RAIN DANCE

Two

I told Lizzy about the guy I saw at school. It was kind of hard telling her about what was going on at school since I understood how badly she missed it. We sat the way we’ve always sat since we were twelve. Of course the location had changed. First it was on Lizzy’s bed in our room and then it was a cool joint for kids and then we discovered this restaurant. We’d talk about how weird someone had behaved, how goofy a teacher had acted; the usual teenage girl stuff. But that afternoon, talking about the unnamed boy felt peculiar. Almost like Lizzy wished I wouldn’t. I assumed it was because she’d caught me this hottie called Aidan.
After a few minutes of talking about him with Lizzy, I realized that I was really being stupid. I couldn’t like a guy that much. I didn’t know him. He wasn’t worth my attention all along so why should he mean anything to me now? Of course none of that mattered to Lizzy. She was more concerned because I had been anti-boys since the robbery and all of a sudden I was debating about Aidan and some boy from school. I understood how she felt but I couldn’t help my emotions.
Jason picked us up so that we’d be on time for supper bringing us back to the reality of our lives. Mealtimes were important at our house. It was the way mum felt connected to us since family life started competing with our teenage drama.
Lizzy and I went to our room straight afterwards. I had gotten a text from Aidan during dinner: Just checking if your number was worth the milkshake.
Lizzy thought that was funny. She watched as I replied:
I think it’s too soon to tell, unless you’re a fortune-teller.
He replied almost instantaneously.
I’ll need to read your palm to see our future. How about we do it over dinner and a movie on Friday?
“Say yes!” Lizzy squealed when she noted my hesitation. “If you don’t, I’ll take that phone and do it myself.”
“I can’t, I have a game on Saturday. I need a clear head.”
“Then invite him to the after party.” Lizzy dared me.
Can’t. How about you come to a party on Saturday?
He seemed to take his time to reply. I guessed that partying with a bunch of almost eighteen year olds wasn’t appealing to him.
I work night shift this Saturday. Guess I’ll just have to wait patiently till you come in on Thursday. I hear you can’t stay away from where I work.
I sighed and looked at Lizzy for one of her humorous statements but she just smiled. Had he heard or was he looking into me, I wondered.
Oh well, can’t say I’m disappointed, I’m not the one who bought the milkshake.
“I smell the stench of love in the air.” Lizzy whispered as she went to her desk.
We broke off the conversation as we started focusing on our homework. I looked at Lizzy as she did her math. She was nodding and smiling while she listened to her iPod, pop music no doubt. I couldn’t help admiring her; she had something I never would have.  She was always positive no matter what; living in the moment. I was always indecisive and panicked but I was learning. 
The days moved fast to Saturday. I slowly crept back to my normal self. I didn’t see the guy who’d stolen my breath so that made things a lot easier for me. I kept picturing myself seeing him and him talking to me only to trip over my words and come out sounding like a complete idiot. Nevertheless, I did catch myself worrying about what could have happened to him. I even convinced myself that he wasn’t real, just a figure of my imagination.
We were warming up for the game on Saturday morning when I spotted him in the stands. He was sitting with some other guys and not paying attention on their conversation nor did he seem interested in the game. His eyes wandered around the ground until they met my curious gaze. I immediately looked to the ground. I felt like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar. When I looked back up he was still looking at me. I didn’t know what to do so I turned to Heather, who I hadn’t noticed before, and blurted out the first thing that came to my mind.
“Great weather, hey?” the words spilt out of my mouth as I swung the hockey stick nervously.
“Err, yeah. I guess” Heather said looking at me with a questioning stare. She was probably questioning my sanity.
“Lizzy is here.” I said, slowly thinking through the relevancy of my words. “Did you see her?”
“Yeah, she looks great.” Heather said. “I’ll leave you to prepping then.”
With that Heather left. I knew I’d freaked her out. I didn’t understand how this guy managed to scramble my mind. I blamed the failure to think when I saw him on my lack of practice when it involved crushes. None of the guys at school were my type – until now.
The game went well, we won. I wasn’t really in the game though. When I looked up at the stands mum, dad and Lizzy were there but the guy was gone. I wondered if he’d be at the after party. A part of me told me not to hold my breath.
We changed into our party clothes at Chuck’s place. She had the best house, ever. Chuck had four siblings but she did whatever she wanted because she was the oldest. Her room was huge and she had her own bathroom so privacy wasn’t an issue. Not the biggest bonus for girls my age but privacy and freedom are every teenage girl’s desire.
The party was beyond awesome. I spent the night gallivanting through the place hoping to bump into the guy but I was out of luck. It took me approximately five thorough rounds of the place to realize that he truly hadn’t turned up. Somehow that made me feel relieved in a sad way. Now I could party and act goofy without worrying that he’d see me. Lizzy and I danced. We laughed and we did everything crazy sisters would do. Luke ended up making out with Heather but he was so wasted I had doubts he’d remember the whole thing the next day. Lizzy declared that this was a result of a deep seated attraction. Lizzy was rarely off the point.
Lizzy and I were exhausted on Sunday so we spent the day in; sleeping half the day and lounging around the house for the rest of it. A new week was in the horizon and I felt a bit excited. I had another week to live and that’s something people always take for granted but not me. I loved Mondays as much as everyone else loved Fridays; the only difference is that I loved every second of everyday no matter how crappy the day seemed.
However, this Monday was different. I was struggling with a Math problem in the library, not something I was used to feeling. The section we were on just kept going over my head. I turned to the person sitting next to me. I didn’t bother to check who it was. I just wanted the feeling of utter hopelessness to leave me.
“Hi, excuse me.” I began. “Could you help me out with this?” I shoved the paper towards him.
“Let me see.” He said. I didn’t even bother to lift my head to look at the person helping me out.
“Do you think you can solve it and explain it to me?” I whispered half embarrassed.
“Well, it’s not that hard,” he said moving closer to me.
“Great,” I muttered “I don’t feel like a complete idiot at all.”
“You work out what’s in the brackets first. Then you multiply what you get in there with that and you’ll get your answer.” He said, ignoring my unnecessary remark.
“I did that but that’s not the answer I’m supposed to get, I checked at the back.” I explained.
“Do you mind if I use your calculator?” he said. I handed it to him and waited for the calculator to prove me right but when he was done, the right answer was displayed on the screen.
“Wow, I thought that’s what I did.” I said scratching my forehead.
“You probably punched in the numbers wrong.” He explained handing back the paper and calculator. It was at that moment I decided to look at the person who’d helped me out.
“Thank you.” I stuttered. The words came out of my mouth sounding like I was a retard. I looked at his face, finding it hard to believe that I’d spent minutes talking to the guy I’d been struggling to get out of my head. I just stared at him, my heart beating faster in my chest. It felt like it was going to leap out through my mouth.
“No problem.” He said. But I kept staring at him too stunned to speak and then I smiled. “Is that it?” he asked, now smiling too. I had undoubtedly shown him that I wasn’t just dumb.
“Yeah, thanks.” I said finally looking away and packing up my books. I looked at the closed book in front of him trying to read his name off it but I couldn’t make out what it said.
“Are you like new or something? I don’t think I’ve seen you around.” I said as I got up.
“Not really new. I’ve been here for three months now.” He said still smiling. “You’re in my Economics and Physics class.”
“Right,” I said, trying to digest the fact that the guy had been around three months and I only noticed him now. “I’ll see you later then. Thanks again.”
“Okay.” He said and he went back to his book.
I was happy for two reasons. Firstly, he was actually real. I hadn’t imagined him. Secondly, he was an alright guy. He sounded nice and he was cool. I smiled all through my lessons that day. I had to snap out of it because people were beginning to notice how goofy I was acting.
“Dude what’s up with you?” Luke finally asked after two days of my weirdness. “I’d think it was funny if you weren’t passing off as a retard.”
“Ouch, that’s mean.” I said but I was smiling.
“Seriously,” he continued “your eyes are always darting all over the place. If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were stalking someone.”
“Okay, stop it!” I said. Those words scared me. Had I really turned into a stalker? “I’m fine, just a little bit preoccupied.”
“Well, snap out of it.” Luke said punching my arm “I need my old sane Chris.”
“I’ll work on it.”
“Now that you’re back, what’s up with Heather? She’s avoiding me and when she does talk to me she acts really weird” Luke said eyeing Heather across the hall.
“You have no recollection of Saturday?” I asked with a laugh.
“What about Saturday?” Luke said shooting a terrified glance at me. The look on my face spoke volumes. “Don’t tell me I pulled a Cheryl!”
I nodded with a smile. Luke was famous for getting wasted and making out with random reserved girls. The first two girls were assumed to be mistakes but by the time he made out with Cheryl everyone had picked up his trend. So now every time he had a drunken make out, we called it a Cheryl. It was a good thing that Cheryl had transferred before his habit was named.
In that instant Heather walked past, smiled at me and threw a wry glance at Luke. Luke smiled weakly and sighed when she was out of hearing range. I suggested he apologise, not for himself but to save the rest of the group from their awkward vibe. Lizzy had a kick from the story when I told her about it. She was the first to point out that it was a Cheryl when we saw them making out. She felt sad for Heather though, this was surely going to complicate things for her attempt to get Matt. No matter how drop-dead-gorgeous you were making out drunk with Luke took major points off your status.