Growing Pains

Chapter 61 - We just wanna be real

S K Y L A R

I had stopped looking both ways before crossing the road in my sophomore year of high school. Not all roads. Not even every time I crossed them. Just sometimes. Sometimes, I would step out of the school bus and walk past the large parking lot without looking both ways.

It wasn't that I wanted to die. It was more that I didn't think I would mind if it happened. Nothing ever happened, of course. It was a school parking lot. Worst case scenario, I would get honked and yelled at. It was fine. I didn't mind.

Sometimes it happened in my head. A car hit me so hard, it knocked me off my feet. Sometimes worse. It always took a while for someone to recognize me. Not because the crash would leave me unrecognizable, but because I already was. Sometimes someone called an ambulance. Sometimes no one did, perhaps because they thought someone else already had. But every time, I thought, it's fine, I don't mind. I was tired anyway. I'll just sit this one out. Life was a volleyball game in gym class I had been picked last for, and only because the teacher had forced someone to pick me.

I stepped out of the school bus. I looked both ways. On the other side of the parking lot, Kylie and Allora were waiting for me, like they said they would be. Kylie had offered me a ride to school, but I insisted on taking the bus. I wasn't ready to let go of the only time of the day when I felt like I was doing enough.

She was leaning over the side-view mirror of her car, putting lipstick on, and saying something to Allora that made her laugh, and almost spit out her coffee. Allora always had coffee in the morning, like she was years ahead of us all, which after the past few months, I really thought she was. 

When I was close enough, Kylie turned to me, and smiled, a big, bright smile that made my cheeks as red as her lipstick. She was waving it in my face.

"Put this on," she said. "I got it yesterday. It'll definitely bring out your lips."

Allora took a sip of her coffee, "You always want them looking at your lips."

I didn't know who they were, but I didn't ask. Instead, I shook my head, and said, "I'm good, actually, thank you."

They didn't insist. They were looking at the boys skating on the school front steps, so I looked too. Ethan was getting ready to jump down all steps at once, and Caitlyn was telling him to do a flip where she was standing next to Tristan, both of them smoking a cigarette. Ethan didn't do a flip, but he did jump over the steps, and landed on his skateboard instead of his face. Caitlyn wasn't impressed. Tristan wasn't even looking.

Kylie reached for her bag where she had it in the backseat of her car and threw it over her shoulder. She took her keys from the ignition and locked it.

"I don't know if they're brave or just stupid," she said, looking back at the boys.

"Both," Allora said. She had her eyes on Edward, who looked more worried than he did impressed, standing next to Isaac on top of steps, who noticed and threw an arm around him so he could pull him closer, touch his forehead with his, and then tell him something only they could hear, something that made Edward laugh, and push him off him.

The next thing we knew, Isaac was on his skateboard, jumping over the front steps like Ethan had done just minutes ago, but falling off just as he landed, and skidding across the concrete floor, his skateboard rolling in the opposite direction.

Ethan bent down laughing, Edward shook his head, a hand on the back of his neck, both of them watching as Isaac struggled back to his feet, blood dripping down his elbow and the palm of his hand.

"Of course he's gay," Allora said next to us, throwing her coffee cup into the nearest trash can, and making way for the doors. "This is fucking depressing."