Crash!
“What was that?!” Ami snapped.
Lying on the ground, a ceramic bowl in pieces littered the kitchen tile. Popcorn kernels spread across the floor like a wild fire.
“My bad.” Joey laughed, popping open another can of beer.
Ami rushed to pick up the large pieces of the bowl and all I could do was stare.
Here it was, my moment in high school history. One of the biggest parties of the school year being gel at MY house… And I can’t even enjoy myself.
Wade sat on the couch in the living room leading a game of strip Beer Pong. Ami flew around the house getting people to stop misbehaving and to try to settle down. And I just sat here completely zoned.
His sunglasses engraved in my eyes. The blood splattered across his face. The horrifying smirk. Our pathetic excuse of a team sprawled out in defeat, exhaustion, and confusion.
“Lillian? Are you okay?” Ami put her hand on my shoulder.
“I… What? Yeah. I’m fine.”
Not convinced. “Maybe you should stop after this cup…”
“Oh.” I looked down at the red solo cup I had been holding all night. Half empty. “Yeah. You’re right. Thanks.”
Ami gave me a forced smile, and went back to cleaning up the bowl.
I forced a smile back and stood up, flipping the hair out of my face. Stupid bangs.
I zombied to the bathroom; slow pace, expression-less, and stiff 'auto-pilot' movements. My reflection in the mirror was brutally honest and didn't pull any punches. I was a wreck. And it showed.
The cover up foundation and extra bright eye shadow that Kari suggested to cover up my black eye didn't work as well as anticipated, and instead gave the me the impression that I belonged on the street corner. Thankfully, no one seemed to question my choice of long sleeves and a scarf in October, or the bruises and cuts on my arms would have been a dead give away that something had happened last night.
After a long stare at myself in the mirror, I splashed some water on my face and decided to head back to the real world.
The door swung open and Demarius walked into the bathroom. My heart fluttered a little. Here we were. Together. In a bathroom. At a party.
"Lillian. We need to talk."
I couldn't say anything. All my experiences with co-ed parties were that couples went into the bathroom together to make out, and Demarius and I weren't dating. I was with Kai. What were people going to think?
But he was so cute... Better to leave my mouth shut.
He peeked down the hallway outside the door, glanced both ways, then closed the door. He switched on the fan, for ambient noise.
"Are you crazy?" I motioned to the door. Suddenly, my sass was back. "What do you think you're doing!?"
"I think we're going about this the wrong way..." He bit his lip and walked past me, flipping the toilet seat down and taking a seat.
"This? What this?" I freaked. He couldn't know... could he?
He gave me a disbelieving sigh and motioned towards my right eye. My black eye... Oh. Yeah... That.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"I'm fine." I scowled. "I'm tougher than I look."
"It looks pretty bad..." He started to lean in closer to me, focusing intently on my eye.
"What?!"
"Swollen a bit..."
"Will you stop it?! I covered it up the best I could!"
He smiled and pulled away. "You look fine from this distance. Just don't get too close to anyone. Like Kai Masa."
"Oh? Jealous?" I smirked.
His brown eyes got wide for a second and he shrugged it off. "This is serious, Lillian. We're in some serious trouble. If it hadn't been for that punch of yours last night, we would have been killed."
My eyes shot to Demarius, then trailed off into my thoughts. He was right. We could have been killed, and I was the one to stop it. And yet, there was no glory feeling, no honor. I was scared out of my wits.
My knees gave out, and I situated myself to sit on the rim of the bathtub, avoiding all eye contact with Demarius.
We sat in silence for a while, both replaying the awful one-sided fight of last night.
Demarius bit his lip and leaned towards me, desperately trying to make eye contact. "I think it's your gift. I think that some how you --"
"Gift?" I snarled. "Gift?"
I stood up and glared down at him. My hands rummaged through my hair and my knees quaked as I filled with rage. Demarius just sat there, no shift in his expression.
"How the FUCK do you call this a gift, Demarius?! My body... My hand... My fist turned into a freaking rock. Maybe not completely, but some how I had some kind of rock hand. A freaking boulder. On. My. Hand. But, it wasn't even like ON my hand. It WAS my hand. How does that even make sense?! What are we?! This isn't some gift. There's not bows or ribbons or messages for Santa Claus included."
Demarius just watched me, sitting contently on the toilet. Just staring.
I continued, "We're freaks. I don't remember reading about this in anatomy! I didn't even take that course, but I'm pretty sure there's not a special section in the text book titled 'Rock Hands.' But please, correct me if I'm wrong."
My eyes narrowed at him, anger pouring out of my entire being. Gift? Ha.
"Lillian." His voice was calm and collected. "I know you're scared ---"
"Scared?" I shouted. "Oh, we're already past scared. I'm way beyond scared. My hand. Turned. In. To. A. ROCK!"
He stood up and put his hands on my shoulders and he stared me square in the face. I'm pretty sure that in my shock, my jaw dropped a little bit. "We're going to be okay. You are going to be okay. We just need to all get together and talk this out." He brushed back a weft of my hair, placing it behind my ear.
I was speechless. Something about the way his touch felt against my ear or the sparkle in his eye as he comforted me... I let out an audible sound of acknowledgement.
"I've already talked to Kari a little bit about it," he said, returning his hand to my shoulder. "She agrees that we should meet up tomorrow to talk. Can you talk to Kenneth?"
And, again with the grunt.
"Okay, good." He smiled and reached for the door handle. He unlocked the door and turned to look at me. "Don't worry, Lillian. We'll be okay."
He twisted the door knob, then looked back at me again. "And don't get too close to Kai." He gave me a quick up-and-down, then slipped back into the party scene I had completely forgotten about.
