Permanent Adhesives (5 page)

“Yeah,” I said, leaning against the wall with my shoulder. I felt all happy inside. We were having what could have possibly been defined as a conversation, or at least the start of one. I think it was at that point I might have actually realized I really liked him. Not just friend like liking him, but more than friends liking him, even though at that point he technically wasn’t my friend, so it wasn’t really more than friends liking him. It was, well, it was the kind of like where your stomach feels all fluttery and you hear birds chirping and harp music when you think about him kind of like.

“So,” Elias said, clicking his tongue.

I scrunched up my face and asked, “You really read my comic?” I actually didn’t want to ask him that because I was afraid of his response, but our conversation was losing steam fast, so it was the first question I plucked from my brain.

He crossed his arms and pursed his lips together and gave me a kind of mean glare.

Uh-oh, I thought.

Then he cracked a slight grin. “Yeah.”

“Do you hate me?”

He shrugged. “Your depiction of my mother kinda holds true.”

What I heard at first was
Youd depiction of my muda kinda holds due
. I scratched the back of my neck, concentrating on his response, trying to pick up on his speech pattern. From the brief sentences we’d exchanged so far, it seemed I was getting it. Ss became sh’s as in
yesh
and
ish
and he tended to leave off the ending letters on some words. He also did not seem to like certain letters, like Ls and Rs, they became Ws. If I just listened and paid attention, I was able to get it. It was like my brain’s auto-correct kicked in.

When Elias’ sentence clicked in my brain, I looked at my feet, still being embarrassed that he had seen my comic. “I’m sorry anyways.”

“Don’t fret,” he said, giving me a light tap on the elbow.

I looked up, and our eyes met for a slight second. His eyes were a dark-brown, but they almost looked black, like pools of oil. “Have you gone to our school this whole time?” I asked, biting my lip, hoping not to offend him.

“Uh, yeah.”

“Oh my God, really? I swear I’ve never seen you at school before.”

“I’ve seen you.”

God, I felt like an ass. How could I have never noticed him before? I could feel my cheeks turning bright pink. “So I saw you come in with Tomasz,” I said, trying to steer the conversation in a different direction.

Elias shrugged. “Not really.”

He seemed to be one to keep his responses brief.

“Um, so how did you end up in my English class?”

He shrugged like he didn’t even know why.

“Good explanation.”

Elias smiled. “What’s up with Mrs. Gomez?”

“I think students’ have been asking themselves that question for ages. She has a real stick up her ass.”

“That’s an understatement,” Elias said, sliding his back down the wall to sit on the floor. He looked at me and then the ground, inviting me to sit down with him.

I sat, noticing at that point we were the only ones sitting besides Roberto and the couch crew, but it was okay because it seemed more private sitting on the floor. Elias picked at the frays to the canvas of his shoes. I pulled my knees up and stuck my chin on top.

“Is it just you over there with your mom?” I asked him.

Elias looked up as if to ponder my question. “Besides your dad, yeah.”

I nodded. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I couldn’t think of anything to say. Much to my relief he spoke again.

“What ‘bout you?”

“Just my sister, me, and our mom.”

And after that it was like we got the swing of having a conversation. If you could really call it that; it started out more like a question and answer session. But Elias and I continued that way for a while; just asking totally random questions back and forth.

“Ever live anywhere else?” I asked.

“A couple other places, mostly around the city, you?”

“Yeah, a lot around the city too.” Which we did, we moved like nine times. That’s kind of a lot for not being a military brat. It was usually because we didn’t have the rent and got kicked out, but a couple of times it was due to drunken fights my dad got into with the landlords.

“College?”

“Hopefully, you?”

“Hopefully,” he said. “Favorite breakfast food?”

“Waffles.”

“Mini pancakes.”

“Discriminate against the large ones?”

“Yes.”

“You like working at the store?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s okay.”

“I don’t have a job now cuz I use to baby-sit and made good money doing it, but then my mom made me give all my money to my dad, and he just used it to buy beer and cigarettes.”

“That stinks.”

“It does, so you saving for college, or is it for party money?”

Elias laughed, snorted actually. “Not much of a partier.”

“I’m not much of a partier either.”

“It’s a good thing. Partying is overrated.”

“Overrated? Well, what about now?”

“This is different.”

“How’s it different?”

He answered with a shrug. I smiled back.

As the party carried on around us, I scooted a couple of inches closer to Elias and softly asked (even though I’m sure nobody would have heard me if I spoke in a regular tone), “So, what’s living with my dad like?”

He sighed, leaned his head back against the wall, rolling it in my direction to look at me. “I dunno, like living with my mom.”

“So, your mom, she’s a…” I paused trying to think of a way to phrase an uncomfortable and personal question.

“Drunk too?” Elias answered, not making me carry on the rest of my question, which I was most appreciative of.

I nodded to affirm he had the correct question.

“Yeah,” he said sullenly.

We then started sharing stories of our parents’ antics, stories which I had never told anyone before. I told him of times my dad showed up drunk to different social events, and he told me about how his mom never used a babysitter and left him at home alone ever since he was like five. We then both talked about how if my dad or his mom was home they were usually passed out drunk or yelling about something.

After a while (I’m quite sure it was a long while), we were interrupted by Kate, which kind of annoyed me because it seemed Elias and I were almost kind of getting to know each other, but she wouldn’t stop screaming for me. I glanced over at Elias and realized how close I was to him. I looked down at our arms. They were brushing lightly against each other, but Elias didn’t seem to mind, nor did I.

“Molly,” she screamed at me from across the room. “Get your arse over here.”

“I’ll be back,” I said, getting up and giving Elias a little wave.

I pushed through a crowd of people to see what Kate wanted. She was standing with Brian, Anna, and Clark.

“I thought you didn’t like him?” she said, smiling.

“Well…” I responded.

After my conversation with Kate and the rest, which turned into one that was way too long, I got recruited to help unclog a toilet, and it was forever before I got back to Elias. I found him sitting on the floor, leaning up against the wall, in pretty much the same place I left him. Nicki and Roberto were sitting with him. Roberto had passed his DJ duties on, and Nicki sat there giggling—wearing what looked like a 1940’s prom dress or something.

Elias looked up at me with a stupid grin. I knew that grin. It was the grin of somebody who had been drinking. Without thinking, I asked, “Have you been drinking?”

Elias started laughing. “Uh, yeah, since I got here,” he said, answering my question, even though I really didn’t need an answer, so that wasn’t just pop in his cup.

Okay, let me tell you, I had this thing against people who were inebriated. I’m sure it stemmed from issues with my dad, but I just didn’t like being around drunk people, especially teenagers, but in a way it was partially my fault because it was my idea to have the party, and I okayed the plan for bringing beer and stuff, but I was still irritated. I was irritated because the guy I liked seemed so flippant at that moment, not caring that he was drunk. While talking to him, I somehow felt at ease. I wasn’t worried about answering questions about my family with him, which to most people I’m sure it wouldn’t seem like a major thing, but most didn’t know about my home life. Frankly, I was embarrassed by it. I wasn’t embarrassed because we had no money, or lived in a crappy apartment, or that my mom was slightly off kilter; it was because of my dad. I told no one. Kate was the only friend of mine who knew about my dad and who had been the sole individual I socialized with, in my house in years. Roberto had seen the outside, but I never invited him in. My other friends didn’t even know where I lived. Even though my dad didn’t live with us, you could never be sure when he’d show up at the front door or something, and I didn’t need that happening when friends were around.

And also, I think I was irritated with myself because I was letting myself fall for a boy and since as of late I didn’t let myself do that. I tried to stay away from the emotional mess that relationships were. I had a boyfriend the previous year, and I told him some things about my father and things my father had done because I figured we were at the point where he should know certain things about my life, and he said to me, “Should you be telling me this?” So it further reinforced my belief on not letting anybody know too much, or let them really close, so that meant doing away with any and/or potential romantic relationships.

Friends you could kind of keep at bay, but boyfriends were different and with Elias, I felt if we ever got to that point, it would have been okay. He knew, and it was like he just understood. I never had somebody who exactly understood where I was coming from. I know I was basing this all on one evening spent talking to him, but that’s what kind of impression was left with me. So I was mad because even though I only truly talked to him that one time, I somehow felt connected to him and I honestly liked him, so I was mad for my own silly reasons because I was having all these feelings, but I wasn’t going to share them with someone who was so flippant about being drunk. I just wasn’t.

“It’s not funny,” I said, crossing my arms.

Roberto got up and crept away.

Nicki laughed. “Okay, mom.”

Oh, my heart was pounding so hard. Why’d she have to go and say that,
okay mom
? It was very obnoxious, but then I don’t know why I was getting mad at her. God, why’d Elias have to go and be a stupid teenager? I was hoping he was better than that. I started to walk into the kitchen, hoping just to forget about Elias. At that moment, I wanted nothing to do with him, but Elias scrambled to his feet as I was walking away.

“Molly,” he said too loudly. I kept walking. He caught up to me and grabbed the back of my shirt. I turned and tried to pull his hand off. Everybody was kind of looking at us now.

“Stop.”

“Molly, I just had a few drinks. No big deal. I was drinking when we were talking. You didn’t seem to care then.”

“Well, it is a big deal to me, okay, and I assumed you were drinking pop.”

“Um, look around. I’m not the only one drinking.”

“But I don’t like everybody else, just you, so you should be better than that.” You ever wish you could hit the rewind button on your mouth? I just professed my new-found feelings about him in front of a house full of teenagers. I could feel my face slowly turning red. I started back for the kitchen, where the back door was. I was so planning on getting out of there. I was dying of embarrassment, but it was soon taken over by anger.

“Where do you get off being so self-righteous?”

“Excuse me?” I said, stopping in my tracks and turning around. I was fuming. I could feel my whole head was officially red. “I’ll talk to you when you’re not drunk.”

“Why not here?” he asked, leaning up against the wall.

I gave him my stare of death, pulling down my eyebrows and pursing my lips.

“Hmm, why are you so self-righteous? Is it because you’re so superb?”

“It’s because I’m not an ass like you!”

“I’m not your dad Molly. I’m not a drunk. You have no need to be mad at me because I was drinking.”

My head nearly exploded at that moment. What did he go and say that for? Rage was going to make my eyeballs pop out. I think he saw how mad I looked because he stood up straight, taking a couple of steps back. I wanted to kill him. It was like at that moment, I couldn’t control myself. How could the person I officially decided I liked, be such an ass to me like that? He needed to pay. I marched up to him, pulling back my arm. With all of my might I thrust it forward and punched him in the eye. It made a loud
thwack
sound. After that, the house was dead silent. Elias grabbed his eye and bent down.

“Shit,” he said, looking at me and then slowly standing up. He moved his hand away from his eye and blinked, which was followed by a wince.