| | - If You Can't Leave It Be, Might As Well Make It Bleed So I ended up reading other people's Xangas this fine morning in Journalism, and it was boring as hell. I don't know, I'm looking for a narrative of some sort, not just the same "oh, today I did X, Y and Z" but like a real story, with defined characters and a plot, emotion and suspense, and so on. Maybe I'll just go read a book.
Or maybe I'll start my own narrative. About three hours after I wrote that entry on Friday, I called Joi. We talked for about an hour; I told her how much I had started to care for her over the past couple of weeks and how I was "blown away" by her hair and those "soft hands" and the fact that she isn't as "stuck-up" as those other girls at Blake. Then I asked her out this weekend. "We'll talk about it next week," she said. I didn't see her at all on Monday or Tuesday - I especially didn't see many people on Monday, I don't know why. Today at lunch, Greg said something sort of racist, which I used as an excuse to leave the spiral staircase and find her. Actually, I said I was going to go to the Young Democrats meeting. The only reason I must make that trek to Mr. Myers' room every Wednesday must be for the exercise; it seems like nothing's going to happen and I wouldn't care if anything did. Of course, no one was there.
I heard her laugh at the corner of C and G halls, near that big window with a view of the roof. I hesitated, almost fearful of what was around that corner. I went over and there it was. No, he - he was a tall, kind of light guy, looked pretty athletic. It's forty degrees outside; you'd expect him to be wearing a winter coat. And there it was, across her shoulders. I stood there, eyeing the guy, who didn't talk back. After a beat he walks away, and I talked to her for a couple of minutes. There were a lot of awkward pauses. She looked at my class ring, and I let her try it on, and she was surprised at how well it felt. For a moment I felt like that guy, offering up a piece of myself as an icon for her. After an especially long pause, she finally says "well, I know you have to go now" or something like that. And for one last time, I gave her a hug. I didn't dare reach inside that leather jacket draped loosely around her; I patted her on the back, and it was cold.
I'm actually pretty happy that "it," whatever "it" was, is over. I barely knew her, although she seemed to know me pretty well. A lot of people know me now, I suppose, though even as a senior it's a surprise. I don't care - I feel liberated, like now I'm back to where I was just two weeks ago, but wiser. I could be with anyone now, not mismatched by fate and journalism. On the bus ride home, Giulia tells me that "when I stop caring, they'll start coming." So, here goes . . . |
