attractive friends, Robby Price. First of all, Kara never really liked me. She always stood an inch or two taller than me and a pound or ten heavier. She maintained a fake and spoiled air about her, and also an attitude that we were somehow fighting for Amy's best friend spot. I never thought that people should force others to chose between friends, which is probably why Amy ultimately ended up closer to me. Second of all, I'm not quite sure what the prelude to it was, how Thomas ended up sitting just a little to close to me, or how Robby ended up on the other side of me. I'm also not quite sure how I ended up so frazzled, but I'd bet it had something to do with me repressing my feelings for him, trying not to laugh when he cracked a joke or five, and being surrounded by two boys who I had convinced myself I hated. In short, I was already close to crumbling.

He didn't need to push me far for me to hit the boiling point. In fact, it's possible he pushed just a little too hard—like attaching rocket boosters to a bike you're pushing downhill off a cliff. It makes my fingers heavy to write about it, because of my reaction. I simply wasn't ready, maturity wise or emotionally wise that particular day, for what he did. If he did anything similar to this nowadays, I would have a witty response at my disposal. But this was not, clearly, nowadays. This was early 6th grade, and his blue eyes pierced straight into mine. "Cici," he drawled, already pissing me off, "you," he had that damn look in his eyes again, "make me do this." As he decreed that last part, he held up the drawstring to the front of his pants, and I got the full meaning of that. I couldn't look to Amy or Kara for help, because of the angle of the table, they saw nothing of what I did. A cruel grin spread across his face, sadistic, almost. It was a joke at my expense, but moreover a joke that I was unprepared for.

I didn't know what to do.

I wanted to yell, I wanted to scream, I wanted to tell him he'd changed the way I feel, the way I act, the way I dress, the way I see US history. Inwardly, I felt so confused, trying so hard to suppress everything, every emotion and action-from laughing to hitting him in the face, that I just broke down and cried, picked up my stuff, and left Amy and Kara there with the group of guys. I didn't look back, not as I pushed myself through tears, down the stairs, not as I walked past the chapel with wet cheeks, not as I sat down on the bench at the upper pick-up, and certainly not as I curled my arms around my knees and let my head drop as I sobbed, alone. If anyone went by, I don't know. My mind was blank with some form of confused misery, and quickly flooding with everything I was trying to sort out in my head. It all pushed down on me, in on me, literal pressure against my temples giving me a headache.

I don't know how long I stayed like that; I just remember the first person that approached me. I had stopped crying by then, but my eyes were still red and swollen, my breath still shaky as I kept my head on my knees. It wasn't Amy, and it wasn't Kara. It wasn't even anyone I knew at the time. It was a boy named Jeff, although I didn't know that at the time. His hair sat short and brown, his skin tan to almost his hair color, his face slightly sharp in the chin and nose, but kind nonetheless. "Hey," he beseeched, with genuine concern in his voice as I looked up, "what's wrong?" His eyebrows pushed together. For whatever reason, I'm not quite sure, I felt like I could trust him. I breathed in, "Do you…" I paused for a second to breathe in and stare into sincere brown eyes, framed by long lashes. I could trust him with this, even though he clearly belonged to Thomas's grade. I continued, "Know Thomas Rheid?" "Yeah," he confirmed, which I followed with a small look of relief. "//He's// what's wrong. He's a complete //asshole//, and nobody seems to think so!" I dragged my hands over my face in frustration. "Yeah," he consoled, "that guy's a douche. Don't worry about it, just ignore people like him." Just as he started to ask what happened, my mom drove up. I picked up my backpack, and started walking. "Hey," I breathed, turning around, "thanks." I opened the door and my mom looked at me funky. "I tripped down some stairs," I choked out. I didn't have the heart to tell her how emotionally weak I was.

Over the span of the next year, I stopped reacting so badly. Needless to say, after that encounter, I figured it high time to check my head. Thomas and his friends gave me space to do that too, not bothering me again for quite a while. When they did, I didn't talk to them, just flicked them the magnificently simple signal some call the middle finger. But as I thought about it more, I figured, it was time to let things go, let it fly, and to travel down the road to not caring.

The first step on the road, so to speak, occurred not with Thomas himself, but with his not-so-unattractive friend Robby. We crossed paths, in the most literal sense of the term. He waved an overly cheery, "Hi Cici!" and I just waved back, "Hey," like nothing was wrong. He turned after we passed, "Bye," he blinked. "See ya 'round," I waved over my shoulder.

The second step took place on a good day, which seems a recurring theme, although I can't say I wasn't warned of his potential presence—it was Friday the thirteenth. Our familiar location was modified a bit, too. We were at the snack bar, only this time in adjacent lines; I waited alone and he with someone I'd never seen before. It seemed a day for variations on a theme, because as he called out to me in an uncharacteristically high voice, he used my real name. "Cecilia!" He shouted, sounding more like he was high on helium than anything else. Maybe I was having a good day and decided not to let him spoil it, maybe I was maturing, or maybe I was just grateful he used my real name, but instead of flicking him off, I just responded with the word I only now realize I'd never spoken before to him. "Hi…?" I struggled to tear myself away from the amusing look on his face as the realization that I responded like a normal person passed over him, various waves and stages of holy shit crossing his face as I turned back to find out the day's special. A minute and a half or so later, he called out to me again, in the same voice, "Cecilia!" I turned and raised my eyebrows, like I would to a friend, inquiring, kindly as I could, "Hm?" He paused for thought, and in his normal voice and a bit softer, called, "Nothing." Nothing, my ass, I thought, and I was right, because no less than a minute later, he called out to me, "Cecilia," his voice cracking with the high pitch. I raised my eyebrows in the same kind way, and this time, he responded, in his normal voice, "could you… move a little that way?" He motioned to one side. It was the first time I'd heard him speak in an unsure tone of voice. I complied silently, as if it were no big deal, because, I figured, it wasn't. His friend asked him, "Dude, why do you do that to her?" I didn't hear his answer, and I don't know if I wanted to.

And that remains the last direct interaction between me and Thomas Rheid or his friends.

Thomas Rheid may not know it, but I am trying to prove something to him. I walk past him like I'm the most confident person on the face of the planet, like none of that shit ever happened, like I couldn't give a flying fuck about what he thinks, but mostly, like I'm taunting him. //I know who you really are; how much of a douche bag you can be,// And on days when I'm feeling particularly good about my appearance, I try to throw it in his face with each step, //This is what you missed; this is what you screwed up.//

We've all changed. Amy's changed, I've changed, and I'm sure Thomas has changed. It's awkward between us now. When we pass, it's as if we never met, if you could call it that. Like there was never a textbook, like there were never any stupid songs, like I never cried in front of him, like he never made me cry. There's never been a formal apology from him or me. Sometimes I'll feel him looking at me; sometimes I find my own eyes wandering over to him. I don't really know what I feel about him anymore. It's not hate, not regret, not affection. Mostly, I wonder. I wonder what he was thinking that day at the snack bar, I wonder what he felt when he made me cry, I wonder if he feels bad, I wonder if he ever wonders about me, and with everything we've done and said to each other, I wonder, who is it that really needs to apologize?

By: Cecilia.

There was the final clack of a key pushed down, the final dot of ink on a page. Cecilia Lauren looked at the page, then at the typewriter's keys, then at the page again. There it was, everything she'd been meaning to tell everyone, but was never able to say, in ink on plain white paper. All her emotional confusion, all her inner conflict, all the lanes of her emotional labyrinth for years and years, so simple as words on a paper. The final period smudged as she tore the paper from the typewriter's hold. She trudged up the stairs, to the outside of her house and looked up to the sky, whose clouds seemed to look back, heavy with the signs of rain, a burden on their shoulders. Walking with the weight of her papers in her hand, Cecilia made her way to the edge of campus. The glitter of dew struck the emerald grass on the field. It stuck to her bare feet as she walked across it. When she reached the pavement, it felt harshly smooth against her feet. A thorn stuck into her heel, and still she kept on trekking. Going up the steps to the snack bar, the wind whipped her hair about her face. Cecilia climbed atop the table, raised her arms above her head, took a deep breath in, and let the papers fly. She looked straight to the ground, not watching as they flew away.