Queen of the Masquerade Ball 1
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The Next Time I Fall
I admit I cried a few times in my life:
When my cat died.
That time I lost the election for class secretary.
And a few minutes after the death of my girlfriend.
Well, no, she didn’t die, she just moved to another state and, just before she did, she decided it was would be a great idea to let three guys jam their tongues down her throat and probably a few other locations, per the text message I received that late night.
Thankfully, there were no pictures as I would have wanted to kill everyone involved.
I had thoughts, however, that it was all a ruse. Maybe one to soften the blow of breaking up and never seeing her again. A way to make sure we had no connection to one another that we could hang on to. Nothing that I would want to happily share with anyone. That story could only be shared at a time where I was drunk. We’re talking sad and depressed drunk, not life of the party drunk.
But why create such a story in the age of Facebook? I mean. We. Still. Could. Have. Talked!
Facebook messenger, woman!
So, instead off just telling me that a long-distance relationship was impossible and that she refused to FaceTime or some sexting, she closed her Facebook account and her cell number was disconnected.
Maybe I would have felt even more pain if she had done that. It was hard to tell during the time as I threw my cell phone across the room where it struck a framed movie poster of “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” I had on my wall.
Had, being the definite word as the phone struck the glass, shattering it and causing the heavy frame to fall off the wall and onto the phone.
Two days and two hundred dollars later I had my phone repaired and I stared at that text.
I stared at that text like it was an enigma code to decipher: to try and find out why she would leave on those terms. What had I done to piss her off?
Or what had I not done to keep her attention?
I listened to her.
I took her suggestions on places to go.
I will say that I was the most obedient boyfriend that a teenage girl could ever have.
No, I was not “whipped”—as we hadn’t even had sex yet.
Yes, I would be lying if I said I didn’t want it. There were times when I wanted to slowly undress her during one of our kissing sessions.
But I admit I was afraid to take it any farther and she never really really gave any hints. She never moved my hands to signal me.
I may have misread some signals.
“Yep, you sure did.”
“Thank you, Bryce.”
“You can thank me tomorrow when you pay me back the fifty you borrowed.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I replied as I threw a bag of dog food onto the shelf.
I chose to throw myself into my work, as it made the most the sense in my time of loss. Bryce was the first person I told. And by told I meant that I paced back and forth in his room, ranting about what I found out what had happened until I finally broke down in tears.
He was there when my cat died, so seeing me like that wasn’t anything new.
“There are more girls in the world you know, right?”
“Yes, I do,” I replied as we hoisted two forty pounds bags onto the lower shelf. “But it took a long time to get to know Amber.
“Maybe that was the issue.”
“How?”
“Don’t get to know her. Just jump in. You know, deep end and all.”
“I’d like to think up some corresponding analogy to that.”
“Let me know after lunch if you have anything.”
I plodded away from the pet food aisle to the back room where in the past, I would take out my phone and text back and forth with Amber. I regret I both still love and hate that name. Even a song like “America the Beautiful” is tainted by that word. Walking by the beer aisle and seeing “Amber Ale” made me feel like going into a Tasmanian devil frenzy or throwing myself onto the floor in a weeping heap of my former self.
I sat at the end of one of the long tables in the break room and stared at the wall for a few seconds before taking out my phone and staring at the blank screen for a few more seconds or maybe a few minutes, it was hard to tell as I concentrated on the face stating back at me with its pathetic and depressed look. I may not have had it all: I still didn’t have a car or a license and hey, maybe that was yet another pock mark on our relationship: I was not able to deliver the goods on any front it would seem. I was trying to build everything up. I had my eyes on a used Jeep for sale up the road but I had to work for it and work meant less free time and less free time meant that I couldn’t go to parties and couldn’t see that interesting make-out session first hand.
“Maybe it’s on the “worldstar” website,” I thought to myself but then shook my head and put my phone back into my pocket.
“I got nothing,” I replied to Bryce as I met up with him in the paper products aisle.
“You sure did.”
“That’s funny. Thank you.”
Bryce lifted up a large box of paper towels and shoved it my way.
“Just trying to help.”
“You can help by trying to find Amber.”
“Why?”
I opened the box and took out a few rolls.
“I want closure.”
“I would have assumed that text was closure enough.”
“I would like to talk to her about it and not over text I or messenger.”
“Talk or stalk?”
“A little of both, maybe,” I replied as I hastily stacked the two rolls and then grabbed more out of the box.
“That’s what she wants you to do: get you out of your element. It’s like a war game, you know? She’s fired the first shot and you assume that it was an accident. What she did was not an accident. There is no accidental thing about it. You just need to leave her in the past. Mistakes were made.”
“Exactly, mistakes were made.”
“Not on your part,” Bryce replied with his voice stepping up a notch.
“I didn’t buy her a flower that week before it happened.”
“Flowers die.”
“I don’t have a car.”
“Neither does she and if she’s supposed to be treated as an “equal” to a man then she should be making some money and maybe buy you a bouquet.”
“I’ve never been given flowers.”
“It’s a nice sentiment.”
I nodded and then broke the cardboard box down in order to move on to the next one. Amazingly, the store was not too crowded for a Sunday night. I kind of wanted to stay at work all night, into the next day, and forego going back to school ever again. I had lasted about two weeks without Amber but the thought of being without her gnawed on me each day as there was no one waiting for me after class except for Bryce—who wouldn’t care if I put my arm around his shoulder, but understood that I was’t going to do that.
“Robert sent me flowers once. They were nice.”
“I recall.”
“Purple roses. The flower of mystical attraction. Too bad that power doesn’t hold.” Bryce replied while biting his lip.
Bryce said little about their break-up at first. He assumed I didn’t want to hear about it and he was right to a point, but, I did listen to his short rant about “Bobby”. He took everything that he was given by “Bob” out to the backyard, meticulously stacked it up, and then set it ablaze. This included a PlayStation 3 that I was sure was just being borrowed.
“Stella gonna get her groove back,” is all he said as everything went up in a nice flame.
Robert went to another school a few miles away so Bryce never saw him during school but they were together every other time of the day—excluding work—and Robert refused to come into the store and told Bryce that he shouldn’t work there either. That was the only issue they had at first. I never asked Bryce what happened between them that lead to a Viking funeral of their relationship but it had to have been either epic or incredibly sad. Like a mix of Star Wars and Titanic, I suppose.
Queen of the Masquerade Ball Chapter 2
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Southaven High had about 1,920 students. Needless to say one could get lost in the ether of students and become invisible. I didn’t want to be invisible but I also didn’t want to be seen after Amber left. Plus, there were thoughts that the guys in the text went to my school and were laughing and winking at me from a distance: “we know something you don’t know”.
I took the middle line: If you said hi to me, then I would say hi back. If someone nodded to me, I’d reply likewise. If you threw up your middle finger, I’d think how much I wanted to snap it back to your wrist and then ask “how’s it feel?”
Bryce just walked with his head held high and his dyed blonde hair aglow. He stuck out, but Bryce was also big. He was football team material but refused to play due to not wanting to work out with a bunch of “uncouth morons”, as he put it. He did play for a season, freshman year, and was a brick wall to any opposing team player who tried to break through the line. He didn’t mind the hits and the near compound fracture to his left shoulder blade, but he refused to be a team player after being hazed in the locker room.
Unlike any movie I saw, no one bothered him about it in public. There were never a mob of players ready to “teach him a lesson”—because they knew that Bryce would not fight fair. The Geneva Convention did not apply to him. There was one time that one guy thought joe could take Bryce on. This guy was—past tense—on the football team but after a little “accident”—his words—after taking with Bryce, ended his playing days. I once described to Bryce what I think happened and he just laughed about it.
“It’s going to be something everyone’s going to talk about for infinity,” he replied.
Unlike my life at the time. I walked into the junior wing and continued my trek to my first block class. I sighed once or twice. Not heavy-handed ones, but there was a moment where I felt that heavy sighs were going to be my senior quote in the yearbook next year. I had my head down—in the hopes of staying invisible.
“Whoa, eyes front, soldier.”
I stopped as I could see a pair of shoes in my peripheral vision. It took me a second or two to raise my head to see a girl with a short skirt and even shorter red hair standing a mere two inched form me.
“Sorry,” I replied.
“No problem,” she replied. “Judging by everyone else’s’ height, I’m probably in the wrong wing.”
“This is D wing, juniors.”
“That would explain why I can’t find my first block class.”
“Senior?”
“I wish. Sophomore. Judge me lightly, please.”
“This way,” I replied as I turned around and we went against the current back to the main hall.
“I am going to get so buried by this place.”
“Where are from?” I asked.
“Grand Island, Nebraska.”
‘I used to live in Nebraska,” I replied.
“Let me guess, Omaha?”
“You’re good.”
“My next guess would have been Lincoln. Cornhusker fan?”
“I don’t even like high school football.”
“But you go to the games?”
“I have to pay for my student ID card, so I try to get some use out of it.”
“I’d rather just stay home and read a book.”
“Like, say, ‘Night of the Twisters’?”
“Hey, thats’ required reading where I come from.”
“There’s a move version.”
“And it sucked as much as ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’,” she replied with a scoff.
I stopped us in front of hall C and moved my hands in a “here you go” manner. “Sophomore wing. Hall C.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“I’m Haley.”
“Pete.”
“I’ll try to avoid any Spider-Man references.”
“I don’t mind those at all. However, I don’t have any pickled peppers.”
“Duly noted,” she replied. “Keep your chin up and look out for me.”
“Okay,” I replied with a smile but my mind was ready to dismiss her. Not like I’d see her during school and if I did, I’d probably not remember her face. Her shoes and legs, maybe…but it would be awkward got search for her by the shape of her thighs.
That gets you sent to the office pretty quick.
I walked back to my school wing as the bell chimed to start the first block—signaling that I then had to run down half the length of a football field and a flight of stairs to get to my class.
I’d have to ask Bryce what “Fifty Shades of Grey” was about.
“It’s a terrible movie,” Bryce replied as we sat down in the cafeteria. “Good enough book.”
“That’s usually how it is.”
“I mean if it was a movie, it might as well have been a skin flick.”
“Even worse than ‘Skinamax’?” I thought nothing could ever be as bad as the films that came on after midnight. They were usually as bad as the ones on Showtime, grainy and distorted video—because my family didn’t have a subscription—but you could make out the making out without trouble.
“You’ll have to read the book.”
“Who are you, Levar Burton?”
“Levar’s my man, Pete.”
I looked to the far side of the room and saw the girl from earlier, Haley.
“Don’t think about it, man.”
“About what?”
“You’re looking at someone like a hungry dog. Blond hair?”
“Red.”
“Tall?”
“Not really.”
“Skimpy dress?”
“I think she’ll be called on by a teacher eventually, but I’m not going to be the one to say anything.”
Bryce turned around and looked in her general direction.
“Ah, I see what’s going on.”
“See what?”
Bryce turned back to me and tapped his fingers on the table. “You are what is called, the rebound.”
“I am not.”
“You are. Every honey’s cute. Every girl’s attractive. It’s like beer googles without the beer. The emotions, they…they get’ cha. Ah, hell, whatever. Go for her. She’s cute. Not going to deny that.”
“You think she is?”
“How is her personality?”
“She’s friendly,” I replied as I got up from my chair.
“Where are you going?”
“To ask her to sit with us.”
“Right now?”
“Yeah.”
“Make your move, Spider-Man.”
I took a few steps away.
“If she asks you to sign a contract, run, okay?”
“Is that in the book?”
“It is. But you don’t have to take my word for it.”
Queen of the Masquerade Ball Chapter 3
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I didn’t get to Haley as she was quickly absorbed into a crowd of girls who looked like extras from a Black-Veil Brides video shoot. Not that I had an issue with goths, but at that moment the spell that I was under, the one that compelled me to get up and walk through the lunchroom. The one that made me think the ocean of students would part and it would just be the two of us, faded away and instead I found myself walking to the door that lead to the lunch line. I pretended that I was looking at the price of Cheetos as Haley was cloaked in a veil of black, red and purple hair. I could have been an emo-goth, but my parents would have thrown out my shirts if they had that many holes in it.
“Smooth moves there, Pete.”
I gave a sarcastic grin and sat down.
“I see you’ve come back down from lofty heights.”
“Yeah, I guess that wasn’t going to work like I wanted it to.”
“Never does man, never does.”
“One day it will, Bryce.”
“I gotta hear this, lay it down, man. Lay it down.”
“It’s not a huge dream or anything.”
“Yes it is, and you know it. You would have married Amber if she had yes.”
“Maybe.”
“Did you ever ask her? Please tell me you didn’t ever ask her.”
“Almost did. It was a month or so ago. I was just going to say it.”
“Besides a minimum wage job, no education, she was a scheming ho, what stopped you?
“Wasn’t the right time. I guess there never was a good time for us.”
“But you and the new girl?”
“Haley.”
“What is it with you and chicks with five-letter names?”
I kept my mind off Haley for the rest of the school day. Glimpses of her raced through my head at times and the thought of owning a two-story house in the country with chickens and one of those gazebos that no one really ever gets to enjoy until later in life did come up a time or two, BUT for the most part my mind was on my studies and for work that afternoon.
Besides, we were probably worlds apart. I would be those kids who—if he was any thinner and not a friend of Bryce—would find himself slammed into a trash can, since our lockers were the half-size model. I would more likely walk across the street and get struck by a car than see her in any context that we could ever talk again.
“I should have talked to her,” I relented to Bryce as he started his car.
“Yes. You should have.”
“Thanks.”
“But I can understand why you didn’t.”
I only looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
“Your Rock impression needs work.”
Bryce turned past the crossing guards and onto the street. We had fifteen minutes to get to work on time.
“She was right in front of me, but I didn’t want to look particularly needy.”
“You were already looking needy.”
“Maybe.”
“There ain’t no maybe. Just go find her and talk to her again.”
“Just like that and ask her?”
“I said talk. You’re thinking date.”
“I’m kind of thinking more.”
It was Bryce’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “I wish you good luck and Godspeed, Pete.”
“Okay, so would you meet me halfway and say she’s better than Amber.”
“I don’t know enough about to her assume anything and neither do you. Your mission, should you chose to actuulay go through with it, will be to meet up and talk with her.”
“Like, plan a date talk?”
“No, fool, just talk with her, let her lead the conversation and don’t sound like a nervous kitten.”
“Nervous kitten?”
“Would you rather me say like a pussy? Cause if you want it stronger, I can oblige.”
“Kitten will do just fine. Thank you.”