Levi Harris: A Guide to Middle School

Episode 16: The Secret Revealed

EPISODE 16: The Secret Revealed

    August 18th 2009, When it hurts and she knows

     I was going to tell her that I knew what she did but I didn’t know how to, I mean how are you supposed to tell the girl you love ‘I saw you kissing Mussy in the cinema’? It was as if I wasn’t supposed to tell her but I had to. It was too much a burden to carry and I wanted to get rid of the anger I felt towards her, I just wanted to feel the love I had for her. I just had to suck out the fear and tell her.

    I arrived in school and it was quite warm. There were these reddish bugs everywhere, they looked two headed but all they were doing was drowning my attention. I looked forward and Corey was sitting down, next to the school entrance with Angelina sitting down to his right. Her hair was tied into a ponytail with a lump of hair sticking out as a fringe. I strolled towards her and Corey with a frown on my face. She was surprised to see that I wasn’t happy to see her. She stood up when I was at least two metres away from her and spread her arms out wide signaling that she wanted a hug. For a few seconds I thought about hugging her or not before agreeing with myself that it would be childish not to hug her.

‘Angie… We need to talk.’ I said, trying to sound polite. She looked at me with a bemused look on her face.

‘Okay…’ she replied. Her face was reddening every second and I could tell she was as nervous as I was. I pulled her over towards the car park, which was to the left of the school’s main building.

‘So…’ she began before I interrupted her.

‘Look Angie, there is no simple way for me to tell you this,’ I paused for a few seconds trying to read the blank expression on her face.

‘I saw you at the cinemas the other day… With Mussy.’ I said. I started staring at the ground, trying to avoid her gaze. She raised her left arm to her face and held her chin whilst her right arm lay across her abdomen. It looked as if she had no words to say. She tried talking but her mouth just opened and closed. ‘Why?’ I asked her. This time I raisd my head to look at her. She had this innocent look on her face. As if I was giving her false accusations.

‘Lee… All I can say is that I’m sorry,’

‘How am I supposed to feel about that? Am I supposed to feel better because you said you’re sorry?’ I asked her. My voice was starting to sound harsh and rude.

‘We were going out as friends at first. And then… And then we kissed. It’s not like I like him. Lee look at me.’ She said. I was looking at my shoes again. I started feeling hot and I could feel sweat trickling down my back. I raised my head half-knowing that she was walking towards me.

‘I love you Lee.’ She said and waited for me to say that I loved her back but I kept quiet. She was right in front of me now. I realized I was looking at my shoes again and my back was hunched in a half bow sort of way.

‘I made a mistake, you can forgive me for that can’t you?’ she asked me, putting me on the back foot. She was good at turning things on people but I wasn’t going to fall for it. It just angered me even more. I looked up at her. The sun was shining bright on the upper part of my head. Forcing me to squint.

‘I don’t know. How can I forgive someone who goes behind me and kisses my best mate? You didn’t even have the guts to come up to me and tell me. If you really loved me you would’ve told me ages ago that you kissed Mussy. But you didn’t and now I feel like an idiot for trusting you,’ I sounded harsh and mean but I didn’t care. I walked towards her direction before moving her away from me and walked forward. The bell rang and it gave me an excuse to escape from her and hurry towards the form one classroom. I saw Mussy sitting at the back of the class with a guilty look on his face, as if he were panicking. He signaled me over and I followed.

‘Lee. I’ve got to tell you something.’ He said. I was pissed at him and my face turned into a scowl.

‘What?’ I answered rudely. I felt like spitting.

‘Over the holidays me and Angie went on a date as friends,’ those words made me scowl even more. ‘And we accidentally kissed. Don’t take it bad mate.’ He said. I wasn’t angry with him anymore. He had the guts to tell me. I respected that. I sat next to him and gave him a reassuring ‘I know’ before placing my bag towards the right of my chair. Moments later Angelina came in the class with her eyes puffy and her face in a frown. Mussy gave her a quick look before looking at me.

‘Did you break up with Angie?’ He asked. The question surprised me at first and I gave a puzzled look.

‘I’m not sure. Not really though.’ I answered. I still carried the confused look on my face as I was replaying the events that took place in the car park over and over again.

    Two new boys sat in front of us. One was short with really curly dark hair. He was Arabian. The boy next to him was black. He had rough curly hair and rough skin. I was more interested in the Arabian boy. He was an enigma. Mysterious and weird. He seemed like the type of person that would annoy me in the future.

‘Oi,’ Mussy said. I could tell straight away that he was talking about the enigma in front of us. I knew what Mussy was going to do next. It was obvious.

‘Yeah so the contractor only built half of my house,’ he said in a loud voice. I smiled and suppressed a laugh. The Arabian boy quickly put an end to writing his notes and tried to focus on what Mustafa was saying. He eyed me from the corner of his eyes and I looked down trying to further suppress my laugh.

‘Anyways so now I live in a half-built house. Sometimes my brother falls off from the house.’ The Arabian quickly nudged the boy to his right and pointed his thumb towards us. Mustafa had caught his attention. The Arabian started talking to his friend about us and they started chuckling. I heard hints of the words ‘cheap’ and ‘funny’ being repeatedly said. Mustafa finally gave up and asked them: ‘Why are you laughing for?’ The two boys then exchanged numerous looks at each other before looking back at Mustafa and saying: ‘your house.’ I couldn’t help but laugh and so did Mustafa. ‘What about my house? How do you know about my house?’ He asked. A smile spread across both of our faces when the darker boy replied:

‘It’s not even finished being built.’ The boys started laughing but if they only knew that the real joke was them. They started joking about Mustafa’s house and after a while they took us as idiots. They took the bait.

‘You should come by my house someday!’ said Mustafa and once again the boys exchanged looks. It looked as if they were asking each other about who should reply but out of random, the Arab spoke.

‘What? And fall off! No thank you.’ They both burst into laughter and started pounding at their desks with their mouths wide open. It was starting to get awkward.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked the darker boy and he inhaled deeply before straightening up and saying: ‘Muksin. And this is Sameer Tamim,’ I nodded in approval before retiring to my book and falsely reading a history book. My head was full of thoughts about Angelina. I knew I still loved her but all the trust I ever had for her was now drained.

                    ***

    When the last bell of the day rang. I stood up, having already packed my bags early and left the room. I strolled across the foyer before arriving at the main entrance. I felt a tap on my left shoulder and I turned around to see Angelina right in front of me. Tears formed rivers across her face. She looked hopeless. I edged in and gave her a hug before walking away and not looking back even once. I could feel everyone’s gaze on me. It felt like a huge burden but I didn’t care. I didn’t know what to care about anymore.