LaMelo Ball - By Ari

Sixteen

The rest of the day was complete shit.

I was milliseconds away from bursting into tears every minute. I was one "Hey, are you okay?" from completely breaking down and melting into a pathetic pile of sobs. No one understood how much time I had devoted into that fucker just to get my heart broken; more than once, I might add. But yet again, I wanted him to crawl back into the fiery depths of hell with Satan. I wanted to hate him and I fucking couldn't, which was the most frustrating thing in the entire world.

Ranting to myself in my mind, I watched Nelly as she sat down at the lunch table we had chosen near the exit of the cafeteria, because I wanted to eat and leave as soon as possible without even breathing the same air as LaMelo. After telling him off and saying all that messed up shit to him, I really, really didn't want to see him.

Once Nelly opened the lid to her grilled chicken salad and put her straw in her drink, she set everything down and looked straight at me, studying me over and over like she was a scientist and I was some new discovery.

"Yep," Chanelle nodded to herself and began digging into her food. "You're definitely heartbroken."

Rolling my eyes as if that was the most obvious thing she could have ever pointed out, I sipped on my water and stared off into space, not in the mood at all to joke around. Nelly was my best friend but it was so annoying when she was in such a good mood every time I was in a shitty one. I just wanted to be left alone but I knew I had to hang out with her anyways, whether I wanted to or not.

Chanelle swallowed her first bite. "Girl, you know what upsets me? You're acting like you just got stood up to a date with Usher, when you're actually moping around over some idiot manwhore with an ugly ass cut."

I blinked and felt another set of tears sting at the back of my eyes.

"Why don't you just forget about him? He's obviously a big enough dick to not care about you," Nelly was clearly trying to build up my confidence but I broke down right then and there, tears stinging at my eyes and a large lump forming in my swelling throat.

"I can't."

That's whenever I got up from the table abruptly, leaving my best friend and my freshly-bought water in the cafeteria while I fast-walked down the hall, gulping for air like a fish without water since I had a big ass lump in my throat. My vision blurred as I stumbled into a nearby ladies' restroom, peeking in to make sure there was no one in there before I ran into a stall, locking it behind me and sitting on the shiny toilet. The tears trickled down my cheeks but I felt like I wasn't even crying - the sobs in the back of my throat refusing to erupt out of me. I wanted LaMelo to slip my mind, I wanted to forget about him and his whole existance but at the same time, I longed for him to come back. I regretted saying anything about the party to him in the first place but I was so hurt about it that I couldn't keep it bottled up inside of me much longer.

I heard students in the hallway outside talking annoyingly loud as I sulked in the puny stall, listening to the girls coming in and out of the bathroom as time passed. I hated being so sad and as I noticed that the quietness of the hallway, I knew that 6th period had started and I was late.

But I didn't care.

I just wanted to sink into the shiny toilet I was sitting on and have someone flush me away like the piece of shit I felt like I was. No one understood - not even Nelly - how tore up internally I felt. And no one was going to ever understand, which only made the dark rain cloud above my head bigger.

Before scooping up the motivation to get up and get to class, I heard a few muffled voices outside of the bathroom and I randomly decided to try and listen in to the conversation. I couldn't make out the whole thing but I strung a few sentences together. There were two people:

"I think I saw her run in there."

"How do you know for sure? What if I go in and it's someone else, and they freak out?"

"How badly do you want her back, gimp boy?"

"Pretty bad."

"Then get your string bean ass in there."

A few silence-filled moments passed until the door of the restroom was pushed open, the sound of heavy shoes hesitantly clomping against the tiled floor. I held my breath and pulled my legs closer to my chest so I couldn't be seen if this someone looked under my stall door.

Then it hit me.

It was LaMelo.

The thought scared me and made my stomach drop as if I were speeding down a hill on the tallest rollarcoaster in creation. I didn't want him to find me while at the same time, I was pretty surprised and content that he was willing to go into the girls' bathroom just to have a talk to make things civil. But when I heard his voice that confirmed it was him, I didn't dare let a peep escape my lips.

"Cori?" He asked and shuffled around some more, probably making sure that there was no one else in there. When he got closer to my stall, my heart began thumping faster and faster like a drum until he was right there, standing about a foot away from where I was hiding. I tried to scrunch my body up even tighter on top of the toilet but my foot ended up slipping and squeaking, making a sound that had LaMelo's head whipping around slowly.

"Cori?"

I covered my mouth with my hands to try and keep as quiet as possible.

"Cori, I know you're in there."

Creepy much?

"You're the only girl I know, no, scratch that - the only girl in history that would wear a BBB shirt with those old ass Jordan's."

Fuck you.

I remained silent as he leaned against the stall door, sighing to himself as soon as he knew he was just me in the bathroom.

"Look," his voice echoed. "I'm really sorry that I did that to you. I'm really sorry that I lost all of your trust and it's eating me alive inside knowing that I hurt you in any way possible. I hate to see you sad and we need to talk."

I uncovered my mouth to snap, "There's nothing to talk about."

"Is there something I can do to make it up to you?" He exasperated. "Please. I would do anything."

"You know what you can do? You can fuck off and get out of the girls' bathroom, you weirdo."

There was a small pause before LaMelo shifted in his position nervously. "At least I'm making an effort to reach out to you. I've been associated with you long enough to know that you would feel a whole lot worse if I didn't attempt to talk."

Damn. He's right.

"So please," his voice was getting to the pleading point. "Don't make this the last time we're ever going to talk."