Chapter Three

Adam poses an important question... You'll NEVER guess. Lies. You knew it was coming.

He’s looking at me. I can’t quite put my finger on how, but it’s not like how boys normally look at me. I’m not invisible. He’s not trying to see Shannon who’s still freaking out behind me. He’s looking into my eyes. It’s not with love. Love is for children and I’ve never even talked to the guy. Sorry, romance novel lovers. My life story isn’t the tale you’re looking for.

                Adam laughs at Shannon’s hysteric reaction to a question he hasn’t even finished asking yet. “I’d be better if you went to Homecoming with me.”

                You know those blood curdling screams that made Jamie Lee Curtis famous? Right now, in this moment, Shannon could really give that woman a run for her money. “Yes! Of course she’ll go with you!” Shannon’s chin is on my shoulder, the two of us practically appearing as Siamese twins to anyone looking at us. In this case: Adam.

                I narrow my eyes and crane my neck to scold her quietly. “I can speak for myself, Shan.”

                “Well, you weren’t saying anything.”

                I roll my eyes before smiling and returning my head to a forward position. “I would love to go, but I don’t know if-”

                “No buts,” he interjects, catching me completely by surprise. He’s always appeared to be the gentlemanly type. The boy always says please, thank you, yes sir, no thank you ma’am. But he just cut me off while I was talking and is refusing to take no for an answer.

                “Okay… No buts.” I’m a shy girl. Somehow, I’m carrying on a conversation with this older guy. He’s drawing the words right out of me. Adam seemed ready for me to provide any and every excuse, so he just shut it down right away. And now here I sit, trapped into going to a dance that, just thirty seconds ago, I was refusing to go to.  

                “Great. I’ll pick you up at six,” he offers one last smile before he ascends back up into the senior section.

                Shannon is talking, I can see her mouth moving and the way her hands are moving around sporadically makes it pretty clear that she’s excited. What is she saying? I don’t have a clue. I can’t hear anything. The gym is louder than ever as the annual staff dodgeball game gets announced, but I’m deafened by the shock.

                It’s as if the red rubber balls are flying through the air in slow motion, the English department facing off against the Math department in the first round. Everyone else is really invested. They’re cheering, I think. I don’t know. I don’t care.

                I’m the girl that doesn’t go to dances. And I sure as hell don’t get asked to dances. Today is a weird day. I’m being pressured into auditioning for a musical even though no one has ever heard me sing. The guy that embarrassed me in history class just invited me to the homecoming dance. And now, I’m watching men and women of all ages �" all adults �" play a physical education past time.

                Just as Mrs. Riggs gets clipped by a red ball, I feel the back of a skinny, bony hand hitting my arm. “Oh my God! What are you going to wear? You two didn’t discuss it? I mean do you go in semi-formal? Do you go in theme? Do y-”

                “Shannon, I don’t know!” No one expects the quiet girl to scream in the middle of an already rambunctious crowd. I certainly don’t expect my timid little voice to carry as well as it just did. It’s not as dramatic as the movies would show it. I don’t have an entire gymnasium full of people staring at me, thank God, but there are a decent number of eyes gawking in my direction.

                “Nice spine!” Shannon chirps as if me yelling at her was the greatest thing to ever happen in her life. “You got a homecoming date and you yelled all in one day. It’s like Christmas!”

                I can’t help but laugh as I shake my head. My best friend gets excited over the strangest things. It’s no wonder she puts up with me and my anti-social, borderline depressed bullshit.

                And then it hits me. She’s always there for me and I just abandoned her the second some cute stranger came knocking in the form of a high school suitor. “Wait, if I go with Adam who are you going with?”

                “Aww, you’re worried about me?” Shannon’s eyes are gleaming but her tone at the end of her question makes me think she has something planned that I don’t know about. “You shouldn’t be, baby. Watch this.” She whips her head around, my face b***h slapped by brunette locks. Her manicured fingernail is jabbing a boy in the shoulder in the row in front of us. He turns around, seemingly unprepared for whatever Shannon is about to do. “You, me, Homecoming. Pick me up at seven. No dinner. No tongue.” The boy just stares at her, unable to speak or move. Shannon shrugs as she twirls her finger. “You can turn back around now.” He does as instructed, and Shannon looks at me with the smuggest expression I’ve ever seen.

                “What the hell was that?”

                “That, my dear Candy Corn, is how girls are going to get dates in the twenty-first century. Mark my words!”

                “Do you even know him?”

                She rolls her eyes, collapsing against my body as her head falls onto my shoulder. “That’s Damien from our English class freshman year. Which you would know if you ever paid any attention.”

                “Sorry?” It’s the most insincere of apologies and frankly, I’m not sorry. Zoning out and letting my mind wander into dreamland where Candice Cornell isn’t the invisible girl is the only way I’ve survived school thus far. Can’t turn my back on confident Candice now.

                 Confident Candice… Why can’t I be the version of myself that exists in my head? The superstar. The legend. I’m not delusional, everything that she’s accomplished are things that I hope to do one day. The difference: she’s the ‘go get em’’ type and I’m the ‘one day’ procrastinator who’s going to end up filing papers in a dentist’s office for the rest of my life.

                There’s a whistle, and Miss Wayans raises her hand as the sole person left on the court. “Your winners of round one of the 1999 Annual Staff Dodgeball Tournament �" The English Department!” All of the English teachers, some not in the best shape (hence the reason they were eliminated), all flock to form a huddle around Miss Wayans, her long blonde hair disappearing in the crowd of people. The girl is the varsity softball coach, what’d they expect?

                “Candy, that could be you!” Shannon finally shouts after several minutes of silence between us.

                “How do you figure? I don’t play softball. I don’t play dodgeball. And I almost failed our English exam last year.”

                She c***s her fist back and I grab it immediately, reminding her of our agreement. “No punching!”

                She laughs, my hand freeing her fist once I can sense the tension in her arm dissipating. “What I meant was, you could be the star. Don’t you want to be surrounded by a sea of adoring people?”

                “I hate people, remember?”

                “You hate high school people. I’m talking Donatella, Oprah, Jerry Springer. You’d have an A-List fan club!”

                In what world, woman? “Yeah, and I’d marry Shaq and have million dollar babies.”

                “Don’t be a smart-a*s. For that, I can hit you.”

                The gym starts clearing out, freshmen first. That makes us next. I look back at Adam, his friends all chattering away and he’s laughing with them. But there’s this moment, a very brief moment, where he casts a sideways glance down towards us and smiles. Then he’s right back in the conversation. I hate that my body reacts and I hate that I’m even giving it a second thought but my stomach gets overwhelmed by this tingly sensation. Not exactly butterflies, more like a very harsh realization.

                My stomach drops, seemingly into a bottomless pit, and I can feel my face flush. “Bathroom. Now!” I grab Shannon’s hand and rush down the bleachers ahead of our allotted time. I can hear someone shout about sophomores getting dismissed yet but I can’t place a name to the voice. I practically tackle the bathroom door with my shoulder and give the first stall the same treatment. I’m barely to my knees before the contents of my breakfast are filling up the toilet bowl.

                “That’s hot,” Shannon laughs out as she leans against the opening of my stall.

                “Shut…” Nope. I can’t even finish a two word sentence before the same thing is happening. Now my throat hurts, my head hurts and my eyes are streaked by tears traveling through the very thin line of eyeliner that I bothered to put on this morning.

                I must look like a disheveled mess when I stand up, worse than usual, because Shannon cringes when she finally sees my face. “What the hell happened?”

                “Nervous stomach.”

                “Why?”

                “Adam asked me to Homecoming.”

                Shannon gives her head the slightest of all nods. “And?”

                “The Homecoming dance. I’m going to have to dance. In front of people.”

                I wish I could roll my eyes halfway as decently as she does it. I never get tired of watching it. “Not in front of people. With people. Would you relax?”

                “I can’t okay? I can’t go.”

                “Get over here.” Before I have any idea what her intentions are, Shannon’s places a vice grip on my left shoulder and hauls me over to the sink. She forces my head down into the sink and turns the water on.

                “What are you do-” my words are muffled by two of her fingers slipping into my mouth. Boy’s fantasy right? Two girls in the bathroom putting their fingers to good use? Yeah. What makes it really sexy is the massive amount of soap she put on those fingers before she jammed them into my mouth. I begin gagging and spitting immediately, tilting my head to let the water into my mouth so I can swish it and spit it.

                “When I was little, my mama would wash my mouth out with soap. From now on, ‘can’t’ is a bad word. A very, very bad word. And besides, you smell like vomit.” If I wasn’t so grateful to feel the cold water on my feverish head I’d kill her.

                She shuts off the water and I pull my head out of the sink, smiling at her as she hands me a roll of paper towels she somehow got out of the contraption that holds them. I rip of twelve inches of the rough, sandpaper like material and dab my mouth and my eyes before ripping off another and feeding it through wet strands of hair.

                “Feel any better?” It’s always nice when I can actually hear concern in her voice. It’s a nice reminder that despite all of her tough love crap, she really does care. Sometimes I forget and just think she’s a b***h.

                “A lot better.” 

                “Good. This weekend we’re going dress hunting just in case Adam decides against the theme. Doesn’t hurt to have one reserved so you’re not stuck with some ugly last minute choice.”

                “A dress? Does that mean I have to shave my legs?”

                She balls both hands into fists and grits her teeth as she mumbles something indiscernible before pushing past me and exiting the bathroom. What? I thought it was a fair question. 

Reviews

[Lalochezia]

I love Shannon, the perky faithful friend. The bathroom scene sounds a bit unnatural - practically washing one's friends entire head in the sink - but then again, it fits Shannon. Only one thing does not make sense:
Why would she ask “What the hell happened?” if she clearly heard Candy's retching?

[Mark Alexander Boehm]

She more so meant what happened to make Candice go from borderline happy to being psychically sick so quickly. I'll try and clean that part up!

[Cyndy Robinson]

You write with no noticeable errors. Very impressive. Very much like a slice of life story. Enjoying reading it.