Chapter Fifty-Two

I felt relaxed and at as ease as I walked down the hall that had become rather familiar to me over the past few months, since it was the one that led to my homeroom. The weather outside was a burning sixty-five degrees, granting me the permission to wear a pair of black mesh shorts that stopped right above my knees, a gray Celtics T-shirt, and a pair of vibrantly blue Jordans. I had put my hair up in a ponytail, so that it wouldn’t get in my eyes, and I felt like myself again. My mom had always preached the philosophy that there was a direct connection between one’s attitude and clothes, but up until now I hadn’t believed her. Wearing my old clothes made me feel so confident and, well, real.

      Turning into Room 512, a large smile etched across my face for no apparent reason other than my feeling great. For seniors at Madison High, the time after prom was pretty much irrelevant. College acceptances were flooding in (though I already knew that I was to be admitted, I had received my official letter the evening of prom, as it turned out), and no one really wanted to be in the large building of government-funded education anymore.

      Apparently, Madison High had established a few years back that after prom, seniors only had to stay until lunch, for they feared that the attendance would drop considerably if they didn’t do anything drastic. The way it had been explained to me by Tara during one of our art classes was that the rest of the year was basically “fake.” Teachers couldn’t handle rowdy eighteen year olds who didn’t want to be in their classes, so resorted to giving them free periods, showing movies, or going on field trips. The rest of the year up until graduation was extraneous.

      Well, I was going to The University of Connecticut. When I had gotten back from my short-lived prom experience, there was a large envelope on the dining room table with an orange sticky note attached to it that read, “Out. Text me a pic of the acceptance letter. Hope ya had fun at prom. Be back later. Love, Mommy.” Without a second thought, I carefully handled the thick paper that possessed a sizable amount of weight in my hands, and pealed the seal off. I pulled out a hefty packet with a single sheet of paper attached to the front, and skimmed it quickly. My heart rate accelerated as I learned that I would really be going to UConn in the fall. Everything was actually happening. This wasn’t just talk anymore, I was really going to UConn.

      “Liz?!” someone all but screamed, jerking me from my thoughts. I looked up, recognizing a worried-looking Lauren to be the one speaking. “You’re not dead! Thank goodness!”

      “I told she wasn’t dead!” Alice scolded with a roll of her eyes.

      “Did you get mugged on the way here?” Tara questioned anxiously, her eyes surveying me carefully.

      “Yeah, I’m not dead. Why would that have been an option for my possible whereabouts?” I looked at all three of them, confused out of my mind. “And no, I didn’t get mugged. Why?”

      “Well, after you didn’t show up to the rest of the prom, we didn’t know what happened to you!” Tara explained their less than rational thought process. “Oh, and you look…not like yourself, so I just figured that some guy mugged you and then made you trade clothes or something.”

      “Why would a guy want my clothes?” I inquired.

      “Maybe he was gay?” Lauren supplied.

      “Yeah,” Tara nodded in agreement, “you never know!”

      “These are my clothes,” I said, gesturing to what I was wearing, anticipation bubbling up for the near conversation that I was about to have with them. “Can I tell you guys something?”

      “Sure!” Lauren nodded, her glossed lips spreading into a happy smile.

      With a deep breath, I allowed the words to quickly tumble out of my mouth, unsure of what exactly I was saying. “I play basketball, am going to UConn on a sports scholarship so that I can play basketball there, and I dress like this normally.”

      Tara blinked, and then blinked again, and then closed her eyes and opened them one more time as she looked me up and down. She then started to laugh, shaking her head about. “Good one, Liz! That was funny!” she finally managed to say.

      “Oh! It was a joke!” Lauren said, understanding what her friend had wrongly implied.

      “Uh, guys, I don’t think she’s kidding,” Alice voiced.

      “Of course she is, Alice!” Lauren assured her. “Liz, you really got us for a second there!”

      “I was being serious,” I said flatly, hating that the people I had referred to a my “friends” over the duration of my year weren’t taking me seriously after I had just told them of what consumed 96.2% of my life (the other 3.8% was dedicated to eating and sleeping).

      “April Fools Day already happened, Liz,” Tara told me sympathetically, as if I hadn’t been informed of the fact.

      “Legitimately, I’m telling the fucking truth right now,” I shook my head, exasperated that they wouldn’t believe me.

      “Liz,” Lauren began, eyeing me carefully, wondering what my next move would be, “I’m in your gym class. I’ve seen you play sports. No offense, but you suck.”

      “You know what? Fuck it,” I proclaimed, determination set in my tone. As the saying went, actions did always hold more weight than words… I turned to the door as the girls looked at me blankly in a shield of bewilderment.

      “Where are you going?” Tara was the first to blurt out.

      “We are going on a little field trip,” I told them, hinting that they should follow behind me. They did so willingly as we made it out of Homeroom 512 without so much as a margin of an issue. Just as we escaped the room, three boys came into view, two of them staring directly at me, while the other had eyes for a certain girl with dirty blonde hair and a brain, named Alice.

      “Well hello, Lizzie!” Dylan greeted sarcastically. “Are you going to run away again or do you have time to talk?” Obviously, he was still fairly pissed about me fleeing early from prom.

      “We were actually just on our way to take a little informative field trip to another region of the school, and then I was planning on explaining everything,” I said in the politest way I could manage. “Care to come along?”

      “Sure!” Alex, who had already gravitated over to Alice and wrapped his arm over her shoulder, answered for the other two.

      “Wait…where are we going?” Eric questioned, not as irritated with me as Dylan had been.

      “You’ll see,” was all I said as I began to lead the group of six others towards the one room in the school that would allow me to express myself in the best way I knew.

      Since we were seniors, prom was over, and I had already gotten into UConn, I didn’t really care what classes I missed to show the people I had befriended over the year the real me. Living a lie was never fun, but neither was having to tell the truth that derived from the said lie. I was coming clean and I had never been more ready. Sure, there were still things that I could lose, but compared to before prom, everything was so much easier and less complicated, in a still completely complex sort of way.

      We made our way down the corridors that were on the path to our final designated destination. I was so ready to get this all over with and be treated like myself again. Stopping before two large doors of the required area, I easily pulled one back, holding it open for the person behind me, and then entrusting its weight into their grip. I jogged into the spacious gym of emptiness, going straight over to the wall closest to the doors where the light switch was situated. With a flick of my fingers, the entire gym was illuminated, the glossy wooden floor glistening in the newfound light.

      I averted my gaze from the beauty that was the court to the others who had all filed into the gym. Everyone looked utterly lost except for Dylan, who seemed have a knowing expression on his face. I sent the dark haired boy a wink, and then jogged over to a thankfully unlocked metal bin filled with orange balls. After fishing one out that wasn’t too flat or inflated, I dribbled it back over to the general area in which my classmates had amassed.

      “Eric,” I addressed the boy that I was supposedly still linked through by a looming title in the air, “go shoot this from the foul line.” I tossed him the ball, and he caught it, staring at me dubiously.

      “The what?” he asked, making me physically wince at his lack of knowledge about the best sport ever played.

      With a deep sigh trying to compose myself, I slowly clarified, as one would with a young child. “The line parallel to the basket that makes up one of the sides of the red block.”

      “Oh,” was all he said, moving over to the section, not bothering to dribble with the object in his hand. When he reached the line, he turned back to me, a tentative look on his face. “What do I do now?”

      “Shoot the ball into the basket,” I instructed, all eyes on Eric. Without even questioning why he was doing the activity, he flung the ball from his hands. I cringed again at his form—or lack thereof, and then shuddered again as I realized that the ball had luckily made it in. Pure luck. Due to nervousness, either Lauren or Tara clapped, celebrating the attractive boy’s “victory.”

      “How was that?” Eric inquired smugly, clearly satisfied with what he had accomplished. He ran over to where the ball had dropped, salvaging his rebound.

      “It sucked,” I heard Dylan mutter under his breath, and forced myself to not verbally agree with him.

      “Back up to the half court line and do the same thing,” I said, instead of extoling him for his sucky shot.

      This time he didn’t have to ask where he was shooting from, and went straight to the center line of the court where a large circle with the words “Madison High School Gymnasium” were painted in large block letters with the use of the school’s boring colors of red and white. His hands flew up over his head, and he didn’t even bother to crouch down with his knees. It was painful to watch as he jumped up into the air, submitting the ball on its arched way. This time, it hit the far corner of the backboard and fell to the ground, not even connecting with the net.

      “Basketball’s not my sport,” Eric defended, moving over to the ball, “I do football.”

      “I know,” I mumbled with a slight roll of my eyes that I noticed Dylan catch with a smirk. My hands found their way right above my chest in a bracing position, signifying for Eric to throw me the ball. After a few seconds of him just staring at me, he warily flung it over. Obviously, I caught it, and then proceeded to dully run over to where Eric had been standing—the half court line.

      I squared my shoulders off to the basket, and then bent the joints by my knees, causing me to lose a few inches of height. My right hand balanced the ball above my head at the familiar right angle as I folded my left arm behind my back, just to prove that I could. I inhaled the dry air, about to extend my legs when someone interrupted my concentration.

      “This is a joke, right?” Eric snorted from underneath the basket, watching me.

      “Nope,” I replied, as I allowed the ball to fling from my fingertips the instant my limbs had fully lengthened themselves. I carefully watched as the ball made its journey, connecting with the rim and not even bothering to add suspense by ringing it. No, instead, it went straight to my favorite moment—the struggle. The orange orb tumbled through the net, bouncing a few times on the ground beneath, by Eric.

      Silence flooded my ears, following the okay shot. When it came to basketball, I had an inclination to become a temporary perfectionist, because being just “okay” wasn’t what got me to where I was. Being the best was how I had somehow managed to get into UConn, expected to play on their beyond elite team. “Okay” never cut it. Even now, though it still went in, internally I went over the long list of things I could’ve done better to improve it.

      Slowly, I willed myself to face the five people who stood on the sideline, gazing at me. I had instantly looked at Eric after the ball left my possession, and saw that he looked confused and uncomfortable. My eyes traveled through the row of friends, as I began to analyze their exterior reactions.

      Tara looked a little lost and her face was contorted in such a way that wasn’t exactly flattering. If someone were to snap a picture at her suddenly, she probably would murder him or her if they didn’t immediately delete it. Moving down the line, Lauren also looked disoriented, but in more a thinking sort of way—as if she was pondering something deep within. Alice was mild, composed, and held a thoughtful expression, as normal, so nothing major had occurred to shock her. And then there was Alex Campbell. Surprisingly, he retained a smile so large one would think that he had won the lottery or lost his virginity. Dylan looked bored out of his mind, for he already knew of my epic skills.

      “I don’t know if you know this, Liz,” Alex was the first to speak, excitement radiating off of him, “but we’re officially homies for life. I’m talking best friends. That was seriously fucking amazing shit.”

      “Yeah, that was really cool,” Lauren backed up.

      “So…” Tara started, biting on her lips to find the right words, “you’re, like, really good.”

      “That was awesome, Liz,” Alice smiled at me, though not as largely as her boyfriend.

      “Liz—” Eric began loudly from where he was standing, though only to be cut off by a somewhat agitated Dylan Collins.

      “Okay, I think we fucking get it, Liz can shoot a damn ball. Great. She’s going to UConn to play ball. Awesome. Can move on now to what the actual fuck happened at prom?” Dylan snapped as both Eric—who had retrieved the basketball—and I approached the others.

      When I reached where everyone else was, I lowered myself to the cool ground that smelt of a mixture of wax and sweat, and crossed my legs. The others looked down at me cautiously, until Alex made the first move that coerced them to do the same: he sat down too. Soon, we were all sitting in a nice little circle, everyone’s interest on me as I thought about the best way to tell my story.

      “When I was younger,” I decided to initiate with, “I was essentially a tomboy. I still am, I guess. Anyways, I was growing up in Boston at the time, and there was this kid, Lance, who I didn’t really along with too well,” I took a deep breath, quickly glancing up only to be caught in Dylan’s vivid orbs of blue—they almost matched the color of my shoes. “One day, he bet me that I couldn’t become a ‘normal’ girl even if I tried. The terms were simple. He gave me until my senior prom to try and become a ‘normal’ girl. That was four years ago,” I reflected with a sigh. “Then I moved around a bit and the bet didn’t really matter to me. Basketball was my life and I was happy being a tomboy.”

      Tentatively, Tara’s hand gently rose up, representing that she had a question to be answered. I merely nodded my head, indicating for her to go on. “Uh, Liz,” she gulped, “you’re not a tomboy.”

      “See, that’s when we get to the next segment of the story,” I told her. “Before I came to New York, something reminded me of the bet I had made. I had a little under a year to become a ‘normal’ girl, which meant no basketball or being a tomboy. So, I hid that part of my life from you guys, wanting to you to think that I was just another girl,” as the words fell from my mouth, I began to realize how utterly absurd the entire situation was. “Then prom came around and I arranged that the boy—that Lance would come, just as we had promised so many years ago. So he did. Eric did the talking—thank you for that, by the way, Wilson—and Lance believed that I really was a ‘normal’ girl, or, well, normal enough, or just pitied me, and I won the bet—”

      “But why the fuck did you leave prom?” was the nagging inquiry Dylan asked aloud.

      “Because I didn’t want to be there,” I said simply. “I had gotten what I wanted and didn’t need to keep up this façade of a girl who liked what most girls liked. I don’t like dancing or dresses or blasting music, so I went home. I’m just weird, I guess. There’s nothing much to it.”

      “And did you have a good sandwich minus the bread?” Dylan probed caustically, recalling my outlandish reason for having left.

      “It was delicious, actually,” I said wistfully, thinking back to the entire jars of jelly and peanut butter that I had consumed on the night that I was supposed to be losing my innocence or falling in love under the cheesy decorations that made up the lamest and most overused prom theme ever. It was an odd craving to have, but after I had gone home and tore the pantry apart looking for the ingredients, I had never been more pleased with my impulsive sense of judgment. They were really good.

      “Something still doesn’t make sense to me,” Lauren voiced.

      “What?” I inquired, believing that I had explained everything relatively well and clearly.

      “Well, why did you do it? What the incentive? What were you getting out of it? The bet, I mean,” she expressed, looking up at me.

      I thought about it for a moment, wondering how I could convey my motivation in way that everyone in the circle would understand. A grin etched onto my face, as the perfect description surfaced. “A shoe.”

      “A shoe?” Tara reiterated, unsure if she had heard me correctly.

      “A shoe,” I nodded.

      “Just one?” Alice was then to ask.

      “See, what happened was Lance and I had ordered this pair of shoes together from eBay prior to the bet,” I laughed lightly, still not understanding why I had done something so risky with a boy I hated and who hated me. “The shoes weren’t normal shoes. They were Jordans, signed by the Michael Jordan. One shoe said ‘Michael’ and the other said ‘Jordan.’ When they came in the mail, we agreed to each keep one. I got ‘Michael’ and Lance got ‘Jordan,’” I recollected almost fondly. “When it came time for the bet, Lance was so confident that I would lose, that he bet me the other shoe. If I couldn’t become a ‘normal’ girl, then he would get ‘Michael,’ but if I could, then I would get ‘Jordan.’”

      “Did you get the shoe?” Lauren asked eagerly.

      “I got ‘Jordan,’” I confirmed proudly.

      “Oh,” Tara said, “well that makes sense. I’d do just about anything for a pair of shoes.” I smiled, knowing that she was being honest, and that my story had reached her. Shoes. They were universally something that everyone could relate to.

      “So, you lied?” Eric chose to take a negative spin on everything I had just said.

      “Yeah, pretty much,” I shrugged, not denying it, for the accusation was factual one.

      “Was our relationship a lie?”

      “No. For the most part, my personality wasn’t altered. I tried to steer clear of making friends with boys, but that failed,” I winked at Alex. “The only things were really the sports, clothes, and friends. Otherwise, I was me. Oh, and you remember the baseball date you took me on?” He nodded. “Well, I lied there. My swing is actually pretty good. Not as good as my shot, but I can definitely bat.”

      “Oh,” Eric mumbled, looking down. “So, do you always dress like that?” He pointed at what I was wearing.

      “Yep.”

      “You’re a tomboy?”

      “Guilty as charged,” I laughed.

      “And this isn’t the time to discuss our current relationship status, is it?”

      “Right again,” I articulated, biting the edge of my lip. “Sorry that I lied to you guys for—”

      “A pair of shoes?” Dylan finished with a smirk.

      “That does sound rather insane, doesn’t it?” I laughed, shaking my head at the thought of what I had actually done. I had given up basketball for year just for a shoe. Although, it was more than just a Jordan with my idol’s last name that coincidentally happened to also be Jordan scribbled across it—it was a symbol for how far I had come. Also, I proved something to both myself and a boy who never believed in me.

      I had experimented briefly with the world that my mom lived every day: fashion. I wasn’t as opposed to it as I had been going in initially, and could actually fathom possibly returning or taking a visit every once in a while to that realm. Following in Monica’s footsteps and becoming someone big in the world of shoes and clothes (unless if of the Jordan variety) still didn’t really appeal to me. I could, however, see myself in the future slowly transitioning into a mature me by wearing garments that were nicer and more accepted in the greater public than basketball shorts and a T-shirt. Clothes didn’t make a person—they just assisted in the process. Honestly, as long as I was true to myself and didn’t compromise who I was (again) for anyone or anything, it didn’t matter what I wore—providing I had my Jordans, of course.

      “Just a tad,” Alice pinched her fingers to demonstrate the small amount, answering my almost rhetorical question.

      “No, it definitely sounds insane,” Dylan told me.

      “Yeah, but it’s a good kind of insane. That’s why you love me, after all,” I joked. Then, I don’t know why, but I could’ve sworn that Dylan’s face flushed at my words. I had probably just imagined it, though.

      “I want to see you play in a game,” Alex declared firmly.

      “When I start practicing again, I’ll be sure to invite you to watch the scrimmages,” I promised him, mentally wincing as I thought of all I would be doing over the summer and in the fall to prepare.

      Since I hadn’t really kept in shape this year, I was sure that my stamina had dropped considerably and that running would practically kill me when I started up again. I was going to push myself as I far as I needed to, and even beyond that. Though I would probably hate myself in the moment as I committed physically strenuous endeavors, I knew that in the long run it would be worth it. When I was laying on my bed at night in my quaint dorm room the size of a shoebox, at UConn, the way my muscles ached would be a rewarding kind of pain. It was a repercussion of being an athlete—strength. I missed it. I missed basketball.

      “You better,” Alex teased.

      I smiled, stretching myself from the seated position as I stood, my legs straightening out. Everyone else was still seated, looking up at me in perplexity as I took as a stride away. “Thanks for listening, and hopefully understanding,” I said to them, meaning every word of it.

      “Where are you going?” Eric asked apprehensively.

      I took another step back from the group, beaming at the friends I had made. It was an unexpected group of people that I didn’t ever really see myself with, but I liked them. Though I didn’t necessarily like the overall change, I liked parts of it—my friends being one of them. I just shook my head, the smooth legs of my shorts sliding off one another as I paced backwards, yet again. With a soft laugh, I answered logically, “To class.”