“Matthew?”
Shit, shit, shit.
I lowered my hands and saw Mayra Trevino standing at the curb near her mailbox.
“What are you doing here?”
I looked down to the street under my shoes and kicked at a tiny little rock there. There was another one a few feet away, so I kicked it, too. Then a third. I kept kicking rocks until there weren’t any left in my reach and then started looking for more.
“Matthew? Are you okay?”
I didn’t know how to respond. I wasn’t okay, but focusing on the rocks had made the attack go away at least. I could breathe normally, and my heart wasn’t pounding too much. I wasn’t okay, though. I needed to give her that card, and I wasn’t sure how to do that.
“Sometime you just have to do, son. Don’t think. Just do.”
Dad’s voice in my head came at a pretty good time. I turned and opened the car door, leaned inside, and grabbed the card. If I gave it directly to her, at least it wouldn’t get lost in the mail. I grasped the envelope in my hand, backed out of the car, and walked slowly over to where Mayra was standing. She was still calling my name as I raised my hand and gave her the card. I ran my hand through my shorter hair and cringed a bit as she reached out and took the card from me.
I couldn’t stand to watch her read it, so I got back in the car and drove away.
It might not have seemed like much to anyone else, but I was reasonably pleased with myself.
Win.
~oOo~
School was particularly noisy the next day.
I tended to ignore most of the sounds around me as I walked through the halls, but I could tell people’s voices were either just a little bit louder or maybe just more people were talking at once. Whatever it was, I didn’t like it.
In ecology, the new kid was in my seat again even though I entered the classroom a good thirty seconds before the bell rang. I stopped at the front of the aisle, not walking the rest of the way to the seat. I knew if I said something to Mr. Jones, he would likely react the same way as before, and Travis would end up calling him. I really didn’t want that to happen.
I wanted to take care of myself.
I stood there, looking at my feet.
“Hey, Matthew!” Mayra’s voice sang out from the other side of the room.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Mayra stand up and walk over to me even though I didn’t raise my head.
“Come on over and sit by me,” she said. “We can talk about our project.”
I jumped a little when she took my hand and started pulling me behind her. My feet didn’t move—I think they were as confused as my head. I focused intensely on the feeling of her hand touching mine, and everything else in the room disappeared.
Mayra stopped and turned around.
“Will you sit behind me, Matthew?”
“Okay,” I said softly, and my feet decided to go along.
I saw Justin Lords roll his eyes as Mayra led me to the seat behind her. She smacked him in the shoulder as she walked by.
“Hi, Matthew,” Justin said in a weird, sing-song voice. “Are you having a wonderful day?”
I stiffened for a second, trying to figure out how I was supposed to respond. Justin never said anything remotely nice to me and usually ignored me altogether. Sometimes he’d shove me in the hall, but he never said anything polite.
I didn’t believe he was being polite now.
“I had pancakes for breakfast,” I said, then cringed. I wasn’t sure if that was right, but I usually microwaved frozen pancakes in the morning when I was in a good mood.