Louise Rozett - Confessions Of An Angry Girl

“I’m just trying to get Sweater here to tell me what’s goin’ on, that’s all. I didn’t do anything. I swear, Jame. I didn’t touch her or nothin’. Well, I hit her on the shoulder but not hard. I didn’t hit you hard, did I?”

I can’t answer, even though I feel bad that he feels bad. We all just sit there. Teenage boys don’t know what to do with a crying girl. Even the crying girl doesn’t know what to do with the crying girl.

“I’m gonna go get that coffee now, Jame.”

“Yeah, you do that.”

“I hate when I make girls cry. Fuck,” he says. He wanders off, looking over his shoulder, completely bewildered.

The cafeteria seems to go silent as Jamie sits down across from me. “What did he say?”

I’m memorizing the initials scratched into the top of the table. JH, JG, SW, SR, TR. My throat is so constricted from trying not to cry that it aches like the worst strep ever, and I’m afraid of what my voice will sound like if I talk. Mostly, I just want to keep my nose from running in front of him.

“Rose.” I love the way he says my name. It starts somewhere in his chest and it has a Z instead of an S. My eyes rise to meet his, and he looks so concerned that I almost start to cry again. “What did he say to you? Was it about your dad?”

It would be a lot easier to explain my reaction if I were crying about my dad. And maybe I am for all I know. My mom warned me in her annoying therapy voice that I might cry about him without even realizing that that’s why I was crying. Maybe that’s what’s happening now.

Jamie reaches out his hand, but it stops just short of mine on the table and rests there. He’s got ink on his thumb, but other than that, his hands are immaculate. Beautiful. Strong. I can see the blood in his thick veins. I want to run my finger along them. I bet the insides of his forearms look the same way. I imagine pushing up his sleeve to look.

I shake my head and wipe my face. “Angelo was just teasing me,” I say.

“About what?”

I take a deep breath. “You.”

“Me?”

“He wanted to know if you and I were having sex. And whether I was a virgin.” The word sets my blushing mechanism off at full force. I can’t believe I put the issue of my virginity on the table, but I want him to hear my version of the story— Who knows what the heck Angelo will tell him.

Jamie smiles a little. “He just can’t get any, so he always wants to hear what everybody else is doing.” He pulls his hand back. “Not that we’re doing anything.”

Another tear, hopefully the last one, begins its descent, and I wipe it away before it hits my cheekbone.

“That’s why you’re upset?” he asks.

I nod my head. And it could end right there. I could just call it a day. But my mouth won’t stop running. “He said you tell him everything, about all the girls you…” My throat closes up again, and I can’t finish the sentence, never mind ask him about Regina.

“‘All the girls’? What girls? Do you see any girls around here?”

“He said that you…that you’re with a lot of girls.”

“Forget him.”

“You’re not with a lot of girls?”

He looks at me with mild curiosity and he’s about to say something when it occurs to me that I’ve been waiting for five days for the opportunity to apologize to him. “I’m sorry, Jamie,” I blurt out.

“For what?”

“For the other day. In your car. I knew your name. I’ve known your name since I was in seventh grade. But I was too—”

Angelo puts Jamie’s coffee and a doughnut between us.

“The doughnut’s for you, Sweater,” he says, and he sits at the end of the table, purposely looking the other way. Jamie takes his coffee and stands.

“I’m goin’ outside.” I’m not sure who he’s talking to. “Angelo,” he says sharply. Angelo gets up fast, without saying a word or looking at either of us.

I watch them walk toward the courtyard door. Angelo pushes the door hard, a cigarette already in his mouth, and disappears. Jamie turns, and I think, but I’m not sure, that he winks at me. He’s gone before I can manage a smile. I’m so exhausted and confused that I can’t even eat my doughnut.

prevaricate (verb): to stray from the truth

(see also: to lie like a jerk)

5

“HEY, WAIT UP!” Robert yells as I’m walking to school. It’s the middle of October. It’s cold, I’m miserable and Robert is the last person I want to talk to. I crank up the volume on my iPod and pick up my pace as some old-school Public Enemy blares in my ears—Peter would be proud.

If anyone ever tried to figure out who I am based purely on my iPod, they’d never be able to do it. Public Enemy is followed by the Pussycat Dolls and preceded by Patty Griffin. I love my Florence + The Machine as much as my Rihanna, my White Stripes as much as my Black Keys. I pride myself on my eclectic musical taste, which has everything to do with Peter and probably not that much to do with me.

“Hey!” Robert yells again. I look over my shoulder. He’s trying to catch up with me. I start running, my backpack smashing against my shoulder blades.

“Rosie! Come on!”

Nothing is the way it was supposed to be this year, and it’s really pissing me off. Tracy was one of two freshmen who made the cheerleading team, and she has totally abandoned our Friday nights at Cavallo’s to hang out with her “squad” friends. Jamie was pulled out of study hall and put in remedial English, and now I only see him in the halls between classes, if at all. Angelo drives me crazy in the mornings, talking my ear off. And yesterday, I went out for the cross-country team.

The tryout was a disaster, a runner’s nightmare come to life. My legs wouldn’t work. My timing was off—I had to tell my brain to tell my legs to move. And when they did move, I couldn’t lift them high enough to take a real step, like I was wearing metal running shoes and there was a giant magnet underneath the ground. It wasn’t even that I ran badly—it was like I didn’t know how to run at all. Before I tried out, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t make the official team, but I was confident I’d make alternate. I mean, I’ve been running long distance since I was nine—how could I not make alternate? But I’m guessing the coach prefers that his alternates actually know how to put one foot in front of the other, which I clearly do not.

On top of all that, I now know exactly who Regina Deladdo is because I’ve had to sit through a million football games to watch Tracy cheer—or try to watch Tracy cheer. Since she’s new on the team, she’s always in the back row. Not that I care. Tracy introduced me to Regina after one of the games, probably to make a point. I could practically see the thought bubble above Regina’s head that said, Tracy, why the hell are you wasting my time introducing me to a nobody freshman?

And last but not least on my Things That Suck This Year list: yesterday my mother told me she wants me to see a shrink to talk about the panic attack I had over the summer. But I’m not even sure that what happened to me at the movie theater was a panic attack. Maybe I just couldn’t breathe because the theater was crawling with mold or mildew or something. Anyway, I’ve been fine ever since. Except for that day in the bathroom when I was hiding from Jamie after school. But that was probably just from the smoke.

Whatever.

I hate my life. And this morning, I feel like taking it out on Robert.

“If you didn’t smoke cigarettes,” I yell back at him as I run faster, “you could probably catch up with me!”

“Come on, Rosie! Rosie the Rose! Just wait up for a second!”

I stop running. He drops his cigarette and keeps walking toward me. I point at it. He stops, turns, steps on it and starts toward me again.