The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Confessions and Concussions

Previously: "Alone in the Crowd" 

Fuck you, Patrick, you think. Did you just call me up to brag?

You've not got the guts to pretend like you got anything like that out of last night. And between that and a peevish resentment—a desire to drag him down—you decide to be honest.

"No, I didn't get a blow job," you mutter. "I didn't get anything."

"What, nothing?" Patrick exclaims. "Dude! Whatd'ja do all night?"

"I danced some. Spent most of it on my phone."

"What? What happened to Sara?"

"Sara wasn't interested in me."

"No way! Didn't I tell you to slip her some?"

"I tried dancing with her."

"Oh—! What were you doing, playing hard to get?"

You almost hurl the phone at the wall.

"Listen I can set you up with her again," Patrick says, "but you gotta—"

"I don't want anything to do with Sara! She ignored me the whole time!"

"Well, did you—? Oh, fine, maybe— Well, didn't you get it on with anyone? Jesus, the place was crawling with pussy!"

"Well, I did dance with some other girls, I think they were sophomores—"

"Rockin'!"

"But they ditched me and ran into the bathroom."

"Cool, didja follow 'em in?"

"No, I didn't—!" You sputter to a stop when he laughs.

"Okay, prob'ly a good idea you didn't, you didn't wanna get thrown out. Although I got thrown out once," he says, boastfully, "and the girl came out with me and that wound up being the night I popped my cherry!" He chortles. "But come on," he says, "don't you know how it's supposed to work?"

"Well, maybe I don't!" you explode, and you have to force yourself to relax, because you are hurting your hand by squeezing the phone so hard.

There's a deathly silence on the other end, so deep and long that you wonder if the connection got broken.

Then Patrick says, sounding shocked and uncertain: "Dude. Are you—? Are you a virgin?"

The blood gushes to your face, so hot and hard it's like it's going to explode.

"No! I— I got a blow job over the summer," you tell him, though it's an exaggeration because you were too freaked out to actually cum. "But apparently I'm not getting as much as you're getting!" Again, you come close to hurling the phone away.

"Jesus! Listen, I— Um— Jesus."

"Yes?" you hiss through gritted teeth.

"Well, I just assumed— I mean— Fuck!"

Phone still to your ear, you fall forward to grind your boiling face into the covers of your bed. The phone falls away, and Patrick's voice is briefly lost before you get it back to your ear.

"—at you, you oughta be getting all kinds of—" He pauses. "Are you, like, saving yourself for a cheerleader or something?"

"Cheerleader?" you exclaim.

"Well, Tiffany says you were hanging out with cheerleaders all summer. Like, Cindy Vredenburg!"

"Where does Tiffany get that I was hanging out with cheerleaders?" you demand.

"Well, she said—"

"Oh, Jesus Fucking Christ!"

It comes back to you: One day, last July, you and Lisa at the mall. She had wanted to see some movie that was playing up there, and she was going to see it with Jessica and Eva Garner, who are good friends of hers. You'd basically invited yourself along, even though it was some arty-romance thing that was going to go to Netflix in a month. You don't even remember the name of it, you only remember you hated it and even the girls thought it was dumb. But you went to the mall food court afterward and hung out. Cindy, who like Eva and Jessica is a cheerleader, had texted while you were at the show, and she came to hang out too. Not once during the time she was with you did she even look at you, let alone speak to you; and even Eva and Jessica, who are not at all bitches about these things, hadn't much to say to you.

But while you were there a small crowd of girls from school saw you all and came over to chat. You don't remember if Tiffany was one of them, but she might have been.

Anyway, that's the only time you were ever "hanging out with cheerleaders." But apparently it's given some people a very misleading impression of you.

"No, I don't 'hang out with cheerleaders'," you fume at Patrick. "Or, I mean, sometimes I do," you correct yourself, because you don't want to flop too far the other way in giving him an impression. "Or, I did, back when I was dating Lisa."

"Didn't you and Lisa—?" He breaks off.

"Didn't we what?"

"Nothing, never mind."

"Well, I hung out with some cheerleaders when me and her were going out, and sometimes I still talk to them. Don't you?"

Silence.

"Well, it's not hard after you get to know them," you say.

"Fuck you, man."

"Fuck me?" you exclaim. "Fuck me? Whaddayu—?"

There's a quick, soft knock at the door, and it opens. Your mother, glowering, looks in.

"Your dad's lying down," she hisses at you. "Keep your voice down before you wake him up!" She closes the door.

"—cream myself to sleep every night," Patrick is muttering darkly when you put the phone back to your ear.

"Well, I'm not fucking them, man. I'm not fucking anyone! I'm not getting anything like the action you say you're getting! So if one of us is gonna say 'Fuck you' to the other, I think I—"

"Alright, alright," he growls. "Apology accepted. But Jesus! Make you a trade, man! You introduce me to one of your cheerleader girlfriends, and I'll— I'll set you up with someone who'll definitely blow you."

"Oh, Jesus!"

"Is it a deal?"

You roll your eyes and tell him, "We'll talk at school."

* * * * *

You take a quick, hard bike ride around the neighborhood after hanging up on Patrick, just to work some of your anger and frustration out. But you're still antsy when you get back home, and you text Caleb (you can't explain to yourself why) to ask if you should consider yourself "friends" with Eva and Jessica Garner. Some time later, he texts back the blank reply Why u ask?

Because someone I know called them my girlfriends. Girl friends, you correct yourself in a follow up text.

Sounds like a dumass, he replies.

You would drop it there, but Caleb calls you twenty minutes later to harangue you: "So who the fuck at school thinks Eva or Jessica is your girlfriend?" he honks.

"Just a guy!" You roll your eyes. "You know how I was hanging out with them when I was going out with Lisa?"

"She says you were never going out."

"Fuck! You!" You quickly stifle yourself. "Anyway, someone saw me hanging out with them at the mall one day, I guess, when Cindy was with them. With us, with me and them. Anyway—"

"Christ."

"If someone asks me if they're 'girlfriends' of mine—Girl. Friends.—what should I say?"

"Did you call me up just to ask me this dumb-as-fuck question?"

"You called me."

"Texted me. Don't you have homework?"

"I got it all done Friday. Except, as long as I've got you here—"

There's a stack of books towering on your desk. Somehow it must have got turned upside down, because the math book you want is near the bottom. You try tugging it out, and the entire pile goes crashes to the floor. As you push through the mess, you ask Caleb if he'll help you with one calculus problem you weren't sure on.

And in doing so, you recover that weird-ass book you found in the used bookstore. That sets off a chain reaction of memories, ending in your dancing around the bedroom screaming "Fuck!" at the top of your voice, regardless of the fact that your dad is still laying down.

* * * * *

It's because you completely forgot you were supposed to get something to put in the school time capsule, and it is due tomorrow morning first period. Caleb laughs unfeelingly when you explain to him.

"Well, what am I supposed to do?" you gasp at him. "I don't got nothing! I got less than nothing! I'm fuck all out of ideas, even!"

"Then I guess you trade Mr. Walberg that nothing for an F."

"Jesus!" you groan, and flop onto your bed. "I had this one thing I thought I was gonna give him, but then I decided it was stupid."

"What was that?"

"This book I found in the book store."

"So give it to him. Or else he's gonna give it to you. Good and hard."

You grumble in the back of your throat, and tell him you'll talk to him later.

You pick the book up and sit on the bed with it in your lap. You look through it again, reminding yourself of what you'd seen of it. The funky faces on the front pages, with their shifting features. The Latin at the front. The place where you're supposed to press a bloody thumb print.

Caleb is right, it's better than nothing. But better than this would be some other book, if it's going to be a book you turn in. Why didn't you bring home a cheap paperback from the book store, if that's what you were going to do?

You give the problem some thought while taking a long and hard shit in the bathroom.

There's a text from Tiffany when you get back, asking if you want to meet up for coffee late this afternoon. You chew your lip as you study it.

You've about decided to submit a book to Mr. Walberg, but your thought was to find something in your own personal library—some old fantasy novel or something you don't want any more. But you could go back out to Arnholm's and find something else. There's a coffee shop next door, and so you could "cheat" on your grounding that way by meeting Tiffany there.

But do you really want to?

And do you want to try trading that other book back to Arnholm's for store credit?

That's all for now

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"