Catastrophe and the Cure

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

The engine roared and Helena put her shirt on.  I told her "shirt on or no coffee", that finally got her to understand that I wasn't gonna let her go out showing her bra around, who does she think she is? Madonna?..I think not.

Across the street from our school there's a shopping center. There's a Food4Less, AT&T, Ihop, Movie Theatre, Starbucks and so on, so I know I can get coffee right there with only 2 minutes away from school.

"Can I please get a Pumpkin Spice Chai with an extra 2 shots of anything that will give me energy-", I speak into the intercom at Starbucks.

"And I want the biggest size of the caramel frappucino or whatever the cold one is!", Helena yells and I feel like my head is about to explode.

"Will that be all for you?", the female taking our order asks.

"Yes please.", I try to say nicely but I feel I just sound exhausted.

Helena and I get our drinks and I pay the very patient worker at Starbucks.  She must of noticed I was in super need of coffee because without telling her the size I wanted my coffee, she just knew to give me the biggest one. If there had been an even BIGGER one, I would've had gotten it.

I drive us to school, and there I go with Helena to the Cafeteria where we're held for being tardy. Oh great!, another tardy.  We make our way in but we leave our drinks by a bench outside because we know Mr. Jackson who's in charge of taking care of the "tardy kids", will make us throw our drinks away knowing we were tardy for making a trip to the coffee shop.  We know the whole drill, so as soon as we walk in, we take a sit and we must sign in on the tardy list.  I nearly fall asleep just sitting there if it wasn't for Mr. Jackson yelling at us for being late.

"You all kids should know better!", he says with his usual Mike Tyson lisp. "How come you guys can't just be on time? You think life is gonna be easy after high school? Well it ain't! Life is gonna hit you hard and when you get a job and you're late soo much like you kids are late for school, you gonna get yourself fired son!"

Mr. Jackson is African-American but he speaks really ghetto. He always calls us "son" or says "hood" instead of "life" or something. He gets weird all the time on things that normal people would just ignore and move forward. I love everybody, I'm never one to judge raise or whatever, but he talks ghetto and he always admits it too, which is funny to hear him say.

As I sit there trying soo darn hard not to fall asleep, I take a look around to see who else is stuck in here.  I see the usual people who are late and some new. I hardly ever see any Freshmens, they're usually punctual to class, they're probably too scared of Mr. Jackson. haha.  As I look around I see Anthony. He's sitting a few benches away from me. He's not looking at me but I feel he knows I'm here. How could he not? I mean, everyone always looks at people who come in late.  I keep looking at him, maybe he'll realize that I'm looking at him and maybe.. Oh shit!  He looks up at me and I give him a questioning confused face. He looks shocked and nods his head, I'm scared as heck but I make sure he realizes I'm kinda mad at him. I know he's been missing school or just simply trying to avoid me. I know we've never really talked or anything, it's not like we're friends either but I can't help but feel like he's let me down.  Like he's been avoiding me for a reason which I can't figure out.  He looks at me confused, I can read his face, he doesn't understand why I'm sad.

The bell rings and everyone begins to head out of the Cafeteria, all relieved that we're out of the tardy hold.  I quickly grab my backpack and head out to meet Anthony.  He's walking kinda fast but I begin to walk even faster to catch up with him.  As I get close to him, I grab his arm and turn him around.

"What's your problem?", I say in a voice where even I'm surprised of how angry and sad I am.

He looks at me confused and says, "What? What do  you mean?".

I don't even know what the hell I mean. How can I answer him? But I open my mouth and say, "Look, I'm sorry. I don't know, uh...I...uh... I'm sorry."

"It's ok. Are you ok?", he's trying to see my face but all I can do is look down.

"I'm very...uh...sorry.", I feel like an idiot.

"You didn't answer my question. Are you ok? Cause you look like you're about to pass out.", he says with a very gentle voice.

"Have you been avoiding me?", I ask. It came out like word vomit. I didn't mean to speak my thoughts, now I feel even more stupid.

I can feel he's nervous.  "I uh... what? I mean, why would you think that? What-", his voice soo nervous now.

"You didn't answer my question", I mock him.

"Well you didn't answer mine either", he says with a bit of an attitude.

I look at him in disbelief and say,  "So you WERE avoiding me? Just how you're avoiding my question?".

"You're the one avoiding mine first", he says. 

"You're unbelievable, you know that, right?", I'm at the point where I'm soo mad I begin to act like a mom.

"Oh why, thank you.  Has anyone ever told you how sweet you are?", he says sarcasticly.

The bell rings again and everyone is already gone. I'm surprised security hasn't yelled at us to get to class. Everyone is gone, leaving Anthony and I just talking by the cafeteria doors. I look at him in silence, he's looking at me and I can feel my head just heating up from anger.

"Whatever, you want to be that way? Then go ahead.", I tell him sounding like a threat.

"Fine. You want to be that way too? Then go ahead.", now he's mocking me.

"Fine!", I tell him and I'm soo angry I walk away. 

As I walk away I see security from afar. I walk over and let the security guard know I had to go to the ladies room for a "girl emergency", since security men get weirded out with that, I like to say that when I need to get away from explaining the whole real reason as to why I'm late and then beacause they don't want to hear "girl stuff", they simply just give me a free pass to class.  I make my way but I'm angry as ever. I can't believe Anthony, he's such a jerk!