Fear Of Love

Fear Of Love3

Chapter 3

Rolling into my room, I grabbed a towel and dabbed the sweat from the back of my neck and stripped from my sweats showing my blue dress again. After what had just happened an hour ago, I felt awfully exposed in the short, tight blue piece of clothing so I grabbed a shin length silk black skirt that matched the dress strap and slipped it on over the hem of the gown.

Slowly entering the crowd, once more, I peered behind every corner before walking in just to be sure Zack wasn’t going to spring up anywhere. I wasn’t ready to deal with that again. I knew he probably didn’t think there was a problem and then just got carried away but I couldn’t shake the, still fresh, memory.

I had just grabbed a soda can out of the fridge when someone grabbed my arm.

“BRANDI.” Zack shouted, scaring the begeebers out of me “Please listen to me.” He said, and obviously I didn’t have a choice since he had taken me to the far corner of the kitchen and pressed me up against the wall. Once he was sure I wasn’t going to bolt, he backed off ever so slightly and continued speaking. “Please, Brandi, I had no idea what was doing. I just didn’t realize. Won’t you forgive me?”

Seeing the genuine sorrow in his eyes I couldn’t take being scared anymore and so I nodded and wrapped my arms around him. When I felt his arms enclose me, I sighed and breathed in his scent.

“I don’t really feel like dancing but I’ll go sit and watch.”  I told Zack when he asked me to dance with him. He just nodded and led me into the room where the speaker system and dancing floor was located, making sure I was sitting comfortably before joining his friends, laughing almost instantly and getting into a groove.

I was right when I had said earlier; tonight was going to be a long night.

~~~

I woke up Saturday morning to my phone beeping, 16 new messages.

“Are you serious? I was up until 4 this morning texting people and I still have 16 new messages 3 hours later?”  Throwing my phone under a pile of junk on my bedroom floor, I pulled the covers over my head and fell back asleep.

“BRANDI LEIGH, your friends are here” Mom hollered up the stairs.

‘When did Mom and Dad get home?’ I thought and then recalled the text I had gotten last night informing me that their flight was getting in at 5 this morning.

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, it cannot be 2:30 already.”   I jumped out of bed, pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and ran down the stairs. I slid to a stop in front of my Mom, Amanda, Wendi and Kasey,

“Sorry guys, I’m really sorry.  My phone’s alarm didn’t go off.”  Realizing it was my own fault I had left it buried, in my massive black hole of a room, I smacked the palm of my hand against my forehead. I told them “It was my fault. Sorry. Just let me throw my hair up and we can go.” I had been looking forward to this day all week and I could not believe I was already late.  My friends and I had planned on going to a new movie that was just released, then catching the Basketball game and finally heading to the roller skating rink for a triple date.

After fussing with my messy hair, I shoveled through the pile of clothes in my room to try and find my phone, after reaching success I hopped down the stairs again, “Ok I’m ready.  BYE MOM” I shouted and then closed the door behind us.

Once we were in Amanda’s jeep and driving down the road, Wendi and Kasey started chatting about party last night.  “Yea so, Ryan at the party last night - total bore. All he did was sit and drink, he wouldn’t even dance. But then there was this one guy who was, like, staring at me the then he was, like, dancing with this other girl and then I was like OMG man!  Who do you think you are? Then I was just, like, you know…”  On and on it went. I had heard the same thing every time and after a while it was really annoying.

It could have been a little green monster on my back, or it could be that deep down somewhere I knew the whole dating-every-guy-you-think-is-cute is wrong, and that relationships should be something more than that. Well, either way I was sick of hearing about all the times Kasey led these guys on and then left them wondering. 

I soon found out that walking into the movies on a Saturday afternoon is a fiasco, dodging people and popcorn buckets and crying kids, but we finally managed to find our seats and settle in before the previews started.

~~~

“That was a complete waste of time; I mean she didn’t even kiss him!” Kasey complained, walking out of the theatre.

“I actually thought it was more appropriate than most of the other movies we always watch” I mumbled under my breath, walking just a few feet behind my friends. Usually I didn’t mind profanity and all the other parts but after last night I just didn’t find pleasure in that at the moment.

“What was that Brandi?” Amanda turned around.

“Oh, um nothing” I replied, taking another sip of my pop.

The game started out the norm with about 3 people cheering, but got more exciting later on when our team started scoring some baskets.  About halfway through, Zack and my friends’ dates showed up and we all decided to scoot out early and go to the, less crowded, rink.

~~~

"Dude, that was cold!" Nate shouted across the floor to Devin who had just jumped over a little girl, who had tripped and was now crying.

"OMG!  He is amazing" cried Kasey, as she rolled up to me, gawking at her date, Devin who had just hi-fived Zack.

"Oh yea he's so kind." I replied, dragging out the ‘so,’ after Kasey had wheeled off to catch up to Devin. I couldn’t believe how immature even Juniors could be.

"Sup babe?" All of a sudden Zack had caught me off guard when he came to a complete stop in front of me.  When I attempted to stop, I misplaced my footing, fell towards Zack who dodged the fall and then found myself making a face plant in the middle of the rink, for everybody to see.

“Ugh, you jerk!  Help me up." I practically shouted at Zack, who apparently got the hint, because he stopped laughing and held out his hand. "I don't know why I keep giving you second chances. You were a jerk to begin with and you haven’t changed, you’re so immature and mean.  Just leave me alone. I’m done with you."

"C’mon babe, don't be like that." Zack started, but I cut him off mid-sentence

"And DON'T... call me babe."

The rink was silent except for the soft ending of a song coming from the speakers above.