38. My Girl
MY GIRL
Puppet [Thousand Foot Krutch]
The rest of the week was quiet for Sarah Jane.
Whenever I noticed her in the hall, she glared, yet didn’t go out of her way to shove my shoulder or spit rude and insensitive remarks.
The picture of me faded. Fewer and fewer people spoke about it as time went on.
I felt better pushing it aside. The thought of me out there still made me sick, but I’m moving forward.
I don’t want to dwell on the past, especially this.
I have more important things to deal with: my home life and meeting Conner’s parents for the first time.
I sit in the classroom with Conner, Aaron, Finch, and Troy. We play Dungeons & Dragons. I compromise, naming my Paladin Class Guinevere because I can’t think of another name. Besides, I like that there’s a hidden meaning and an inside joke between Conner and me over that name.
I survived the quest but lost an arm when I opened a chest rigged with bombs.
It was a gamble, and I took it. However, the thought of winning the quest made up for my countless errors this time.
Conner barked a laugh whenever I rolled low, and so whenever he rolled low, we laughed at Conner until he turned a bashful red.
I’ve noticed from this small interaction that he has many flaws, yet I adore them.
Conner is competitive and a sore loser. He pouts, complains, mutters, and swears under his breath whenever Troy or Finch rolls a higher move.
Yet, no one seemed to care, for we all found it funny how invested he gets in the game.
When it was my move, and I rolled high, I blushed when his arm went around my shoulders.
As much as he was a sore loser, he was also encouraging, and I felt more confident the more I played.
I stood while rolling the dice. My Guinevere had an accent I didn’t realise until Finch said something.
At first, I felt embarrassed, but then I heard them talking and realised they were not laughing at me.
They were admiring how much I was getting into the game.
I wanted to keep playing, exhilarated and excited by the atmosphere, but the bell rang, signalling an end.
“We should go over to your place on the weekend, like old times, and all play D & D together,” Troy says, brimming.
“We definitely should,” Conner agrees. His arm wraps around my waist, and he says, “Noya and I are moving in soon. We will plan something then.”
“Conner,” I murmur, feeling the heat spread across my cheeks.
“Wow,” Aaron says, stretching out the word. “That was fast.”
“Is it at the apartment your parents gave you?” Finch questions.
“Yeah. There are two bedrooms. We will be roommates for a time,” he explains.
Suddenly, the fear simmers after he says that.
I contemplated sleeping arrangements all week, wondering how it would work.
I’ve slept in the same bed as Conner once, but I was asleep, and he was awake.
I also, out of habit, sleep with music on.
There are many habits I have before sleeping that Conner may not like.
I’m glad he mentioned that. Now we can ease into sleeping in the same bed.
“Ah, sweet. When that happens, set a date, and we can play a longer game of Dungeons and Dragons,” Troy says.
“Yeah, man,” Conner agrees.
“Two rooms?” I question when we leave the classroom.
“Hmm,” Conner agrees. “There are two rooms in the apartment. Did I not say that before?”
“I know your games,” I huff.
He leans in, and his smile broadens. “Am I that obvious?”
“Very,” I agree.
He chuckles.
We head down the stairs when Andy walks up. They eye each other, and Conner’s hand touches my back gently. Andy looks between the two of us, sneers, but keeps walking.
I want to ask him what has happened between them, but I hesitate.
There are things I don’t want to tell Conner.
There will be things he doesn’t want to say to me.
Maybe his and Andy’s friendship in primary school is what he wants to leave in his past. I know everything within that house will be in the past when I move out with him.
I don’t want Conner to know about the broken home I’ve been in, nor the markings across my skin.
I was friends with Andy throughout primary school as well. But now that I think about it, I was too absorbed in therapy. Everything at home and primary school was such a blur that I can’t remember anything besides Mrs Jones’s therapy.
Samantha, Renee, Zarya, and I walk around the oval at the end of the day.
Renee shows us the bracelet her mum gave her from a famous jewellery chain called Pandora.
She shows me the shiny pink teddy bear and tells us the story of how she has had the same stuffed teddy bear since birth, so the figure on her bracelet holds a lot of sentimental value.
“What are you going to get next?” Samantha asks.
“The infinity symbol for Julien and me,” Renee declares.
I lower my gaze, knowing all the disturbing things Julien has said about the picture of me. Samantha tells her about it, but Renee brushes it off, claiming, boys will be boys. It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, but if they’re happy, why should I project and harm their relationship?
“You’re meeting Conner’s parents after school, aren’t you?” Zarya asks me.
“Uh… yeah.”
“Are you nervous?” Renee asks. “I remember meeting Julien’s parents for the first time.
I hid in his room the entire time. Whenever I wanted a drink, I made him get it while I stayed there.
If I needed to go to the toilet, I made him come with me and stand outside their door.
” She laughs. “Funnily enough, there wasn’t a lock on the door because of Julien’s baby brother, so him standing there helped a lot, or else a toddler would have walked in on me peeing. ”
“Oh, my gosh!” Samantha barks.
I smile, listening to all their horror stories.
Conner has a younger brother and a sister.
Will there be no locks on their bathroom doors?
What if I really need to go to the toilet?
Do I hold it in and hope for the best? The thought of pooping in their toilet makes my organs turn to jelly.
I shouldn’t eat at their place if I need to go.
Then, what if they have one bathroom, and they’re waiting for me to leave, and then there’s no air freshener, so the next person who comes in would know I used their bathroom?
On second thought, I should cancel. I obviously didn’t think this through, and now everything Renee and Zarya are saying is drilling into my head. What if I make a fool of myself? Say something insensitive or don’t shake Conner’s dad’s hand properly, thus sending me into exile.
Samantha taps my shoulder. I jump out of my dark and brooding thoughts and turn to her smiling face. “You will be fine,” she says.
I smile, feeling less on edge because of her.
Conner waits by his car. I sit inside, put my bag on the ground, and clutch my phone. We pull out of the car park, and my heart is beating loudly… much louder than “Puppet” by Thousand Foot Krutch playing on his playlist.
“Oh, Noya, can you make sure you have December thirteenth off, please?” Conner says over the song.
“Why?”
Conner leans forward, turning the song down a notch. “I’ve planned a date for us.”
“What date?” I persist.
He smiles mysteriously. “Now, baby, why would I tell you that? You will have to wait.”
I glare at him, which he notices while looking out the window, because his smile broadens into a grin.
“Okay, I will give you a hint. You need to pack a suitcase.”
“Oh… suitcase…” I grimace.
We will go somewhere, but where? It will be overnight if he wants me to pack a suitcase. I’m not particularly good at figuring these sorts of things out, and the clue isn’t a very good one about what we are doing. I now know that whatever we’re doing will involve staying overnight somewhere.
Now I’m nervous.
His hand touches my thigh. He squeezes reassuringly and says, “Is that keeping your mind off meeting my parents now?”
“Sorry?”
“You were in thought almost all day,” Conner explains. “There was one moment when we were playing Dungeons and Dragons, but other than that, you were in your head.”
“Oh…” I bite my lip and then admit, “I’m scared to meet them and do something embarrassing.”
“Don’t worry about it. My mum and dad will be too busy with Charlotte. You will see them briefly, and we can go to my room and chill.”
“Then it would look like I’m hiding from them,” I murmur.
Conner breathes a laugh and says, “We will hide from them because we will be kissing the entire time.”
I nudge his arm, the heat crawling down my neck. “I’m not going in the room, then.”
My phone vibrates. I flip it over, and my mouth goes dry.
Andy: Can I call you tonight? We really need to talk.
Conner’s hand tightens reassuringly on my thigh when I set the phone down and sigh.
I knew this was coming. I prepared for it to come sooner after I rejected the first message.
Perhaps this is his way of giving me time, but I don’t think I’ll ever believe that what he did wasn’t wrong.
The thought of his hands on me… his lips—
I shake my head and lean back, feeling the cool air-con brushing against my heated face.
What should I do?
Sighing, I respond to Andy before he blows up my phone.
Me: I’ll send you a message when I am available tonight.
What he has done… what he said… I need to talk to him about it.
I cannot prolong this any longer. He needs to understand that his actions were wrong and his words were untrue and harsh.
Does he think I don’t want to leave home?
Does he believe I had a way to leave without Dad finding me?
Even now, as I plan to live with Conner, I see my dad trying to find me, which frightens me.
“If he says anything you don’t like, hang up, baby,” Conner murmurs.
I place my hand over his and slip my fingers through the cracks. “It hurts losing a friend, especially a childhood friend.”
“I know.”
I bite my lip and keep my gaze on the car ahead of us. They keep breaking prematurely, almost as if it’s deliberate. But Conner’s car has an advanced feature that beeps and slows down instantly whenever the vehicle stops.
“Um, were you and Andy friends in primary school?” I ask.
I regret my question when his hazel eyes narrow. I went back on my word, and now I feel like a hypocrite. This must be a touchy subject.
“We were,” he agrees. “But I stopped after he kept beating up kids who wanted to talk to his friend in the year below him.” His hazel eyes flicker to me and then away. “He beat up a lot of kids, thinking he was defending her. I didn’t like it, so I stopped hanging out with him.”
“Oh… I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, Noya. Andy is a violent person. You didn’t ask him to beat them up. He made his own decisions. There are repercussions to those decisions.”
“Um… Julien told me you pinned Andy against the wall behind the Post Office the other day.”
Conner smirks. “Ah, yeah. I got a little angry at his denial.”
I grimace.
“I know you don’t like violence. I’m sorry you had to hear that I couldn’t control my temper.”
“Thank you.”
He breathes a laugh.
“Although violence and self-defence are two completely different things. If someone tries to hurt you, I don’t expect you to stand there and take it.”
“And if someone tries something on you, I don’t expect myself to stand there and see it,” he adds.
I frown.
“No one touches my girl.”
“Conner,” I chastise, but my hand doesn’t let go of his, and I feel the blush creep to my face. “Thank you.”