Ebony

         I watched him every day when he came into homeroom, his hair slicked back and his clothes perfectly complementing his athlete's physique. He was the tall, dark and handsome type, with coal-black hair and ebony eyes. He was so different from me, so nonchalant and uncaring. I cared about everything anyone ever thought about me, and I cared about how others perceived my every action. Not like Danny. Danny Vogler didn't give a damn what anyone had to say about him. I suppose that was what made him so different from anybody else in the "in" crowd. I occasionally would say hello to him, too timid and awkward to conjure up any witty banter or coy remarks. And his eyes would pierce my very being as he replied likewise. That was the extent of all of our conversations. He was popular and vivacious, where I was a loner and quite without a certain zest for life.
         In short, I supposed that I longed for Danny and the life he represented because he was everything that I ever wanted to be. He was loved by all, accepted by all. The thought of him was always lingering somewhere in the back of my mind, like a distant memory, although Danny was no memory. I supposed that one day he would be that--only a distant memory. But for now, he was here and as real as I.
         I guess he really first noticed me when I was put into his Creative Writing class. It was the first day of my junior year, and I couldn't have been happier upon discovering that he was in my class and that he sat directly behind me. At times during that first day, I swear that I could feel his black eyes boring a hole into the nape of my neck. I didn't get the courage to say anything to him at all on that first day, not even hello.
         The next Wednesday was Poetry Day in Mr. Garbera's Creative Writing class. In an action very unlike me, I volunteered to read a piece of poetry I'd written the previous week. Coincidentally, it happened to be about my love.
         I stood in front of the classroom, my knees weak, heart pounding and brow sweating. As soon as I began to read the words I'd written, however, I began to relax.

"It hurts my eyes to look at you
It hurts my heart to love you
Knowing all I'll ever have of you
Is a dream, an illusion.

Your eyes cut through my soul
As if you can interpret my thoughts
And read my very being
But I don't exist to you

You have your looks, your brilliant mind
Your beautiful life
All I have is empty dreams and fantasies
That'll never be fulfilled

I suppose I should give up on my dream
To let my battered heart heal
From the thought of you
But I can't let you go."

         The room fell silent, and my nervousness returned. I could feel him watching me, those intense eyes doing exactly what I said they did in the poem. I slid silently from the stool on which I'd been sitting and slithered back to my seat as the class began to discuss my work.
         I thought the meaning of everything I'd written was rather obvious. I slid into my seat, my heart fairly quaking when I felt Danny gently tap my shoulder. I turned around a little too quickly, a little too eagerly. That was the first time he'd ever touched me.
         My eyes just stared into his for what seemed like an eternity. I began to flounder in the infinite depth of the black orbs, and drowning in them seemed unavoidable. But he broke the silence. "That was beautiful," Danny commented in that velvety-rough voice that is uniquely his.
         "Thanks," I replied, my gaze never leaving his. It felt, in that moment of time, as though only the two of us existed. The once tumultuous world had simmered into a peaceful wonderland. Finally, I realized that I was staring at him. I cleared my throat and and spun around in my seat, noticing that I was blushing fiercely. I knew that Danny must have been able to see it, too.
         My skin felt like it was burning through my shirt where he had touched me, even when I went home that day after school. It was as though I had been branded with fire. I wrote when I got home that day, Danny being my inspiration for a poem that I won't share with anyone.
         I stared at my stolid reflection in the mirror, as though I would look different because Danny touched me. I stared at my shoulder where it burned, but nothing was different. I was still me. And I was disappointed.
         Finally, I got my thoughts off of Danny when my father called. I hate my father. He is the weakest, laziest, most selfish person I know. My mother tried to hand me the telephone, but I stubbornly refused to speak to him. A father can only be called that when he cares about his children.
         Unfortunately, Danny rushed into my mind again. He always seemed to be lurking somewhere in my head, and I could never really stop thinking of him. As I lay in my lonely bed that night, I just imagined what his hands would feel like on my body, how his lips would feel on mine. I fell into a restless sleep two hours later, and my dreams were filled with thoughts of Danny's touch.
         School once again proved to be boring and uneventful for the beginning part of the next day. I sat alone at lunch, I wandered aimlessly through the halls, I fell asleep in class. I hate school.
         However, I held out hope after writing class. The teacher gave us an assignment for which we had to partner up. We had to write a story that took place in the Middle Ages, in conjunction with what most of us were learning in history class. Much to my disbelief and pleasant surprise, Danny asked me to be his partner, an offer that I obviously accepted. But honestly, I don't know why I subject myself to this sort of torture. It will be sheer hell for me to work with Danny and not be able to tell him how I feel. But I suppose it's better to long for him than to embarrass myself by telling him my true emotions.
         At the end of the day as I was walking to my car, Danny came up to me and tapped my shoulder. Startled, I turned around and found myself floundering in the liquid depths of his ebony eyes. "How may I help you, Daniel?" I asked in the voice I use to make it seem like I am bored with everything, even though my heart was pounding a mile a minute.
         "I need your phone number," he replied, "so we can make plans to get together to work on Garbera's project."
         So I burrowed into my purse and found a gum wrapper. On it I wrote "Catalina--253-9324" and walked away without even a goodbye.
         "Cat!" Danny called after me.
         He was the first person who ever called me Cat and I never thought I'd like it until he said it. I needed to get away from him before he could decipher what the urgency in my actions and the expression in my eyes meant. But it was as if some magnetic force pulled me back toward him. "Yeah. What?"
         "Here." He pulled a sheet from his notebook and wrote his number on it. "I'll be calling you," he said as he sauntered off to his car. I felt like a real idiot. After all, he'd had the decency to use a real piece of paper.
         Danny ended up calling me later that night. I was so shocked to her his voice that I almost dropped my telephone on the floor. We made plans to meet at my house the next afternoon. Funny how I never knew that the object of my obsessive affections lived right down the road from me. I guess I'm not cut out to be a stalker.
         As previously planned, Danny came over after school wearing old gray sweats and no shirt. His body glistened with sweat and he explained that he'd just been running.
         I'd never been more attracted to him in my life.
         Of course, the force of my feelings pushed me into my shell, and I became my old sarcastic, uncaring self once again. Danny must've gotten fed up with my exterior personality. All of a sudden, he leapt up and said, "Damn it, Cat! Don't you care about this project? Don't you care about anything? Why are you so...unfeeling all the time?"
         Words flew from my mind. The thought of Danny thinking of me as an ice queen and uncaring disconcerted me more than I ever knew possible. Wordlessly, I turned and ran into my room, tears pouring from my eyes. I heard Danny curse as I flopped myself down on my bed, finally letting the sobs I'd been holding in for so long loose.
         I heard Danny come into my room. I felt him pull me close to him, and I felt his lips cover mine as if I were having a dream. Surely nothing on this earth could produce such pleasure. His tongue sought entry into my mouth, and I hungrily parted my lips for it. We sat kissing one another for endless minutes before Danny finally pulled back. His hands cupped my face and he kissed away a pesky tear that had run down my now flushed cheek. "Why were you crying?" he asked tenderly.
         "I-I can't tell you," I stammered.
         "Oh, bullshit, Catalina! Why do you think that you have to keep everything to yourself? I want to know why you're so cold all the time."
         Now I became angry as well. "I am not cold, Danny I-am-God Vogler, and don't you ever call me that again! Just because I'm introverted and-and shy, don't you ever think I am cold! If you really wanna know, I hide in myself because the intensity of what I feel scares me! Everything I feel scares me and I don't know how to tell anyone or how to deal with it!"
         I waited with trepidation for Danny to speak. "I know you're not, Cat," he said softly, "The way you just kissed me proves that. It's-it's just that you always seem so aloof. You seem like you have nothing to live for and nothing to care for. I want to give you a reason to care, Cat," he said as his lips neared mine. "Go to dinner with me tonight," he whispered.
         "Okay," I replied in the heated instant before his lips again mated with mine. I responded to him with a passion I didn't know I was capable of. The sensations Danny caused were overwhelming me. I gently broke the kiss and pulled away from Danny.
         "It's too much," I whispered, avoiding Danny's eyes.
         Danny was thoughtful for a moment. "You've never been kissed before, have you, Catalina?"
         Ashamed of my inexperience, I nodded my head while focusing my eyes on some point on the floor.
         "I'm happy I got to be the first," he whispered as he stood up. "I'll pick you up for dinner around seven. Goodbye, Cat."
         "Bye," I whispered after him, my insides quivering with the turbulent emotions that Danny's lips had caused.
         What I was feeling, to put it quite plainly, scared the hell out of me. I didn't know what to think of Danny's earlier actions. I wanted to believe that he'd kissed me because he liked me, but I wasn't sure. Maybe he just wanted to apologize for making me cry and that was his way of doing it. Or maybe he was horny and I just happened to be there. Doubts were swarming through my mind at breakneck speed, and I began to believe them. I was now regretting the fact that I'd accepted his offer to go to dinner, but I soon realized that I'd have been an idiot to have refused. He was what I wanted for so long, and I finally had the chance to make him mine.
         I was disgusted as I pored through my closet that night. I had nothing suitable to wear on a first date. I'd never liked dresses, or particularly feminine clothes, for that matter. A lot of what I did own happened to be black. I threw clothing heedlessly on my floor as I tried to find something that would make Danny want me, need me the way that I needed him. Finally, I decided to call for reinforcements.
         I really only had one friend. She is the total opposite of me. Where I have pale skin, chestnut hair and blue eyes, Keeley Addams has a deep tan, platinum blonde hair and warm, honey-colored eyes. Where I am of average height and curvy, Keeley is tall and rail thin. People who see us together do a double take.
         Keeley came over to my house to help me find something suitable to wear, although I didn't discuss who'd asked me out until she arrived. When I finally spilled the beans, Keeley screamed. "Why didn't you tell me? You've been obsessing over Danny Vogler since the second grade!"


         As I tried on the only dress in my closet, I replied to Keeley. "I didn't tell you because...well, I think I didn't really believe it myself. I find it extremely difficult to believe that someone as popular and vivacious as Danny would want to even be seen with someone as plain and as dull as I am."
         "You're not plain and dull, and obviously he must've seen that or he'd never have asked you out," Keeley stated plaintively.
         "Why the hell did I ever buy all of these black clothes? I must always look like I'm on my way to a frigging funeral!" I exclaimed, looking at my black dress in the mirror of my bathroom, uncomfortable with the way the dress seemed to cling lovingly to my curves. I was used to wearing shapeless clothes that concealed my figure because I wasn't proud of it.
         "What are you gonna do with your hair?" asked Keeley in the second before the doorbell rang.
         "Oh, God!" I cried out as I looked out the window only to see Danny standing at my door with his black Trans-Am parked in my driveway. "I guess I'm going to have to leave it like this. Go answer my door and tell him I'll be down in a few minutes."
         I stared at my stolid reflection in the mirror. I was so nervous that I thought I was going to be sick all over my only good outfit. Finding a pair of dressy heels in my mom's closet, I slid them on as I made my way across the house to see Danny for our very first date.
         I descended the stairwell with my heart in my throat, throbbing until I thought it was going to burst out of my body. I thought for sure that Danny would be able to see it. But he had magically vanished, like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
         I suppose I had never really thought that he would show up. The trust issues I have with men are almost as old as I am. My father left my mother and me when I was just five years old. My first stepfather used to sleep around on my mother, with girls closer to my age than to his. And we can't forget what a jewel my second stepfather was. No, he was the diamond that landed both my mother and me in the hospital when he deliberately crashed our car. The poor, sick fuck. He thought that we'd all be "happier in Heaven," or at least that's what he told the jury on the stand. What bullshit. The attempted murder charge was let go of when the psychiatrist found him clinically insane.
         It's a wonder I turned out as normally as I did.
         Although Danny wasn't there, I didn't really want to believe that he wouldn't show up. Why did I always do this to myself? Every time a man had ever made a promise to me, he'd broken it. Why should Danny be any different?
         "Goddamn it, I give up," I muttered as I pulled my hair into a long ponytail and began to walk to my room. I wouldn't let myself break down until I was safely ensconced in my little haven, away from everyone else.
         Much to my surprise, however, I met Danny in the hallway of my house. I almost ran smack into him. I was slightly chagrined to see him, when I thought that I had been so correct in lumping him with all of the other men who have been disappointments in my life.
         Danny let his eyes roam over my body when he thought I wasn't looking, and it made my stomach do backflips. No one had ever "checked me out," as Keeley would say. I wasn't even sure if Danny was. How naive I was.
         Finally, I decided to break the now-uncomfortable silence. "What are you doing up here, Danny?"
         "I had to use the bathroom. Keeley showed me where it was." Sure enough, Keeley was in my room now, cleaning up the mess I'd made while searching for a dress. I really did appreciate it, though, even though I forgot to tell her.
         I was mortified when Danny looked into my room and saw my entire closet on the floor. He just chuckled while I gave him the death stare and practically pushed him out of my room. "Let's go," I said, anxious to begin the evening.
         Thankfully, Danny didn't protest and followed me down the stairs and out of my house. I hadn't told my mother that I would be going out, but I knew that she probably wouldn't care anyway. She'd be thrilled that her reclusive daughter had finally gotten a date, and a life, for that matter.
         I had always loved Danny's car. To me it had always represented the life I never had. It symbolized popularity, acceptance, wealth, and everything else that I had ever longed for and had never gotten, perhaps due to some fault of my own. Maybe I wasn't nice enough, smart enough, pretty enough, interesting enough to fit in with people like Danny. I, of course, already knew that I was nowhere near rich enough to even be seen with him. I was nowhere near his level. Why the hell was he going out with me?
         "Is this a pity date?" I asked before I even knew the words were in my mind. But I decided that I really needed to understand why Danny wanted to be with me.
         Danny faced me. "What are you talking about? A pity date? Cat, I do what I want, and I don't pity you. For God's sake, you're like a tiger. Who pities a tiger?"
         The backhanded compliment somewhat mollified me, at least for the moment. We drove in silence until I realized I had no idea where the hell I was. "Where are we going? You're not going to feed me to the sharks, are you, Daniel?"
         "Don't call me that, and no, I'm not. You'll just have to wait and see."
         "I hate surprises," I muttered under my breath.
         Soon a beach came into view. "We're going to the coast?" I said, horrified. "You'd better not make me eat seafood or I'll vomit all over your lovely leather interior."
         Danny just smiled.
         We drove for another twenty minutes or so, and Danny parked on the beach. There was no one around, and it seemed like Heaven to me. Somehow I had always imagined Heaven to be a California beach at sunset with Danny. Well, I would have if I had believed in Heaven and Paradise and all that crap.
         In case you haven't noticed, I'm highly cynical.
         Danny laid a blanket down on the warm white sand and gestured that I should sit on it. It turns out that he had packed a picnic dinner, including dill pickles (my favorite), turkey sandwiches, Jell-O, bottled water, and salad. I just stared at it, knowing that if I took one bite I would make a pig of myself. And that was the last thing I wanted to do in front of Danny Vogler. After all, I shouldn't press my luck. I am already about fifty sizes bigger than anyone else he'd ever taken out, and about twenty times stupider. Is that even proper English? Sometimes I disgust myself.
         My voracious appetite soon got the better of me, however. I ate two sandwiches, two pickles, a small bowl of salad, and a big bowl of Jell-O for dessert. Danny looked at me in wonderment.
         "You eat a lot."
         I was really hurt by Danny's casual comment, but tried to brush it off with a sarcastic retort. "A tiger usually does." I then stared intently at a particularly interesting blade of grass, cheeks burning.
         Danny must've noticed my embarrassment, for he wrapped his arms around me, much to my surprise. "That's a good thing, Catalina. Most girls will only eat a leaf of lettuce and nibble on some cottage cheese. You aren't afraid to show your real self."
         I just smiled, feeling cozy from Daniel's embrace and words. Never before had I felt as safe as when Danny held me.
         Soon, however, the feelings changed entirely. I still felt safe, but a charged tension now entered the fold. He evoked feelings inside me that I wasn't sure I was capable of. Danny must've felt the change too. His hands began to caress my stomach, where they rested. I sighed, a whoosh of contentment, and he pulled me closer to him. His heat penetrated my shirt and sank into my skin, filling me with a sense of arousal. His fingers continued to dance on my tummy, creating a maelstrom of desire inside my body. Slowly I turned around. "Danny?" I said, my voice deep and raspy. I was chagrined to know that passion could be so easily discovered through the sound of my words.
         His hands danced from my stomach to cup my cheeks, which by this time were on fire with lust and need. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before, and I didn't think it was possible. But it did, and it happened with Danny. Danny! The one thing I wanted more than any other in this paltry life had come to me. I wasn't about to let it go, either.
         "Cat," Danny parroted my tone of voice. He sound almost breathless, but I had no idea why. At least not until he kissed me. Then I completely understood. I never knew why people always seemed robbed of breath when they were with that special someone, but I did now.
         Danny's kiss sent shockwaves spiraling through my body. I wrapped my arms around him, needing to get closer to his warmth. Even though I had never been kissed by anyone other than him, I knew instinctively that it would never be like this with anyone else. Not in a million years.
         Danny continued to kiss me, using his tongue to arouse me in ways I never thought possible. I heard a low moan of pleasure in the distance, but I had no idea who had uttered it. When I heard Danny mimic the sound, I knew it was I who had moaned so lustily.
         Gently, I broke our kiss so that I could turn around and press myself against him. The feel of his solid body against mine caused little flames to dance over my skin. I needed to be closer to him. I needed him to touch me. I needed...
         "Catalina, we have to stop this now," Danny rasped, putting some distance between us.
         "Why?" I asked. I was more confused than I'd ever been, and I was so hot, but I didn't know how to get rid of the heat. It really agitated me.
         "Because if we don't, things are going to go further than I'd like right now," he replied, not meeting my stare.
         "I--I don't understand," I stammered.
         "Okay, I am going to put this bluntly. If we don't stop this now, I'm going to pin you beneath me and make love to you until I pass out on top of you."
         My eyes grew almost unbelievably wide. I couldn't believe that I had that effect on Danny Vogler. Me, plain, dumpy, Catalina Thomas! I wasn't beautiful, I wasn't thin, I wasn't exceptional at anything. The fact that he was that attracted to me defied all logic. I found it impossible to understand.
         "M-Maybe we should be getting back," I stuttered, forcing myself to my feet.
         "If you want to."
         Hand in hand, Danny and I walked back to his car. He opened the door for me and then slid in his own seat.
         On the way home, silence filled the car. Danny made me nervous and the things he said embarrassed me. That may sound ludicrous, especially since he has haunted my dreams for what seemed like eons, but the reality of his actually wanting me made my insides quiver. I kept stealing admiring sidelong glances of his strong profile as he drove down the windy dirt road. Finally he reached over and took my hand again. All was right with the world.
         The silence was nice, however; it was as though a sort of easy camaraderie had formed between us that day. I'd never been so comfortable with someone in all my life. He brought out the best in me.
         The rest of the evening floated by like a magical dream dancing on the air. It didn't matter that my father had called and made my mother cry while I was out. It didn't matter that we didn't get any work done on our writing project. None of that mattered. All that did was that I was with Danny.
         The next day I actually put a little effort into my appearance. However, I didn't want to pain the whole school with my amateurish efforts, so once again I called Keeley for reinforcements.
         Of course, it goes without saying that she coerced me into answering some difficult questions that I would rather have not responded to, such as "Is he a good kisser?" and "Did you claim your undying love for him?" Oh yes, Keeley got a real hoot out of that one.
         Obviously, I did not.
         Honestly, I don't know how I imagined that next day in school would be. If I had thought that Danny would be shouting his eternal love for me down the echoing hallways, I was sorely mistaken. He was courteous and almost polite all day.
         It almost made me physically ill.
         Obviously, I kept him in the dark about how I felt. Why the hell would I let him know that he had changed my entire life with one date and a few mind-shattering, life-altering kisses? He had no right to know, damn it!
         Although if he would've expressed the depth of his feelings to me, I would gladly have it skywritten.
         And to think the makeup I had worn that day was all for naught.
         Later that evening, while I was convincing my mother of the merits of chicken tacos, Danny showed up. Just like that, he was real again. Everything we had experienced together was real again. Most importantly, I was real again.
         My mother dropped the chicken on the floor when she realized that I had a male visitor. Luckily, the chicken was saved by none other than me (aka Supergirl, boys and girls) when, in a maneuver I could never replicate, I caught the raw poultry mere inches from the floor.
         No praise, please, people. Money works just fine.
         My mother, of course, found it necessary to embarrass me further by introducing herself as my "hip" mom and asking Danny's name and intentions toward me. Can you imagine the mortification I suffered at her hands?
         Glaring at her, I told her Danny and I needed to go to my room and work on our writing project. For the next hour or so, we actually made some real progress. Then he had to go and look at me in that incredibly sexy way he does, with his eyes all dark and intense and his head inclined toward me. What sane girl could refuse?
         Not that I'm exactly sane, but I didn't refuse either.
         His kiss shot through my nervous system like lightning. My body nearly imploded from the sheer heat of it, and still just a kiss wouldn't suffice. I knew that I needed him to touch me somewhere, anywhere, but I couldn't figure out how to get his hands there short of grabbing them and placing them where I wanted them most. It was almost inexplicably difficult not to do just that. However, I somehow managed to keep my baser instincts under check.
         A minute or an eternity later, Danny finally stopped the kiss and distanced himself from me. He arose to pace the room while a million thoughts paced in my mind. Why did he stop? Did he find my amateurish efforts at intimacy below par? I was appalled at the wave of self-hatred that washed over me. I called myself every deprecating name in the book. I couldn't deal with his rejection. I stood and left Danny staring at my door while I sank down in my hallway.
         The wood was quite cold behind my back, but, embarrassingly, my body was still heated from Danny's kiss. I could not comprehend how something as minor as a little kiss could transform me into a feral creature concerned only with carnal pleasure.
         I jumped about a thousand feet into the air when the door suddenly gave way behind my back. I leaped to my feet, nearly tripping over them as I whirled around to face Danny. Cupping my arm in one strong callused hand, he dragged me back into the bedroom.
         "Cat."
         I didn't want to look at him. I really didn't. But powers far beyond my control seemed to take control of my gaze and direct it with laser-like precision to his eyes. I could drown in those bottomless ebony pools. My hands shook as we stared for a minute or an eternity into each other's eyes. Still I didn't answer him.
         "Cat, I'm sorry I just stopped like that without any sort of explanation."
         My stare must have made him very uncomfortable, because he rambled on in a sort of nervous murmur. "I just--what I feel for you, it's so...intense. I don't understand what's going on between us, but I don't want it to stop. I just--damn it, Cat, I want you so badly, and it's getting increasingly harder to control myself around you...."
         I blinked. His admission was so completely unexpected. I was positive that he had stopped because he didn't want me, that he was ashamed for kissing me and being attracted to me. The weight of the world dropped from my shoulders to the floor in that instant. He did want me! "Danny...." I whispered, bringing up a hand to brush a stray lock of black hair from his face. As he turned his face into my hand, his eyes closed. His lips pressed a soft kiss filled with promise and desire into the sensitive skin of my palm. I shivered as the sensation slithered up my arms and down my back. His lips were cool, moist and soft as silk on the delicate skin of my hand. Impulsively, I leaned forward and kissed Danny's forehead. "We should probably actually work on our project."
         "Yeah," he whispered raggedly, "you're right."
         We sat on the bed, and I did my best to avoid touching Danny in any way. I knew that even just the slightest brush of his skin against mine would ignite both of us in a conflagration of need. Slowly, we created a plot for our story, a hero and heroine, a conflict and a resolution. We decided to write chapters alternately, with me writing the first, he writing the second, and so on.
         My mother called upstairs that dinner was ready, and she shouted that Danny was invited (read: required) to stay so that my mother "could learn a little more about him."
         Thanks to my mother's nagging inquisition, a dinner that should have taken only an hour at most lasted almost three. My face flamed with embarrassment as she began talking about "young love" and her experiences with it back in the 80's. I wanted to crawl under the table and slither out of the room like a serpent.
         Danny, however, merely seemed amused and answered her queries in a respectful, humorous manner. Finally, my mother realized what time it was and mercifully ended the dinner. With an obscenely obvious wink, she suggested that I walk Danny to his car. The death stare made a reappearance as I shot it at her on our way out.
         "So..." Danny began.
         "So..." I echoed, not sure where this conversation was going to go.
         "Tomorrow's Saturday. Are you doing anything tomorrow night?"
         Was he kidding? The only person not ashamed to be seen with me was Keeley, and unfortunately she had a date. With a little chortle, I responded, "No, I don't have plans."
         "I'm having a little get-together at my house tomorrow night, if you'd like to come. It'll only be for two hours or so, and then I figured you and I could hang out alone."
         "Where will your parents be?"
         "Out. They always go on weekend trips. And weekday trips too, for that matter." For just an instant, something hard and bitter flashed in his eyes. Maybe I had just imagined it.
         "Okay. What time?"
         "6:00."
         "I'll be there with bells on."
         "You could be there with nothing on," he retorted, a devilish glint in his eyes.
         "Danny!" I smacked him on the shoulder as he laughed at me.
         "I'm only kidding," he said once he caught his breath. "I'll see you then."
         He leaned down and brushed his lips teasingly against mine, then began to pull away. I cupped his head in my hands and pulled him back to me, where he belonged. I tried my best to kiss him flirtatiously, using my tongue to trace the perfect shape of his lips and to caress his tongue. His hands found my hips and urged me closer to him. His tongue stabbed into my mouth, much the way I wished other parts of our bodies could be joined. We broke the kiss at long last, and with a final peck and wave, he walked down the street to his house.
         I sighed as I wandered up the path and into the house. I knew that I would have to face one of my greatest foes, the monster known as My Mother's Insatiable Curiosity. Sure enough, she was hovering in the modest foyer, her eyes like a shark's. "So," she began while I mentally prepared for the inquisition I knew was inevitable, "that Danny seems nice. Where did you meet him?"
         "Writing class. Hmmm, let's see...I'll take Nosy Mothers for $1000, Alex."
         "No such category. My turn...how about Let's Not Have a Baby for $600?"
         My face flamed with indignant embarrassment. "Mother! I know you hold credence in New Age thinking, but contrary to what you think, mothers and daughters really don't need to talk about everything. Agreed?"
         "Oh, Catalina, I'm just trying to look out for you. You don't want to end up--"
         "I know, Mother. I don't want to end up like you, pregnant at eighteen with nowhere to go and no one to turn to, the asshole who knocked you up nowhere to be found--"
         "Watch your mouth, Catalina! And you know your father was around then."
         "He may as well have left you then! Where the hell is he now?"
         "Cat, you're too young to understand what happened between us. If you would just give him a chance to be a part of your life...."
         Silence reigned for a moment. I could feel my heart starting to pound wildly in my chest, anger fueling its increasingly furious cadence. "I know exactly what happened between the two of you. You seem to forget that it was I who overheard all of your fights, you screaming about the other woman and his pathetically convenient excuses. I heard him leave, never to be seen again, and I heard you sob night after night for him and what you had lost. I know a lot more about everything that happened than you realize. So please don't tell me I'm too young to understand. I am eighteen years old, but I feel more like eighty."
         A deathly pallor had settled over my mother's face. Suddenly the small crow's feet near her eyes and the furrow lines on her brow seemed to take on the proportions of deep chasms. She looked much older than her thirty-six years, and a small pinprick of guilt stabbed at my heart like a bee sting. I should have known better than to lose control. Nearly fifteen years after the betrayal and consequent abandonment of my father, my mother still reacted like it had happened mere days before. I knew that, and I should have kept my mouth shut.
         "Well, I do believe this discussion has concluded. Good night, Catalina." She turned to walk up the stairs, her back bowed under the pressure of so much emotional weight.
         "Mom, I'm sorry. Listen, what do you want to know about Danny? It's not like we're really dating or anything, anyway."
         "I accept your apology. I'm going to bed; I'm tired." Wordlessly, she trundled up the stairs. I heard the door softly swing shut a moment later, the deceptive quiet covering up the maelstrom of emotions inside of each of us. My eyes slid closed as I leaned against the wood-paneled wall and sank down, trying to gain some strength. Inadequacy bloomed in my heart like a poisonous flower. Why didn't my father want us, all those years ago? What had some other woman had to offer that his own wife and child hadn't? I knew that I was liable never to know the answers to my ponderings. The only person who held the key was my mother, and I'd rather die trying to pick the lock than to have him open the door for me.
         And why did I care so much about someone who obviously never cared an iota for me?
         Sleep was fleeting that night, dancing away on lithe feet every time I sought to catch it. Disjointed thoughts whirled and skittered through my mind. I wanted to go to my mom and erase the years of pain that my father had caused. I wanted to make her young and vivacious again. I wanted to feel that way.
         I was always on the sidelines of things. I used to believe that it was because I was above frivolity, above pining after boys and acting inane at parties. Now I wonder if it was a case of sour grapes. Or fear. What if I was too scared of looking like an imbecile? I heaved a heavy sigh as I flipped over in my bed. What a pathetic, sad way to go through life.
         I made a vow to myself to begin making an effort. Of course, I didn't want to act like a simpleton and get so inebriated that i couldn't function. I didn't want to be a perky robot whose only reaction to life was giggling. There had to be a compromise somewhere, and I was determined to find it. I would start tomorrow at Danny's party. About thirty pounds felt like it was lifted from my shoulders as I finally fell under sleep's powerful spell.
         Anticipation flooded my veins when I awoke. Although I was nervous about later that night, I was eagerly awaiting my opportunity to try and mingle. I fairly bounced around the house all morning, prompting questioning looks from my mother.


To be continued....

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