The Love Cure

Signs

Despite instruction from my brain, my eyes water several times. I'm struggling not to glance behind me at him. But I feel the pressure of his eyes at the back of my head. His lingering stare digs into my cautiously optimistic future and crushes it between his massively large hands.

I choke down a deep breath to push the monstrous lump forming in the back of my throat into oblivion.

I dig out a peanut butter cup from my purse and quickly pop it into my mouth. My muscles relax like the chocolate elixir has performed its right duty.

Despite my claim of saneness, I glance at the phone. The chocolate and peanut butter blend generally work on all my psychological catastrophes. But it could have been Tricky. It's not her though. It's him-Josh.

He wants to know why I'm not answering his question. I slam the phone down so I can't see more of what he wrote. My emotions will not run me. I am stronger than this.

I'd get major flak from Tricky if she glances over and sees me tripping about a text from him. I press deeper into my seat and straighten my shoulders. Good thing Harold put the new guy beside her this semester. Her head is buried in whatever they're staring at on their phones. I crack a smile as she keeps pulling on her black, long sleeve shirt. She's trying to cover her birthmark again.

I don't understand her self-consciousness about her body. Her shape is a curvy pop bottle of yesteryear. Hips that jut out just right, breasts that sit tall and announce her entrance before she opens her mouth. I've told her several times to embrace the stupid scar. You can barely even see it.

I pull my eyes away from her and glance at the round clock above the dry-erase board. These final thirty minutes of high school are brutal. Harold scribbles in his minuscule scrawl across the projector in front of us. His info about summer resources for seniors.

I take a sideways glance and the twins are on their phones—underneath their desks, of course. Tricky is still engaged in a conversation with the new guy. Way in the back, Josh and Sarah stare at one another with matching frowns. That's not original. A lovers' quarrel, perhaps.

I wonder if she knows he keeps asking me why I'm leaving.

No one is paying attention to Harold's great resources. No one but me, of course. Then Ms.-whatever-her-name-is-new teacher from across the hall saunters into the room. She's not trying to be subtle about her attraction to him, but he doesn't take the bait and she quickly leaves.

I get it. Mr. Harold Spellman is a hottie for sure. All tall, muscular, intelligent, and quietly reserved. I absolutely get it. It's disconcerting that the women teachers are clueless about how to gather his attention less creepily.

My favorite teacher's love life is a travesty. I shouldn't know as much as I do, but it's partly because he and my now-deceased father were best friends. A thing Harold won't let me forget.

Harold places his dry-erase marker on his oak desk and glances up with a lopsided smile. He scans the room and his goofy grin lands on me. I shrug and point at the board. I offer a thumbs up and a smile.

"What are you doing?" Tricky asks, leaning toward me.

"I'm offering my fav teacher some support. It's hard getting up in front of thirty students and pouring your heart out in a message you know most won't care about. So, for the next few minutes, I'm going to be his cheering squad."

"First, what the hell do you know about teaching? Second, you're such a spastic nerd. I'm kinda ashamed of you," she says.

I cup my hand over my mouth to cover my laugh. "Your GPA is higher than mine. What you mean to say is, I'm so eloquently engaged with my feelings that you often feel inferior to me." I lean forward and rub her arm. "It's okay. I don't mean to outshine you so much. We're best friends, so I'll share a bit of my sparkle with you."

"You're not funny," Tricky says, with a grin she's trying to suppress.

"Am, too." I sigh. "I'm going to miss Harold and his adventurous love life, and this class, and my friends, and even our sometimes-okay lunches."

"Girl, you not gone miss these fools. The only people you're gonna miss are me, of course, Josh, the twins, and maybe Sarah. You know the Spell will find his way to your house so you'll def see him. But mostly you'll just miss me and you being in class together clowning, but you know I ain't going nowhere. We besties for life bih."

"Thanks for the articulate words on the state of our friendship." I grin over at her. She rolls her eyes and her nearly waist-deep, dark braids whip back as she turns to the guy with dreadlocks whose name I keep forgetting.

My phone flashes with a message and I pick it up without thinking. My heart drums out every other sound in the room with its violent cadence. Whew. It's from Mia in our group chat.

Mia: Mr. Spellman is doing the absolute most right now. He gave this info to us already.

Tricky: He know y'all dumbasses need a refresher. Max, your stupid ass need to be listenin' the most.

Joshua: Trinity, not cool as usual. I'm going to miss Mr. Spellman. He was the best teacher.

Max: Bro, you say that about all our history teachers. You really are a fucking nerd. And Tricky, why start listening on the last day?

Sarah: Yeah, Josh, you are kind of a nerd.

Tricky: Who the hell let Sarah back in the group chat????

Me: Tricky, give it a rest. She's here. She's staying. Close your mouth and stop rolling your eyes. And stop removing her.

Tricky: Whatever!!!$$&&

Sarah: Thanks, Cher. Tricky suck a... oh, wait, you did that already.

I cringe at Tricky's comeback. She's probably pissed. But I know as much as she doesn't care for her sometimes, she won't let their bickering go too far. We're all friends. Period.

Mia: Damn, this is the longest twenty min of my whole life.

A robust smell draws my eyes away are from my phone. It's not anything I can readily identify. It's woodsy but sweet... I sniff the air as the smell circulates about me. I spin around to Jen, seated behind me. Her enormous eyes shoot up in surprise as I turn to her. She has a small wad of paper towels bunched in her hand.

"What are you eating?" I ask. She frowns. I point to the mound of paper towel balled in her fist.

She laughs and shakes her red hair. "It's not food. It's a lump of tissue I was using to stop my finger from bleeding." She holds up her hand with the tissue in it. "Extreme paper cut."

My heart races as the pungent odor drifts to me. I fan my hand in front of my face as heat invades my cheeks. Fear, so great I can't crush it, rushes through me. Sweat collects on my palms and my heart crashes into my ribcage as if I sprinted around the room a few times.

"You okay, Cher?" Jen asks, bent forward in her chair. I close my mouth and mentally slap myself. What the absolute heck is the matter with me?

"Yeah, I-I don't know why I zoned out like that."

"It's okay. Some people are squeamish about blood," she says with a slight shrug.

"Yeah, I never thought I was, but, yeah, umm, maybe..." I turn and try to focus my attention back on the front.

That was odd. I take a deep breath but can't restrain the desire to turn around, to get another whiff of what she has in her wad of tissue. She must be lying about what it is because she doesn't want to share. Can she get any weirder?

The bell rings, saving me from snatching Jen's snack and running off with it. I back up a step as she rushes past me to the hall and a group of her waiting friends. I stare after her for a second. The intoxicating smell soars by me and lingers by my nostrils like a tease.