I hung around outside the gym waiting for Cal. He was late, and I think he did it on purpose. I’m sure he enjoyed making me wait for him. I checked my watch. Quarter after four. I thought about leaving. I wouldn’t stay and let someone make me feel foolish. I already felt ridiculous enough after my panic attack earlier.
Thankfully the only witnesses to my attack were juniors and sophomores. The seniors were at lunch. I’m sure the students would gossip about it, but I thought the seniors wouldn’t care. I noticed in my first week that the seniors kept themselves separated from the rest of the student body. Snobs, indeed. Every now and then I saw one chatting up a freshman or sophomore girl. Easy target, I supposed.
Another few minutes passed, and I decided to leave. Of course, that’s exactly when Cal appeared out of nowhere, sauntering up to me with an easy kind of casualness that made me instantly angry.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Something came up.”
“You’re lucky,” I replied. “I was just about to leave.”
“You were?” he asked, as though he didn’t believe a word of it. Like he expected me to hang out in front of the gym all night for him.
I nodded and turned my face. I didn’t want him to see how irritated I was. I remembered that I was trying to woo him, not push him away.
“Those are pretty earrings,” he said, observing the diamond stud in my left ear.
I grinned. I couldn’t help it. So this was his game. Act like a jackass and then say something sweet. He could care less about my earrings, and in that moment, my heart constricted, my grin faded. They were my mother’s earrings. They were her wedding earrings. She gave them to me when I turned eighteen. They were special, and he complimented them in a cheap, disinterested sort of way. He made me feel cheap.
“You ready?” he asked holding up the yearbook camera.
I nodded and followed him into the gym. He opened the door for me like a gentleman, leading me to the bleachers with his hand on the small of my back. I tried to walk faster to get away from his touch, but he kept up with me, never taking his hand away. In fact, he kept it there once we were settled on the first row.
I squirmed.
“Problem?” he asked.
I squirmed again, and he pressed his hand into my lower back before taking it away. I know he wanted me to say something about it, but I wouldn’t.
“I’ll take the first game. You take the second,” he said, readying the camera and taking a few practice shots.
The girls were already on the court, running through warm-ups. I never paid attention to volleyball at my old school, never went to a game. I thought I’d be bored out of my mind, but once the first game started, I found myself cheering and whooping as hard as anyone else in the stands. It was an exciting game, and I felt a deep-seated respect for the girls who spiked the ball hard over the net. I wish I were that strong.
I was barely conscious of Cal moving about the sidelines snapping pictures, but at one point, I noticed he was in the line of fire. Well, that was if the player spiked the ball out of bounds. I hoped she would. I hoped it smacked him right in the face.
But she was too talented, and the spike landed right in the back corner of the court inside the lines. An “ace,” I was later told. And Cal, of course, snapped the perfect picture of the ball heading his way, the player in the background slightly out of focus, still stretched taut in the air with her hand up. He showed me on the camera screen during a timeout. It was a beautiful shot, I had to admit.
“Maybe you should just take all the pictures,” I said. “I’m not good with a camera.”
“Why’d you join yearbook then?” he asked.
“Well, I’m a decent writer,” I replied. “I just figured I’d write all the captions and page summaries and stuff.”
He nodded.
I thought it was time to start with the questions. I had to make sure I didn’t overwhelm him, though, or make him suspicious. I wanted him thinking I was genuinely interested in his seedy life.
“So what things are you involved in at school?” I asked.
“Well, Yearbook for one,” he replied.
I smiled sweetly.
“And I’m on the swim team,” he said.
“Oh, so that accounts for your arms,” I said.
He liked that comment. I knew he would. His body swelled with flattery.
“Yeah, I swim a lot. I swim when I don’t have to.”
Whatever that means.
“Is it, like, a therapeutic thing?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I never really thought about it. Speaking of therapy, what happened to you in the hallway today? I heard someone say you fainted.”
I flushed a deep crimson and averted my eyes. “Nothing,” I mumbled.
“Fainting isn’t ‘nothing’,” he pressed. “You have a medical condition or something?”