Lovestruck
Brad meekly nodded from the ground.
"Now you will apologize and stop calling people names," Xavier Jones stated.
"I'm sorry," Brad grumbled, under his breath.
Xavier Jones took his foot off Brad's throat. With his eyes on the ground, Brad stumbled up and swiftly rushed off. The crowd laughed and snickered, but Xavier Jones started walking away as if nothing had just happened. Selena mumbled a swift good-bye to Moonflower who was engrossed in a conversation with Saul about the fight, and she caught up to the hero.
"Thanks," Selena said with Antonio next to her, wagging his tail.
"You're welcome,” answered Xavier, his fluid sight heavy on her.
“Out of curiosity, why didn’t you beat him up? You had him on the ground?”
“You wanted me to beat him up?” His inquisitive eyes tried to land inside of her.
“No, I was just wondering why you didn’t.”
“I just wanted him to stop hurting you. I don’t need to show everyone I can fight.”
Selena nodded, not knowing what to say. What did you say to such a heroic deed? What did you say to such pure thoughts? What did you say to such a remarkable, beautiful, puzzling stranger?
I’d better stay away from you.
“Thanks again. See you at school,” Selena said flippantly as she turned towards her house.
“You don’t have to keep thanking me. I’ll see you soon.”
Not if I see you first, Selena said to herself as she tried blanking him from her mind and continued walking to her front door.
Bye.
Chapter 10
“Grandmother Chela, what do you think it means?” Selena asked over the phone since her grandmother lived in the outskirts of Chihuahua City, Mexico, and she couldn’t see her face to face.
“Running away in a dense fog—what do you think your dream meant?”
Grandmother Chela usually tried to get her to answer her own questions.
“I don’t know,” Selena answered.
“Sure you do.”
Selena let out a deep exasperated sigh. “I’m running away from something?”
“Yes.” She answered so simply as if that was all there was to it.
“I don’t know what that can be.”
“If you don’t know yet, you’ll soon figure it out,” Grandmother Chela assured with confidence.
“But what about the spooky eyes?—and the woman’s voice?”
“You’ll figure it out.”
“Okay,” Selena said, uncertain. “Is this one of those wisdom things I’ll eventually understand?”
“Exactly.”
“Okay.”
“Was there anything else about your dream?” she asked with authority.
Grandmother Chela was just too smart. “There was something about destiny,” Selena said, embarrassed.
She gasped loudly. “Destiny?”
“Yes.”
“Has anything unusual been happening?” asked Grandmother Chela, her voice not as steady as before and with small spikes of what seemed to be concern in it.
“Do you remember telling me about the energy epicenter here?”
“Yes, why?”
“Grandmother Chela, I’ve been feeling something bizarre in the air.”
“You have?” she frowned.
“It’s as if there is a shift in energy. Is it possible?”
“Of course.”
“I seem to be the only one to feel it.”
“Most people aren’t aware of their surroundings,” she stated. Having always taught her granddaughter that there was much more going on under the illusion of normalcy the world projected, she continued asking questions. “Selenita, has anything else been happening?” she asked with hesitation.
“There’s a new guy in school. He’s very different.”
"Different?” Grandmother Chela frowned. Selena could hear the disapproval in her voice.
“Very different.”
“Different?—like what?”
“”He completely changes a room when he goes into it. Even I feel electrical snaps when he’s around. He—“
“Maybe it would be best to stay away from him,” interrupted Grandmother Chela. “Who knows what kinds of problems someone like him could bring.”
“Yes, problems.”
“Stay away from him, Selenita.”
"I will."
"Good."
“So, my dream was about life,” Selena said, changing the subject.
“All dreams are about life.”
“I guess I’ll have to wait and see how it plays out.”
“I’m afraid so.”
Chapter 11
Friday was Selena's favorite day of the week as it was with most people. Friday night was the start of the weekend. It was a time to rest and be with family. And a time away from Xavier Jones. After the unbelievably brief fight, Selena congratulated herself for her successful avoidance of him. If he asked her any questions in Science class, she answered with short answers, thus discouraging him from asking any more, She would force herself not to look when he entered anywhere within her sights like in the cafeteria or at the bus stop.
Even if he had done her a huge unselfish favor by getting Brad out of her hair, she still felt the need to keep away from him and avoid those interrogative eyes. Success, she kept telling herself as she arrived at the weekend. He’ll soon be completely out of my thoughts.
Selena checked her watch, wondering what time Moonflower would be over and as if by magic, there was a knock on the door. Moonflower grinned as huge as a Cheshire cat when Selena opened the door.
"Good timing," said Selena.
"I've got something I want to tell you," stated Moonflower with her eyes like bright stars in a dark night.
"Hi, Moonflower. Dinner is almost done," stated Selena's mother.
"Hi, Mrs. Spinoza."
"Do you need any more help, Mom?" Selena had helped her mother earlier with the preparation of the mashed potatoes and the meat loaf that was cooking in the oven.
"No, Selenita. Moonflower, would you like some snacks while the food is ready?"
"No thanks, Mrs. Spinoza. I'll wait for dinner," answered Moonflower, her eyes kept smiling.
"Yeah, we'll wait for dinner," said Selena, wanting to rush to her room so that Moonflower would divulge why she looked so ecstatic.
"Smells good," stated Moonflower as she walked alongside Selena.
As soon as Selena shut the door, she turned to Moonflower. "What's going on?"
“Life has smiled upon me!” Moonflower announced dramatically.
“What?”
"I've got a beau," Moonflower declared, matter of fact.
"Saul finally asked you out?"
Moonflower's face became bewildered. "How did you know it was him?"
Selena chuckled. "Hello! It's so obvious."
"What do you mean?"
"He always compliments you—Miss Butterfly Dudette—in his own bizarre way, but he does it, and he's always staring at you."
"Do you think he really likes me, or did he ask me out because he couldn't do better?"
"Moonflower, why do you do that?" asked a frustrated Selena.
"Do what?"
"Put yourself down like that."
"Let's face it, Sel. I'm not Selena Gomez."
"And Selena Gomez isn't you, either. She may have a lot of talent, but she doesn't have your particular, unique qualities. Have you ever thought about that?"
"Maybe he asked me out because he noticed I'm losing weight."
Selena shook her head and flailed her arms. "Moonflower! He asked you out because he knows you're great!"
"Thanks. I appreciate it."
"You're very welcome."
Moonflower looked pensive. "What do you think of Saul, Sel?"
"He's a great guy. Why do you ask?"
"Because he's not . . . he's not . . . "
 
; "He's not what?"
"You know—he's not very exciting."
Selena rolled her eyes. "So what?"
"Nothing."
Selena stared at her friend for a few seconds. "You want one of those guys who treats you badly?"
"No, of course not."
"Saul is nice and a fun guy,” assured Selena.
"He is, right?"
“Right.”
“It shouldn’t matter that he doesn’t get the lead roles in the plays at school, right, Sel?”
“Yeah, right.”
“I mean, so what if he doesn’t get to play Romeo? Someday, he could be playing a leading man, right? Leonardo DeCaprio didn’t start out a big star, nor did—“
"How do you feel about him, Moonflower? Does he give you butterflies when you think about him?"
Moonflower smiled. "Oh yeah! I like being with him."
"So don't worry about him not being one of the popular guys or a leading man."
"You're right," Moonflower said, shaking her head vehemently.
At dinner, Selena quietly smiled as her mom conversed with her best friend. Since her dad was working late, she was glad Mrs. Spinoza had someone else to talk to other than her. Moonflower enjoyed speaking with Selena’s kind, light hearted, smart mother. Mrs. Spinoza listened patiently as Moonflower excitedly chattered non-stop about Saul, but then the conversation took a malignant turn into Moonflower’s all-consuming evil insecurities.
"I just wish I was prettier, Mrs. Spinoza. How can I become a famous actress looking like this?"
"Moonflower, you're beautiful. I don't know why you worry about that."
"I'm fat, Mrs. Spinoza."
“Fat? In what universe are you fat?” Selena asked, irritated.
"No, you're not fat. You're just not a size 0," Mrs. Spinoza stated.
“I am fat,” insisted Moonflower. “Stick an apple in my mouth and roast me.”
“You’re a size seven,” Selena declared.
“Exactly, I’m a size seven,” Moonflower expressed sadly. “I belong in a circus.”
“A size seven isn’t fat,” Mrs. Spinoza said delicately.
“I’m much bigger than that. I’m a double digit size,” Selena announced. “Since when is a single digit fat?”
"In Hollywood, I’m the size of an elephant,” insisted Moonflower with bitterness. “It's so hard being a girl.”
Selena shook her head and frowned. Once she had been exactly like Moonflower--worried about any extra centimeter of flesh she carried. She would spend gigantic amounts of time obsessing about her appearance, staring at her nose wondering why it didn't upturn delicately, or why her cheekbones and hip bones weren't sticking out like sharp wooden sticks, or why her stomach wouldn't deflate into a skinny pancake, or millions and millions of other things! And then her mother had gotten breast cancer, and everything had changed. Her huge crush on Brad didn’t matter anymore.
Brad!
Selena wanted to vomit when faced with the very ugly fact that there was a time she had felt that way about him. Uck! So she knew all about falling for a scum of the earth, a rat of a human being. After Mrs. Spinoza’s painful chemo had stolen her hair, Brad had spread it around school that Mrs. Spinoza was bald and looking like a cue ball.
So now Selena watched her best friend tell her mother, who only had one breast, how worried she was about her looks. How does that make sense? There had been no money for reconstructive surgery, so Mrs. Spinoza had to work through her emotions of feeling lopsided in a world obsessed with plastic appearances. But Mrs. Spinoza was in remission--the most beautiful word in the dictionary. There was very little in the world that was more important to Selena than that.
"If only I was thin," Moonflower said wistfully.
“Yeah, size seven is the new plus size,” Selena announced, exasperated.
“Moonflower, you are lucky to have what you have, and you don't even know it," expressed Mrs. Spinoza.
"I wish I could be perfect, Mrs. Spinoza. Perfect like a movie star or a supermodel," Moonflower declared. “If only I looked like one.”
"But, Moonflower, perfection is only a state of mind," stated Mrs. Spinoza.
“What does that mean?” asked Moonflower.
“Perfection is not real. It’s what you say it is.”
“What?”
“Beauty is an illusion.”
“An illusion?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Spinoza assured emphatically. “An illusion created by others.”
Chapter 12
Selena stared in panicked desperation at the dozens and dozens of jagged pieces laying at her feet. The sheer abundance of them overwhelmed her. When she kneeled down to take a closer look at those tiny cardboard-like fragments, the situation seemed far worse than she thought.
“How am I ever going to put this puzzle together?” she asked with traces of frustration and confusion in her voice as the eerie, yellow eyes looked on.
“You have to do it,” the serene voice of a woman answered. The same one from her last dreams. Selena could only distinguish her silhouette because of the thick, white, filmy fog that surrounded them.
“But why?” Selena asked.
“It’s a very important puzzle.”
“I don’t see how a puzzle is that important.”
“It is,” the woman asserted.
“But it’s only a play thing.”
“It’s not only a play thing.”
“But—“
“It will help you figure out those,” she said, pointing at the unblinking, creepy eyes.
“What?”
“Figure out the puzzle.”
“But—“
“He’ll help you and you’ll help him.”
“Who?” Selena questioned.
“Stop running from your destiny.”
“But--”
“Your destiny.”
Selena abruptly woke up. Another bizarre dream, she thought.
Destiny.
Was there such a thing?
Chapter 13
Selena loved the porch outside her front door. She calmly sat on the pumpkin orange wood bench that was painted with yellow sunflowers and pointy golden suns. Having helped her father build it made her especially comfortable sitting on it while she observed her animals. With the gate shut, they were free to roam around.
Antonio playfully ran while the chickens—America Ferrara, Dolores Huerta, Tyra Banks, Mother Teresa, and Willa Shakespeare clucked wildly. The rooster, Einstein, stood next to her jack rabbit, Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz. Zac took a nap close to Mrs. Spinoza’s fenced-in fruit garden. Even Selena’s favorite birds got in the game. She had placed a bird feeder in her yard for them and they visited her often, especially Barbra Streisand, the green with red striped hummingbird.
It was so peaceful, but an irritating piece of sandpaper rubbed her raw. Her foggy nightmare wouldn’t let her go.
“Stop running from your destiny.”
What could it mean?
The cordless phone Selena had taken out with her so she wouldn’t have to step into the house in case it rang, blared loudly, cutting the quiet peacefullness and Selena’s thoughts with a sharp knife.
“Guess where we went on our first date?” Moonflower asked as soon as Selena answered.
“The junkyard?” teased Selena.
“Very funny, Sel.”
“The moon?”
“It couldn’t have been more romantic if we had actually gone there.”
“You went somewhere more romantic than the moon?”
“Just picture this,” Moonflower demanded and Selena got ready for one of her big theatrical numbers, “We arrived at our dazzling paradise to eat—the full moon upon us, filling us with intoxication. We sat outside the restaurant staring into each other’s eyes as if no one in the world existed but us . . .”
Selena impatiently waited out the dramatic pause. How mushier can this get? she won
dered.
“That is when it hit me with a huge pounding to the heart like when I saw Twilight for the first time.” Moonflower continued, out of breath, “I knew that Saul and I were soul-mates. We’ll be together forever like Bella and Edward.”
Good Grief! Selena thought. “But you’re not vampires, so you can’t be together forever.”
“Selena!” Moonflower chastised, exasperated. “All I’m saying is that Saul is my Edward, and I’m his Bella.”
“But you’re on team Jacob.”
“That’s not the point!” Moonflower cried, frustrated.
Selena decided it was time to stop teasing her BFF before Moonflower started giving her the lecture.
“Sel, you are so unromantic. I wish you’d fall in love.”
Uh-oh, the lecture is starting!
Moonflower sighed. “Love is—“
“I’m so happy for you and Saul,” Selena broke in, trying to save herself. “I’m so happy your first date was wonderful.”
“It was,” Moonflower sighed, her voice breathy and dreamy.
“So what kind of restaurant did you go to?” asked Selena.
“We went for burgers.”
“Burgers are romantic?”
“They are if you’re with your knight in shining armor.”
Moonflower gushed on and on about how she and Saul were so perfect for each other, and how he liked her the way she was. Selena smiled, hoping some of her best friend’s insecurities would evaporate into thin air.
When Saul got through to Moonflower’s call waiting, Selena told her friend to go ahead and talk to him. Upon hanging up, Selena took a huge bite of the bean and cheese burrito she had made for herself. After church, Selena had insisted her parents take her home so they could visit friends and maybe have a romantic dinner somewhere. Her parents had so little time together with her father working all the time.
Selena didn't mind being alone. Her home was peaceful. That is to say, as peaceful as it could be with so many rambunctious animals running around.
At the moment, Antonio and her rabbit, Sor Juana, were playfully going after the chickens making them squawk with frustration. It seemed as if Selena had chosen the right dog, or it had chosen her depending on how you wanted to look at things, since neither Antonio nor the rest of her animals would devour each other. They seemed to know they were a family. As she chewed the last bite of her burrito, she smiled.
"Hi."
Selena accidentally swallowed the food in her mouth, nearly choking. When she turned towards the voice, she found herself speechless.