Melissa and Don just looked so happy… and I absolutely hated it.
Why couldn’t I be that happy?
“Hey.”
I jumped and then turned to my right. It was Angelo, offering me some blue cotton candy. Bless his heart. I smiled and took a piece. I put it in my mouth and closed my eyes as it disintegrated on my tongue, lightly coating it in sugary goodness.
“You know you shouldn’t be watching them like this,” Angelo said as he took a seat in front of me. “You’re just punishing yourself.”
“Don’t you think people who do foolish things should be punished for their foolishness?” I asked.
“No,” he shook his head. “I think the humiliation of doing the foolish thing is punishment enough.”
I laughed. “Exactly. And the humiliation comes from within. Therefore…” I held out a hand, pointing out where Don and Melissa were standing.
“Don’t you think this is a bit much?” Angelo turned to face me.
“No,” I shook my head.
He stood up, “C’mon, Ruby, you have to plant your feet back on the ground some time. Let’s go have some fun! That’s the whole point of this thing, isn’t it?”
“I thought we agreed that this whole thing was stupid,” I crossed my arms.
“Then let’s be stupid today,” Angelo shrugged. “Look, I’m going back down there with or without you. So if you want to stay up here and wallow, fine by me. But I am excellent at darts.”
“Do you want to be my Valentine, Angelo?” I accused.
“Not in so few words,” he climbed up the bleachers so he would be standing beside me. “But sure. Why not?Every year we call it two friends celebrating ‘Anti-Valentines’. Why don’t we just call it what it really is?”
“And what is that?” I asked.
“Two friends preferring each other’s company over anyone else’s on Valentine’s,” he shrugged.
“So that’s what you meant by ‘not in so few words’, huh?” I dramatically looked up to ‘think’. “Mr. de Laurentiis, you make a very convincing argument.” I stood up and held out my elbow, “Yes, I will be your Valentine.”
“Friend who mutually-”
“Yeah, yeah,” I cut him off, “save it for law school, Valentine. Now prove to me that chivalry isn’t dead.”
“You got it,” he linked his arm in mine and for the first few steps we tried to exaggeratedly skip down the bleachers. Once we realized it was both impractical and dangerous, we unlinked ourselves and stepped down normally.
Angelo first bought me an origami rose – bless his heart for remembering my conscientiousness towards the environment. Then we ate hotdogs on sticks, cotton candy (blue), lots and lots of chocolate pops, and a variety of different things. And soda. I had lots of that. And then chocolate milk. Boy, did they have a lot of chocolate. You’d think that after that incident with the kitchen and myself and the floor and the dog being covered in chocolate and that resulting into horrible things after would make me sick of it. You’d think I’d be a diabetic. But no. I loved chocolate, and I was blessed with an immune system like the Great Wall of China. An unbeatable, unbreakable wall. And, today, I pushed that wall to its limits, and I came out a survivor…
Sort of.
After Angelo played darts and won me a stuffed monkey that had disproportionately long arms – so long they were just a head shorter than my height – we headed onto the Ferris wheel.
“You were right,” I remarked after a long silence. It hadn’t been an awkward one. It was actually quite pleasant.
“About what in particular this time?” Angelo mused, smiling smugly.
“About being stupid today,” I said. “It was nice… Maybe Valentine’s Day isn’t as bad as we thought it was.”
“No,” he agreed. “Maybe it isn’t… Or maybe it’s just the company?”
“We’ve celebrated Valentine’s Day together for the past three years,” I reminded. “So that’s not it.”
“But this is the only time we’ve spent it as each other’s Valentines,” he pointed out.
I looked at him curiously, “You trying to say something, Angelo?”
“No,” he looked out into the mess of people crowding around the booths. “Are you sure you don’t want to perform? You could always tell Don that you got better.”
“It’s the principle of the thing,” I shook my head. “I’m punishing him.”
“Are you really, or are you just punishing yourself?” he asked.
“I thought this whole ‘us being stupid today’ was me not punishing myself anymore,” I reminded.
“Tell me you’re okay with throwing away a week’s worth of rehearsal just to spite a guy you no longer care for,” he countered. I looked away and sighed. “Just as I thought,” I could hear the smile in his voice.
“That doesn’t change a thing,” I turned to face Angelo again. “I’m not performing with him.”
“Don’t you want to perform with me?” he bargained.
“Don’t you not want to perform with him?” I countered. “I mean, you never even liked the guy. So why are you still agreeing to it?”
“Can’t exactly let him suffer, because, contrary to your belief, I am not a sadist,” he smiled. “Besides, I rehearsed. It would be a waste.”
“Well, if you want to perform, go ahead,” I shrugged. “I’m not going to stop you. Have you guys found a replacement singer then?”
“Actually, I’m just going to sing the songs myself,” Angelo explained.
“But a lot of our arrangements are heavy on the harmonies,” my eyes widened. “You’ll sound all alone up there.”
“Maybe you’ve changed your mind?” he turned to me with a jokingly pleading look. I playfully pushed him,
“Chivalry is dead, remember? While you still make an effort to pretend you’re noble, I don’t have that much patience.”
“Pretend? Ouch,” he made an expression as if he were hurt.
I laughed. “Well, good luck, anyway.”
“Oh, you’ve just jinxed it,” he playfully rolled his eyes. “It’s bad luck to say ‘good luck’.”
“You never believe in superstition,” I tilted my head, confused.
“We’re being stupid today, remember?”
And before I knew it, the conductor of the Ferris wheel was telling us in a slightly irritated tone to exit the ride.
** * * *
Angelo had to leave me so he could help Don set up for the performance.
I still couldn’t believe that Angelo was going to try and sing all the songs we rehearsed. Most of them were girl songs. So even if Angelo had a relatively wide range, he’d encounter a lot of difficulties with the high notes. I shouldn’t have even been worried. He was a musician, more or less. He could transpose…
I joined the crowd of people gathering in front of the makeshift stage. I pushed my way forward until I was at the foot of the stage. So I wasn’t going to back Angelo up tonight. At least he’d know that he had my moral support, and that was good enough for me. I was such a horrible friend.
“Hey everyone,” Angelo spoke into the microphone. “Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone. I hope you’re all having a great one.” He paused as some girls cheered. Yes, majority of the audience consisted of girls. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, Don and Angelo were not half bad-looking, so it wasn’t exactly surprising that all the girls were crowding.
“So,” Angelo began, “this first song is very special to me and a close friend of mine…”
Wait.
“And so I’d like to dedicate this song to that friend.”
What is this?
“She and I have been best friends for a while…”
Uh oh.
“And so I’d like to take things to the next level with her.”
No.
“Hopefully she’ll respond in my favour…”
Angelo…
Chapter 5
“By coming up here and singing this song with m
e.”
Girls screamed, while my mouth gaped open. As the first three counts of the song passed, I stood there frozen, just staring wide-eyed at Angelo. He was looking at the crowd, probably trying to find me. He didn’t see that I was almost right in front of him. By the fourth count, I don’t know what came over me. I suddenly had all the strength in the world, to be able to lift my large, long-limbed monkey with one hand, and then lift the both of us onto the stage with the other. Girls cheered some more as I plopped onto the stage.
I grabbed the mike, “Saying I love you is not the words I want to hear from you…”
“It’s not that I want you not to say but if you only knew,” Angelo continued, as he did so many times before.
As we continued to sing together, the people in the audience had their arms in the air, swaying to the music. I had no idea what I was even doing. What did this even mean? Were Angelo and I going to be together now? Was that what I really wanted? Did I like Angelo that way? I had no idea.
All I knew was that, at that moment, everything in the world felt right. Every note melted into each other, and it felt perfect.
By the time it ended I thought it was too soon, “More than words…”
Angelo and I looked at each other. I was smiling and so was he. He took me by the waist and I put my arms around him. I loved Angelo. But, surely, this was the only way for me to find out in which way I meant that.
As we leaned into each other, the girls screamed some more. But just when my lips were about to touch Angelo’s, I realized that the chocolate milk probably wasn’t a good idea.
I pulled away, covered my mouth and ran off the stage. As I was puking my guts out, I swore to God that I would never ever eat so much in so many different and weird combinations again if he’d only spare me.
** * * *
A teacher had seen me vomiting and very kindly escorted me to the clinic after my stomach was properly emptied out.
My mom came to pick me up about twenty minutes after. When we got home all I wanted to do was lie down. I didn’t have the strength or the energy to walk all the way upstairs. I settled for the couch. My mom didn’t argue. She merely put a blanket over me.
“How are you feeling, hun?” she asked.
“Horrible,” I grumbled.
“What was it that made your stomach so upset?” she asked.
“I had so much different things to eat, so it could’ve been any or all,” I garbled out.
“I’ll go and make you some soup, okay?” she stroked my hair.
“I don’t want to see food ever again,” I pulled the blanket over my eyes.
“Ruby, you have to eat something,” she said. “You need the energy to get better.”
“I need to sleep,” my eyes got watery. My stomach was so painful and I felt so lethargic, all I wanted to do was sob. What was wrong with me?
“I’ll wake you up for dinner,” my mom patted me on my arm, and then I heard her get up and walk away.
After how many hours of sleep, I was rudely awakened by the telephone. I waited about five rings, expecting someone else to pick it up, but the sixth had bothered me so much I summoned all my strength and pushed myself up. I answered the phone,
“Hello?”
“Ruby, how are you?” at the sound of Angelo’s voice, I broke down. I didn’t know why.
“Angelo, I’m so sorry,” I sobbed.
“What for?” he laughed.
“For embarrassing you,” my shoulders were doing some weird rhythmic thing with my breath. “People are going to be teasing you.”
“You know I don’t care what anyone says,” he reassured. “I’m just worried about you. Have you eaten?”
“No, I’m not hungry,” I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
“Ruby, it’s fine, really. I just want you to get better.”
“Thank you,” I smiled.
“I love you.”
I froze again. I didn’t know what to say. I mean, of course I loved him. But I still wasn’t sure in which way. I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.
“I love you,” I said cautiously. “But Angelo, I’m not sure what I mean exactly when I say that.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I don’t know if I mean ‘I love you’ I love you or just ‘I love you’,” I tried to explain. “Like, as a friend or as more. I’m not sure.”
“You know you love me,” he started singing.
“Angelo,” I rolled my eyes.
“I know you care,” he continued.
“Angelo, stop,” I laughed.
“Just shout whenever and I’ll be there…” he was laughing, too.
“Whenever,” I coughed into the phone.
“What?” he asked.
“Whenever,” I said. “Whenever.”
“Oh. Oh!” he realized. “I wish I could.”
“You said just shout whenever,” I joked weakly.
“You have to rest,” he insisted.
“Yeah, I do,” I agreed. “But I feel bad leaving you hanging like that.”
“It could’ve been worse. You could have actually puked on me,” he laughed.
I laughed. “Yeah, I guess. It’s a good thing I ran off, then. It would have been more embarrassing for you.”
“And you,” he pointed out.
“Yeah,” I was nodding.
“You owe me a kiss when I see you,” he warned.
“It won’t mean anything,” I rolled my eyes.
“Is that an answer?” he asked.
“It’s a possibility I’m giving,” I replied.
“Do I need to sing the Justin Bieber song again?” he cautioned.
“No, no,” I was shaking my head. “But you’re pretty full of it, you know that? How are you so sure?”
“Because we’re best friends,” he said.
“And so?” I asked.
“It’s a good foundation for a relationship,” he answered.
“Yeah, for a friendship,” I countered.
“You know what I meant,” I could hear him rolling his eyes.
“Have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe, you’ve been friend zoned?” I asked, an obvious smile in my voice.
“You wouldn’t do that to me,” he was obviously smiling, too. “I’m too lovable.”
I scoffed, “You’re a pain in the ass.”
“But you love me,” he pointed out.
“I like you,” I corrected.
“So is that your answer?” he asked.
I scoffed again. “You’re going to be one hell of a lawyer someday.”
“Don’t change the topic,” he scolded. “But thank you.
I laughed. “I meant what I said.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that you were trying to change the topic,” he said.
“You’re not as likeable as you think you are,” I said.
“What’s not to like?” he asked.
“Everything,” I joked.
“Then we wouldn’t be friends,” he pointed out.
“Exactly. We’re friends,” I emphasized on “friends”.
“Just add a gender word on the front…”
“Male friend?Female friend?” I chuckled. “Sounds about accurate.”
“Why can’t you just accept the fact that you have feelings for me?” he asked.
“Why can’t you just accept the possibility that I don’t?” I asked.
“Because I know that’s not the case.”
“No you don’t.”
“Yes I do.”
“Prove it.”
“I will,” he promised. “When you come back to school.”
“You’re wasting your time,” I warned.
“Hey,” he said, “if I really am friend zoned, I might as well try.”
“Don’t you want to preserve our friendship?” I asked.
“Even if this goes south, I know we’ll still be friends,” he said matter of fact.
“You don�
�t know that,” I disagreed, shaking my head.
“But I do,” he disagreed. “We’re friends. That’s why this works. Because if we decide we’re not good for each other, we’ll still be friends.”
“I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” I said.
“Well, you’re incapacitated, so you can’t think properly,” he joked.
“Discriminating against the sickly,” I scolded. “Maybe you should work with life insurance instead of law.”
Angelo laughed, “Get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See you,” I pressed my lips together. He hung up.
I lay back down on the couch and stared at the ceiling with a growing smile on my face.
To meet You Again Page 5
