I wake up with a feeling that something has been taken from me, but in a good way. I lay in my warm, comfortable, travesseiro surrounded cama for a little while longer before I decide to get up. I go into the bathroom and turn on the shower. The warm water that penetrates my body feels so good and after my thoughts wander to Nick, the water feels even warmer. I embrulho, envoltório a towel around my body when I'm done and quietly tip toe into my room where I see Nick's hoodie lying on my office chair, where I put it last night. I pick it up and take in his essence, smells exactly like Nick. An aroma I can't explain in words, only that it makes me smile and makes me happy. I put it on over my other clothes.
Mom and dad are heavy sleepers, and on weekends they stay in till the afternoon, so I make myself a cheese omelet and watch old desenhos animados till they're awoken por the noise. They pretend like they we're up this entire time por coming out dressed and their hair combed.
"Morning Grace," mom holds a yawn in her mouth.
Dad nods his head and I smile with a mouthful of egg and cheese in my mouth. The TV blares with a commercial and I mute it.
"You want me to make you guys an omelet?" I ask, politely.
Mom gives me a weird look; "Where did you get that jacket?" she asks, completely ignoring my nice gesture.
Oh shizz, I think, what am I going to tell her? I know she's seen it on Nick before, dang it.
"I went shopping Friday at the mall and got it then." I lie for the third time.
"Oh. I didn't know that." she says. "It looks so familiar though."
"You've probably seen it in a magazine or something, mom." I say before she remembers seeing it on Nick.
"Ah. Your probably right," she says and shuffles into the cozinha behind Dad. I turn the TV off and follow them in. I rinse my plate off and put it in the dish washer. They both look at the fridge, then the stove and back to the fridge. I roll my eyes in defeat and tell them I'll make breakfast for them.
"Oh thank you Gracie, we'd really appreciate that." Dad says.
My parents aren't the best cooks; no one knows where I learned how to cook. I just thank the comida Network Channel or I would be eating Frozen - Uma Aventura Congelante dinners and cereal all the time.
They both shuffle out of the cozinha and into the living room to put on raposa News. With the economy the way it is today, I hate watching the news; it makes me depressed. So I just busy myself with making two oversized cheese omelets, torrada, brinde and even bacon. Which I eat a few of myself.
"Okay, you guys can come eat now!" I yell.
"Oh can't you bring it in here?" Dad asks.
I roll my eyes and put all the comida on two plates to take into them. They take the plates without looking up from the TV.
"Anything else I can bring you?" I ask, wanting to put a ma'am or sir at the end of that like a waitress would.
"Actually yeah, Gracie." Dad looks up at me with a smile and sees my pissy mood. "Oh never mind, I'll get it."
"No, Dad, I'm up already. What do you want?" I ask, crossing my arms.
"Some laranja juice," he smiles.
"And some milk!" mom yells from the living room.
I amor my parents, but sometimes they can be a little too much. But maybe it's because I'm a push over. I take the leite and OJ into the living room and tell them I'm going in my room and not to expect to see me until lunch time.
Nothing significant happens that day, but when Monday comes I almost consider not going to school. To ditch; something I've never done before. But of course, I don't, since that would go on my permanent record. I pick up my best friend Lola in my Volkswagen and drive both of us to school. We quietly listen to 106.9 and talk about our weekend; Which I kindly skip over the Nick situation.
When we walk down the halls of our high school and listen to the loud gossip of the "popular girls" we look at each other, roll our eyes and do our "secret handshake" we've had since 6th grade then go our separate ways for different Homerooms. We meet back up at segundo period, math and then third period is when I see him. When all the feelings flood back into me and I can't believe I had forgotten about him through my scene with Nick.
Tommy smiles at me over two other people and I hide my face so he won't see the worry. I don't look at him the rest of the class and avoid him when it ends. It's not like we're anything serious, I mean, I don't even know if he likes me or not. But we are definitely very friendly and flirty. Fourth period, Wood Shop, I spend sanding a long skinny piece of wood.
When lunch comes, Lola and I eat together and then she goes into the gym for free time and I go into the library, stupidly, because I know Tommy's going to be there reading, except for the fact that he doesn't read much when I'm there. He looks up from his book; "Hey Grace," he smiles.
"Hi Tommy." I mumble.
"Why did you ignore me in Swindles' class?" he asks, putting his book down.
I think for a short segundo before he starts laughing; "No, I get it. It's Monday, grumpy Grace, right?" he smiles.
"Yeah, exactly." I agree, nodding my head furiously.
"Why don't you sit down?" he says, patting the floor seguinte to him.
I really do want to sit seguinte to him but I don't want to get close to him after being close to Nick for that short, but amazing amount of time. But I like him too, it's complicated and I know it sounds like I'm weaseling out of it, but it really is complicated: I'm in amor with Nick but I like Tommy, not as much as Nick, but still enough so that it does count.
So I sit seguinte to him, but not to close like I would have before the thing with Nick happened. I don't say anything as I just look at him.
"What is it?" he asks, nervously smoothing down his hair.
"Nothing, nothing." I say to assure him nothing's wrong.
"Well, then why aren't you speaking?" he asks. "Usually you’re talking up a storm. There isn't much that can get you to shut up," he says, and then realizes that wasn't the right thing to say.
I glare at him and then playfully hit him on the arm.
"Ow!" he exclaims, although my hit couldn't have hurt a toddler.
"Oh you big baby." I say.
"Now that's the Grace I know. Who torments and bothers me."
"If I was kind, innocent and sweet to you, you'd have a cow!"
He ponders on my comment for a moment; "Yeah pretty much." he agrees.
I flash him a toothy grin and look down at my shaking knee. He looks down too and cocks his head to one side in amusement.
"It does that when it's nervous." I say.
"Now why on earth would it be nervous?" he asks.
This would have been the perfect moment that I would lean into him and our lips collide, but the sino saves me and I quickly stand up, leaving him to fend for himself. I stop at the biblioteca door and hold my stomach because Mr. Lark's class; the hooker-upper, that is, is next. I start moving my feet as to not run into Tom again. I look down at my sleeves and realize I really haven't taken off Nick's hoodie since he lent it to me on Saturday. I rub the warn out thread and head into Dark Lark's class, straight for the back of the room. I can feel his eyes staring into the back of my head . . . or mais like my butt. I open my book and look at that for the rest of the period, no matter how boring the Aztecs were, there so many times better than looking at Mr. Lark.
I try to rush out of the room with a group of people but cotovia catches me and calls me back to him, almost like what he was doing in that hotel room. I hesitate to long and the crowd had already passed so I have to go back or be reprimanded.
"Yes, Mr. Lark." I say, avoiding eye contact.
"What happened Friday night," he starts, darting his eyes around the room, making sure it's clear of little open ears, "will stay between us," he says in a statement. "Right," again, in statement form. Yeah, and the other guy I hooked up with. I think quietly to myself.
"And what if it doesn't?" I ask.
"Well, then mine and your repretation hear at Cleffland will forever be crushed. Do you understand me?" he raises his eyebrows and sets his hands heavily on his desk.
"Yeah." I say, not giving him full consideration. I leave; book in hand, before anything else can be said.
P.E. and theater class drag por with what I said to cotovia and the conversation between Tommy and I. I'm seriously thinking about ditching his class for the rest of the year. Maybe my clearer alternative will be to transpher. If there's another History class going this Trimester, because if there's not he's the only choice; I have to have another History credit if I want to go to college.
Lola and I stay after school for theater club and girl scouts; lame I know, but we've been in GS since we met in sixth grade. We promised each other we would always stick with it, even if it is corny and most of the girls think we're dorks, we don't care. Because that's where our friendship blossomed. I wait around for Lola to decide if she's going to go to Track Practice today or not; she’s on the team, but such a bad runner that they don't really want her. She decides to not go today and we go back to her house for a little homework chill time.
"Oh! I amor this song!" we both say at the exact same time, like almost everything else that comes out of our mouths.
We stand up from the floor and mover the books on the cama so there's room to dance. When we were younger we made a dance that could be meant for any fast beat song and every time an old one comes on that we haven't heard in a while, we just have to dance to it.
We both kind of fail at the same time and collapse laughing on her bed. We roll around in a storm of laughter and watch each other's facial expressions till we start laughing again.
"Oh wow. We haven't laughed that hard since . . ." I think.
"Since that time you didn't know the Patriots lived in Boston!" she finished my sentence for me.
"Hey! I thought we were never going to bring that up again."
"Yeah but it was so good, I had too!"
"Yeah well, what about that time you belched in front of the football team?" I ask.
She looks at me and smiles; "That was awesome!" she informs me.
I think, "Yeah, it was. They didn't know what hit them."
Lola stops laughing and then sits upright. I follow her lead.
"What is it?" I ask.
"What's up with you and Tommy Redstun?" she asks, suddenly.
"There isn't anything up with me and Tommy," I try to lie.
"Everybody knows you two spend all your time at lunch in the biblioteca with each other."
"Yeah, well we like to talk."
"I thought we agreed neither of us could have him because both of us like him?"
"We agreed to that?" I ask, confused.
She looks down at the floor, "Well no, but I think we should."
"Why? Do you like Tommy?"
"Well yeah. I mean . . . he's so nice."
"Yeah, but Lo, have you seen him?" I ask, trying to get her to unlike him.
"But it's not what's on the outside..." she tries.”Why do you like him then?"
"Whoever said I liked him?" I ask, accusatory.
"I can tell, I'm your best friend."
"Well, it's not like he likes me back, Lo." I try to convince her and myself that I don't need Tommy.
"Still, if he did, would you go for it?" she asks.
I pause before I start yelling at her; "Would you?"
"Like he's ever going to notice I'm alive with you circling around him like a hawk."
"We just like having intelligent conversations," I argue.
"Now your saying I'm not intelligent?" she yells.
"I never said that, Lola."
"But it was implied," she says.
"You know what? Yeah, I would go for it and so would you. I know you," I stand up, grab my bag and Nick's sweater. She pulls on his hoodie, yanking it from my grip.
"Is this Tom's? Did he give this too you? Or did you swindle it out of his possession?"
"That is none of your business," I say, yanking Nick's hoodie from her.
"I knew it. I knew you would take our friendship for granted and go behind my back with Tom," she says, standing up so she doesn't look like the littler person here. "Plus! He has a girlfriend! Brandon said he has multiple girlfriends. Do you want to be with a player, Grace?" she asks, crossing her arms.
Brandon is his younger brother. Frankly, I wouldn't believe anything he says, but Tom is always texting one chick and talking about another. I just brush it off and tell myself he's talking about his mother.
"Like you can believe anything that little doninha says. You and he would be a good pair." I say calmly, "The rodent and the 'dude'."
She squints her eyes at me and I leave her room, passing her mom when I go out of the house. The last time we had a fight this big was . . . I don't even know when. I guess it would have been good to tell her about Dark cotovia and even Nick. Maybe I would have been off the hook from Tom, or been called every name but a white girl.
I sit in my car for a few minutos in front of her house, hoping and praying she'd come out and we'd make up, but I knew that wasn't going to happen; Lola's to proud to apologize first. So I start up my little Volkswagen and drive home.
Mom and dad are heavy sleepers, and on weekends they stay in till the afternoon, so I make myself a cheese omelet and watch old desenhos animados till they're awoken por the noise. They pretend like they we're up this entire time por coming out dressed and their hair combed.
"Morning Grace," mom holds a yawn in her mouth.
Dad nods his head and I smile with a mouthful of egg and cheese in my mouth. The TV blares with a commercial and I mute it.
"You want me to make you guys an omelet?" I ask, politely.
Mom gives me a weird look; "Where did you get that jacket?" she asks, completely ignoring my nice gesture.
Oh shizz, I think, what am I going to tell her? I know she's seen it on Nick before, dang it.
"I went shopping Friday at the mall and got it then." I lie for the third time.
"Oh. I didn't know that." she says. "It looks so familiar though."
"You've probably seen it in a magazine or something, mom." I say before she remembers seeing it on Nick.
"Ah. Your probably right," she says and shuffles into the cozinha behind Dad. I turn the TV off and follow them in. I rinse my plate off and put it in the dish washer. They both look at the fridge, then the stove and back to the fridge. I roll my eyes in defeat and tell them I'll make breakfast for them.
"Oh thank you Gracie, we'd really appreciate that." Dad says.
My parents aren't the best cooks; no one knows where I learned how to cook. I just thank the comida Network Channel or I would be eating Frozen - Uma Aventura Congelante dinners and cereal all the time.
They both shuffle out of the cozinha and into the living room to put on raposa News. With the economy the way it is today, I hate watching the news; it makes me depressed. So I just busy myself with making two oversized cheese omelets, torrada, brinde and even bacon. Which I eat a few of myself.
"Okay, you guys can come eat now!" I yell.
"Oh can't you bring it in here?" Dad asks.
I roll my eyes and put all the comida on two plates to take into them. They take the plates without looking up from the TV.
"Anything else I can bring you?" I ask, wanting to put a ma'am or sir at the end of that like a waitress would.
"Actually yeah, Gracie." Dad looks up at me with a smile and sees my pissy mood. "Oh never mind, I'll get it."
"No, Dad, I'm up already. What do you want?" I ask, crossing my arms.
"Some laranja juice," he smiles.
"And some milk!" mom yells from the living room.
I amor my parents, but sometimes they can be a little too much. But maybe it's because I'm a push over. I take the leite and OJ into the living room and tell them I'm going in my room and not to expect to see me until lunch time.
Nothing significant happens that day, but when Monday comes I almost consider not going to school. To ditch; something I've never done before. But of course, I don't, since that would go on my permanent record. I pick up my best friend Lola in my Volkswagen and drive both of us to school. We quietly listen to 106.9 and talk about our weekend; Which I kindly skip over the Nick situation.
When we walk down the halls of our high school and listen to the loud gossip of the "popular girls" we look at each other, roll our eyes and do our "secret handshake" we've had since 6th grade then go our separate ways for different Homerooms. We meet back up at segundo period, math and then third period is when I see him. When all the feelings flood back into me and I can't believe I had forgotten about him through my scene with Nick.
Tommy smiles at me over two other people and I hide my face so he won't see the worry. I don't look at him the rest of the class and avoid him when it ends. It's not like we're anything serious, I mean, I don't even know if he likes me or not. But we are definitely very friendly and flirty. Fourth period, Wood Shop, I spend sanding a long skinny piece of wood.
When lunch comes, Lola and I eat together and then she goes into the gym for free time and I go into the library, stupidly, because I know Tommy's going to be there reading, except for the fact that he doesn't read much when I'm there. He looks up from his book; "Hey Grace," he smiles.
"Hi Tommy." I mumble.
"Why did you ignore me in Swindles' class?" he asks, putting his book down.
I think for a short segundo before he starts laughing; "No, I get it. It's Monday, grumpy Grace, right?" he smiles.
"Yeah, exactly." I agree, nodding my head furiously.
"Why don't you sit down?" he says, patting the floor seguinte to him.
I really do want to sit seguinte to him but I don't want to get close to him after being close to Nick for that short, but amazing amount of time. But I like him too, it's complicated and I know it sounds like I'm weaseling out of it, but it really is complicated: I'm in amor with Nick but I like Tommy, not as much as Nick, but still enough so that it does count.
So I sit seguinte to him, but not to close like I would have before the thing with Nick happened. I don't say anything as I just look at him.
"What is it?" he asks, nervously smoothing down his hair.
"Nothing, nothing." I say to assure him nothing's wrong.
"Well, then why aren't you speaking?" he asks. "Usually you’re talking up a storm. There isn't much that can get you to shut up," he says, and then realizes that wasn't the right thing to say.
I glare at him and then playfully hit him on the arm.
"Ow!" he exclaims, although my hit couldn't have hurt a toddler.
"Oh you big baby." I say.
"Now that's the Grace I know. Who torments and bothers me."
"If I was kind, innocent and sweet to you, you'd have a cow!"
He ponders on my comment for a moment; "Yeah pretty much." he agrees.
I flash him a toothy grin and look down at my shaking knee. He looks down too and cocks his head to one side in amusement.
"It does that when it's nervous." I say.
"Now why on earth would it be nervous?" he asks.
This would have been the perfect moment that I would lean into him and our lips collide, but the sino saves me and I quickly stand up, leaving him to fend for himself. I stop at the biblioteca door and hold my stomach because Mr. Lark's class; the hooker-upper, that is, is next. I start moving my feet as to not run into Tom again. I look down at my sleeves and realize I really haven't taken off Nick's hoodie since he lent it to me on Saturday. I rub the warn out thread and head into Dark Lark's class, straight for the back of the room. I can feel his eyes staring into the back of my head . . . or mais like my butt. I open my book and look at that for the rest of the period, no matter how boring the Aztecs were, there so many times better than looking at Mr. Lark.
I try to rush out of the room with a group of people but cotovia catches me and calls me back to him, almost like what he was doing in that hotel room. I hesitate to long and the crowd had already passed so I have to go back or be reprimanded.
"Yes, Mr. Lark." I say, avoiding eye contact.
"What happened Friday night," he starts, darting his eyes around the room, making sure it's clear of little open ears, "will stay between us," he says in a statement. "Right," again, in statement form. Yeah, and the other guy I hooked up with. I think quietly to myself.
"And what if it doesn't?" I ask.
"Well, then mine and your repretation hear at Cleffland will forever be crushed. Do you understand me?" he raises his eyebrows and sets his hands heavily on his desk.
"Yeah." I say, not giving him full consideration. I leave; book in hand, before anything else can be said.
P.E. and theater class drag por with what I said to cotovia and the conversation between Tommy and I. I'm seriously thinking about ditching his class for the rest of the year. Maybe my clearer alternative will be to transpher. If there's another History class going this Trimester, because if there's not he's the only choice; I have to have another History credit if I want to go to college.
Lola and I stay after school for theater club and girl scouts; lame I know, but we've been in GS since we met in sixth grade. We promised each other we would always stick with it, even if it is corny and most of the girls think we're dorks, we don't care. Because that's where our friendship blossomed. I wait around for Lola to decide if she's going to go to Track Practice today or not; she’s on the team, but such a bad runner that they don't really want her. She decides to not go today and we go back to her house for a little homework chill time.
"Oh! I amor this song!" we both say at the exact same time, like almost everything else that comes out of our mouths.
We stand up from the floor and mover the books on the cama so there's room to dance. When we were younger we made a dance that could be meant for any fast beat song and every time an old one comes on that we haven't heard in a while, we just have to dance to it.
We both kind of fail at the same time and collapse laughing on her bed. We roll around in a storm of laughter and watch each other's facial expressions till we start laughing again.
"Oh wow. We haven't laughed that hard since . . ." I think.
"Since that time you didn't know the Patriots lived in Boston!" she finished my sentence for me.
"Hey! I thought we were never going to bring that up again."
"Yeah but it was so good, I had too!"
"Yeah well, what about that time you belched in front of the football team?" I ask.
She looks at me and smiles; "That was awesome!" she informs me.
I think, "Yeah, it was. They didn't know what hit them."
Lola stops laughing and then sits upright. I follow her lead.
"What is it?" I ask.
"What's up with you and Tommy Redstun?" she asks, suddenly.
"There isn't anything up with me and Tommy," I try to lie.
"Everybody knows you two spend all your time at lunch in the biblioteca with each other."
"Yeah, well we like to talk."
"I thought we agreed neither of us could have him because both of us like him?"
"We agreed to that?" I ask, confused.
She looks down at the floor, "Well no, but I think we should."
"Why? Do you like Tommy?"
"Well yeah. I mean . . . he's so nice."
"Yeah, but Lo, have you seen him?" I ask, trying to get her to unlike him.
"But it's not what's on the outside..." she tries.”Why do you like him then?"
"Whoever said I liked him?" I ask, accusatory.
"I can tell, I'm your best friend."
"Well, it's not like he likes me back, Lo." I try to convince her and myself that I don't need Tommy.
"Still, if he did, would you go for it?" she asks.
I pause before I start yelling at her; "Would you?"
"Like he's ever going to notice I'm alive with you circling around him like a hawk."
"We just like having intelligent conversations," I argue.
"Now your saying I'm not intelligent?" she yells.
"I never said that, Lola."
"But it was implied," she says.
"You know what? Yeah, I would go for it and so would you. I know you," I stand up, grab my bag and Nick's sweater. She pulls on his hoodie, yanking it from my grip.
"Is this Tom's? Did he give this too you? Or did you swindle it out of his possession?"
"That is none of your business," I say, yanking Nick's hoodie from her.
"I knew it. I knew you would take our friendship for granted and go behind my back with Tom," she says, standing up so she doesn't look like the littler person here. "Plus! He has a girlfriend! Brandon said he has multiple girlfriends. Do you want to be with a player, Grace?" she asks, crossing her arms.
Brandon is his younger brother. Frankly, I wouldn't believe anything he says, but Tom is always texting one chick and talking about another. I just brush it off and tell myself he's talking about his mother.
"Like you can believe anything that little doninha says. You and he would be a good pair." I say calmly, "The rodent and the 'dude'."
She squints her eyes at me and I leave her room, passing her mom when I go out of the house. The last time we had a fight this big was . . . I don't even know when. I guess it would have been good to tell her about Dark cotovia and even Nick. Maybe I would have been off the hook from Tom, or been called every name but a white girl.
I sit in my car for a few minutos in front of her house, hoping and praying she'd come out and we'd make up, but I knew that wasn't going to happen; Lola's to proud to apologize first. So I start up my little Volkswagen and drive home.