Love, Lose, And Repeat

Lip Locked

        My mouth went dry, itchy, swollen; I was allergic to her. I couldn't get my mouth to move when I saw her and she was always there so my mouth was starting the process of closing up for good. It started to seal and I couldn't unpeel my tongue. Teeth, gums, throat, all behind cemented-shut lips, losing circulation. She was there with her green, wool sweaters and silky blonde hair, down, always down, pooling over itchy-looking, over-sized sweaters. And she was always saying hi to me, taunting me, because I couldn't say it back--not one syllable of it, not my name, not my address--nothing.

        All the high school boys had a not-so-secret love for Lonna. They would pretend to know what color bra she kept on under her sweaters and then say, "Doesn't matter, they all look better off anyway."
        They stole her underwear out of her gym locker and make her cry in corners when they
said what they wanted to trade her for it. She sniffled through algebra. I never thought she was dumb for being in a freshman class--as long as she didn't think I was smart for taking it while I was still in seventh grade. Girls passed notes about Lonna. Small, folded-up, lined paper they'd pass over shoulders or across a desk for the unveiling, and a hushed laugh, and a returned response. I saw her try to write down problems; raindrops fell from the clouds of her eyes and then fell on the village of numbers below.

        They called her smile crooked--thats the only flaw they could find to insult her--so the
lies progressed. Lies like her three-pound weight gain was a pregnancy or that the speck of lint she picked off her skirt was lice: "Just don't touch me, okay. I don't want to get your herpes." Two years away from being adults, and this was their intelligent conversation.

        At lunch my legs wouldn't let me sit next to her. My mouth wouldn't let me eat if I saw her. It's like my lips sensed Lonna and would paste themselves together. I sat in the back and disappeared into a group of black sweatshirts who smelled like cigarettes and minded their own business.

        Lonna had two apples and a slice of pizza on her styrofoam dish. One apple had a quarter-sized brown bruise over the skin. Her eyes fidgeted to find a seat in the cafeteria. The noise was rock-concert deafening and their was a whistle from a chaperone. She caught my eyes and sat across from me:

        "Mind if I sit here?" She threw her pink bag to the tiled floor and her tray was sliding onto the table, just across from me. There were four seats separating us from the black sweatshirts laughing about a video they huddled in front of on a computer.
        "I won't bother you. I will just eat my lunch. Are you alone? I won't--bother you." She said when she sat; picking at the bruised flesh of her apple. I nodded and looked down at the algebra I flew through finishing before class.
    "Are you in my math class? I thought I saw you before. You're probably doing so well. And I am probably going to fail." She stopped to laugh and looked up to gauge my reaction but I gave her nothing she needed, "You look so young, like twelve or something. Do you go here?"

        I felt needles sewing my mouth shut when my head wanted to tell her my psychologist father urged early development and swung me into high school classes hoping I could hang on to duel course loads.

        She nibbled around the bruise. Her long hair was swept to one side and tucked behind an ear. She looked like she belonged with other people, nicer people, people who could talk to her.

        "I am graduating next June. It can't come fast enough--I am going to California, or Las Vegas, Hawaii--someplace warm and someplace far away.Whats your name?" Her eyes were trained to the food in front of her but I could tell her ears were perked up like a deer sensing movement in the woods. I licked the corner of my lips that were dry and cracked, but it was like my voice box had been pulled from me in some surgery.

        "I guess you know my name. Did you hear about the lice or the pregnancy--which one are you put off by. What makes you better then me? What makes people, like you, believe--" The apple slipped out of her hand and onto her plate. She covered her face with two white palms and shook her head. She continued talking but it was soft and muffled behind her hands: "don't believe it."

        All I thought to do was to peel back her hand and hold it with mine, it was still trembling and burning hot. I said the only thing my mouth let me: "My name is Preston Scott. I live at 32 Lake Lane. Hi."

        She dropped her other hand to the table and laughed, her smile beamed like sloping snow at and my mouth's glue loosened its hold. She tucked another strand of hair behind her ear and I squeezed her hand tighter. I felt like I could say anything.