Chapter 5 - Bitter drink
It's so cold!
Although I look remarkably hot, I'm already rethinking my life choices. Why did I bring a sleeveless shirt?
I rush inside WOTT, jumping from a foot to the other, probably making a fool of myself, and take my usual seat. I don't even order since Gema is already placing my milkshake on the counter.
"Good morning," I ignore his voice, sipping on my drink as if he wasn't there. Still, he doesn't give up. "Are you mad?"
Last night, when I got home, I had time to think about our date and even if it feels marvellous to be with him; I don't want to share him. I refuse to go back to our daily routine before he ends his other relationship.
I sigh "Look, I like you, a lot, but you don't like me as much apparently, or maybe not all the time. If you want to be with me, it has to be always, and it has to be exclusive. Is that hard?"
He stares, somehow sad, and tells me, "Of course not, Avery. I already told you I'm solving things with him. Yesterday was just..."
"Yesterday was just you delaying things, proving that you're a liar, that I shouldn't trust," I accuse him. I needed a reaction. I needed to know if he could deny it or if maybe, just maybe, there was some truth in my words.
"No. I'm sorry I'm making things hard for you, but I swear you don't have to worry about him."
"You know what this feels like for me?" my eyes meet his and my voice is bitter, though I'm smiling "It feels like you're cheating on him with me"
James is quiet for a minute. I imagine he must be trying to find a way it looks better, but he knows I'm right, no matter the nature of their relationship.
"I'm sorry you feel that way, but I can assure you're doing nothing wrong."
Nodding, I swallow and look back at my hands against the stone white counter. I veer my attention back to my milkshake.
I'm two months away from graduating and to me, this year were the mornings spent at WOTT drinking my blueberry milkshake and chatting with him, laughing and being silly. And the thing is that I didn't do any move on him and he never tried either. Unless we're counting that milkshake on Monday.
That Monday was special to me until I saw them together. In my mind, he would tell me he was falling head over heels for me just as hard as I was for him. Clearly, I was wrong.
Caught up in my thoughts, I don't even notice him talking to me until he lays a hand on my shoulder.
"You're freezing"
My head snaps up. He is right. I knew it since I got out of the house.
"You're going to get sick drinking that."
Before I could process it, he had already grabbed his jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders, switching my iced drink for his coffee.
His half-empty paper cup heats my slender fingers, steam still coming out of it. Suddenly, it seems very tempting.
I take a small sip. It is intense, or maybe I am just used to my sweet milkshake still. The heat emanates through my body and I finished it at once.
James laughs at my reaction and tastes my blueberry milkshake. "This is not that bad after all. I never drank one of these before, but I had a friend who loved them"
I mock gasp at his statement, "You've never tasted the sweet flavour of heaven before?"
"It's not that good either"
"Pfft, like yours is better, Mr No Sugar"
We bicker about each other beverages. Sometimes we switched drinks, yet I knew he wasn't fond of mine.
Although I didn't want to leave, eventually I had to go to hell... I mean school! Ah, you guys get it.
I went straight to my locker to get my books, dropping my bag by the red metal wall.
"How was your date?" Courtney's voice startles me, coming from nowhere.
She eyes James' jacket but doesn't comment.
She looks cute in the long green dress I got her for her birthday. I think it's the first time she is wearing it and it suits her. Brings out her eyes.
"Not great," I shrug, getting my books out. "I feel like he is cheating on that guy with me"
"But he is." I stop and look at her. "He is dating someone else and that someone else won't be happy to know about your relationship."
No! No! I never kissed him! Besides, he said he wasn't his boyfriend...
"So now you're also a home-wrecker, this is getting interesting" Jessica pops out of... some interdimensional pocket realm? Bitchy dimension? I don't know... and invites herself to our conversation. Why is she listening to my private business?
"I'm not a home-wrecker. Stay out of it, Jessica," I hiss.
Annoyed, I turn my back on them and go to my first class of the day. My second most hated teacher awaited, sitting behind the desk in his neat shirt and baby blue tie. His eyes linger on me for a second as I make my way between tables to the back and sit down, avoiding looking back at him.
He starts class, and I take notes, but eventually zone out.
I scan everyone around me, bored out of my mind. It is the end of the year and I haven't spoken to most of them.
Some were paying attention, others were distracted, either throwing papers across the room when our teacher wasn't looking or just whisper-chatting. Some I know from parties, the only place I feel like socialising - everyone seems so nice under the vodka lights. I knew Jonathan, for instance, poking his girlfriend's back, Phoebe if I'm not mistaken.
Then there was Mathew on the opposite side of me. I never talked to him, though he served me many drinks. One knew Mathew for being Mathew. There was no appropriate way to describe him.
He was doodling something in his notebook and I stare at him, my head laying on my palm.
Probably feeling my eyes on him, he looks up and turns to me. Three tables separate us, yet it is as if he is just next to me, the intensity of his gaze shattering the gap.
His face contorts in a smirk I had seen a thousand times and he peaks at Mr Adams, writing something on the whiteboard at the moment. Then, he rips the page of his notebook and throws it right at me, crushed into a ball.
I catch it mid-air and open it against my notebook. A small smile makes its way to my face as I see the cartoonish drawing. It is great and I'm pretty sure I had seen some of his other sketches exposed by the Art teacher before. All grey and white, the representation of our teacher with long horns and a pointy tail growing out of his jeans.
"Stiles, di Laurentis, is there something you want to share with the class?"
"No, Mr Adams," he answers before I process the question.
Mr Adams glares at us but continues the lesson, or at least tries since the bell rings and everyone rushes out.
I throw my bag over my shoulder and leave to find him outside, paper in hand.
In the middle of the crowd forming in the tight corridor, I spotted him leaning against the yellow wall.
"Hey!" I join him. "Here's your drawing"
He looks at me with a lopsided smile and runs his hand over his soft-looking brown waves. I bet he takes more time fixing his hair than I take to get ready.
"Avery, right?" he asks.
I nod, but I know he already knew who I was.
"You can keep it"
I smile "Thank you. It's pretty"
"Not the teacher, I assume" he cocks a brow, looking amused.
I snort "Obviously not. I meant what you did"
"Oh, yes, I'm amazing"
I bite my lip to contain the smile and his eyes shot to my mouth almost immediately, but he covers it up, meeting my eye.
"Well, I have to go. See you around, Avery"
I watch him leave for his other classes and I wrap James' jacket tighter around my body. I have other classes to attend.
Later, I go to the gym. It was just in the middle of my way back home and they had employed me part time to teach ballet to the younger kids. Today I didn't have any lesson, but they let me use an empty room any time I want, so I usually stop by a couple times a week to practise.
I change to a sports bra and black shorts once I got in and dropped my stuff by the floor. The walls of the room were hidden by mirrors on one side and the other some windows led to the hall. Everyone could see me here, but it didn't bother me much.
Most of the days it was just me all alone, but sometimes little girls were peeking through the glass with awed expressions.
I turn on the music. Something perfectionistic, I thought and chose a song perfect for contemporary.
I love dancing since I was little. My parents put me in a ballet class when I was five and I became obsessed with mastering it. Then I watched Step Up and the first time I saw Andy on the screen, I fell in love with street dance and hip hop. Then Emily came, and I learned her last dance from beginning to end.
My childhood was spent perfecting each dancing style, constantly changing my favourite.
To me, dancing is like breathing. I cannot live without it. It is not about the correct steps at the right time, it's about letting the beat move my body. There were a thousand choreographies I made to a thousand songs that I never got to show to anyone. Yet, I wish I could; I wish anyone cared to see.
I stayed in that room for hours, just dancing. At some point, people showed up and sat watching. I had now a small crowd beside me. I could see them in the mirror.
It cleared my head to be here, to be thinking about the song and not about life.
☕☕☕
And that's it for today.
Do you think Avery should be with James?
What do you guys think of Mathew?
Finally drank a blueberry milkshake for the first time since quarantine started, still, one of my favourite drinks, probably why I dreamt about this whole story in the first place
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