Ripped Away

Chapter 11

I spent the day avoiding everything.  Besides first period when Darren and I laughed at Mr. Jastone over what happened at the mall, I didn't talk to any of my friends.  The only one I was mad at was Sara.  But I was scared that I'd take out my frustration on someone who didn't deserve it.  Richie made me come to his car with him during lunch.  I even yelled at him a couple of times.  I knew he'd done nothing wrong, but I was just so angry.

But Richie didn't get upset over being yelled at for nothing.  He just kept trying to calm me down; saying that we were going to get past this.  He took a couple sips from a bottle of vodka he had in his back seat.  I asked for some but he refused to give me any.   He said that if I was going to start drinking, it wasn't going to be because I was upset.  We sat in the back seat for a while so I could lay on him and try to calm down.

"You need to talk to her." Richie told me. "She was so upset this morning.   I know she's sorry."

"Sorry doesn't make it okay." 

"I know.  But she's your best friend and she didn't mean to hurt you." 

I slept at Richie's that night, and the next few nights too.  I was still angry, and neither of us wanted to have another night like the one we spent apart.  Of course I slept just fine.  Having him made everything feel better.

On Friday I saw Sara in the hallway during study hall.  She was at the end of the hall yelling at two guys. 

"Who cares if he's gay?  He's happy!  Just leave it alone!"

People were still talking about it.  They heard me open my locker, and all three of them looked over.  The two guys looked embarrassed,  but they also laughed at me.   I watched Sara smack one of them in the back of the head.  When the guys left, she ran at me.  I tried to ignore it but she decided to use this alone time to her advantage.  She grabbed me and wrapped her arms around my neck, kind of forcing me to pick her up since I was so much taller than she was.

"Please let me apologize." she said as I tried to make her let go.

"Sara, get off of me." I groaned.

"Not until you love me again!"

She wrapped her legs around my waist and pinned her head to my shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, Noah.  I love you so much, and I know I have a big mouth, and I shouldn't have said what I said, and you have every right to be mad at me, and I'm just so sorry."

I didn't want to give in so easily.  But Sara had been my best friend since we were six.  I knew when she was being sincere and when she wasn't.  So I wrapped my arms around her and hugged back. 

So my day went pretty well from there.  Besides getting weird looks shot at me and hearing some rude comments, no one gave me any trouble.  I started having hope that this was going to turn out fine.  But if I said that that were the case then I would be lying.

I opened my locker at the end of the day and was blinded by a wave of colors.  Things started flying out of my locker.  Flags and glitter; all patterned or colored with rainbow.  Picture of shirtless guys followed that; at least thirty of them.  I watched it all flood the hallway.  Then I just stood there.  I wasn't mad; not exactly.  I just didn't know what I was supposed to do next.

"Who would waste their time to do this?" I heard Richie say as he walked up behind me. 

I just shrugged, watching people walk through the trash.  After a minute Richie started picking things up.  He grabbed a handful of glitter and dumped it into his hair.  Then grabbed some more and went into a classroom.  When he came back out he was shirtless and had glitter glued all over the front of him.   He tied a flag around his neck to wear it like a cape and threaded another through the belt loops on my jeans.  We collected the rest of the flags and papers, but left the glitter for the janitor to clean up.