I'd just moved in with my dad. My parents haven't lived together in a while, and with my mom being very busy with work nowadays, it's been decided I come live with my dad. And I'm not complaining. My father is permissive, and usually really nice. He has a nice convenience store, and the employees there are usually very friendly too me, though i don't forget to be cautious around strangers.
The store is run by my dad and his partner, Larry. Larry is a big man and he doesn't talk to me very much. He has a fluffy ginger beard and i don't really like it very much. He insists he wouldn't get rid of it, though. In truth, I like him a lot. He drives me to school every day and is a whiz with math. He is also a human periodic table.
At school, I've made a friend. Her name is Nikki and she also has parents who don't live together, only that hers were once married. She is absolutely insane and incapable of being serious. She likes to compose music with time signatures and clefs i don't understand. And she's lazy as fuck, but also very supportive.
Today, though, she's anything but. We sit at our regular table isolated from everyone else in the corner. We're busy sharing a box of Lunchables and gossiping everyone who has pissed us off since the day began. Then suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see her. And instinctively, my head turns.
She has her long wavy orange hair tied up in a tight, high ponytail and slicked back so strictly with hair gel and half a dozen pins and clips that the hair shines. She has her chin up and she looks straight ahead, her eyes blank and her lips in a sort of teasing smile. Her oversized jacket is draped over her shoulder and is held that way by her right hand, leaving her left arm to swing by her side.
In the noisy cafeteria, I can still hear her every step going clack clack clack on the floor as she serves face, not even noticing me at all. Feeling suddenly sad, I turn back to my food and notice Nikki staring at me with that look on her face.
"Nix," I sigh. "Don't."
"Ahh..." she says all moany covering her face with her hands. "I knew it!"
"Knew what?!"
"You like Anna-Kat!" she accuses firmly and does a head roll. I'm stunned by her directness and find myself scrambling for what to say back. She just smiles and moves a fry to her smiling mouth, licking her lips in that way.
"Nikki--" I groan, feeling very embarrassed.
"Whaa?" she says all innocent.
"Nothing," I say and fold my arms refusing to eat anymore.
Anna-Kat is my classmate and crush. I've crushed on her for a while and kept it a sorta-secret. But I guess it's been long enough to know my feelings are real. And Nikki kept teasing me about it though I've never said it to her. Or to anyone at all.
My mom would be outraged, and I can tell she'll prolly curl up her lip and say "So you're gay? Like you dad." She's gonna spit "gay" and "dad" like they're diseased words in her mouth and I'm gonna squirm and want to bury myself alive.
Nikki doesn't know that, though, about my mom. And she just keeps grinning at me from across the table eating all the food and not realizing any of that. She thinks it's funny, and wants payback what I did to her when she was crazy about Tyler Parks last year. I teased the life out of her.
I sit in my seat quiet now, thinking, and my belly suddenly feels unwell.