Chapter 11 Heaven
Heaven
“Who wants to do what now?”
I’d laugh at the look of confusion on my dad’s face if I wasn’t still a bit stressed out.
I swallow and lean into the edge of the island.
Fergie’s by my feet begging for pets, but I can’t multitask right now.
I thought I’d have more time to get my thoughts together before I had to tell my parents about the change in plans.
But when I got back from dropping Saylor off, Dad pulled in right behind me and my mom was already home from her lunch date with her friends.
I had to tell them something sooner than later.
“Saylor and I are gonna do the bingo challenge together,” I say.
“What’s changed since this morning?” Mom asks.
Everything! “I remembered what you said about being nice, and I felt bad because of her arm. She broke it,” I clarify for Dad. “So yeah. I remembered what Mom said about being nice and I figured it wouldn’t be so bad if she tagged along for bingo.”
“That’s very kind of you, princess,” Mom says with a smile, and now I kinda feel bad because she doesn’t know that Saylor literally had to bribe me.
“Do I know this Saylor girl?” Dad asks.
“Um, she’s Jake’s girlfriend’s best friend. We took the winter formal pictures in front of her house,” I say.
“Oh! Was the mom the really intense white woman?”
“That’s her,” Mom and I say at the same time.
“Okay. Well, if you want this to go from solo bingo to buddy bingo, I think that’s a great idea.”
“Saylor’s pretty excited,” I say. “I showed her the board and she wanted in. She thought she was gonna have to spend the whole summer alone on their couch.”
A smug smile spreads out over Dad’s face before he winks at Mom. “You hear that, Mo-Mo? That bingo board is so good, her friends want in on the festivities. I think I might be a genius.”
“You’re very smart, honey. You should be proud,” Mom replies. This is how my parents flirt.
“Gross. So it’s okay if she joins in?”
“Sure. I’ll hit up her parents about the details, but think that’s fine.”
Mom agrees with a smile and a nod. I think she’s really impressed that I agreed to hang out with someone who isn’t Jake or Axel without her having to give me a nudge.
“Okay, cool. Well, I’ll message her and get her mom’s info.”
“I have it, honey,” Mom says.
“Good. Great. Excellent,” I reply. “I’ll be in my room perfecting my own genius.”
“Cool.” Dad gives me a thumbs-up and I head upstairs, convinced this is all going to fall apart.
I’m gonna slip up and my parents are gonna know that I’m getting something major out of this arrangement with Saylor.
Or worse, I’ll slip up and Saylor will find out I actually had a good time hanging out with her today.
· · ·
The next morning, the panic has eased a little, helped with a night of intense sketching.
I can’t use any of it for Miss Kelly’s assignment, but now I have half the season one cast of Call the Midwife sketched in sad-clown makeup.
After a weird night’s sleep, I wolf down a big breakfast then Dad and I head out to meet up with Jake, his dad, Esther, Axel, and his dad, Mr. Diaz.
It’s actually a perfect day out. The sun is high.
It’s hot, but there’s a breeze. The park is packed, but as soon as we step onto the concrete, you can tell the vibes are good.
Kids on scooters, older ladies on roller skates.
Not a douchey skate bro in sight. The dads have to do their weekly gossiping, so we let my dad get his weekly blessing of the skate out of the way.
We bring our boards together and bow our heads.
“To the god of sick skating grooves, bless each and every shred. Keep the rain clouds away and keep each and every one of us out of the ER. Let’s skate!
” We break, and I drop my board and kick push my way over to the wave ramp.
Axel is right behind me. My mood lifts a little, but about a half hour later, I feel weird again.
That’s the only way I can describe it. I keep thinking of this strange bargain I struck with Saylor, and why she came to me.
I keep thinking about the angry scratch on her face that brings out the hazel in her eyes.
I keep thinking about those really short shorts, and her lips on my cheek.
I keep thinking about the fact that she’s actually gay, and while it shouldn’t mean anything when it comes to me because it’s her own gay business, it feels like it means something, like I’m suddenly allowed to think of her in a certain way, when I’ve never wanted to think about her at all before.
Like I have a chance, which I don’t. I don’t want a chance with Saylor Ford.
People are gay in proximity to each other all the time and nothing happens between them.
I don’t like thinking this much about anything.
I don’t need this kind of stress in my life.
I hop out of the short line for the half-pipe and skate over to one of the empty benches in the shade.
I flop down and ignore the way my dad is looking at me from across the park.
He’s standing there on his roller skates talking to Mr. Diaz, who’s twirling his own board on the tip of his Converse.
I have maybe five minutes before Dad skates over to see if I’m okay.
Jake’s little sister gives me a whole five seconds.
Esther skates right over, her bright green hair blowing in the wind before she skids to stop and drops down beside me. I move a little to give her some room.
“Whatcha doing?” Esther huffs.
“Nothing. Just thinking deep thoughts.” This twelve-year-old doesn’t need to know about my turbulent emotional state.
She fixes a deep scowl on her face and leans back. “I’ll join you. I have so many deep thoughts.” Not many people make me laugh, but she does. Esther is such a little pain in the ass. I love her.
“Yeah, what are your middle school deep thoughts?” I ask her.
“Mostly, am I ever gonna need a bra?” She looks down at her flat chest.
“Yeah, I can’t really help you there.” My barely B cups betray me every day.
“You wanna see my new favorite thing?” she asks.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Gimme your phone.”
“No, but you can tell me where to go.” I pull my phone out of my pocket and unlock my screen.
“Okay, go to Instagram and search for the Cincinnati Zoo. They have a new baby hippo and it’s cute as heck.”
I bite my lip and try not to laugh. Esther got in trouble like four times this year for swearing.
I open IG and try not to think about how I never have any notifications.
How I can’t even bring myself to post anything interesting for my whole twenty followers.
I search for the zoo and find the last video they posted.
I hold my phone so Esther can see it too.
A cute as heck baby hippo bobs up and down under the water.
“Okay, that is cute,” I tell her.
“They post him like four times a day. I can’t get enough. I wish my parents would get me a baby hippo.”
“Yeah, I think they grow up into adult hippos.” I scroll to the next video where the zookeepers are introducing the cute “little” baby to its gigantic hippo father through a fence.
Dad hippo looks like he could take out an SUV with ease.
I tilt the phone back toward Esther. “Imagine that guy sitting on your couch.”
“I still wanna pet one.”
I look up as Jake skates over. He wipes the sweat off his forehead and nods at his sister.
“Hey, E. Scram.”
“You scram,” Esther growls back, and I have to laugh a little.
“For real. I gotta talk to Heaven for a sec. I’m gonna be gushing about how much I love Bethany.”
“Eww, gross.” Esther hops up and skates back to the other side of the park. I shove my phone back in my pocket and look out over the parking lot.
“Bethany send you some love letters from culinary school?” I ask, trying not to sound too grossed out myself. They really are a sweet couple, but I am totally not in the mood to think about relationships or love or even low-grade crushes that I don’t understand.
“We aren’t writing each other letters, but maybe we should. You aight? You’ve been kind of out of it since we got here.”
I think for a second, wanting to tell Jake the truth.
But something changed yesterday. I’m not sure what it is, and at the same time, I know I’m lying to myself because I don’t want to face the truth.
I don’t like like Saylor. I’d say we’re more business partners or at least partners in lies at this point, but I really cannot stop thinking about her and I don’t know what that means.
“Oh nothing. I—I uh ran into Saylor yesterday and…” I shake myself like my body needs to reconnect with this current reality. “We’re going to do my summer bingo thing together, since she broke her arm.”
“Oh yeah. Your dad was just bragging about his genius.”
“Of course he was.”
“You regretting it already?” Jake asks, chuckling a little.
“Regretting what?”
“Agreeing to hang out with Saylor. I know you don’t really like her.”
“When did I say I didn’t like her? I mean, I wasn’t psyched about us forming Voltron with Bethany and her whole clique at first, but I never said I didn’t like them.”
“I guess that’s true. Maybe it’s you don’t seem like you want to be around them. You seem to like Saylor the least. That’s how it looked from my perspective, anyway.”
“Oh.” I think about what Saylor said about me not liking her. I think about how I tried not to really think about Saylor before and now…“I hung out with her a bit yesterday. It was okay. She’s got a lot of…energy.”
Jake laughs for real this time. “She and Bethany have that in common. You just kinda gotta let them do the talking for you and it works out fine.”
“That sounds terrible.” I cringe before smiling back at Jake. He is really in love. Super gross. “Nah, I don’t mind talking to her. I guess I just wasn’t expecting things to go this way.”
“With help, you’ll get the bingo done a lot faster, right?”
“I guess that’s true,” I say, and then I immediately realize that’s not what I want.
Or maybe it is. I do not have a crush on Saylor, but there’s something there that I don’t understand.
Maybe I do want to hang out with her. Maybe I liked being around her yesterday and I want to be around her some more.
Or maybe I just really wanted to get started on my online portfolio and she’s my only hope to build a platform.
I really hate thinking about this stuff.
I let out a shaky breath and I stand up, kicking my board up into my open hand. “We got some skating to do.”
Jake stands and twirls his own board around. “For real. She’s not bad. She’s actually really nice once you get to know her. And maybe it won’t kill you to be friends with one girl,” he teases.
“I’ll one girl you.”
Jake snorts before he skates off. I drop my board and take off right behind him, trying to ditch all unnecessary thoughts about Saylor Ford.