All the Missing Pieces (UNDER REVISION)

Nine

            "Let's get ice cream." Marina insists. "Really, Mar? It's almost 10:00," I frown. "I shit you not, Reyes, you deserve a celebratory ice cream for not sucking out there."
"Were you even paying attention?" She stares at me with an unreadable expression. "I'm not getting out of this, am I?" I ask. "Nope." She grabs me by the wrist. "Emily, are you coming?" Marina asks.
"If James goes." She replies.
"I guess I'll go," He says. She smiles with her perfect white teeth displayed. "Yay!" They link their arms together.

            There's a local ice cream shop called Julia's just down the road from school. The parking lot is so crowded that we decide to just walk, taking us all of ten minutes to get there. "That ought to burn off the calories I'm about to eat." Marina comments. "Are you kidding me? I just played baseball for three hours and then got dragged out here, mae, if anyone deserves this, it's me."
"Fine. As a prize for being more athletic than us you can order first. Even if I am the reigning shot put champion." Marina pushes me in front of her. There's a small group of seniors from our school in front of us; they all tell me applaud me and complement my pitching, when they see me standing in the doorway. I realize for the first time all night how obscure it is that all of these people know me. I don't even recognize two of them; I'm just assuming that they are seniors since the other two are seniors in my physics class.

            After everyone orders, we find our typical seat in the back corner. Chocolate ice cream is already melting down the side of Emily's cone when Marina asks, "So when are championships?"
"Next Tuesday."
"For real? That sucks," she says. "Yeah, why would they have championships two days before exams start?" Emily asks. I shrug, shoveling a spoonful of ice cream into my mouth. "Not that many schools get out in May. This is pretty early for everyone else. But I mean, it's not that bad. I exempted all of my exams anyways. I'm more or less just annoyed that Mrs. Hilbert plans on making the whole class do the study guide."
Our school has kind of a wacky schedule. We have blocked classes, which amounts to four classes a day. AP classes are every other day for a year, regular classes are every day for one semester. If you were to be in four regular classes, you would take two exams on Wednesday and two exams on Thursday and then be done. If you take AP classes, you take the AP exams with the rest of America the week after. If you don't have AP classes you just don't come to school. Then graduation is the week after AP exams. It's an effort to get everyone out of class at the same time so that kids who finished AP exams don't have classes with nothing to do for a month. "How on earth did you exempt all your exams?" Emily asks, wide eyed. "I took an easy math course and I didn't double sciences. I'm an English guy, what can I say."
"Yes, Peyton, we know," Marina says dramatically. "You'll come to finals though, right? The game's at UPenn."
"Yeah, we'll be there!" Marina says. Emily and James nod their heads in agreement, though Emily adds, "Though I can't promise I won't bring my Chemistry binder."
"Dude you're never going to be able to get anything done," Marina points out, but Emily doesn't seem to see a problem. We try to convince her that it will be impossible, but for every situation she has an outcome that results in her studying. By the time we've finished our ice cream, she's still convinced that she'll be fine. "If you don't let me study, I refuse to go," She says. "I can just tell you love me so much," I tease back.
"Of course I love you, Peyton, but I love John Hopkins University too, and my acceptance is riding on my Chem exam."
"All right, all right. Sacrifice our friendship for a chemistry exam, I don't care."
"Peytonnnnn," James laughs. "Don't give her a hard time, you've never suffered the wrath of Mrs. B before."
"That is true," I say, "I'm not stupid enough to rotate AP Chemistry and Honors Physics every other day. I am taking AP Chemistry next year, though."
"Yo, if you're really smart, you don't take any chemistry or physics." Marina says, as she is in environmental science this year which requires very little math, and opted not to take a science course at all for senior year.

            James picks up all of our napkins and cups to throw them away. He shrugs after we thank him and walks over to the trash can. My eyes rest on Emily who's watching him walk away. It's a really absurd thought, that we both like him. It doesn't take a fool to see the way she melts over him. I wish there was somewhere for me in this equation. I don't want to be the side character in their epic love story. Not that I don't want them to be happy, I just- Stop. Thinking. About. Him! I derail my current train of thought. "James, are you sure you don't want me to take you home?"
"I'm good. The public bus stops at the grocery store and I'll just walk home. Don't worry, I've got pepper spray," He pulls a little black canister out of his backpack, "See?"
"All right, just, be safe." He smiles. "You go home and sleep. You need it."
"You are correct." I'm compelled to hug him, but instead I watch Emily hug him and say goodbye. Now that James was on my mind, he'd be all I thought about for the rest of the night. I was growing restless in the painful, heartbroken kind of way. I would never admit it, but I think I'm slowly breaking inside.

              When I get home my parents are ecstatic. "¡Qué bueno, Peyton. Felicidades!" They hug me. "Papá. Necesito. Respirar." My dad lets me out of his tight grip. "Lo siento, I'm just so proud of you."
"Thanks." I say. I'm in a better mood now that I'm home. "Peyton, that was amazing! I don't know why your dumb coach pitched you so late."
"I think he's trying to save me for next week. He does that sometimes." She rolls her eyes. "I don't want this other jupones stealing your thunder."
"Dios mío, mamá, they're not."
"Whatever you say, Tico. Now go take a shower, you smell like feet."
"At least I don't smell like defeat." She doesn't find that funny, and she smacks the side of my head playfully with her hand. "Vaya, vaya."
"Okay. Chill." She shoos me away with my hand, so I say goodnight and head to the shower.

            Sometimes I have this dilemma, when I'm lying in bed, where no matter how badly I really really really don't want to, my mind drifts over to James. Obviously this happens elsewhere, but only when I'm trying to sleep does it overwhelm me in such a way that I can't think about anything else. This time, it's no exception. I try to take my mind off of him with something. Baseball, championships, physics, ice cream, school. I can't. It always leads back to him, so I cave in and let myself think about how much I love his eyes. It seems impossible that eyes so blue could be so warm. It's seems like it should be contradictory, especially for an artist. Yet, nonetheless, his eyes are kind and accepting; they make it seem like nothing could ever go wrong. My mind slowly traces his body. His slight nose, his perfectly shaped lips. His pale skin, and the light splash of freckles on his face. His sandy blonde hair, the way he always smells like paint. His high cheekbones, his perfect jawline. It all comes together. He's everything I ever wanted, and everything I could never have. And so, despite how excited I should feel in the moment, all I feel is sad in a way that's almost guilty. I wonder if Emily has thoughts like these too. An erotic sort of love for someone that is impossibly perfect. She probably doesn't feel guilty. Why would she? It's not like she's hiding something that could literally destroy the closest group of friends she'd ever had. She was just a teenager with a crush. At least she can have that. Then I think about James again; about how much I want to kiss him. I should be happy, I helped lead the team to the state championships and colleges are probably emailing right now about how kickass I am.

Yet, somehow the sadness takes over.

That's reality, I guess. Humans are avid creatures, never satisfied with what they have.

            I turn over in my bed and try to think about my English paper, and what I need to work on in practice, and using my employee discount to buy a corsage for Marina after school. But all the distractions in the world can't make me feel better, so instead I think about spooning with James to satisfy my own guilty pleasures and try to sleep.

------------

A/N and Translations!

"Mae" (pronounced mY-aye) - The Costa Rican equivalent of "dude"
"¡Qué bueno, Peyton. Felicidades!" - "Amazing, Peyton! Congratulations!"
"Papá. Necesito. Respirar." - "Dad. I need. To breathe."
"jupon / jupones" - A Costa Rican slang word deriving from the term "cabrón or cabrónes" - Literally it translates to "big head" ; it essentially means "idiot"
"Tico" - A Costa Rican slang word used to address other Costa Ricans.
"Vaya, vaya." - "Go, go"