Gwen broke into a wide smile, like she’s happy I’m being nice to this freak. “He sure is!” she exclaimed happily.
I was suddenly trying to process how sick Gwen’s face was making me when I heard myself remark, “Hey, Tim, why don’t you try acting like a football player, then? You know, since this is a party for football players?”
“Hammy –” Gwen started to say something, but she’s cut off.
“It’s not like this is Broadway central,” I explained.
“Hamilton –”
“I’m just saying this party was specifically for the athletes of Apollo Central High, and prancing around in tights on a stage playing a suicidal lovesick fool doesn’t exactly sound like a qualifier,” I went on, relentlessly. Gwen obviously needed to be reminded of social order.
But rather than be grateful for this, Gwen frowned. She suddenly grabbed me and pulled me after her. “Excuse us for a moment,” she smiled up at Tim, who had this hurt, confused look on his bunny face that was clearly overdone for extra sympathy. What a fake.
As Gwen nearly ran over Drew as he was returning with all the sodas, Drew caught the look on my face. “What did I miss?”
3
Awe
At that point, I realized the party was not going as well as I’d hoped. But if Gwen getting a little bit angry at me had been the worst thing that happened, I know now I would have been okay with that. Compared to what actually happened, I would have been thrilled, even.
Here’s what should have happened:
Gwen should’ve realized I’d done her a favor, swooned into my arms, and begged me to never let her go. We would’ve then proceeded to dance the night away or sneaked out early for our first unofficial hang-out date at Frosty’s Ice Cream Parlor down the street. Then she would’ve agreed to be my girlfriend, we would’ve had a nice time, and no one would’ve ended up at the hospital in pain.
And then there’s what actually happened:
“Hamilton Dinger, what’s wrong with you?” Gwen angrily whispered – hissed – at me. “You can’t talk to Tim like that!”
“Why not? It’s not like he’s a girl or anything,” I defended myself. Although he acts like one, I added maliciously to myself. “It’s a guy thing, Gwen.”
“No it’s not! I don’t see you talking to Drew or Jason or anyone else in there like that,” Gwen snapped.
Clearly, Gwen did not understand the complex nature of the male mind.
“Come on, Gwen, relax,” I tried to reassure her. “Look, if I just let him into the group, then it’ll only be because of you. Do you really want that? He’ll have no respect from any of the guys.”
“What? How can you justify your awful behavior?”
I had to roll my eyes. My mother was a lawyer; I’d known for years how to get around nearly everything with circumstantial, circular logic.
“I want this to stop, right now!” Gwen asserted, apparently tired of waiting for my response. “I don’t care if this isn’t how you do things. You know I like him!”
“Well –” The full impact of her words hit me like an eighteen wheeler and for the briefest moment, the earth was flung from beneath me.
Then it passed like gas, and I looked at her curiously. “You like him?” That was going to make my proposal for her to be my girlfriend difficult for her to accept.
And there went my evening. All of it was effectively, irreversibly, and utterly ruined. I can’t think of enough adjectives or adverbs to describe how completely it was deposed.
“Yes…yes, Tim…” Gwen nearly choked as she admitted it. Her cheeks flushed red. “Listen, Hammy –”
“Wow,” I shook my head, sadly. She was obviously lying. Or she’d watched too many chick flicks lately where the girl ends up with her Romeo. “Look, I’ll start being nicer, but whew, you really should really watch what you say.”
“I’m not kidding,” Gwen insisted. “I’ve liked him for a while now.”
“Oh, really? When did he ask you out then?” I crossed my arms and leaned against the hallway wall.
I was not surprised my instincts had told me earlier I was not going to like Tim. He was a merciless social climber, willing to throw poor Gwen under the bus so he could skip up a few rungs. Willing to seduce Gwen and break her heart just so he could hang out with me and the guys.
Admirable strategy, but it crossed the line (Now, it if had been someone like Laura, I wouldn’t have minded as much. But this is Gwen, not some preppy-go-lucky regular girl.)
“He hasn’t asked me out yet,” Gwen said. “But I don’t want you scaring him off.”
A dark look came into my eyes. “I told you, I’ll start being nicer to the guy. I’ve better things to do than worry about him anyway, like the big game tomorrow, the Homecoming game next Friday, the history exam coming up, hot girls….”
Gwen huffed indignantly.
And then I knew how to handle this conversation. “I’m sorry if you’re jealous, Gwen, but I have a life outside of you.” My tone was highly sarcastic, sweet enough to spit sugar.
I guess I should’ve explained Tim’s social takeover plan to her rather than call her out on her jealousy, because she entered into full fighting mode before I could stop her.
“Hamilton, I’m sorry you think that,” Gwen snapped, her face getting red. “You know, I’m not jealous of you and your little fan club; I might have been once, but not –”
“So you admit that you do like me,” I remarked calmly enough. I knew it all along.
“I don’t like you that way anymore!” Gwen practically shouted. “We’re supposed to be friends!”
“Sure we’re friends. That’s why I’m protecting you. Tim’s just using you to get to me,” I shot back.
“Is it really impossible that a guy would like me?”
“No, but it’s just all of a sudden, now he’s met me and the guys, it’s ‘Oh, I think I’ll hang out with Gwen and her friends’? Come on, you’re smart enough to see through that!”
“Hammy, I’ve liked him for a long while now! Tim’s sweet and kind and would never use me to accomplish a hidden agenda….” She stopped in mid-sentence as we suddenly saw Tim standing in the doorway. “Tim!”
“Uh, excuse me,” Tim said, his awkward tone clearly indicating he’d heard at least half of the conversation. “My mom just called. She wants me to go home now.”
“But –”
“No, no, don’t worry about it,” Tim gave her a nice smile. “She said it was urgent.” He took her hand and gave it an affectionate squeeze, probably just to annoy me since I’d called him out on his trickery. “You stay here and have fun, all right?” He nodded to me. “Thanks for letting me come,” he said, before he headed out.
Gwen stood in shock as she watched him go. I jerked her from her emotional flood as I laughed. “What a loser,” I remarked. “Has to lie about his mom calling him to get away. And left you here, too! That was hardly what I’d call potential boyfriend behavior.”
Gwen stared at me incredulously before she frowned. “You’re just jealous!” she yelled, before storming away, heading towards the exit to no doubt hurry after Tim. She looked back briefly enough to add, “Tell Jason we said thanks for the party, please. Good-bye!”
And I was appalled. After all, I was the one who was supposed to be her boyfriend. I shook my head sadly. Women. “Well, she’ll come crawling back to me sooner or later,” I assured myself as my cell phone rang. Ah, that’s probably Gwen now, I smirked.
“Ham? Can you hear me?” It was my father.
Disappointment flooded me like water through a broken dam. And this was another sign I should’ve seen indicating more trouble was coming.
“What do you want?” I sighed loudly, clearly communicating my irritation.
“Ham, your mother and I wan
t you at home,” Mark replied in a calm voice.
In the background, I heard Cheryl grumbling and complaining to herself. I wondered once more how in the world I’d gotten such lame parents. “How do you know I’m not at home right now?”
“Please, son, give me some credit,” Mark answered. “I know you better than you think. Are you at Josh’s house or Dave’s?”
“Do you mean, am I at Jason’s house or at Drew’s?” I huffed. “You know me better than I think, but still can’t get my friend’s names right? Come on. You’re going to have to give more realistic evidence to support your claims.”
“Ham? Hamilton Alexander Dinger, are you listening to me?”
I rolled my eyes at my mother’s voice. It figured she wouldn’t just sit by while Mark called. The expected rebuke came easily enough.
“You are in big trouble when we all get home, if you don’t listen to me now,” Cheryl bit out. She unleashed her verbal discipline over the phone, but it’s muffled; an interruption of static fragments the one-sided conversation, and I was grateful, for once, that cell phone reception was still bad sometimes.
“Cheryl, just tell the boy to get on home, we don’t have the time for this now. You can battle this out as long as you want later.” Mark had no doubt reached over and tugged the phone out of Cheryl’s hands, a dangerous act in itself. Now he was putting himself in deeper jeopardy by attempting to tell her what to do.
“Hamilton! Your father –” Cheryl nearly spewed out the words; she’s miffed by the interruption. “Your father insists we settle this later. Honey, you must leave Jason’s house right now!”
“What? Why should I?” I retorted easily enough.
“Because there’s a meteorite heading straight for Apollo City!”
A moment passed in silence. Not a word was spoken on either side of the conversation.
Then I laughed hysterically.
Mark and Cheryl must’ve had too much to drink at dinner. “Well, thanks for the info. See you later. Oh, watch out for flying pigs on your way home.” Without a second thought, I hung up.
I was about to share my parents’ delusions with my friends when I noticed the party music had ceased.
It was the first true sign of the many horrors to come that night.
I walked into the living room, now full of my other friends and fellow partiers. We’d all crammed in there, staring at the television or pushing others out of the way to see the television. I saw the emergency report flashing through someone’s armpit hole, and it was then that another sense of dread tingled down my back.
The news anchors began giving their report, and we were all transfixed enough to where we weren’t talking or whispering or even texting.
“…Sources are confirming a red-level city-wide natural disaster,” the news anchor reported. “The expected time of impact is expected within the next several minutes…”
“What? What impact?” a girl yelled. I was glad someone else was willing to look like an idiot and ask so I didn’t have to.
“I bet it’s a bomb,” one of the guys whispered, but not quietly enough. “It’s about time for the next world war, right?”
“Listen up, everyone,” Mr. Harbor spoke up. “We need to hear this.”
The television newscast continued, although some fuzziness started to break up the reception. “Mapping of the intended destination of the meteorite is…once it has made it past Earth’s atmosphere…scientists believe it has an unusual course….”
I was certain the anchor had switched languages at that point. I didn’t understand. Others around me were asking questions as well.
“A meteorite?”
“Like an asteroid?”
“A meteorite is smaller, I think.”
“Do you think it will cause a lot of damage?”
“Oh no! With my luck, my house will be destroyed.”
“Hey, maybe the school will be crushed! Wouldn’t that be great?”
There were several comments on the nearing disaster – no one was apparently too concerned, thank goodness. As Mr. Harbor went to answer the ringing telephone, Mrs. Harbor (no doubt secretly glad for a reason to terminate the party) expectedly announced, “Kids, if you can make it back home in less than ten minutes, get going now. The rest of you can stay here.”
There were a number of moans, but there’s enough of a somber overcast that most teenagers immediately started picking up their things and heading out the door.
While this is happening, I was not really sure how to process the news; after all, how on earth could my parents be right? It didn’t make any sense.
Suddenly the world seemed a lot scarier than ever before.
Also a lot more tragically hilarious. After all, Apollo City was largely founded by a “controversial” astronomer (crazy but super-rich somehow.)
A hundred or so years ago, Dr. Ogden Skarmastad bought off the northern part of the city and founded several astronomy-based research projects. He was obsessed with the idea that he could find the secrets of the universe by studying the stars. He’s one of the reasons we had Lakeview Observatory. And why the northern section of the city eventually became the city slums.
How ironic was that? A town founded to discover the ‘secrets of the universe’ only to be dilapidated by one of its small, deadly projectiles.
I could imagine the meteorite relentlessly pelting down on the people of the city, unleashing fate’s revenge. It looked a lot funnier in my mind than I’m sure it would be in real life.
That’s when all of a sudden, realization struck. “Gwen.” Chasing after her fleeing nerd of a turd, there’s no way she knew what was happening. She was in danger of being one of those people getting hit by shooting star pebbles.
Before I could talk some sense into myself, I headed for the door. I had to go catch up with Gwen. Nothing had ever felt so certain and so right. I barely noticed I’d almost tackled Jason on the way out.
“Dinger, wait!” I could sort of hear Jason call after me as I lunged out his door. “You’ll never make it home – just stay here!”
But I hopped off the porch, and scampered down the sidewalk, finally breaking into a full run once I hit the road. I glanced back briefly, wanting to tell Jason I was rescuing Gwen, when his mother interrupted me.
“Come on inside, Jason,” his mother called. “I’m sure he’ll be all right.”
I saw Jason as he shook his head. “All right, Mom,” he said with relieved reluctance. “I’m coming.”
Weeks after the meteorite hit Apollo City, I climbed to the top of the Apollo Time Tower, a strikingly white clock tower built after the death of Dr. Skarmastad to ‘honor’ him (It was a condition of his will that his estranged son had to fulfill to get a hold of the Skarmastad fortune; it was also part of the will to have the tower washed and repainted every three years.)
From the top of the crystal-white tower, I could see the extensive damage from the meteorite. Ashes and pebbles of dirt were caked in the wrinkled skin of the city, and the crater left in the city was still obviously waiting for government funding. There were several rows of broken windows; I could see them even far into the distance, blinking at me like broken eyes. New construction had started on the crackled metal bones of the tallest buildings.
Only the Time Tower was spotless, a striking white nose planted on the bruised, sunken face of Apollo City.
I’d come up to think and to brood about my fate. It was the only place I could go where I felt like I would be able to concentrate on my situation properly.
After running away from change since the day the meteorite came, it was hard to want to take my new life seriously, or to even believe that it was for real.
Here’s the thing about beliefs – real beliefs. They change you.
My life had always been about me, and an
ything that I felt was missing in my life was able to be found at the local grocery store, or in breaking a new swim record, or by dating another girl. Believing anything else about my life would leave me helpless, and I would need to sacrifice something.
I didn’t think, even when the meteorite struck the earth, I would ever change, or ever believe in the truth that began to stalk me.
It wasn’t for nothing that I held the honor of being the fastest runner on the Falcons. Within mere minutes of running, I spotted her. Gwen was just up ahead, standing at the end of a street, waiting for the pedestrian lights to change on the other side.
Relief and gratitude poured through me – relief because Gwen was alive, and gratitude because Tim was nowhere in sight.
I glanced around, recognizing my surroundings immediately; this was where Rosemont’s district border met with Apollo Central’s district. There were usually a lot more people and cars here, but the streets were more or less deserted now. Even the building windows seemed dark and foreboding.
I had to tell myself to stop this train of thought. It was no time to be panicking and/or overreacting. Really, it wasn’t the movies.
I called out to Gwen, and she turned. I smiled and waved.
My smile was lost as Gwen turned back around and started walking away, this time with an air of defiance and indignation.
I grumbled silently. Why did she have to act like brat now, of all times? I was the one who should be angry! I mean, here I was, coming to rescue her, and she’s being such a kid about our argument, which was clearly her own fault.
The sky was already glowing brighter though, so I knew I would have to deal with her attitude later. I sighed and sped up. “Gwen!”
Gwen finally (finally!) stopped, though I figured it’s more due to her tiny-heeled shoes than my rescue.
“Look, Gwen –”
She cut me off quickly enough. “Dinger, I’m ashamed of you,” she started (She never called me “Dinger” unless she was really upset with me.) “And appalled you would even try to come after me, even to beg for mercy, after what you said in there.”