I'm back to school on Monday as promised. But, of course, something happened over the weekend. And I'm like, Girl? Can you ever get a break?
It's Saturday and I'm casually sitting at home with Nikki the Gremlin and my dad, Larry, when my phone rings upstairs from my room. Larry and Nikki both stare confused at me like, "We know you have no friends, so who's calling?"
I shrug and go up to answer it. I look at the caller ID, and my belly immediately clenches.
"Uh... Hello?" I almost whisper, my phone anxiety kicking in.
"Hi, you. When were you going to call me?"
"Uh..." I say looking for a witty answer, my skin suddenly becoming itchy.
"I dunno," I settle for, and I can almost hear her rolling her eyes at me over the phone.
"Ah sí, se te olvidó, ¿verdad?"
"¿Olvidó?" I repeat to myself trying to remember what the hell that word means.
"Hmm," she says dryly. "Happy my birthday."
"Oh shit! Happy birthday, mom! I totally forgot!" I blurt out immediately feeling guilty and mentally slapping myself for admitting it.
She sighs deeply. "Figured," she mutters and we both go silent.
She's prolly wondering what kind of crappy ahh dollar store model of a kid God gave her, my subconscious sneakily spits at me from her lounge in my brain, tilting her ancient crone ahh glasses at me all skeptical.
I notice a lot of background noise so I decided to comment on that to ease the awkwardness.
"Hey, where are you?"
"Airport. I'm flying to Madrid today. I thought you knew."
"Wait, where are you? And no, I wasn't told?"
Her tone gets tight. "I'm in L.A. now, at the LAX. Your dad didn't tell you I was in the state?"
I sense tension rising so I quickly improv. " Uh... He probably did. I forget things a lot."
" Hmm?"
" Hmm," I say as convincing as possible in the brightest tone I can muster.
"They're boarding now. Gotta go."
I scramble around for something to say but there is none. "Uh," I settle for. "Bye, I guess."
"Mm. Bye," she says and hangs up on me the very next second. I drop my hand from my ear, and sigh.
My scalp is tingling and my pits are sweaty and my heart feels like I'd run a thousand yards.
After standing in the middle of my room for God knows how long, I finally wake up and walk out to meet the others downstairs.
Larry looks up from his phone. " Who was it?"
" My mom. It's her birthday."
"Oh?"
I can see him pull down the notification panel to check the date.
"Oh."
"Did you forget about it?" Nikki asks tilting her head to the side and doing that thing with her lips where she shows only her lower teeth.
I nod slightly but back it up with a casual shrug. "Oh well, so back to the book we were telling Larry about."
I'm just not in the mood to talk about this now.
And then I just walk away into my bedroom, lock the door, and stare at the wall like it had personally offended me. My hands are shaking like crazy and my head feels like I just took a hit. I'm not even sure how but I'm waking up a second later at 5.50-ish on the floor.
I groan and rub my eyes and drag myself downstairs to get myself an o.j.
Come Monday and Larry drops me off at school. Just before I step out of the car, he says, "You 'kay?"
"Uh..." I say awkwardly as I reach for the door handle. "Guesso."
"You're not sick?"
"No..."
"Call if you are," he says with an air of finality. I remain in that position for a second, shake my head, and get out of the car. I'm not really feeling the almost-summer energy today. It's almost the start of May in a couple days or so, but the July heat seems to have wanted to come visit a little too early this year. A wave of sadness crashes over me as I think of global warming and all that shit our Environmental Sciences teachers preach to us oh-so religiously about.
I drag my feet through the school hallway with my backpack slung loosely and lazily over my shoulder. When I get to my locker, Nikki is there chatting animatedly with a couple other girls but I don't look at them.
"Oh, hey you!" Nikki giggles putting her arm around me and pulling me to herself. "You good, baby?"
"Yeah," I mutter and shrug her off.
"Um... that's... good. Uh, meet Hermione she's Anna's older sister," she says oh-too brightly.
I turn my head and I'm given a huge shock. I feel my face pale and turn blood red in less than a second. Waving at me cheerfully is the red-haired goddess herself in a plain white long-sleeved button-down half tucked into her black pencil skirt. Beside her is her equally gorgeous sister who shares the same charming green eyes that disappear when they smile.
GOD, WHY IS THIS FAMILY SO HOT?!
"Hey," Hermione greets and holds out her hand to me.
I take it feeling very flustered. This is all too much for a Monday morning.
"How are you?" Anna-Kat says in her soft ASMR voice. I almost literally melt.
"I-I'm good. Thanks." I cringe at my voice cracking.
"Nikki said you weren't feeling very well last week. You're better now?"
Honestly, I don't even register this question until late at night that day. I'm too busy mentally screaming at my last two living braincells to not give way while my subconscious runs around in circles screaming gibberish. I mentally side-eye her like, Girl, you're meant to be the sane one and you're acting like this !?
I just nod at Anna and throw a side glance at Nikki who has a goofy little proud little annoying little smug little grin plastered on her face that I so want to smack off with a sledge hammer.
"Hey," Hermione suddenly quips. "Would you and Nikki like to come with us after school to maybe grab a coffee?"
"Nah," Nikki says (like anybody asked). "She doesn't really like coffee. But she would love if you got her a mochi or ramen."
"Oh. That's great. I--"
The first bell cuts Anna-Kat mid sentence.
"Shit!" she mutters, much to my surprise.
Ugh! I scold my brain. Of course she swears. She is a freaking person. Duh!
"We have to go," Anna hurries. "We'll meet together later?"
"Uh.."
"Sure! See you guys! C'mon, Anya. We'll be late!" Nikki rambles, physically dragging me along with her, obviously not realizing I don't have any of my Economics books with me.