Lola is Just Like Me

Chapter 10

I was jerked out of my sleep prematurely by the shouts of my alarm clock. I slammed my hand on the off button and pulled myself out of bed. The milky light made my mess of a room look serene and beautiful. My step-mother didn’t have a word to say to my father as he left the house. I called a good-day to him, and he left wishing me the same. I waited around the front window until I thought it was a reasonable time away from the bus’s usual arrival. I started to the bus stop and immediately saw Trevor standing there as I rounded the corner. Something in my blood boiled at the sight of him. I felt my pace pick up and my fists ball up and had to make the effort to slow myself down. I wasn’t too keen on getting into fist fights outside my own house.

“Hey, there!” Trevor shouted when I got near enough. He seemed to have recovered from thinking there were any hard feelings between us. Too bad there were. I said nothing. “Why’re you so late today?”

“I don’t know. I had nothing better to do, so I slept.” I made sure to add extra razor blades to my speech.

“Oh. Well, I figured you’d be out here. Don’t you usually have somebody to talk to, anyway?” I almost did draw back and hook his jaw, but I found myself shaking and near to tears before I could. “Hey, hey, what’s wrong? D-did I say something?” The bus pulled up, and I shook my head and got on. I sat on a seat with a younger girl who never spoke to anyone because I knew she wouldn’t make fun of me as I cried. I didn’t stop until the teacher came into my first hour class.

The day was oddly loud and close, as if there were wiry hands constantly poised at my throat, just waiting to crush me. The air was sparse as it is during a house fire. And each time I looked up in the hallway or cafeteria, Trevor would be looking back at me. I could find nowhere to get away from it. There was no option but to try to dodge it until the day ended. The dismissal bell was such a relief at the end of Mrs. Simmons’ class. I lingered for a moment and apologized to her for rushing off the day before, told her that I knew she’d stopped by the house that night and that I hoped everything was okay. It was and I looked better than I had before and I should have a good day. I told her she should, too, and to stop by any other time she needed. “I’ll be there, if you happen to wanna talk to me.”

The school was almost completely cleared out when I left Mrs. Simmons’ room, unusually fast for a random Tuesday. I shoved my books into my locker and turned to leave. A body blocking my path made me start.

“Good— Trevor. Jesus.”

“Hey, haha. You okay?” He leaned against a locker in front of me and showed no signs of stepping back, so I was forced to double the distance between us myself. “Hey,” he said again, his voice softening, “don’t cry.”

“What?” I started. “I’m not…” But I was. Once again, I was trapped by this wretchedly, beautifully ignorant boy.

“What’s been wrong with you lately? You’ve acted… off. Are you okay?” I didn’t say a thing to him, I didn’t even look at him. “Did somebody say something to you?” Not a clue. “… Well, what about your friend? I said somethin’ about her earlier, and you burst… Is that it?”

“Oh, Trevor!” I couldn’t hold it in any longer. All that pressure inside my skull rushed out in a geyser. My body thanked me immediately. “She’s gone. Just left me. I don’t where she went or what to do now that she’s there.” In a move of sympathy, Trevor wrapped his arms around me. I was too caught up in my heartache to worry about slugging him at the time. My tears soaked into his outdated letterman jacket. My cries became audibly, even through the thick faux-wool.

“She’ll come back. It’s okay,” he repeated to me over and over again. Somehow, it reassured me by a fraction of a feeling.

“I don’t think she ever will! That’s the problem. I’ve waited days for her to break and come back, but she… she’s just not. And I don’t have a clue what to do or where I can go.” It occurred to me that I was whining into the chest of someone I hated for driving the love of my life and the object of all my days into who-knows-where, but I was powerless to act against the situation. I dug my spindly fingers into Trevor’s back with my cries and got comfortable.