1. Where The Story Should Have Started
So there I was, at the football stadium of Angel Valley High. The match; Angel Valley against Del Monte. The score, 15-3 in favor of the home team. We were about forty five minutes in, at least half way through to the end (or so I was told). In all that time I couldn’t tell which was moving faster; time, or me with my ass on the bleacher.
Despite all the heavy commotion around me (friends cheering their team, mothers calling out their sons, and fathers quietly admiring the cheerleaders), boredom sent me drooling like a mad idiot. Veronica didn’t hate it any less, but she forced herself to smile every once in a while whenever Michael was on the field and happened to turn her way.
I swear, the things he makes her do. It’s a wonder she’s still even human.
A player dressed in Angel Valley colors scored a touchdown. The bleachers descended into a mad frenzy.
“Is the game over yet?” I asked.
“No,” groaned Veronica, as she rested her tired little head on her hand.
“Will it ever be over?” I asked with cosmological significance.
“No.”
It figured.
My eyes started to itch, and despite the fact that it was only nine o’clock, I felt the growing need to sleep slowly (nay, fast) creeping in. Sleeping on the game wouldn’t have been so bad, but the crowd made it abundantly clear that they weren’t going to let me. They were loud. Stomping, clapping, chanting Angel Valley High like our school was some ancient Mayan god.
“I’m going to go wash my face,” I told Veronica.
The words flew straight past her. She continued to stare out into the field like some half-dead zombie.
Poor girl.
I moved out in search of the nearest restroom, and a concealed corner that was hopefully safe enough for me to bring out my good old friend, Jack Daniel. Fortunately the gym area was completely empty. I could drink to my heart’s delight, and no one would ever know.
I opened the metal lid and downed a sip. The hot taste of burning alcohol brought me back to life, rinsing off the numb sensation in my brain.
Just as I reached the men’s room, I caught a girl open the door right in front of me. And of course, it was none other than Melissa Wyndon herself. Her cheeks, for whatever reason, were soaked with tears. She flinched when we made eye contact, and she covered her face while she stormed away.
There was something wrong with her. Though to be honest, I didn’t really worry about it all that much. Not at the time, at least. To me, the sight of girls crying in school was nothing new. Relationship problems were everywhere in Angel Valley. Also, one important note about yours truly. When it comes to the drama of my high school peers, I make it a habit of keeping a strict policy of non-intervention. I’m Switzerland, or so the expression goes.
Still, in thinking back on what happened to Melissa, I can’t help but climb aboard the grieving bandwagon of What could I have done instead?
What if, instead of letting her go, I stopped to ask her if she was alright? What if I was there to help her? What if I told her that she wasn’t alone? That she could count on me to make sure she was safe? To help her fix everything she did wrong? To help protect her?
I can’t blame myself for what happened to Melissa. And I don’t. But taking myself back to the night of the game, seeing her right in front of me; I saw someone who was about to die. Only I didn’t know it. All I knew at the time was that she left the boy’s room crying, and I couldn’t help but be curious as to what unholy sight inside might have led to those tears.
I went in, and I saw Jesus Martinez combing a set of hair he didn’t have. His hair (or what little he had) was short. Sport short. To the point that it was unmalleable, so that whichever way he brushed, the strands stood erect with little means of cosmetic adjustment.
Jesus was a sophomore, as far as I could recall. He was also in my AP Spanish class.
He saw me step inside from behind the bathroom mirror.
“Hola Jimmy Cheng,” greeted he, as if welcoming a long lost cousin. “¿Como ta?” as if talking to someone who spoke his language.
I never know at times if he’s just being condescending, or if he thinks I can actually speak Spanish. Granted, I can recognize a few words and phrases. ¿Como ta? easily being the most obvious.
“I’m fine,” I told him in plain English as I usually did. “You?”
I’d hoped to get some kind of an answer about Melissa, and why she left the boy’s room crying. Whether or not his following answer addressed my concerns, I couldn’t tell.
“Asi asi. Estado muy ocupado en estos días. ¿Y tú?”
His lips moved so fast I failed to catch more than half the question.
I replied with a simple, “The usual,” making pretend that the answer fit the bill to whatever the hell he was asking me. It must have, because rather than a cock of his head or rise of his brow, he simply nodded and replied, “Bueno. Bueno.”
He continued to comb his hair, a box of gel lying on the sink counter.
My non-interventionist policy dictates that I don’t involve myself in the problems of others, but that didn’t mean that at times I couldn’t at least be curious as to why Melissa stormed out the way she did. Or what she was even doing here. The fact that Jesus was the only one in here though made it clear who the culprit was. But what could Jesus have possibly said to offend?
I didn’t imagine it was anything in espanól. Aside from his buddies, Jesus only ever speaks Spanish to me because he either assumes I can speak it, or because he’s dogging on me for not knowing the goddamn language.
Well fuck Jesus.
“What’s wrong with Melissa?” I asked, my tone one of direct accusation.
He blew raspberries at his reflection, and rolled his eyes.
“Ella no es mi problema. Hablaba por teléfono, y entonces ella lloró. ¿Por qué? Yo no sé.”
He didn’t know. Or at least, that’s what I picked up. Yo no sé. And what was more was that according to Jesus, Melissa was on the phone. She was blablaing on the telephone. I think. Something to that effect.
But if that was the case, why then didn’t I see a phone in her hand, and why didn’t her dress have pockets? Or at the very least, why didn’t she carry a bag? Also, why make a phone call from inside the boy’s room?
Jesus wasn’t being entirely honest with me. Scratch that. Not at all.
Still, with more questions in mind the Switzerland in me kicked into gear. It was Melissa’s problem. Not mine. At least not then anyhow.
I will tell you one thing though. If I could go back and redo everything, rewrite all the events that transpired in the boy’s room of Angel Valley High on the night of February 9, 2012, I would have gone after her, and I would have done whatever I could have done to help her.
But this is now. That was then. And when I washed my face like I said I would, I returned to Veronica in the nick of time to catch her blow a kiss out to her grinning Michael Hanlin.
I’ve known Veronica since freshmen year. And in all that time I’ve never seen her act so brazenly cringe worthy as I had in the past two months since she found Michael (or to be more accurate, since Michael found her). I suppose I should have been proud for her. Michael was her first boyfriend, and at that probably not the worst she could have done. But seeing them together was like watching a sappy lifetime movie (minus the eventual date rape at act two, and the overbearing female empowerment shtick at act three). And worst of all, it was happening right in front of me. Public displays of affection flying all over the place like some hormonal blitzkrieg.
The hell of it was (and still is) the fact that whenever Michael and I happen(ed) to be in the same room with my dear friend Veronica, I’d always start to feel like the third wheel in the conversation. No matter what we’re talking about, no matter how obscure or in the loop the topic might be between me and Veronica. Michael Hanlin always finds some way to jump in and ruin everything.
At the top row, I noticed Melissa took a seat with her usual crowd, the drama teens (of which homecoming queen Cathy Scott was the leader). There were six of them. I didn’t know their names (save of course, for Melissa’s and Cathy’s (that cold hearted bitch)). But everyone else in Angel Valley had propped them up on the social pedestals, and each member of the drama teens had the cocks of jocks in their pockets, hence their vested interest in watching the game.
To people like Cathy Scott and her gang, the football game was something of a stock market. They each had their own investments lined up (some more than others), and they all went to see which ones were worth keeping, which ones to dump, and which ones to buy, so to speak.
The drama teens were the coldest, most shallow group of people in my school. I didn’t know much about Melissa, but seeing as to how she was with them, I assumed she was one and the same.
But out of all of them that night, the last I could recall, Melissa wasn’t seeing anybody. Or at least I was pretty sure she wasn’t. The only one she was close to who happened to be on the field was her brother Oliver; captain asshole.
I turned to Veronica.
“Hey, do you know if Melissa Wyndon’s seeing anybody?”
Veronica gave me this disgusted look.
“You like Melissa?”
“No. I’m just asking.”
“Of course you are.” She cocked her head to girl in question. “No. she used to go out with Tom Ashley. But it wasn’t serious. They were only together for like a week. Why are you asking then, if you’re not interested in Melissa Wyndon?”
“Because I saw her crying in the bathroom.”
Veronica snapped to attention. No doubt to her it was the most interesting piece of news of the day.
“What? When?”
“Just now. She was crying in the men’s room.”
“Huh. I guess I’ve gotta look into that.”
And like that, I’d unwittingly given Veronica some brand new gossip material to spread around school like ooze. Melissa was probably not going to like me for that.
I looked up again to where Melissa was with her friends. They were all chatting amongst themselves. And Melissa’d stopped crying. She even seemed to smile a bit from what I could tell. She didn’t seem to talk much with her friends though. She seemed a little distant, staring out into space.
The game ended with Angel Valley winning 32-18. The stadium turned into an uproar, and as everyone gathered around the home team, an asshole at the sound booth played We Are the Champions over the loudspeak.
Is it just me, or does anyone else think that in the year 2012, people who play Queens need to be tossed into an open fire? Does that not sound perfectly fair? Does the term played to death mean anything to anybody else?
Veronica and I waited for the guys to get changed and come back out. When they did, the football field felt less like a football field, and more like LAX. Everyone who stayed after the game went to go welcome their sons, nephews, cousins, significant others as they filed out the double door entrance. Veronica went to plaster Michael with hugs and kisses of her own.
That was when I realized I was sitting on the bleachers all by myself.
It’s a well documented and scientific fact that only the loneliest fucking asshole idiot heads with too much time on their hands ever start to think about things like soul mates. And yet there I was, watching my closest friend’s unbearable movie romance, asking myself that if Veronica Manuela Garcia could find someone to make her feel better about herself, then maybe, by some stroke of karma, some day I would too.
I hope I do. Because at times there’s no counting the degrees of how alone I tend to feel in this world. I don’t know if it’s me, or if somehow this is something that others my age can relate to. Maybe. Then again maybe not.
God. What am I talking about? This is high school. Clearly I’m the only one. Everyone else has relationships. Everyone else has Michael.
Fucking Michael.
When I went back home, the first thing I did was check my e-mails. Three new. Two junk. One from my pen pal up in Canada; Sarah. She received my letter, and told me she hoped I survived the game. I told her all about my football engagement you see, and about Veronica having twisted my arm to go. Except she called it American football just like everyone else up in civilized society. Plus Sarah was a soccer girl. Or to her it was football. She had her own team in her own school.
In my last e-mail I told her I would have far preferred watching her play a match than I did the guys in my school. To that she sent me back a smiley in the body of her e-mail, and said she wished I was there.
Sarah and I have been good friends since we met up in freshman English. Via e-mail, of course. We’ve never actually met, despite my dreams to the contrary. If you’ve ever done something like this, you probably know how it works. If not, then allow me to promptly explain.
You see, in certain schools, the English and social studies departments would set up assignments for students in school. Namely, pen pals in some school district out of the country. Their students write to us, and we write to them. Typically this assignment goes on for about two or three letters, then stops altogether once the teacher stops assigning a grade.
Out of my entire class, I’ve been the only one who’s kept in contact with my long distance pal. I wonder at times what she’s like in person. We’ve traded pictures before, so we have a good idea of what the other looks like. But still, it’d be nice if we got to see each other at least once.
I wrote to her, and told her how the game went. I swear, there are simply not enough adjectives for the word boring.
I ended my letter with the words My school sucks, and Get me out of here, accentuated in bold for emphasis.
With Regards, Jimmy Cheng. Scroll, send, confirm.
While I won’t say that I hate Angel Valley, I will say that every minute of being in this place pisses me off. Everything here is bland, insipid, and sour cream white. And it reeks to high heaven of middle class drama.
When I move out, I’d like to travel out of the country so I can see a world that’s a lot more vibrant and alive, and that has less light pollution so I can see the fucking stars at night. Because more than a lot of things in life, I like seeing the stars, which is appropriate for me, considering that as someone growing up in the boxes of suburban America, I’ve always been a dreamer. I’ve always been the type of guy to stare out into the distance and appreciate the kinds of things that can never happen; fantasizing of the worlds where gravity doesn’t hold us all down. Where we can all have wings, and be free to be who we really want to be.
If you think this is all starting to sound really gay, don’t worry. There’s more of it in the next chapter.