Chapter 20: I Can Keep It Together

Lydia.

The next day, Jeremy decided to be nice and pick up me from my house so I wouldn’t have to walk to school in the freezing January cold. See? He was a good guy to me. So thoughtful.

Mom still shot dagger eyes as I left with him. Jeremy attempted a smile but it might have looked like a smirk. He might as well be dead to my mom.

But he was with me and that’s what mattered. We held hands as we drove to school. We parked and walked into school.

We looked at each other in the school lobby. All the other students were walking past us and we were standing still, lost in each other’s eyes.

“Well…” He said. “I guess this it until lunch.” He bent down to kiss me.

I smiled after he kissed me. Out of the corner, I could see someone watching us. I turned and Amanda was just inside the doorway staring at us. It was a look I recognized well: a mix of hurt and anger. I couldn’t pull my eyes away.

Nothing changed. If that girl was gone, there was Amanda or some other girl. He still wanted her. I could see it in his eyes.

I let go and pushed myself through the other students in the hall.

“Lydia,” he called, but I pretended not to hear his voice.  I kept pushing through the sea of students, hoping he wouldn’t find me.

But he finally caught up with me. He grabbed my arm, and I forced myself to turn to him.  I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Lydia, we’re over. I promise.”

“You promise?” I said barely above a whisper.

He leaned in closer to me. “I promise.”

He kissed me again, which felt as much to convince himself as to convince me.

After the kiss, I felt a little better. He wasn’t kissing her, he was kissing me. He smiled and walked down the hall.

But as I made my way to my locker, doubts filled my mind again. What if he had a class with her? Would she try to talk to him? Try to flirt with him again? Would she try to steal him away from me at lunch, just like that girl two days ago?

Chris.

I put out my book from my last class in my locker. Tonight was ice-skating with Amanda and her friends.

I turned to look at Lydia at her locker. She turned away from me. Well, it’s not going to happen today. I just have to live with it.  I walked to the cafeteria for lunch.

When I saw Amanda, she came over and gave me a hug. She hadn’t touched me since that incident Monday night when she came to my house. “What are you doing?”

“We’re friends. Can’t we hug each other?”

“Uh…sure…”

She looked annoyed. “Fine, spoilsport, I won’t hug if it makes you uncomfortable.”

Oh, great, now I made her mad. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…I didn’t…um…look, it’s nothing against you. It’s me.”

Amanda forced a smile. “It’s fine. Sorry, I got so upset.”  She smiled. We saw Katie and Greg coming our way, and we got in line for our food.

Katie, Greg, and Amanda all started talking about our plans for tonight and that they were missing Psycho Ex-Boyfriend and Jessica Long and the New Kind playing in concert tonight.  The concert was sold out.

How did I get here, spending all this time with these three people I barely knew? Somehow I had joined a clique in the space of a few days.

I snuck a look at Lydia. Again she looked like she’d rather be anywhere but by Jeremy’s side. She kept looking away from Jeremy and off into space. It didn’t make sense to me. She’s got a boyfriend, she should be happy. Why was she looking sad all the time?

“What is with you two today? You are so distracted!” Katie said to us from across the table.  Amanda was also looking at Lydia and Jeremy.

“Um,” I turned back to the group. “Are we still on for ice-skating tonight?”

“We sure are,” Katie said to me. “You ready for it?”

“Sure,” Amanda turned back to Katie.

“Amanda, don’t forget, basketball practice is this afternoon,” Katie said.

“I’ll be there,” She assured her friend. “Don’t worry.”

“You were this close last practice,” Katie put her fingers together to show what she meant. “You were late, and when you did arrive, you had a huge attitude.”

“I can keep it together,” Amanda said, clearly annoyed.  “Stop acting like a mom to me.”

“Hey, I’m just trying to help you,” Katie said. “I don’t want you to lose your spot on the team, Amanda.”

After a few seconds of awkward silence, Katie spoke up.  “Hey, I’ve got an idea.  Why doesn’t Chris come this time to watch us?” She turned to me. “Look, I know you’re not a basketball fan, but it would, at least, give Amanda a reason not to miss practice.”

They all looked at me. But, hey, what was the big deal? I wasn’t going to see Jeremy and Lydia there.

“Okay,” I finally said, “But I might be trying to complete my homework too.”

They all scoffed.

“You,” Amanda said to me, “are a homework lover.” Instantly, Katie and Greg cracked up. “I mean, you must be thinking, ‘Oh, homework, how I missed you! Homework, I can’t bear to be a moment from you.’” She picked up an imaginary book and started kissing it. “‘I just…just can’t be away from you. You mean more to me than anything.’” She then held the book against herself and gave a dreamy look up to the ceiling.

I couldn’t help it, I started laughing too. Sure, she was making fun of me, but, I had to admit, she was right. I did try to finish my homework right away, instead of putting it off until later.

***

Chris.

As promised, after school, I went up in the bleachers, to do homework during the girls’ basketball practice.  For a few minutes, all of the other teammates (including Katie) were on the court, but I didn’t see Amanda.  Then Amanda angrily came into the gym in her basketball uniform. 

The rest of the girls were already gathered around the female Coach.  The coach said something, and Amanda seemed to have a problem with what she said. 

“You need to respect my decisions, Amanda. I don’t have time for this today.” I could hear the coach say to her.

Amanda paced around the coach, hands on her hips. That wasn’t good.

Then the coach said something to Amanda.  Amanda closed her eyes, bit her lip and nodded.

As she turned back to grab a ball, one of her teammates made a comment, and Katie immediately shook her head no at the teammate.  But it was too late.  Amanda immediately whipped around, and yelled,

 “Being a what, Libby? Tell me what I am, because I’d like to know!”

Libby instantly seemed to shrink in on herself. She looked like she was about to cry.

“You said something, and I’d like to know what it was. I want to know what I am, Libby, because –”

“That’s enough!” the coach yelled at her. Oh no.

“But Coach,” Amanda stammered, as another teammate put her arm around Libby. “Didn’t you hear her? She said I was being a...”

“It doesn’t matter what she said, Amanda. You can’t go off the rails like that, no matter what she said.”

“But –”

“No! Amanda, I can’t tolerate your outbursts and disrespect. You’re off the team!”

“What? No, give me another chance!” Amanda stammered. “I’m having a bad day –”

“I don’t care about that,” Coach yelled back. “I’ve told you this a hundred times: if you don’t show respect for yourself, your teammates and your coach, you don’t belong on the team. Amanda, you’ve been in violation of all three today, and I’m done giving you chances.”

“Coach, wait,” Katie started. “Amanda –”

Then the coach said something more quietly to Katie and Amanda hurried off the court. 

As Amanda pushed open the door to the girl’s bathroom, I could hear the coach say, “Let this be an example to you of what not to do.  Okay, girls, let’s go!”

Oh, man. I don’t know why Amanda was so mad and exploded on her teammate, but that really stinks. I felt terrible for her.

My memories flooded back to the day Jeremy made me quit basketball…but then I remembered soon after, Lydia hugged me even though she had no idea what was going on. Then another memory came in mind: during rehearsals of Romeo and Juliet, I held Lydia even though I had no idea why she was upset. Both times, it felt like a huge comfort that my best friend was there and that I was able to comfort her.

Well, I’m Amanda’s friend, aren’t I? And I know what happened to her. I should go find her. I got up and quickly gathered my books.

I got down off the bleachers and out the gym door.  I hurried down the hall to the lockers. I saw Amanda slam her hand against her locker.

She leaned her head against the locker and the tears started coming. She couldn’t stop them.

Almost on instinct, I ran toward her.  I stopped right beside her.

“Hey,” I whispered beside her. She slowly turned around to see me.

I put my arms around her, holding her tight. She slowly reached up her arms behind my back, holding onto me, while she sobbed.

We held each other for a long time. I was sure people were looking at us in the hallway, but I didn’t care.

That moment changed me.  For the past few months, ever since the Homecoming dance, I had been struggling with physical affection.  I felt my body stiffen whenever anyone would touch me.  I don’t know if it had to do with what I thought it implied, or with the fact that I just didn’t like to be touched.  But in that moment, I realized, if I cared about someone, I would give them the physical affection they needed.  It was as if I had put up a wall against being touched for so long and at this moment, the wall finally fell and was gone.  It fell because I cared about Amanda.  

She started calming down and breathing normally. I still held her as I told her, “It’s going to be okay,” I whispered to her.

She let go and looked at me. “You’re really great, Chris. Thank you.” She put her arms around me again, and then she let go and looked at me.

“Let’s forget about it tonight when we go ice-skating,” I told her.

She nodded and started to wipe her tears away with her sleeve. “Jeremy came to me. Right before I came to the gym. He chewed me out and told me I shouldn’t be going out with a loser like you.  I wanted to chew him out but I had to go to practice.  I couldn’t calm down and the coach cut me.”

I put my arm around her shoulder and she put her arm around mine. “I know how you feel. Jeremy ruined my place on the basketball team.”

“What? I’d never heard of this before. Tell me about it.”

I’d never told anyone the complete details of what happened, even Lydia. I finally let it all out for her to hear. Afterward, she was finally calmed down enough to enter her combination correctly. I suggested that we work on our homework while we wait for practice to be over. She managed to smile and said that was okay. We got our books and went to the school library.

Her work was way harder than mine. But she reminded me of how hard she thought freshman classes were when she took them two years ago. We tried to keep each other on track so we could finish before our fun tonight.

When we were close to finishing our homework, Amanda suddenly looked up. “Chris, there’s something I don’t get. You don’t seem like the type that wanted to play basketball in the first place.”

I sighed. “Well, you’re right. My parents put me up to it. But I thought I was supposed to be a good kid and be okay with it.  So I worked hard at it anyway, and I got to be pretty good, until Jeremy…”

I looked away and then turned back to her. “What about you? Did you sign up because you wanted to?”

 “Actually,” she admitted. “When I was a little girl, I didn’t want to play basketball. I wanted to take dance classes. But my dad signed me up. He, uh, it always seemed like he wanted me to be interested in boy things because I think he wanted me to be a boy…”

“Oh…” was all that I could think to say.

“So I did it because I wanted to make my dad proud. The most screwed-up part of it is, my dad’s not even in the picture anymore and I was still playing basketball until today. In a weird way, it gave me stability, even though I secretly hated it. After every game, I kept hoping that one day, he would eventually emerge and tell me he loved me and how proud he was of me…but that never happened.”

I put my hand on her arm. She smiled and turned to me. “So what happened after you quit the team…”

I recounted to her about how I started doing plays and all that, going to the incident with the rumor about Lydia and me the following year, which got to the principal. “…we were suspended from school and immediately afterward, our parents made us stay away from each other. It used to be the worst time of my life.”

“Used to be?” Then she looked at me like a light went on in her eyes, “until…Lydia and Jeremy…”

I slowly nodded.

We sat in silence for a few seconds.

“Wait, if your parents made you two stay away from each other, how did you two get to be friends again?”

“Well –”

Suddenly Katie came up to us. “Listen, I’m so sorry about what happened. I tried talking to the coach, but she just wouldn’t listen. I tried Amanda, I really did.”

“No, it’s okay,” Amanda said and smiled. “Chris was here for me.”

“Wow. Well, that’s awesome, Chris, that you were there for her.”  We smiled at each other, a genuine smile. Not forced at all. Man, it felt awesome.

“So are we still on for ice-skating tonight?” I asked.

Katie looked surprised and delighted. “Well, yeah, if you still want to.”

“Anything to get my mind off what happened today,” Amanda said, and turned to me.  For the first time in my life, I really did want to be with Amanda.