by O. E. Boroni
“You know for all my temper, I can’t fight to save my life.” I said.
He chuckled. “I know,” he agreed, and then fake coughed when I glared at him.
He looked so adorable acting wary of me, but of course I wasn’t going to tell him that.
"So, what happened?" he asked.
I shrugged. "I was nice to someone today.”
His eyes widened in feigned wonder, but then narrowed almost immediately. "Was it Kate?" he asked.
"No, you ass. It was Elisa. She sat with us the day of that food fight."
"Isn't she Matthew's girlfriend?"
"Yes, she is." I said, surprised that Nathan knew who Matthew was. "She was crying."
"Why, what happened?" he asked, as he took another cookie from his packet.
“I don’t know if it’s proper to tell you.”
“Okay.” He said.
“But I want to.”
“I understand.”
“Like I really want to.”
“Lenora?” he called.
I answered. “Yes?”
“Make up your mind, would you?”
“Fine. She thinks he doesn't love her anymore."
A thoughtful “hmmm” was all he offered.
"And what did you tell her?"
“What could I say? I know nothing about things like that.”
“But you read romance novels.”
“Yeah, because that’s how we want it to be, not how it actually is in real life.”
Just then, I heard someone call my name and we both looked up to see who it was. It was Elisa, and she was waving to me from the entrance to the hall.
Surprised, I waved back, and swung my right leg over the bench to sit properly when I saw that she was coming over.
"Hi," she said a little out of breath as she reached us. She took a seat on the opposite side of the table.
"Hey," I answered while Nathan smiled at her. She took a few moments to recover from him, and then turned to me with slightly widened eyes.
"So about what we talked about earlier,” She started, but was a little hesitant because Nathan was right beside me. She decided to speak anyway because he had brought his book down to the bench and wasn’t looking at her.
“I just spoke to him," she said, "and he told me that he had no idea about what I was talking about because we’re fine!"
"Do you think you guys are?"
"Of course not. We're not fine. It's not like it used to be and he's not like he was."
"It'll be okay," I said, trying to console her, but she just continued to look dejected.
"I know, but it's not supposed to be like this." She looked up at me. "What would you do if you were in my shoes?”
“No idea.” I said with a shrug.
“Can we ask him?” she mouthed to me, referring to Nathan.
I mouthed back. “Why?”
“Because he’s a guy.”
I sighed, and turned to him. “Nathan, what do you think?”
He lifted his head from his book. “Pardon?” He asked.
“Elisa thinks Matthew doesn’t love her anymore but he thinks she’s being paranoid.”
He turned to Elisa, and I could immediately tell that I’d put him in a very uncomfortable position. Taking another cookie from his packet, I got ready to watch how he would get himself out of it.
He straightened. “I really don’t have an answer for that, but Nora you should have an idea.”
I scowled at him for turning the question back at me. “Well, I don’t.”
“Well, I think you do.” He said.
“I don’t!” I argued, and watched as crumbs flew out of my mouth and bathed him. I snickered as he took in the damage. His patient elder voice came out.
"Nora, it's impolite to speak with your mouth open."
I responded by spraying him with more crumbs. "It's also impolite to delve into other people’s problems."
"I don't mind," Elisa said, clearly enjoying our banter.
"Thank you," Nathan told her and she blushed.
I shoved him playfully, and got up. "I'm going to my table," I announced and pretended to leave, but a sharp tug on my shirt pulled me back until I was sitting on the bench again. I turned to hit him but he leaned away.
Just then I noticed Elisa wringing her hands. She’d suddenly become nervous. When I looked up to see Matthew walking towards our table, I understood why.
He nodded to Nathan and me when he reached us, and then turned to Elisa. He didn’t seem happy.
"We need to talk," he told her in a quiet voice, and she nodded. We watched them leave and then Nathan nudged me to rise because it was our table's turn to get food from the buffet counter. We got our food quickly amidst curious stares and at one point, I became so nervous that I started wringing my hands. He looked down at me and asked what was wrong. I shook my head to indicate that it was nothing, but he wasn't fooled.
"Relax," he said as I stared up at him, and I smiled in response.
Everything went well after that, and soon we were laughing about favorite meals, and stealing food off each other's plates. Some strips of chicken breast still remained on his after he was done, but when I reached forward to help him with it, he slapped my hand away.
"Ow!" I said and I rubbed the sting, but when he looked away a few minutes later I quickly grabbed the pieces off his plate and put them in my mouth. He turned back to see them missing, and raised an eyebrow at me. I beamed like an excited toddler while he just shook his head, and used a tissue to wipe the oil from the corners of my mouth.
I tensed at the gesture and he noticed, but didn't comment. He grabbed my drink in retaliation moments later and I started to complain when I saw Elisa returning to us.
“Is everything sorted out?” I asked as she sat down, but she just shook her head and then stood back up to get her food. She had just returned and was about to sit down when a tall girl with short black hair came up to us. She had a light dusting of freckles spread along the swell of her cheeks.
“Hi,” she greeted, but I didn’t see Nathan’s response. I was too busy watching what she’d do because I suspected that this was Natalie; the senior who had been making Elisa serve her table.
True enough she bent down to whisper in Elisa’s ear, and Elisa went on to look even more depressed than she already was. She was just about to get up when I quickly said. “Elisa aren’t you going to help Nathan?”
She looked confused. “What?”
“The stuff you said you were going to explain to him. Have you changed your mind?”
“She’ll be back,” Natalie said, and I was about to respond when Nathan stilled my arm from underneath the table.
“Natalie, do you mind if Elisa remains here for a while? I really need her help,” he said.
I was surprised he knew Natalie’s name, but then I remembered that they were both in the same year.
“On what?” she asked, sounding curious. But he just smiled, and somehow that made her forget that he hadn’t answered her question.
“That’s fine,” she said, and she turned around to leave. Nathan took his hand off mine.
“Thanks Lennie,” Elisa said in a tired voice. “But I think you just made it worse.”
“Why haven’t you reported her?” I asked.
She shook her head. “It’ll just become worse. I’ll become the number one target. I’m just hoping she gets tired soon because it’s really beginning to frustrate me.”
“Why don’t you tell Matthew to talk to her?” Nathan asked, but again her response was that she didn’t want to escalate the situation.
“She’ll get tired,” she said, but I doubted it. Beverly didn’t seem like she was going to get tired of me either, and I also didn’t want Nathan to know about it.
We were quiet for a few more minutes, until I happened to glance back to see Natalie and Beverly getting up from their seats. They started to head towards us.
“Argh,” I groaned. “What’s happening
? Why can’t they freaking leave us alone?”
Elisa raised her head to see them, and then looked at me with widened eyes.
When they reached us, they ignored both Elisa and me and acknowledged just Nathan. I turned my head away in disgust, but Nathan put his hand on my knee to caution my reaction. I still refused to turn back to them.
“We were wondering if we could join you.” Beverly said, and as I opened my mouth to speak he tightened his hand on my knee. But that didn’t stop me.
“We were just about to leave,” I said, my contempt for her apparent in my tone.
Her face darkened, and she snapped at me. “Excuse me, but I don’t think I was talking to you,”
Nathan stepped in. “We were actually about to leave,” he said. “But you can join us of course.”
She blushed.
“You’re Beverly right?” he asked. She could barely contain her flush while I just turned to look at him with amazement. Was he joking? I wasn’t going to share a meal with the both of them. I started to say that I was leaving but again, he pressed down on my knee, and whispered to me to stay put.
Grudgingly, I agreed. Natalie took a seat across from me- next to Elisa while Beverly came over to join Nathan and I. She made Nathan move from the edge of the bench so that she could sit next to him.
Just then, James arrived with his dinner plate and came to sit beside me. I spoke to him and Elisa, trying my best to ignore Beverly and Natalie as they spoke to Nathan. But eventually, I just wanted to get out of there. After about ten minutes of giggles and shy smiles, Nathan finally excused himself and asked Elisa and I if we were ready to leave. We nodded, but had to wait a few more minutes for James to finish his meal.
As we left, we all kept silent until James and Nathan reached the front of our house.
“See you guys later,” James said. I immediately started to head into the building when Nathan took my hand, and pulled me aside.
“Why are you upset?” he asked.
I sighed. “I’m not upset, I’m fine.”
I knew he knew better, but since I wasn’t ready to speak, he let me go.
“I think he did okay,” Elisa said as we climbed up the stairs to our floor.
“Really, how?”
“If you hadn’t spoken, we’d have probably been able to leave. But you did, and so to save us later he allowed them to stay for a while.”
“I know that,” I muttered. “And he’s not the one I’m mad at. I just wonder when being a senior automatically made you a tyrant?”
“Everyone catches the disease when they get there,” she said.
“Well, let’s just hope they’ll leave us alone now.”
« CHAPTER 16 »
That evening, Beverly sent for me. Olivia had come in with a smug smile on her face and informed me of the call. I took my time in getting there, hoping that Beverly would already be asleep and I’d be able to get away with it until the next day, but I wasn’t so lucky. I walked into her room at about eleven-thirty to find her room filled with her friends.
The two beds in the room had been joined together to create one huge one in the middle, and on it they were all lying down and chatting. The door was left open, so as soon as they noticed me standing at the threshold, the room quieted down.
Beverly was the last to notice me because she wasn't facing the door, but when she turned to see what had caused the quiet, a scowl appeared on her face.
“Come in,” she said, and she introduced me to the others – there were six of them on the bed.
“Guys, this is my friend Lenora," she said, and the others laughed like she had just issued an insult. "I hope I'm not intruding in on your plans for the night." she asked in a sickeningly sweet tone, but I refused to answer. She waited a few seconds, and then yelled so loudly that some of her friends jumped. "Answer me!"
But all I could do was shake my head, not trusting my mouth to not dig a deeper grave for me than I was already in. With a disgusted look, she turned away from me and started to speak to her friends. They gossiped about everyone they knew, mimicked people and argued about silly things that I’d have wished in a million years that I wasn’t present to hear.
An hour passed, and then two, and I just stood there watching them, until I was almost certain that she’d forgotten about me. Just when I was about to ask for a bathroom break, she turned towards me.
“My clothes are in the dryer,” she said. “5b. Please go get them for me.”
Straightening, I moved away from the wall, and walked out of the room. She had added a ‘please’ so even if I wanted to report her now, her defense would be that that she had asked me politely as a ‘friend’, and that I had willingly agreed. There were six witnesses to verify that. And if I just decided to go to my room now like I was immensely tempted to, they could come together and pound the hell out of me. Olivia was my roommate, so there would be no witnesses to back up my tale later. And since I wasn’t particularly close to anyone else, no one would be ready to put their necks on the line for me.
Furious, I headed down to the basement and retrieved her clothes from the dryer as she had instructed. When I returned to her room, the next chore was to iron all of them- from her dress shirts to her sheets. I’d never even ironed my own sheets before, but there I was, at two a.m. in the morning, ironing those of someone who I was now fully convinced I completely hated.
When I returned and she offered my services to two more of her friends, I was past reacting. With a blank look on my face, I did all I was asked and by past four, returned to my room and closed the door behind me. I gazed at Olivia as she slept soundly, and for a few minutes I considered pouring all my anger on her.
It was a quiet anger that I felt, I realized, when I couldn’t even feel the blinding heat that usually accompanied my fury. Or maybe it was because I was just too exhausted.
Dragging myself off to bed, I fell asleep thinking of ways to make Olivia’s life a living hell.
*
I went through the next day with a soreness behind my eyes that constantly reminded me that I hadn’t gotten enough sleep. By lunchtime, Elisa joined me in the courtyard and by the time I was done morosely narrating the tale to her, she was more upset that I was.
"Oh my God!" she gasped. "Have you told Nathan?"
"And what good is that going to bring?”
"I don't know, but he might be able to do something about all this. He'll be freaking pissed."
"He is the cause of it,” I said. “And like you said, getting him involved is just going to make things worse, just like you didn’t want Matthew to get involved.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re probably right,” she said with a sigh, and drew her soda cup towards her to take a sip.
"When I was about to leave, she warned me off Nathan,” I said and her eyes widened.
“Did you tell her that he is your cousin?”
“No,” I replied, and carelessly dropped the white chocolate chip cookie I had picked up from the dining hall earlier at breakfast. “At that point I didn’t really give a damn about what she thought. I was too exhausted.”
“Well, maybe you need to find a way to tell her then.”
“Maybe, but I’m sure she’s already heard. And even if she hasn’t, I don’t think it’s going to make any difference. She’s stupid enough to not care even if it was his mother in her way.”
“Well, I still think you should. It’s worth a shot,” she insisted, but I didn’t think so. Telling her would feel too much like selling out, and would just inflame the lie.
“Nathan’s coming,” she warned, and from my groggy position against the table, I straightened.
“He’ll notice something is wrong,” I said worriedly. “I look too tired.”
“He won’t, and you don’t look too bad,” she said.
But when he came to sit by me, within seconds he asked why I looked so exhausted.
“It’s nothing, I’m fine,” I said, and then added a small smile when it was obv
ious that he didn’t believe me.
He let it go, and left almost immediately after that.
*
A week passed and I barely saw Nathan.
Beverly on the other hand, made me take apart the bookcase that I had color-coordinated. Again! This time around she wanted it organized by topic. So my Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons had been unwillingly dedicated to her. After that however, she left me alone and seemed to have forgotten about me, or maybe she’d just gotten tired of making my life a living hell.
Nathan’s distance however, posed another problem that I didn’t want to have to deal with. He’d come for dinner about twice during the week, but had left each time without even a glance in my direction. I’d racked my brain for what could possibly have gone wrong, and thought at first that it could be related to his dad. But when he’d laughed with James during one of his rare appearances in the dining hall, I’d concluded that he was okay. I had previously only seen him when he wanted me to, so the fact that he had ignored me for the entire week brought up a lot to think about.
The result of my Math test came in the next Monday, and although I was happy that I’d gotten a B+, it was short-lived because once again, he was nowhere to be found. I wanted to share it with him but I couldn’t, because I had no idea where he was. When Elisa came over to ask me to lunch with her, I shared my concern.
We were waiting in line in the cafeteria and she was listening to me talk about his absence when she suddenly stopped me and said, "There's Nathan."
I followed her gaze to see him sitting at one of the tables, with a coffee cup in front of him. But he wasn't alone. I tried to see who the girl was but Elisa saved me the trouble.
"What's he doing with Marilyn?" she asked. I kept my eyes on them for a few more seconds, and then forced myself to turn away.
"Who is she?" I asked, trying to keep the edge out of my voice.
Elisa looked surprised. “She’s the head girl, and she’s in our house. How don’t you know this?”
I shrugged. I didn’t care.
“Do you want to go over?” she asked.
“Of course not!”
