Karissa

This is My Confession....

"McCutcheon, you're jumpier than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs," Karissa declared as I paced.

"Or Jesse when he doesn't have his meds," Lavender joked, ruffling her boyfriend's hair.

"Why don't you just tell me what you have to say and get over with it?" Here? In front of all these people who were completely uninvolved? The sweat-inducing panic cracked wetly over my head like a watermelon, and I seriously thought I might cry.

(Well, now I finally understood how Jesse felt almost all the time.)

"Karissa, timing and atmosphere is everything," Jesse reminded. "I mean, if you were so picky about Prom, then at least let McCutcheon say what he has to say on his time and turf." I was so thankful he wasn't letting on that he knew, or that my legs shook and that  I had to grip my locker so Karissa wouldn't try to hold my hand and feel the moisture swimming on the surface.

"AJ, you look like you're about to drop dead," Dominic noticed none too subtly. I willed my parched throat to stop being a desert and become an oasis so I could respond.

"Yeah, Karissa, I'm really not feeling that well, so can we just go home?"  I think I really did have a fever, and my stomach rolled like one of those giant hamster wheels that they sometimes have at amusement parks. Was this what cheating did to you? Could guilt kill?

She drove one-handed, cupping the side of my face the entire way, her fingers wandering up and down my temple.

"It's probably one of those 24-hour bugs. I bet you'll still be able to get all your homework done even though you're sick. Seriously, your brain boggles me."

I shifted the afghan off of my legs, wincing as my headache suddenly got worse.

"Karissa."

It all came out in a rush.

"I slept with another girl over Christmas break. My dad set up the whole thing to break us up, but I didn't know, and I'm sorry that it happened, and mad that I fell. I still love you, even though I don't deserve you, and you should get someone better than me, somebody whose faith is stronger, who doesn't have a past full of things with the potential to be stumbling blocks. Baby, I'm sorry!" Tears dripped down my cheeks, but Karissa's facial expression was as hard and difficult to read as an ancient Japanese religious text carved on the head of a diamond. Then her face crumpled and she burst into tears...but not before picking up the cup of melted chicken bouillon cubes she'd made (I'd said I didn't think I could eat anything heavier than that) and calmly tossed it into my face. I'd shut my eyes the minute her fingers curled around its handle, but  I could feel the hot liquid scalding my eyelids and the rest of my face.

"McCutcheon!" Karissa screamed, horrified at her impulse action (it was like those girls that get dumped and key their ex's car, except for this time, the actual ex was getting damaged...and we hadn't even broken up yet! Well, actually, I guessed she didn't want me back if she was throwing things at me.)

"How does it look?" I asked wearily, speed-praying that I wouldn't have to permanently wear a Phantom of the Opera mask. Jesse would probably think that was awesome, but he didn't have my looks (no offense.) She frowned.

"Your face is really red."

"Oh. It's probably just a second-degree burn."

"Just a second-degree burn? That's only one degree away from really, really unreversible or fatal!" She began to cry again.

"Well, technically no injury is reversible, since life has no rewind button...." I quipped, ignoring how much my face hurt. We would explain what happened (maybe?) to my parents later, we both decided, as Karissa drove to the ER after we ran water on my face and I popped a Tylenol to relieve the pain.

"This looks bad," Dr. Roberts murmured (I had to repeatedly advise myself not to push him away as he touched my face, because every brush of fingertip felt like little knives. No kidding.) "What happened?" Karissa sobbed out our whole story.

"Please don't press charges," she whimpered, "I really didn't mean to do it...."

"As I was saying," the doctor continued after letting her finish her cry, "it looks bad, but it's actually a lot more mild than it looks. I'll give you some cream to spread on it daily, but that's pretty much all it needs to heal." The relief in the room was so thick that  you could put it in a jar and spread it on a piece of bread to make a sandwich.

"You're ok," Karissa breathed, and hugged me, but her smile was wobbly. I sensed a serious discussion coming on.

"We can't be together. You know that, right? I don't trust you right now, and while I don't want you to consider this a punishment - God's probably already laid guilt on your heart - it is a consequence. We can work through this as friends and then see where that takes us, ok? You know I care about you, but I've already been hurt so much by guys....A break might be best for both of us."

Somehow everyone knew when we went back to school...at least all of our Facebook friends did, which meant, yeah, mostly everyone. I expected the gossip to be at such a high frequency that it would make my ears buzz, but then I realized Karissa was so sweet that she would never tell the entire Internet that I cheated on her. Nobody knew why we broke up - all they knew was that 'we' weren't.

After school, I headed a place I thought I'd never go in desperation. My first trek on the singles' walk of shame was startling; all the hot, skinny (again, I was a free man, so it was no longer wrong to refer to attractive girls) dancer chicks stared at me in my search.

"You and Karissa?" Jesse hollered over the thumping beat accompanying Rihanna. "Yeah, we heard....Ladies! Oh, yeah, and you few gentlemen, but disregard this. Is this simple combination - he demonstrated it for them at lightning speed - so, so very difficult? Concentrate on Dominic's abs - harder than a year-old giant jawbreaker. They'll get you jobs someday, Domster, like starlets' fake boobs and chemically shiny hair. " He was prattling on and dancing away (magnificent multitasking I kind of envied) when I suddenly, sloppily burst into tears.

"I-I thought I loved her!"

"You do," Jesse said calmly, stretching his ankle up over his head (or almost).

"I-I thought we were going to make it!"

"Doesn't everyone?"

He was so right. Doesn't everyone?