Misunderstandings (Woodfalls Girls 2)

“You mean you’ll see me lat—” Her words were cut off as I ended the call.

“Maybe” was the best answer I could give at the moment. The only hope I had left was my boss.

“It’s a good time to go since I’ll need you more next month,” Ms. Miller, my principal at Woodfalls Elementary, had stated. “Mary Smith has her wrist surgery scheduled for October and won’t be able to return to work until February. I swear, I’ve never seen someone so damn gleeful over a surgery. I’m sure it has something to do with that god-awful book-reader thingy she got for Christmas. She’s always crowing about some new author she’s discovered,” Ms. Miller added, looking perplexed. “Me, I need an actual book in my hand, not some electronic doodad that will most likely come alive and kill me in my sleep.”

“I’m thinking now might be a good time to lay off the science fiction flicks,” I had countered dryly as I tried to squish the unease that had settled in the pit of my stomach. That was that. Ms. Miller was the only obstacle left. It seemed fate wanted me in Seattle.

Now, two weeks later, here I was with my shoes squishing across the tile floor of Columbia Center. It was glaringly obvious that nothing good could come from me returning to Seattle. I skirted around a security guard and headed for the women’s bathroom so I could survey the damage.

“Holy shit,” I muttered when I took in my appearance in the long expanse of mirrors that lined the wall. I looked like a drowned rat. My long hair, which I had painstakingly straightened earlier, had been replaced with my typical corkscrew curls that were the bane of my existence. “Damn,” I sighed as I pulled my compact from my purse so I could repair my makeup-streaked face. This was just another sign I shouldn’t be here. If my friend Rob hadn’t been expecting me for lunch, I would have chalked it up as a lost cause and headed back to my hotel. At the moment, I’d gladly trade my soaked clothing and frozen toes for solitude in my hotel room.

“Get a grip, wimp-ass,” I chastised myself out loud, ignoring a startled look from a form-fitting suit-clad woman before she hustled out of the bathroom. “Yeah, keep moving. Nothing to see here but the freako talking to herself in the bathroom,” I said, grabbing a handful of paper towels to mop up my feet and legs. Tressa, my best friend back in Woodfalls, would have a field day if she saw what a mess I was, and Ashton, my other friend, would laugh and make a joke about it. I was supposed to be the one who never got frazzled and always held it together. Tressa was the more dramatic one of our trio. She made snap decisions often, never giving any thought to the consequences. Growing up, I was often left holding the short end of the stick in most of her escapades, but I didn’t care. I envied her fearless attitude. I could have used an ounce of her fearlessness at the moment. I was the cautious one. The overanalyzing, skeptical, glass-is-half-empty kind of girl. Only once had I thrown caution to the wind, and it had bitten me in the ass. That one mistake was never far from my mind. How could it be? I left town and ran back home because of it. Being back at the scene of my troubles didn’t help the situation. I needed to get my act together. Two years was a long time ago. I needed to buck up or whatever shit they say to get someone to stop freaking out.

I pulled my brush from my bag and ran it through my damp blond locks, cringing as it tugged through the tangled curls that had taken over my head. After a futile moment of trying to make my hair look more dignified and less like a refuge for wayward birds, I gave up and threw it in a clip, which at least made it so that I no longer looked like the bride of Frankenstein from those cheesy black-and-white movies. I added a layer of my favorite lipstick and finally felt halfway normal.

“You got this,” I said, pivoting around and striding out of the bathroom. I ignored the eruption of laughter from the two giggling girls who were entering as I was leaving. Obviously I would be their comedic relief for the day.

I straightened up, finding the backbone that had liquefied and all but disappeared the moment the plane’s wheels had touched down on the wet tarmac that morning. “Screw him. He doesn’t own the city. I have every right to be here,” I told myself as I headed for the long bank of elevators to the right of the bathrooms. A small crowd of people hurried onto one of the elevators as the doors slid open. I declined to join the overflowing box, waiting instead for the next elevator, which would be less crowded. Being closed in with a group of strangers wouldn’t cut it for me. I couldn’t stand being in confined spaces anyway, but elevators and I had a hate/hate kind of relationship. I hated them, and if the seventh-grade hand-crushing incident was any indication, they hated me too.

“No problem. The doors will open and you will step inside. Nice and easy,” I whispered to myself. I knew it would require all my will and strength to remain sane on the elevator as it carried me up fifty-two floors to Rob’s office. As is always the case with my luck, he couldn’t have been on the first five or so floors, making the stairs a viable option. N-o-o-o-o-o, it had to be practically up in the clouds.

The ding signifying the arrival of the next car prompted me out of my inner whine-fest. I took a deep breath as if I were about to jump into water before cautiously stepping aboard the elevator. I exhaled a sigh of relief as the doors slowly closed and I found myself alone for the impending ride up. This was a good thing in case my hyperventilating, I-wish-I-sucked-my-thumb-or-at-least-had-a-stiff-drink elevator behavior decided to surface.

My relief was short-lived when a hand reached between the closing doors, causing them to reopen.

“You know, sticking your hand in like that can result in serious injury.” Personal experience had me pointing that out before the words locked in my throat.

All the air escaped from my lungs and I wheezed out a startled swear word as the elevator doors slid closed, trapping me inside with him. I would have gladly shared the ride with a couple of brain-starved zombies instead of him.

Our eyes locked as all the animosity and hatred from two years ago radiated off him in waves.

“Justin,” I squeaked out in a voice that was totally not my own.

“Selfish bitch,” he greeted me with venom dripping from each word as he punched the button for the fifty-second floor with the side of his fist.

I cringed as the elevator walls began to close in on me. I knew he hated me. He had all but shouted it in my face the very last time we’d been in the same vicinity. His eyes and words had cut me like razor blades. Every syllable had traveled across the quad until all the students who had been lounging around had turned to stare at us with morbid fascination.

Justin was the love of my life.

2.

October 2010

I met Justin on a drizzly October day during my sophomore year at UW. I disliked him on sight. He was covered in equal amounts of tattoos and girls who giggled at every word that dripped from his lush lips. Everything about him screamed bad boy, from his ripped jeans and pierced eyebrow to his painted-on white T-shirt. This, combined with his smoking a cigarette, pretty much sealed the deal for me. I’d lost my grandma to lung cancer a year ago. Ironically, she’d never smoked a day in her life, but my grandpa had smoked like a chimney before he passed away when I was five. Turns out all that crap they say about secondhand smoke isn’t some mystical fairy tale. That shit really does kill.

I ignored Justin and his admirers as I ordered a strawberry Danish and a coffee before setting myself up at a table under a large umbrella. I had a paper due the next day in my Teaching in Diverse Populations class. Usually, I preferred the café here to the library because it was closer to the dorms. Besides, my dorm room that morning had proved to be more of a distraction than an actual study haven. My roommate, Melissa, was a total sweetheart, but her constant interruptions made getting anything written nearly impossible. She was buzzing about some big Halloween party at Alpha Delta Phi the following week and freaking out about what kind of costume she should wear as she frantically searched the Web for something original that would catch the eye of some guy. I told her to go as a Victoria’s Secret angel and she’d be all set. “You know, sexy panties and bra—add in a pair of wings and you’ll have all the attention you want.”

“I don’t want to attract that kind of attention,” she wailed, glaring at me.

“Hey, you said you wanted to snag a hunk. Your words, not mine,” I pointed out dryly as I closed my MacBook. I lifted my backpack from the floor and stowed away my laptop and books.

“What about this one?” she asked, whipping her computer around to reveal a person covered in purple balloons.

“You want to go as an atom?” I asked, slinging my backpack over my shoulder.

“They’re grapes, not an atom, smart-ass.”

“So wear the bra and panties underneath and then you can pop the balloons at an opportune time.”