Locked Up

Chapter 36

Locked Up – Chapter Thirty-six

Tim Macer

Milk; check. Cereal; check. Washing powder; check. Two bottles of shampoo; check. A bottle of Sprite; check. Ice popsicles; check. Butter; check. Strawberries?

Folding up the grocery list, I made my way over to the fruit and vegetable section with a small smile on my face. It had been a long time since I last ate strawberries. My mom usually didn't let me buy them because she had to spend the money on more necessary things, since strawberries were not exactly cheap.

Just as I reached the fruit section, my phone started ringing. Again. I didn't need to take a look at the screen to know who was calling me, but seeing her name appear onto the screen gave me a sinking feeling every time. I pressed 'decline' without hesitation.

Lily was the last person I wanted to think about at the moment. I didn't want to hear her talking about the game, about the rumors or about Brad. It hurt too much. I've gone through too much already.

Once I'd gotten outside, the hot sun was beating down on me. It had been getting hotter for the past two weeks and summer was on its way. In my eyes, it always seemed to be summer here in California. Summer never really stops here in comparison to Canada, where it's getting much colder in the fall and where the first snowflakes start to fall in the end of November.

I decided it would be better to ignore the heat, so that's what I did. I dragged the grocery bags along with me as I strode down the road towards my house that was a fifteen minute walk from here.

Something, or someone caught my attention as I turned a corner. Nude colored, expensive looking heels. A white sundress. Golden locks that loosely fell down her shoulders. Her eyes were covered by some big sunglasses, but her smile made me recognize her immediately.

"Tim, hey!" she greeted me before pulling me in for a hug, taking me by surprise. At least she didn't kiss me this time, I thought. Even though I could've expected such greetings from her, my cheeks still started to heat up.

"H-hey!" I stuttered, attempting to hug her back, which was quite a hard task since I was holding plastic bags in both my hands. My face was momentarily buried in her neck and I could smell the sweet scented perfume she was wearing. Probably an expensive perfume.

Her face saddened as she pulled away. "I've heard about what happened yesterday at the game."

I dropped my head. "Doesn't surprise me."

"I'm so sorry Tim. It just... sucks. I'm sorry, I don't know what to say about it. Such a stupid thing to end your senior year with," she sounded sympathetically.

"Y-yeah, I know," I awkwardly replied.

Felicia grabbed my chin, forcing me to face her as she pushed the sunglasses into her hair with her other hand, uncovering her brown eyes. "You're blaming yourself for this, aren't you?"

I swallowed hard. "Of course. It was my fault. If I would've scored.."

"Then you would've won. So what? If someone else had passed you the ball right somewhere earlier in the game, you would've gotten an extra chance to shoot. Maybe you would've scored then. You win a basketball game with your teammates, not on your own. So when you lose a basketball game, you lose together. So I don't see why you would be the one to blame. If someone's to blame, you all are."

"Try to tell Kevin and Brad that," I grunted.

Felicia snorted. "I'm not going to waste my time on them. They won't ever understand anyway. Did they even graduate?"

"Yes, I think. Not with high grades, though."

"Did you already hear something about graduation?" she asked, obviously trying to change the subject because she had probably noticed it made me feel uncomfortable.