by Heather
Evan wasn't happy his brothers were making him go roller blading at the rink that night. In fact, he was resentful. They knew he was no good on wheels and just wanted him there to embarrass him. But he knew what he would do. He'd find a comfortable seat above the rink and watch as everyone around him had the time of their lives. Yep, that was basically his life in a nutshell. Watching as everyone around him was enjoying life. He didn't mean to he just could never find someone to enjoy it with. Someone who wouldn't leave his side. Someone like his ex-girlfriend. 'No, cut it out, Evan...' he reminded himself, 'She totally left you. Forget about it.' But he couldn't. It was either he couldn't or wouldn't actually and he was pretty sure it was the second one. It had been a really cold day after school that he decided to visit her at her home. She had been pretty bummed over something and he had just bought some flowers the night before to make her smile. He loved to see her smile. When he walked up the front steps and found the door wide open, he knew something was up. He began calling her name but with no answer. That was when he found her dead on the floor of her kitchen, a large knife in her hands. He could never forget the look of desperation on her cold face. She wanted this. 'No, stop thinking about it...' he tried coaxing himself.
"Evan, babe! C'mon, were gonna miss happy hour!" his brother Jim hollered. He snapped out of it as fast as he could but her face continued running through his mind. God, how he missed her.
"Ev? I'm packing some ice in this cooler for you just in case." his mother said, shoving the handle into his hand.
"Thanks." he mumbled. How he wanted to hold her hand.
"Don't forget your skates. There in the corner. And try not to get another bloody lip this time, eh?" she reminded him. How he wanted to kiss her lips.
"Yeah." he muttered, vaguely. She hugged him goodbye and waved. "Have fun!" she yelled. How he wanted to have fun.
"You can't skate in this?!" Nicole exclaimed, as Jenna pushed a short mini skirt at her. Jenna looked at it once more and smiled, "I did. Why can't you?" she asked. Nicole was not Jenna, at all. Jenna had no problem squeezing herself into tight jeans and tops where as Nicole had absolutly no confidence in wearing tops or jeans that nearly resembled her true figure. It wasn't that she was over-weight, it was in fact the pure opposite. She was to skinny. What would people think of her? 'I know what,' Nicole thought to herself, as she stared at herself in the mirror, wearing Jenna's hip-huggers. They'd think she was an anorexic. A starver. But she wasn't, not even close. She'd always been tiny. She couldn't help it. She'd been cursed with an unusually high metabolism.
"So, what? Your gonna totally wreck your new look by wearing your baggy jeans and tees? Uh uh. Your wearing what I tell you too tonight." Jenna ordered. Nicole didn't like that idea. Give Jenna 5 inches of levage and Nicole would look like a 16 yr old stripper by the end of the night.
"Wear those jeans and this ballerina top and you'll make me the happiest friend in the world." Jenna said. Nicole looked at the top. It was sort of decent so she grabbed and changed. The ending look was fabulous. One last look in the mirror and Nicole could barely believe her eyes. 'Was this me?' she asked herself.
"Your such a babe." Jenna exclaimed. Sure, she felt like a babe but looked it? That depended on alot of things. Okay, maybe just one. Guys.
He wanted to hide. Actually, no, disapear. The last thing he wanted to do this weekend was go skating with his brothers and their girlfriends then get utterly and totally embarrassed on the rink floor. Nope. Evan wasn't into the idea of giving them the satisfaction of telling another idiot younger brother story to their senior buddies. As a new junior, that would seriously give them ley way to beat the crap out of him later. But Evan wasn't afraid of getting beat up, he knew how to defend himself and well too. He cringed at the thought of it getting around to the girls. Okay, maybe just one girl. She went to his school, was in a few of his classes and even got paired up with him in chem but he never actually got the guts to ask her out. Nicole Rosenthal. Talk about a true beauty. She had the body, the face, the everything and made it seem like she didn't even try. She wasn't exactly popular or anything and she rarely talked to anyone else but Jenna Walker but Evan didn't care. The girl was a goddess. 'And curse me for wanting to be her god boyfriend.' Evan muttered under his breath. His brothers had the music on the stereo so high, he wasn't troubled by mumbling out loud. It wasn't like they were paying much attention to him anyway. And thank God for that.
Maybe she just wasn't girlfriend material. Nicole knew tons of girls at her high school who had the same boyfriend longer than she could even vaguely remember, so how come Nicole couldn't even get one to stay with her a week? Sure, she's had boyfriends before but somehow something always went seriously wrong. It became frightening afterwards and everytime a guy became too close to her, she would automatically pull away, afraid of getting her heart broken. That was a big problem for her. She wanted so much to be loved that she'd give her heart to them on a gold platter. Some would get confused and eat it up and others would ignore its presence. But she tried to forget all that tonight. Tonight was her night. Maybe she would even meet a decent guy. Nicole shivered again and drowned herself in more agony. Jenna had worked so hard at her face, which she was confident looked the same as without makeup, and she wasn't going to make Jenna angry. Maybe tonight would be her night. And if she didn't want it to be, tough. Jenna would totally flip out if she saw her sitting alone up in the balcony. Actually, Nicole thought again, maybe tonight would be Jenna's night.
The roller rink was packed as usual, which to his relief, meant he could without interruption sneak away to the balcony, where no one would ever find him. As he made his way over, he saw a bunch a guys skating backwards down the center of the floor. He knew them. When him and Rebecca had been dating, the pack of them used to hang out together at the Burger King and bowling alley. Evan missed having friends but he wasn't stupid in knowing why he had none now. Her suicide drove him so deep down within himself that it became hard to do anything that he had associated with her anymore. Whenever his parents took the family out for fast food to Burger King, he refused to go inside. Everytime he would eat, alone and miserable, inside the minivan. He would try and force every tear, thought and sadness away from him as he could. One second glance and Evan was sure they hadn't even seen him. They were having way too much fun, tackling each other and flirting with the pretty girls as they would skate by. The girls would ignore them, as he had ministered in his mind. Girls never payed attention to guys like them. Girls never noticed guys like Evan either. An introverted, depressed soul such as he was wasn't exactly upon alot of girls wish lists. Evan knew he was an unpopular freak, a minion of lower-classman society but the whole fascist idea of high school never really affected him all that much anyway. He had better things to worry about. Things like, Nicole Rosenthal? His eyes traced a girl with her same hair color and skin type but swore he was being decieved. Nicole never wore clothes like that before and Nicole has never even once wore lipgloss none the less a whole faceful of makeup. Could this be her? He was tranfixed on the thought that his godess, his Gaia, had misled him to think she wasn't the girl he thought she was. Maybe he could say 'hi'. Maybe she would reply, 'Do I know you?' and then he would say something smooth like, 'Haven't I been in your dreams?'. Evan wanted to smack himself. Haven't I been in your dreams? What kind of loser pills did he take today anyway? He needed to get away. Somewhere high. With a few more steps, he would finally reach the balcony. Thank you.
There was waaay to many people in here to even think of skating. She wanted to turn to Jenna to ask if she could escape and grab a drink then actually just hide in the balcony, but Jenna went through way too much trouble to let Nicole waste her momentary beauty on the icky pea green carpet and her totally un-interesting shoes. Sure, she could stare for hours at those things, she'd done it before at parties and get togethers with friends. How Nicole longed for her shoes right now.
"Hey, have you met Jordan?" Jenna asked, pointing her towards a tall and lanky guy with a premature mustache and greased down black hair. Otherwise, he was a pretty good looking guy.
"Nice to meet you, er,..." he started when Nicole realized he didn't have her name. She began to say it when she caught her eye with someone in the balcony. The eyes were familar. Very familar.
"Your names Ni-?" he remarked, chuckling. His wanna-be mustache wiggled around like a tiny worm while he laughed. It was the most disgusting thing to see on a 17 year old.
"No. Nicole. Sorry. I got distracted." she said as she stared back to the balcony. The whole face was gone. Disapointed, she turned back to Jordan. Suddenly, Jenna's evil plot quickly un-folded.
"Well, I'm gonna go over there and see Kara while you guys talk, k?" Nicole's eyes bulged out at her, pleading for freedom. Jenna reassured her as best she could that she'd be back. That was usually Jenna's line for 'I'm never returning tonight, have fun'. Jordan looked back at Jenna then to her again. Nicole wasn't nervous around guys to much. Just ones with grease in their hair and premature folicles perpetrating from below their noses. To Nicole, this was a sign for a good retreat.
"I'm gonna go grab something to drink," she started, pointing behind her, "want anything?" Did she eat a whole bowl of idiot today or what? If she had to bring him something then the nightmare would never end and Jenna's little match making game would have minutly prospered.
"No thanks. Pop has too many calories. I'm watching my weight." Nicole looked him over once more. Watching his weight, she thought to herself, if the boy watched it anymore, he might have to make sure it doesn't runaway on him.
"Oh. Right. Good thinking. Well, see ya in a few." she lied. She hated the way she sounded when she lied. It reminded her of how bad it was in the eyes of God. Great, she thought, another disapointed man in my life. Could it get any better?
Evan was freaking out on himself. 'Why don't you just tell her your in love with her, idiot?' he mumbled. He was so stupid. Yep. Staring at a girl from across the room was a perfect way to win her over, huh? By freaking her out? What a ingenius plan. Slowly, he let his head pop over the railing again. Nobody was on the stairs and nobody had snuck up the other way to the balcony either. He was completly and utterly alone. Like the guys on Star Trek, eh? Evan suddenly had the weirdest urge to tell someone to live long and prosper, the strange voice and all, when just then footsteps were heard. He slid back behind the wall again. Maybe they would stop there, realize how dark and boring it really was up here and go back to their friends. Oh, please, go back to your friends.
"Hello?" a female voice called. He knew that voice. He recognized it the second he heard it. It was Nicole. She came near and squinted around the room. She hadn't seen him yet. There was a secret window covered behind a long championship banner only Evan thought he knew about. But Nicole was headed right for it and opened it up. This was definatly not her first trip to the balcony. He wanted to get up and say something like, 'Hey you' and then kiss her, just like John Wayne would do. She'd sigh and say...
"Who's there?" Evan froze. She had seen him move. I guess now would be a better time than any to introduce himself.
"Just me." he said, trying as hard as he could to sound cool. She lifted the banner up and let the light shine on his face. He could see her smile. He took that as a good thing.
"Don't I know you?" she asked, leading the banner open more. Now he could feel his heart in his throat and threatened imminent destruction to himself if he totally lost it and ralphed everywhere.
"Umm, its Evan, we had chem together," he started, "I think." The ending was a nice touch, he thought. Totally down-played the whole obsession thing really well.
"Are you alone? Waiting for somebody?" she asked. Now would be a great time to get a better look at her new look. He got up and walked closer, hands dug in his pocket like he was glued in.
"Are you? My brothers sorta ditched me and I haven't a clue how to skate..." he said. Mental smack. Thats wonderful Evan. Why don't you tell her how you were afraid of E.T. when you were 9, he thought. But she laughed and looked farther out the window.
"I hate the way these places smell, don't you? Like an old gym sock or something." she remarked. His goddess was witty. He walked closer. He could almost smell the scent of her perfume.
"A dead gym sock sounds more like it." he told her. She agreed with a chuckle. Gosh, she had a beautiful smile. He took a place against the wall next to her and sighed. This night just may be fun after all. Fun for him. Who knew the odds?