Assisting Victoria

Part Twenty-Two

            I skipped eating dinner that night. I skipped doing my homework. I skipped sleeping. There wasn’t anything I could do, but curl up in a ball in my bed and feel bad for myself. My parents didn’t even notice anything was wrong with me. How nice. They just assumed that I wasn’t hungry that day without even bothering to come check on me.

            When I woke up the next morning I skipped eating anything for breakfast. I skipped looking nice. My hair would have to be put back into a messy ponytail, because that’s all I had the energy to do. After that, I stumbled out the door and began to make my way to the last place I wanted to go that day.

            I ran into Lauren immediately.

            “What’s wrong?” she asked. “You looked terrible!”

            “Gee thanks,” I mumbled.

            “You know what I mean.”     

            She pulled me into a hug and we stood there like that for a few minutes. I didn’t want to answer her, but I knew if I didn’t she’d only keep on bugging me about it.

            “Mitch told Tori that I liked her… and then I kind of confirmed it while I was working with her yesterday. She… she said she was happy I was graduating. She wants me to leave.”

            My eyes started to water a little so I stopped talking. I didn’t want to make a scene in the middle of the hallway. People were already staring at me as it was. When Lauren didn’t say anything at first, I pulled away and looked at her. She had a look in her eyes that I didn’t like.

            “I know,” was all she said.

            “You know what?” I asked.

            “I know he told her. He told me he was going to.”

            I got very angry just then. How could she have known and not told me about it? No wonder she didn’t say much when they came back from their little talk the other day.

            “And you didn’t tell me?” I asked, backing away from her a little.

            “No, you weren’t supposed to know he told her.”

            “Yeah, because that makes me feel so much better. Thanks a lot, Lauren!”

            I stormed off leaving her standing alone in the hallway. She called after me, but I completely ignored her. How could things possibly get any worse?

-

            During 3rd hour I noticed that Tori wasn’t acting like herself again. She seemed distracted. I wished that I could get up and leave, but I couldn’t afford to skip class. Besides, I didn’t want to make it look like I was running away from my problems. Instead, I sat there quietly, I played my parts when I was supposed to, and I tried to hurry out the door when class was over.

            When I say I tried, I mean that I literally got up and walked out as fast as I could, yet somehow, Tori had slipped out the door earlier in the hour without me noticing, and was now just coming in the door as I was going out. I tried to walk past her, but she grabbed my wrist and pulled me back into the band room.

            “I need to talk to you,” she said in a serious tone that wasn’t like her at all.

            She let go when we got back inside and I stood there waiting, watching all of the other kids, and Mr. Baron, leave. When the room was finally empty she turned to me. I spoke first though.