Growing Pains

Chapter 34 - All I wanted in life was to make her laugh

J A S O N

Yes, I threw my fruit cup at Jacob, and I would do it again, if I could. Did I like doing it? Yes. Did I love it? Also yes. Was it very nice that I had done it? No, but was it nice of him to say that he wanted to fuck my sister? Also no.

"What's wrong with you?!" he asked, getting up from his seat, and shaking the pieces of pineapple all over his sweatshirt. There were grapes and pieces of orange all over his mac and cheese too. I smiled.

"Say it again, bitch!"

"Say what? That your girlfriend's hot? It's a fucking compliment!"

"My girlfriend?" Why the fuck did he think Daisy was my girlfriend?

Jacob frowned, "Isn't she your girlfriend?"

"No, she's my sister!"

"That's fucking disgusting, Jason," Finn joined in, reaching over the table to stab his fork on one of the pieces of orange on Jacob's tray and put it in his mouth. For some reason I was yet to find out, he had stiches on his bottom lip.

"I'm obviously not dating my sister. Who the fuck told you I was?"

"Some guy at the homecoming game." Jacob shrugged, sitting back down, and putting on his pretentious fucking smirk. "So you're telling me she's single?"

I grabbed Jack's fruit cup and threw it at Jacob again. In my defense, I did say I would do it again if I could. This time, though, Jacob moved away, and so the whole thing exploded on the wall behind him, instead of right in his face, which was disappointing, to say the least.

"I'm not cleaning that," he said, eyes on the pieces of fruit all over the floor. "Obviously."

"That was my fruit cup," Jack said.

"Fuck you," I said. Then I looked at Jacob. "Say one more word about my sister and –"

"And what? You'll throw your mac and cheese at me? The lunch lady's coming our way. You fucked up, man."

I turned around. Mrs. Abebe was walking with her hands on her waist, a frown on her wrinkled face. This wasn't the first time I got to see one of Mrs. Abebe's beautiful, wrinkled frowns, because this wasn't the first time I threw her food at someone.

"What's going on?!" she asked.

I pointed at Jacob, "He said he wanted to fuck my sister."

Her face fell. I knew it would. Mrs. Abebe might pretend she didn't like me throwing her food around, but she usually agreed that most times the people I threw it at had it coming. She also thought I had a demon in me.

"Go get a bucket and a mop –"

"That's what she said." This was Finn. Of course.

Mrs. Abebe didn't understand, so she continued, her eyes still on Jacob, "You're cleaning this up, boy."

Jacob had her frown but none of her wrinkles on his own face, "You better not be talking to me. He was the one –"

"I don't wanna hear it!" she stopped him. "Next time think before you insult someone's sister."

"How was it even an insult?!" he asked. I smiled at him behind Mrs. Abebe. It was not a very nice smile, but almost nothing I ever did was anyway.

"Ma'am, if I may, Jason's sister is a very pretty girl," Finn said. I sent him a look. He shrugged, "Just speaking facts."

"Ma'am," Jack said. Mrs. Abebe rolled her eyes but granted him her attention. He went on, "Since Jason threw my fruit cup at the wall, is it okay that I go get another one?"

"No," she said.

"Please?"

"Shut up, boy!" she warned him, turning to Jacob again. "Do I have to take you to the principal's office?"

"I can't believe this is happening," he said, getting up slowly.

"Are you gonna tell your daddy about it?" I asked, only to be slapped on the side of the head by Mrs. Abebe heavy hand and be told to shut up.

I did, but I kept my eyes on Jacob, smiling as he walked to the kitchen and then came back with a heavy-looking bucket and a mop, the shittiest look on his face as he cleaned up the mess I had made. I was smiling the whole time.

When Mrs. Abebe noticed, she slapped me again. I opened my mouth to apologize, but before I knew it, she was telling me to shut up and finish my food, and asking Jacob to take the bucket and the mop back to the kitchen when he was done. Then she left. Jacob showed me his middle finger as soon as she had her back to us. I showed him mine.

When I looked around, everyone in the cafeteria was looking back. We had put on a show. Good for us. I bowed down in my chair. They laughed. Good for me.

Not her though. She rolled her eyes and looked away in her pretty white shirt, hair falling in braids down her shoulders, a blazer jacket hanging on her chair. Allora King, always the first one to look away.

Allora had broken up with me last year, the week after prom, in front of the entire school, because like Mrs. Abebe, she also thought I had a demon in me. She hadn't exactly used the word demon, instead, she had said, quote-on-quote, there is something seriously wrong with you, like, in your brain chemistry, I'm serious, there's something really fucked up in your brain. To this, I had said, quote-on-quote, well, then it's not really my fault, is it?

She probably thought it was, and if not, she thought it didn't really matter because the next thing I knew, she was saying we were over. She had been crying when she said it, and behind her, Bill Peterson had been bleeding onto the school's front steps. I didn't think it was my fault that he had been bleeding. I thought it was his. No one agreed. I had spent my summer doing community service over it. Bill had spent his moving out of town. And Allora had spent hers pretending I didn't exist. We had been dating for years, but she didn't seem to remember any of it. I did. I remembered everything.

Beginning of freshman year, Allora had been the girl with the afro who sat next to me in all our classes and laughed at all my jokes. When I made it to the football team, she made it to the cheer squad. At the time, all I wanted in life was to make her laugh. I would say things like, did you know football was made up by men who wanted to either fuck or kill each other but couldn't? This, of course, was something Daisy had said once over dinner to make fun of me, but that I knew Allora would like, because she said things like, football's your gender's collective experience of mass hysteria, the meaning of which I'd had to ask my mom to explain to me like I was five.

End of freshman year, Allora had been my girlfriend, and life had been beautiful, and what I wanted out of it hadn't changed at all. I wanted to make her laugh. She used to say all the time that God was a woman, and I used to think all the time that it was her, so when we learned about all the wars started in the name of religion, I thought, well, of course, I would do the same.

Beginning of senior year, Allora had been the girl who had spent her summer missing my calls, and, according to what almost everyone at school said, turning into a slut. Unsurprisingly, I had gotten into a fight with almost everyone at school who had said it. Surprisingly, it had been a vending machine who had gotten the best of me in the end. Life wasn't beautiful anymore.

I looked away. The guys were back to eating. Jacob had given the rest of his mac and cheese to Liam Chan and disappeared somewhere, hopefully, hell. I tried my own mac and cheese. It had gone cold.