*****
It was inconceivable to me how he could claim to be so serious about me and even consider altering his plans for college and yet he was still hiding our relationship from his parents. Was he ashamed of me? It didn’t make sense to me.
I kicked my shoes off and drew my feet up under me as I sat on the edge of my bed. This was not something that I expected after things between us had been going so well. I sighed and lay back just before hearing the faint buzz of my phone in my purse. I held it up to my face to look at the caller ID. Antonio? I couldn’t even imagine why he’d still be talking to me. I wasn’t really in the mood to deal with anyone, but I guess the least I could do for him was answer his call.
“Hello?” I answered with suspicion heavy in my voice.
He didn’t respond right away. “Hey, you busy?”
“No, not at all. What’s going on?”
He breathed deeply into the phone. “Nothing. I just……..missed you and thought that I’d call to check on you.”
His kind gesture caught me off guard. In spite of all that I’d put him through, he was still thoughtful enough to check on me. Unbelievable. “That’s sweet of you. Everything’s fine though. How’ve you been?”
“Fine I guess. You’ve just really been on my mind lately. Terrence told me they saw you and……” He paused and amended his statement. “He said he saw you at the movies.”
I was immediately uncomfortable. “Yeah, I saw him.”
His next statement came out of nowhere. “Are you really happy with him?” His tone was soft and hopeful. “Because sometimes people get in a situation and it’s not what they thought it would be. I just wanted to be sure that…..you’re sure.”
There was a long silence. He’d asked me that question at the wrong time, but I tried to clear my head of today’s argument with AJ before answering. “Yeah, I’m happy.” He didn’t respond. “I’m so sorry that I hurt you, Antonio. I hope you believe that. If you could ever forgive me, I wanna fix this. You’ve been a great friend to me and I don’t really wanna lose that.”
“I don’t know if I can handle just being your friend. My feelings are still too……” He paused. “I just don’t know if I can do that.” I thought he’d finished his statement, but he continued. “But if that’s all I can have you as, I’ll take it.”
I smiled. “I’m glad you’re willing to give it a chance.” I wasn’t sure where to take the conversation from here. It was too soon for casual dialogue, but I wasn’t sure if this was a good place to end it. Luckily, Antonio had a call on his other line, so he had to go. I hung up the phone and felt relieved that I was now sure that he didn’t hate me. He maybe didn’t fully understand everything, but he wasn’t angry with me anymore.
The next morning at school I did my best to avoid AJ. I wasn’t ready to see him. I was still too upset. At lunch, I sat at my table alone. When he entered the lunchroom, he sat next to Karl and watched me for a while as I did my best to ignore him. From the corner of my eye, I could also see Antonio watching me curiously. The current seating arrangement AJ and I were adhering to must’ve made it obvious to Antonio that there was trouble in paradise. The next time I glanced over at him, his eyes had drifted down to the table and he was laughing to himself.
The lunch bell rang and I rushed for the door. I wanted to get to Ms. Jamison’s class before AJ. The thought of making an entrance with him sitting there made me nervous because of the tension between us. When he entered, I pretended to be engrossed in my textbook, but that didn’t stop him from interrupting me.