Chapter 3: Calendar
I would have never thought that this was going to happen to me. I mean sure, I did get a hangover after the party at the twins mansion, but that was like more than three weeks ago. There was no comparing this. I was sick and my stomach hurt from all the puking, and to top it all off I was so hungry. The worst part is that I’m afraid it’ll come all out if I eat. There was nothing more inside of me; even my poor dessert was getting flushed down the toilet.
I don’t even know what’s wrong with me. I usually never get sick. Yesterday I had felt better, but apparently I’m not. Luckily I have my best friend Emma taking care of me, or trying. I also have my younger little brother Tommy who’s helping out too.
Tommy had been in a cruise with his friends celebrating his girlfriends sixteenth birthday. I had felt grateful that he’d been gone two days before the party. I had yet to tell him anything about that specific day, and I was planning not to.
“Here’s your water,” Emma said giving me a glass full of water. “I told you not to eat that much.”
“I don’t think it’s the food. I feel sick.” Her look told me that she thought it was the food, but I’ve been barfing for two days now. It couldn’t be the food.
“What does Tommy think?” She asked me opening her beautiful brown eyes at me and taking a deep breath.
“He’s clueless like always.” Then we both started laughing.
“Come on he’s not completely clueless.” She said still laughing.
Emma once had a little crush on my brother. Like almost two years ago. I think she mostly liked his body how it was so “muscular”, that’s how she put it, but my real guess was that she loved his butt. She never stopped looking at it which made me feel very uncomfortable. Tommy never knew. Emma moved on quickly.
“How’s my favorite sister doing?” Tommy entered my room, without permission like always, and like always shouting.
“Do you have to shout?”
“Sorry,” he whispered. “just checking up on you.” Well I guess that’s nice.
“I’m going to go clean the bath room.” Emma said getting off of my bed. I was going to stop her, but it seemed that Tommy wanted to say something to me.
“What’s up?”
“I got off the phone,” he said very serious thinking of every word he spoke. “with Ash and I broke up with her.” He looked at me suddenly, like he was waiting for me to say something. I was shocked. I thought he liked her.
“Why?” That was the only thing that came out of my mouth. I just didn’t understand.
“Because Gabriela, I don’t love her. I’m not staying with someone that I don’t love that would make me miserable, not to mention her too. You think I did it wrong?”
“I don’t know Tommy, did it have to be on the phone?” He looked at me quickly and nodded.
“The girl makes this puppy eyes…” He shook his head. “They’ll make you sell your soul to the devil. So yes, it had to be on the phone.”
“But you went on a cruise with her.”
“She’s to damn possessive.”
“Ok. She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Thank heaven.” He said and kissed my forehead.
“Finished,” Emma said, coming out of the bathroom with a smile. “finally I thought I was never going to finish.” She looked at Tommy and smiled. “Hey Tommy, heard about the dumping.” Em said casually as if she were talking to me. She was very comfortable as she sat beside me on the bed.
“You heard me? Dammit! I thought I was whispering.” Emma laughed.
“Tommy your whispering is shouting, but yes I heard you, and also I got a message on the phone. It was Ashley’s sister, she said that she was crying her guts out and also that she was going to murder you if she had the chance. Anyway, I thought it was all pretty funny.” Well, that was a lot to dump on him. Sometimes I think she enjoys to torture people.
“She can kill me all the times she wants, I’m not going to be with somebody because I pity them.” Tommy was right, you can’t be with somebody you don’t love. That’s just stupid.
“I agree with you.” As soon as I said this Tommy’s head jerked up.
“You do?” He said, clearly surprised.
“Yeah, I mean you can’t be with somebody if you don’t want to. It’s stupid, like you said.”
“Thanks Gabe. Although, I still feel bad. I didn’t think she’d take it like that.” I know he was being sincere here, and I wish I could help him, but I don’t know how.
“Don’t worry. I don’t think she wants to do time for you. She won’t really kill you, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”
“That’s really funny Gabe.”
That’s when Emma’s face brighten up. She had something in mind and right now she was dying to tell me. I wasn’t sure though if she would tell me with Tommy here present. “Gabe, you would never guess who called me in the bathroom.”
“Who called?” I was curious and scared. With Em you never know what’ll happen.
“Luigi!” she said half laughing, half screaming. “He wants to make it up to me for… Well you know what and he invited us to a beach party…” Wait too much information. I feel like my head will explode.
“There having another party?” One wasn’t enough for them. They have to go and make another one.
“I know what you’re thinking, and no its not there party, it’s a friend’s party. You’re sick…” I get where she’s going.
“I’m not going Em.” She started to do a puppy dog face; which got me laughing in an instant.
“It’ll be fun Gabe and you know it,” Yeah, like the last time that I had fun I ended up drunk and in bed with somebody, and didn’t even remember it.
“I’m not going.”
“Hell, I’ll go. Breaking up with your girlfriend can sure turn you down.” Sure, because you’re suffering so much right now. Jerk.
“That’s the spirit. See Gabe, he’s going, I’m going you’re the only one whose left. I’ll be with you.” Why did I pick the friend who always wants to go to the parties? It seems like a curse.
“No, that’s my final answer.”
I knew I had never won the argument about going to the beach party, but a girl could still hope. After Tommy left, Emma, persisted, trying to convince me to go. She kept asking me the same question, until I got so freaking tired I said yes. Then Emma kissed my forehead and said we would have a great time. Truth is she was the one that was going to have a good time.
“Brighten up Gabe. This is going to be fun.” Emma said, as she gathered her hair in a ponytail.
“Yeah, sure, fun.”
“Gabe did I mention you look great in that bathing suit!” Yes, she had in fact mentioned it like twenty times already. Em had bought me this bathing suit like three months ago and it was the first time I was using it. It was red with white stripes. Emma said it went perfect with my perfectly tan skin, but I thought I looked like a sailor.
“Yes.” I said. Emma had a dark blue bathing suit. It looked great on her. The blue made Em’s eyes look much brighter. I guess I know why she picked that one.
“Gabe, Emma!” Mario yelled as he came to us. He stopped just a few feet looked at us and whistled. “You guys look great.” He said in approval. Funny I thought I looked almost dead by now.
“You think?” Emma said, modeling a little bit for Mario. He gave her two thumbs up and she laughed.
“I think Luigi’s going to like it. Oh and by the way he’s looking for you.” She looked at me with pleading eyes. I knew she wanted to be with him right now, so why try to make her miserable.
“That’s your cue. I’ll be fine.” She smiled and went away.
“I’m glad you decided to come Gabe.”
“I’m glad too.”
“I wanted to talk to you. Do you mind if we walk?”
“Sure.” I just hope that it isn’t anything about the party. Actually I hope he doesn’t even know about me and Connor.
We walked for a while on the beach talking about random things like school, our plans after high school, places we wanted to visit and a couple of more things . My first impression out of Mario was wrong. I thought he’d be one of those snobby rich kids. Apparently he’s not.
“You hate me.” He said after a while.
“That’s not a question.”
“Do you then?”
“I used to. I remember that in first grade, you took my favorite Barbie and ripped her head off. I cried a lot that day.” I don’t know why I told him this. I never even told Emma.
“So you don’t hate me now.”
“No. Why should I? You haven’t killed any of my Barbie’s.”
“Will you ever forgive me?” He said jokingly.
After I forgave Mario for murdering my doll we started to head out to where the party was. I hadn’t notice how far away we had gone. We weren’t even half way when I started asking Mario some questions too. He had me laughing on most of the answers.
“Okay then, why Mario and Luigi?” He smiled at me. I knew I wasn’t the first person to ask him this question.
“My dad is a big, big fan of the game, and he convinced my mom to name us that. My sisters, they got lucky; my mom was the one who picked up their name. I don’t mind my name,” he said with a smile. “Luigi’s the one who usually gets pissed off.”
The rest of the way went pretty quiet. Mario occasionally asked me a question after I’d answer, it would get all quiet and awkward. Before we got back to the party Mario stopped walking. Maybe he was tired of all the walking we did.
“Are you tired?”
“No. I just wanted to give you this,” he said and started looking in his pocket. “I hope you like it.” He extended his arm and right there in his palm was a heart silver bracelet. It was beautiful.
“No Mario. I can’t accept this.” He simply ignored me and placed the bracelet in my left foot.
“Don’t be a pain. I already bought it. Besides, it looks good on you. Consider this as your birthday present.”
I kept insisting on giving it back to him, but he kept saying no. I do have to admit that once I had it on for ten minutes I didn’t feel like really giving it back.
When I got back to the party the first person I saw was Emma. She seemed happy enough with Mario’s brother. Emma quickly noticed my ankle bracelet and smiled. After a few minutes she grabbed my arm and dragged me to a couple of chairs.
“Is he your boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Then why did he give you this?” She pointed her finger at my bracelet.
“Umm… birthday present.”
“Sure.” She said.
I couldn’t pay attention to her anymore. My eyes were focused on only one person. Connor, worst part was he was heading this way. I tried to look at something else, focus on something, anybody. I failed at every miserable attempt of distracting myself. I could only see Connor. I was hopeless. He smiled at me and of course I couldn’t help but smile back. Connor was coming to talk to me; either that or he just wanted to ask for his boxers back.
“Excuse me…”
“Emma.” I said trying to help him out a bit.
“Emma,” he said. “I need to speak to Gabriela.” Em was completely lost. Her face said it all.
“Sure. I’ll catch up with you later.” And with that Em was gone. She was probably heading for a drink.
“Hey.” I said shyly.
“Hey,” Connor said as he sat beside me. He took a deep breath and started staring at me. I suddenly felt self-conscious. “You left.” He said looking at the sand now.
“I didn’t now you wanted me there before you’d wake up.”
“Well I did. Didn’t you?” That question was obvious yes, yes, yes.
“Yeah, I guess.” That answer made him look at me.
“You guess?”
“I mean I did, but I got really freaked out… I didn’t remember we had sex Connor,” I said really low so only he could hear. “and I thought that we’ll if I didn’t remember you wouldn’t.”
“So you don’t remember anything?” I nodded. I wish I could remember. “I told you not to drink so much.” He smiled, probably at the memory of me drunk that night.
“I should have listened.”
“Yeah, and I should have stopped you.”
“It’s too late now.” I said and he smiled in apology.
“Well do you regret it?”
“The only thing I regret is not remembering.”
“Good. I got a little worried when I woke up and couldn’t find you. Also were my boxers comfortable?” I couldn’t help laughing at that one. I still had his boxers hidden in my closet.
“Very comfortable,” I said still laughing. “did you find my underwear?”
“Yeah, I found your dental floss. I don’t understand how you can walk with them.”
“There not that bad.” He clearly didn’t agree with me on this one. I could picture Connor perfectly trying to find his boxers and having to settle with a thong. In my mind it was hilarious.
I don’t know really well what happened to me next. I remember that I was trying to get up and all of the sudden everything went black. When I opened my eyes I was in Connor’s arms and I heard people’s voices one of them was Emma, my brother and Mario all shouting asking him questions. He ignored them and took me to a bathroom.
As soon as he got me to the bathroom I grabbed a stall for myself and started puking. Oh God! Why now? I was with Connor, why not later? I thought to myself. When I got out of the stall Connor had taken his shirt off. It was soaking wet. When I was about to ask him what was he going to do with his shirt he started to caress me with his shirt. Connor said that maybe I was dehydrated, but I knew it was something else. Just as I was getting comfortable with Connor I started puking again, only this time he was holding my hair while I puked. It felt nice in a strange way.
I gave my thanks to Connor for everything and went home. He offered to take me home, but I told him that my brother was driving. All the way back home Emma, looked at me weird. Like, she was worried about something. She was making me nervous.
“Emma could you please tell me what’s wrong with you?” She looked at my like she wanted to cry, which only made me feel more anxious.
“It’s not me.” She said passing me my calendar.
“I don’t understand.”
“Gabe you’re late.”
“So, you know I’m always late.”
“Gabe you’re really, really late. I checked.”
“Are you sure?” No, no, this can’t happen to me. Not now anyway.
“Think about it the barfing, the fainting and Gabe; tell me who the hell would eat ice cream, ketchup and pickles all together. I’ll tell you who: a pregnant woman.” Shit. What am I going to do now?
thanks for the PM.
