Love In Actuality

8: Kyree

“Oh, my God,” I yelled to Ama as soon as I saw her.  She did this weird run-walk thing towards me. I grabbed her shoulders and started shaking her backand forth as I told her the news. “I’ve just been asked out by the most popular boy in school. Oh, my God.” Some part of me told myself I was just his latest conquest, but another part of me couldn’t help but be excited. My first real date. I mean, I’ve had dates before, but they were always casual and group things…this wasn’t. This was real. A civilized person asked me out on a civilized date. Oh, God.  For some reason, Ama was not smiling. In fact, she didn’t look happy in the slightest way. I gave her a look like, You’re a terrible friend and she sighed. “Whatever, that’s great, but when he breaks your heart, don’t say that I didn’t warn you.” “He’s not going to break my heart because I’m not giving it to him in the first place. Trust me, it’s locked up nice and cozy where nobody can get to it but me.”  Now she smiled, obviously somewhat pleased, or just purely taken over by her girly side. “Okay, so what are you going to wear?”

*   *   *

The week flew by since I didn’t have to go to school due to my “sensitivity to hypothermic weathers” which did not stop me from leaving the house every chance I got. To be honest, I really thought it was just a way for doctors to look like they were doing something. I was fine, physically, and they knew it as well as I did. Emotionally, however, was different. I busied myself so that I was almost never alone with my thoughts. Thoughts were deadly, as Ama said.  I flipped through the magazine I was holding while she gently did my hair, trying to make it look slightly less uncontrollable. Uncontrollable was not pretty, under any circumstances. She pulled another strange into the meticulous braid she was weaving.

“Okay, this is almost done. Let’s talk dresses. What are you wearing?”

“Something pretty,

something blue,

and something special just for you.

Make it lovely and something new,

Rich and fine and fun to do.

Treat yourself to something you

find soft and warm and comfy too,” I recited from heart.

“That was the poem my mother used to say to my father.”