I couldn’t focus on math as I sat with my tutoring, going over the day’s homework. Truthfully, I couldn’t focus on anything. My tutor was a girl named Ariel. She was a sophomore in college and came back to tutor at the high school as a part time job. She was really nice, but very serious when it came to math, too serious for someone like me who hated the subject.
“Are you here right now? Mentally?”
“What?”
I looked up at her a little dazed and confused. I did feel bad about being off in my own little world, but what else did I expect. The beautiful woman I had a huge crush on said she’d miss me. How could anything else be more important than that at the moment?
“I was thinking that today we could get everything done before you leave since you only have a few problems, but… you don’t seem like you’re into this today.”
I didn’t seem like I was into it that day? When was I ever into math? I sighed.
“No. I’m sorry. Just distracted is all.”
After that I tried my hardest to pay attention, but had no such luck. Ariel was nice enough to be patient though. I was lucky to have her as my tutor and not some of the others I’d seen since I’d been going there.
When I got home I went straight upstairs to my room again and logged onto my computer. I don’t know why I suddenly had the thought that came into my head next, but suddenly I got very curious. I typed in the name Heather in the search bar and hit enter.
There were unfortunately a lot of people in my area with that first name, and since I didn’t have a last name I thought it would take me forever to find her. Conveniently, she came up rather quickly, and I knew it was her from her profile picture. I clicked on her name.
Heather Curran was her name. She was 34 years old and lived just outside of my city. I kept looking through her page, feeling just a tiny bit nosy, but there was something I wanted to know, and that was if Heather was into women. If she was, there was a possibility that Tori was as well. Since that hung out and all.
She didn’t say what she was interested in, nor did she like anything LGBT related. The short spurt of hopefulness I had been feeling quickly diminished and I felt slightly defeated. Whatever, that doesn’t mean anything, I thought to myself. I stopped myself, realizing that I was getting my hopes up again all of a sudden. When did that start?
I went to Heather’s wall to see if there was anything anyone said to her, but what I found was more interesting. It was a comment left by none other than Tori.
Tori Williams: Still up for that walk tonight? I could really use it today.
Heather hadn’t responded yet, but then, Tori posted that about a half hour earlier. I wondered briefly if it had something to do with earlier, but shook my head. Yeah right. Not likely. I was kind of jealous now though. What I wouldn’t give to go on a walk with Tori, well, outside of school that is, since I already technically had.
That night I had a dream about walking with tori. Go figure. It was later in the day and the sun was just starting to set. A little cliché, but it was a dream. I couldn’t control it. Anyway, as I was saying, we were walking down the middle of a street with big oak trees providing shade for us, and we were walking hand in hand.
We weren’t talking, but we didn’t need to. We were comfortable enough enjoying the company of one another in complete blissful silence. There were of course the soft sounds of birds chirping in the distance, and the leaves rustling in the calm breeze. I had to admit, it was the most relaxing dream I’d ever had. It was almost like being in paradise and I didn’t want it to end.
“Kelsey!”
My eyes opened and I sat up straight, wondering what was going on. When I was fully aware of my surroundings, I noticed my mom standing next to my bed looking down at me.
“Wha….”
“I’m sorry to wake you up from your little dream there, Smiley, but you missed your alarm. You have to get up and get ready for school.”
I sat up and looked over at the little digital clock on my night stand. Oh my god, I did over sleep… by almost two hours. I jumped out of bed as my mom left the room and began to get dressed as fast as I possibly could.
I ended up being late enough to miss my entire 1st hour, and half of my 2nd. Great. Just what I needed to do. I knew it wasn’t a good idea to do this, but I decided to just skip the remainder of that hour and find something else to do instead. What use was it to go at this point anyway?
I walked around for a while, trying to avoid running into any teachers that would wonder why I wasn’t in class, and I eventually ran into Mitch and another friend of his. They were skipping, big shock there, and saw me as I tried to walk by unnoticed.
“Hey, hey, look who it is. Heard you’re spending some one on one time with a certain teacher.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. How did he know that?
“And?” I asked.
“Well I would sure hate it if someone were to think something was going on between the two of you and have a little talk with the principal.”
I was getting angry. He wouldn’t.
“You wouldn’t….”
“I’d be careful if I were you, Kels.”
He and his friend walked away after that and I headed down to the band room to wait for it to be third hour. Don’t worry Kelsey. That’s all he’s looking for. Just stay calm. No reason to panic. Mitch wouldn’t do something that cruel. I mean… that was just too much. Right?
-
During 3rd hour we played new music. Some of it was the music I had sorted through the other day with Tori. I smiled as I realized that one of the songs she picked was from one of my favorite musicals of all time, Wicked.
Tori handed me my part which called for a drum that the high school didn’t own.
“Should I just use something else instead?” I asked as I looked it over.
“Nope. I have that drum actually. I just don’t have it here with me.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Just… fake it for now. Hit anything you want just to make sure you have the rhythm down. Promise I’ll have it tomorrow, or… you know what? I can bring it with me after school.”
So that’s just what I did. I grabbed a random drum, which sounded kind of bad actually, but it was better than nothing. At the end of the hour Tori told me I did a good job improvising, which made me very happy.
Afterward I went to find Lauren, only this time, she wasn’t sitting alone. There was Kevin sitting next to her. I looked around for Audrey, but didn’t see her anywhere. Just before I reached the table, Kevin got up and walked away. I sat down, just a little confused, and looked over at Lauren.
“What was that all about?” I asked.
“Kevin’s having a party at his house this weekend, and you’re never going to believe this, but he totally just asked me to be there!”
Her smiled was spread from ear to ear as she practically shook with excitement.
“That’s great. You should totally go,” I said, feeling a little excited for her.
“And you’re going to come with!”
The excitement vanished… I was not, I repeat not, a party person.