Unexpected

10

I'd done some stupid things in my life, like the time I'd decided to cut my own bangs at age 10, or when Stacey and I had nearly stopped being friends over trying to get the new transfer student to notice us in grade 8. Or there was the time Stacey, Jameela, and a couple other of our teammates decided to teepee our rival school and were caught with all of us almost suspended from the entire upcoming season.

Like I said, I'd done some stupid things in my life but this may take the cake. It was freezing cold, mid-March in Detroit was never really warm, but it was cold and the thin, tiny pullover I'd worn in Josh's car earlier did little to protect me from the freezing cold wind. That wasn't even where my stupidity ended, no that was just a minor part in the grand scheme of stupid.

The beginning of my stupidity was storming out of the gym, deciding for the sake of my own sanity that there was no way I could stomach a class with Josh. I didn't even know if I was going to be able to finish the rest of the week, the raw achy feeling that had set up shop in my chest made it seem like I couldn't.

I knew I should've called my mom for a ride or stuck around for Jameela to give me one, basically anything other than deciding to walk. I didn't even know how long of a walk I had ahead of me, all I knew is that I had to get out of there.

Stupider yet my phone had less than half a battery with the google maps directions draining it more and more. Without the little blue dot telling me where I was I was completely lost, I'd grown used to driving these roads but I'd never experienced them as a pedestrian.

Glancing down at my phone I saw it was already past eight-thirty, Jameela and Josh would both be in the midst of their class. I knew from Josh it was only a half hour class, which meant if even two brain cells of mine were working I'd be calling Jameela to pick me up right at nine when she was finished, but no refer back to me being stupid.

"Hey sexy," I whipped around, seeing a homeless looking man with a grey beard leering at me from across the street. I decided to ignore him, feeling at least a little more confident in my self-defence skills after having a week of experience under my belt, thanks to Josh.

Just even thinking of Josh brought fresh tears to my eyes, I knew I was being ridiculous, anyone could tell you that. We'd barely known each other more than a week, and as my mom would say it was a blip on the radar. Unfortunately for me it felt like this blip had been a direct hit to my heart, a fatal, crippling blow that I honestly had no idea how I was supposed to recover from.

A fresh gust of wind had gooseflesh erupting all-over my skin, it was now teeth-chatteringly cold and I was still hours away from where I had to be. If hypothermia wasn't my end, my parent's anger over missing curfew would be.

How had everything gone so wrong? I'll admit that the rare few times I'd let my mind wonder to Josh's reaction to my age would be, I'd imagined him upset. I'd also imagined that he'd forgive me fairly quickly, because what difference did a few years make? So he was three years older than me, it the grand scheme of things that was nothing. At least that's what I'd told myself whenever that anxiety provoking stream of thoughts would come up.

Digging out my phone I saw it was now after nine, and with nearly numb fingers I hovered my finger over my mom's number. I knew calling her would mean an instant grounding, what with wondering around Detroit, lying about who'd been giving me a ride, and being out near curfew a grounding was inevitable. Taking stock of how cold I was and how miserable the whole evening had been, I was tempted. Grounding or not, nothing could make me feel as horrible as the look on Josh's face coupled with the total verbal dismissal, he'd given me.