Dear Diary...

  Chapter 18

  Dear Diary,

  I don’t want to date.

  CeeCee

  Deciding that we had jumped into deep water too quickly with the whole dating thing, Felicia and I came up with an acceptable compromise we could both live with.

  Felicia would make Friday and Saturday nights her date nights, and I wouldn’t date at all.

  Although she argued with me about it, I was adamant. Until I was over Nick, I refused to treat anyone else as I had treated, or mistreated, Michael. As much as I hated to admit it, Nick was right…experimenting only caused heartache for everyone involved.

  Spending time with Felicia again made me realize how much I’d missed her. The week we were ‘seeing’ Allen and Michael showed us that nothing could replace our ‘girl time’. Once again, Felicia became my ride to and from school, and we spent the afternoons and evenings doing homework and talking.

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell Felicia about everything that had happened with Nick for a couple of reasons.

  1. It was too agonizingly fresh in my mind to talk about easily.

  2. I was ashamed to admit my feelings were strengthening not weakening.

  I’d never told Felicia about the kiss or any of the details of my relationship with Nick. She only knew that I had a crush on him, and I decided it was best to leave it that way for the time being. I felt much too embarrassed to think about some of the things I had done, much less relive them by talking about them.

  I continued to run every morning and evening, varying the speed and amount according to my coach’s instructions, determined that nothing was going to get in the way of giving my best at the district cross-country meet at the end of October.

  Although I no longer worried about scoring a scholarship—Mom assured me that she would be able to pay for my education—I didn’t want to miss out on any opportunities.

  Lunchtime was interesting. Even though Felicia and I were no longer dating Allen and Michael, they continued to sit at our table, along with their entourage, and poor Allen lapped up any bit of attention that Felicia threw at him.

  Every week in September seemed to add a new face or two to the group.

  Felicia was in her element. She was lively, witty, friendly, and everyone gravitated towards her. I was no exception.

  At first, Felicia tried to drag me into the limelight with her, but I resisted. I think she felt guilty for hogging all of the attention…I wanted her to hog it.

  Michael insisted on sitting by me at lunch every day. I tried to convince him to ask out Angela, the girl who had tried to stab me with the daggers in her eyes the first time she had seen Michael holding my hand, but he showed no interest. I could relate to that. I hoped that, after a while, we would both be able to date other people, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

  I mostly wished that Angela would chill with the stares and the glares. If looks really could kill, I’d be dead.

  Some days, I took my laptop to school so Michael could help me figure out what I was doing—since I was a certified technological idiot—other times we would just sit and watch Felicia at work. I was in awe of her endless energy and witty conversation. We all were.

  September passed in a blur of school, homework, running, and cleaning out the house. I called Mark every evening, as usual, but he and Nick were extremely busy once the semester started and weren’t able to visit at all during September.

  By the end of the month, the weather finally cooled off a bit and the fall storms began.

  Mom hated the fact that I still ran, rain or shine, but I promised to stay home during intense thunderstorms. Of course, I was out the door as soon as the worst had passed, which didn’t please her, because I needed to keep up my running schedule.

  She offered to buy me a treadmill, but I cringed at the thought.

  Felicia and I attended Bible class every Sunday morning. The youth minister, a man in his mid twenties named Eric Finley, was very easy to listen to because he didn’t preach at us, simply led the discussions. I was sorry I hadn’t gone sooner; it might have helped with a lot of my emotional baggage.

  Most of the teenagers in the class had been there a while, and were comfortable sharing things about their personal life. Eric didn’t allow the discussion to become too involved on Sunday mornings, but invited us to join one of the ‘huddle groups’ that met on Sunday nights. Our church back home had something like that for high school teenagers, but I’d been too young to participate at the time.

  On the first night we met with the huddle group, I discovered that I wasn’t the only teenager in the world suffering.

  One of the girls in the group, Mary, had tried to commit suicide the year before and another girl, I think her name was Sylvia, was a drug addict, and then there was a boy named Phil who’d been abused by his dad.

  There were others, but I didn’t remember everything that was said, there was too much to take in all in at once. I couldn’t believe I ever thought everyone else’s family life was normal. I’d spent the last few years of my life thinking that I was the only one in the world…no…the universe…that had been touched by tragedy.

  How could I have been so blind to everything going on around me? Even though Felicia and I had become good friends, we still lived in our own little world. It wasn’t until Allen and Michael forced their way into our lives that we began to look around us and notice other people living their own problems.

  My life hadn’t been easy, but I’d been wrong in assuming that everyone else’s was.

  No wonder Nick was so hard on me. Having some distance between us, I was able to look at things more objectively—by things, I meant, of course, my violent reactions whenever he was around—and I had to admit my interpretations were actually misinterpretations the majority of the time.

  From the start, I felt like Nick was being critical of…well pretty much everything about me…and although I didn’t want to care about what he thought, I couldn’t help it. It also irritated me that he was always right. I knew, logically, that mind reading wasn’t possible, but at times it felt like he was doing exactly that. Maybe I was just predictable.

  His timing was terrible…showing up at the worst possible period of my life. There was no way he was ever going to think well of me, I had seen to that, but I could turn my life around, be a better person…but how? I needed a list, no surprise there.

  After a few days of pondering I came up with what I thought would be a good place to start. The list wasn’t all inclusive, but I could always add things as they came to me.

  There were a few obvious places to begin like:

  1. Paying attention to others

  2. Listening

  3. Willingness to help

  4. Caring

  5. Getting involved at church

  None of them sounded difficult, but for me they would be. The first one alone was so alien to my nature that training myself was going to take some determination.

  The key to the whole thing, I decided, was number 5. If I got more involved at church, the rest might fall into place naturally. It was worth a try.

  As September turned into October, I slowly began to feel better about myself. Felicia and I became deeply involved in the huddle groups, and I even spoken up at one. Although it may not have seemed like much to the others, for me it was huge step.

  I added something else to my list:

  6. Opening up to people

  We always started and ended every session with a prayer, and the one chosen to lead the prayer would go around the group and take prayer requests. I asked them to pray for my mother, explaining that my father had died in July and, as tears filled my eyes to hear someone praying specifically for Mom and me, I realized what an incredibly uplifting experience that was.

  Once we discovered that quite a few of the kids from church went to school with us, Felicia began inviting the ones with the same lunch hour
to join us at our table. Our small group was definitely growing by leaps and bounds.

  One problem developed as I became better at the things on my list: boy trouble.

  According to Felicia, I had been rather unapproachable before. I was pretty sure she was being tactful. To put it bluntly, I scared the male population to death.

  As I opened up a little and paid more attention to other people, guys began to ask me out. They noticed I hadn’t broken Michael’s nose, so I guess they thought I was safe.

  The problem was that none of them appealed to me. It was too soon, and I was still too obsessed with Nick. My heart sped up alarmingly whenever I allowed myself to even think about him—which wasn’t often…I wasn’t masochistic—and I knew it would be wrong for me to date anyone else while I was feeling that way.

  My usual excuse was lack of time, which was true, but the real reason was lack of inclination. Felicia had no such inhibitions. She went out with a new guy every weekend, having learned her lesson with Allen.

  To be fair, she made sure that every one of her dates knew she was not going to be exclusive with any of them, and was definitely not interested in anything more than a goodnight kiss. The guys still lined up to date her, each one hoping he would be the exception. She allowed them a Friday and Saturday night and that was it…on to the next one.

  I envied her lightheartedness.

  By the first week in October, panic began setting in. With Homecoming only two weeks away Felicia had been asked by every guy she knew as well as some she didn’t, to be their date to the homecoming football game and dance, but she hadn’t made a decision.

  To my complete surprise, a couple of guys attempted to ask me, but I managed to figure out what was going on and head them off before they were able to finish the actual question. I realized it was only a matter of time before I would be forced into answering, and I didn’t have a good excuse ready. I just knew I didn’t want to go.

  Lack of time didn’t qualify for the major event of the semester, especially since I had attended the previous year. I didn’t want to go, but I wanted to avoid hurting anyone’s feelings. Sensitizing myself to other people opened me up to a lot of heartache.

  I had never noticed before how clearly emotions could show in someone’s eyes. I had very rarely looked at anyone, actively avoiding eye contact for the most part, but suddenly I couldn’t seem to help it.

  I found it extremely uncomfortable.

  Someone cornered me on Friday, the week before the dance, and if I hadn’t seen Coach Miller come into the cafeteria at just the right moment, I would have had a date to the dance whether I wanted it or not. Thankfully, I was able to excuse myself in the middle of the question, explaining that I needed to talk to my coach.

  There were a lot of reasons why I couldn’t bring myself to agree to go to the dance, but the main one was the fact that the weekend following the dance was the district cross country meet and I wasn’t about to stupidly risk my chances as I had for Craig the jerk face. I was still beating myself up over that one.

  That night on the phone Mark could tell something was bothering me. I hesitated to bring up something so inane, but it was one of the very few things I couldn’t talk to Felicia about since she thought I was nuts, telling me it was no big deal, just one dance, and I should simply pick somebody and go have fun.

  Making up my mind, I reluctantly admitted, “I do have a small problem. Don’t laugh, okay?”

  “I’ll do my best,” Mark promised, but I could already hear the amusement in his voice.

  “Alright, I’m not telling you,” I huffed. “You’re already laughing at me.”

  “I’m not, I promise,” Mark said solemnly, and then ruined it by adding, “but you do tend to over-dramatize things.”

  “Not helping.”

  “Okay, okay, I solemnly swear not to laugh,” Mark said, keeping his voice as serious as he could which, I hated to tell him, wasn’t saying much.

  “I don’t believe you, but I’ll tell you anyway,” I sighed heavily. “I don’t want to go to the Homecoming Dance.”

  “I can understand that, after the fiasco last year,” Mark said reasonably. “Don’t go. Problem solved.”

  “Yeah, it would be if it were that easy,” I said morosely.

  “What’s the big deal?”

  “It’s easy to decide not to go, but it’s harder to think up a good reason to turn someone down.”

  I hoped he would catch on without my having to explain in great detail as it was a little embarrassing. I had zero experience with that type of thing, and I hated having no idea how to handle it.

  “Oh, I see,” I could almost hear Mark nodding to himself. “Someone has already asked you.”

  “Actually three someone’s have attempted it, but as soon as I figured out where the conversation was heading, I made up some excuse to leave,” I admitted. “I don’t want to hurt their feelings, but I refuse to go out with someone just because they asked me and I couldn’t say no.”

  “Not interested in any of them?” Mark asked curiously.

  “No,” and that was all the answer he would get out of me about that.

  “When is this dance?”

  “Next Saturday, a week from tomorrow,” I replied mournfully. “Do you have any suggestions?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” Mark said, sounding suspiciously mischievous.

  He paused, presumable for dramatic effect.

  Now who’s over-dramatizing, I thought resentfully.

  That remark had stung.

  “Well…” I prompted impatiently.

  “Tell them you already have a date,” he suggested.

  “Yeah, right, and when I don’t show up to the dance I will be a known liar as well as a nose breaker,” I said scornfully. “I could have come up with that on my own.”

  “Ah, but you won’t be lying,” Mark said mysteriously.

  “Will you just spit it out already?”

  “I’ll be your date,” Mark offered. “I haven’t seen you or Mom in over a month, so I think it’s time for a visit anyway.”

  “I appreciate the offer,” I told him, and I did, “but I would hate knowing I’d forced you into something like that.”

  “You’re not forcing me,” he contradicted, “I’m offering. There’s a difference.”

  “You really wouldn’t mind?”

  “I wouldn’t have volunteered if I minded.”

  “I accept,” I said quickly, “so too late to change your mind now.”

  “Have Mom buy you a new dress when you go clothes shopping tomorrow,” he suggested. “I wouldn’t want to put you to shame.”

  “As if,” I snorted.

  We hung up laughing. Suddenly, I looked forward to the next weekend.