Permanent Adhesives (6 page)

I reached back again, gathered up some more oomph, and then punched him in the side of the face, sending him stumbling backward and landing on his butt; that one hurt me too. I grabbed my hand after the punch. Kate, Nicki, Roberto, comic book crowd, and everybody else all just stood there staring at us in disbelief. All that could be heard was the quite moan coming from Elias and the sound of the band with the banjo playing in the background. Elias sat on the ground in utter shock with his legs splayed out in front of him, holding the left side of his face, looking up at me. God, Elias Bickler was a bastard. I turned and ran through the kitchen.

“Molly,” I heard Kate call behind me as I burst out the back door.

I was so mad I couldn’t cry. My head was starting to throb. My hand was sore, and I stopped in the backyard, staring up at the night sky, breathing heavily. I heard the back door open. It was Kate. She looked at me. I could tell her face said
I’m sorry he’s a dick
. Elias then pushed past her, standing at the top of the stairs. I turned and ran. I ran out the back gate, down the alley past the garages and garbage cans and empty dark backyards. I ran and turned out of the alley and onto the sidewalk, and I just started running in the direction of home. I needed to get home. I thought nothing, I felt nothing. My legs somehow kept propelling me forward. I pumped them harder and harder as I ran down the block past all the brick bungalows; the cold night air slapping against me, making my knees go numb. I just kept running and running, my cheeks burning from the wind.

I ran all the way home that night and jumped into my bed as soon as I got there. I pulled my pillow over my face and screamed into it. When I was done screaming I stared at the ceiling for a while and somehow through my thoughts of anger I eventually fell asleep.

I was awoken the next morning by a loud knocking on the front door. “Go away,” I screamed, even though whoever was outside at the door wouldn’t be able to hear me. I just wanted to lay in bed and mope; it was too early for me to be moving, but the knocking continued. I slowly got up and trudged across the apartment. I went to the window, pulled aside the curtain, and peered out. Frickin Elias was on our porch, sucking on his lip and standing on the outside edges of his shoes. He caught sight of me. I just kind of stared at him for a prolonged second. The left side of his face was similar to a beet color, and around his eye, it was a bit of a darker shade than that of a beet. Wow, I was pretty surprised I was able to do that to somebody, and with the thought of that, there was the reminder in my hand. It was still quite sore. I then felt a sudden urge to punch him again. To calm the urge, I flipped him off and went back to bed.

While I wanted to stay in bed and wallow all day, I really couldn’t, I actually had somewhere to be. I’ve mentioned the club at school that revolved around my comic, well, once a month they had an out-of-school meeting at this indie bookshop/zine and comic/coffee place kind of thingy called Quirks. They said it gave those who enjoyed my comic, but did not go to our school, the chance to socialize with like minded peers. When I say they, I pretty much mean Reynaldo, Brian, and Dean. They did all the decision making or what not when it came to the club, I just kind of made appearances. The meetings weren’t anything structured; we basically sat around and talked about possible plot turns and ideas for future issues. Many would bring in fan art to show me, and sometimes they would just sit and watch me draw and drink coffee, seriously. At first, I thought it was kind of weird, but after a bit I got used to it, and became quite fond of my small army of fans. My sister and Kate referred to them as
my army of nerds
.

I got dressed and took the ‘L’ over to Quirks. I was in a pretty bad mood. I was still really pissed at Elias, and my hand kind of hurt. I stood in front of the shop. You could barely see through the dingy windows. They were pasted with flyers of all sorts—concerts, book readings, special appearances, 5k runs, and whatever else the owner approved of to let people stick up there. I took a deep breath and pulled open the door and walked in. It smelled of fresh ground coffee and cinnamon inside. Shelves and racks were stuffed with indie made graphic novels, zines, and comics. Books of any genre other than the norm lined the black wooden shelves, nick-knacks and doodads for sale sitting on top of some of the shelves: sock monkeys, dancing hula girls, and witty tee-shirts. There were disinterested looking employees splattered here and there wearing large framed plastic glasses and distressed denim with fancy tags.

“Hey,” Reynaldo shouted out from the café. He wore a tee-shirt that said
Drinking My Coffee While Reading the Morning Paper
. Now I’m going to pause here for a sec and do some club member explaining because I’m sure you’re thinking it’s probably a room full of über nerds, especially since the president often smelled like pickles, but it wasn’t. Granted, the club was quite populous of nerds, but I think that’s just a stereotype really, not all people who read comics or make comics are nerds, dorks, or dweebs. It all depends on your concept of nerd really.

You know who I think are big nerds? People who play fantasy football. I mean, really? Also nerds, people who watch those reality shows involving glossed over rich people who are on TV for no real reason. Seriously people, you have nothing better to do? So in all actuality, I think all people are really nerds, some just try to hide it more than others.

I walked across the coffee shop saying some more hellos, sending a wave to this guy Dave, who I spotted leaning on the counter waiting for his coffee. He was quite attractive, well, a girly girl would say he was hot and well, he was. See, wasn’t all nerdy nerds, even though I’m pretty sure he just joined because he needed an extracurricular activity or something for his college applications. He always had these little chickies that kind of followed him around, so when he started showing up at our meetings, they all kind of followed. And some of those little chickies ended up really getting into my comic. Every month, one of them showed up at our Quirk’s meeting actually dressed up as Sasha Santiago. That day it was Carly’s turn. I saw her wearing a just above the shoulder jet black wig, a tight gray tee-shirt, some mid-length army green shorts, complete with a black canvas belt with a very shiny silver buckle, and knee high black combat boots with super tall tube socks sticking out of the top. I smiled to myself. She made a pretty believable Sasha Santiago.

I threw out a couple of exploding fist bumps and then landed in what seemed to be deemed as my seat every time we all met up. It was up near the coffee order counter place and was kind of centered and facing everybody else. I had an urge to go home, but I suppressed it and took off my ski vest and sat down with my arms crossed. The seats around me were almost instantaneously taken the second my tushy hit the chair.

“Hey Brian,” I mumbled. He sat down to my left and wore a black tee-shirt. On it was white text that said
Have You Unleashed Your Superbness?
It was like the unofficial club tee-shirt.

“What’s up my lady?” he asked, making his eyebrows go up and down.

“I don’t know,” I said, scratching the tip of my nose.

Brian made a gasping sound and looked at the guy who was sitting to my right. It was Dean. “Are you not in a superb mood?” Brian said, putting his hand to his chest like he was in utter disbelief. I was usually one never to mope. Well, at least in front of others.

“I’m actually surprised you showed up Molly,” Dean said. Before I could say anything he said, “We need to get her some coffee.” He pushed back his chair, standing up.

“Thanks.” I flashed a smile at Dean.

Roberto occupied the seat directly across from me at the table. He smiled at me and tipped his head to the side. His way of saying
you okay
?

“Sooooo,” I said. “How was the party after I left?”

Roberto let out a chuckle as Kate bounded up to the table. “Hello Molly, nerd, Roberto.” She was so mean and addressed all members of the club as nerd; she and Roberto were the exceptions. “Have you seen this?” Kate asked with a huge grin across her face, pulling out her myPhone.

I responded with a, “Huh?”

“It was seriously just posted only a few minutes ago, but you should see how many hits it has already.” Kate then pressed play on her phone and handed it to me.

My gut sank when I saw that it was a video of mine and Elias’ argument from the night before. “This is awful. I look like an angry girl with daddy issues.”

“Um, hon,” Kate said, placing her hand on my shoulder. “You kinda are.”

I scrunched up my face and looked at her. I opened my mouth to defend myself, but Kate spoke first.

“I see through your superbness sweet cheeks. You’re not as good at hiding things as you think.”

I threw a mean glare at her, grabbed my ski vest, and got up and left.

“Mols,” I heard a few call after me. I ignored them and stormed out. I so did not want to deal with any of it.

*************************

I was a few buildings away from mine when I saw Elias running across the street at me. I turned to walk in the opposite direction. I was quite opposed to talking with him. I could hear him running on the sidewalk behind me to catch up. I contemplated running, but just didn’t feel like it, so I stopped.

“What do you want?” I asked, fully agitated.

He stood next to me in the grass and bit his lip and took in a deep breath. “I’m sorry. Oh God, I’m so sorry.”

“That’s it? You’re sorry!” I turned to look at him straight in the face. “You’re an ass-hat. A real true live ass-hat. I’ve never fully hated anyone before, but I may hate you.” I paused, and Elias looked at the ground. “It’s unbelievable how mad I am at you. Do you understand that? You can’t just waltz up to me and say I’m sorry.” I was furious. I had to stop to collect myself a little; I closed my eyes, let out a breath, and then went on. “You just can’t. You’re a big shit head!”

“Molly,” Elias said, trying to get in a word. We both now stood inches from each other, face-to-face.

“Don’t Molly me,” I yelled, sounding like my mother. “I don’t even want to hear your voice. I don’t even want to see your lips move. Keep them shut,” I shouted, feeling my head turning red. “Just keep them shut!”

“No,” Elias said flatly. “No, I won’t. I came out here to say something, and I’m going to say it.”

“No you’re not,” I screamed. “Get out of my face.”

He backed up a couple of inches and was standing on the curb in front of a rusting, red car from the seventies. “There. I said I was sorry, and I am. I feel awful. I don’t know why I said what I said or why I did what I did. From the bottom of my heart I’m sorry.” He stopped talking and looked at me. I didn’t say anything. There was total awkward silence hanging in the air. I was still quite mad.

“I know I’m so stupid. You just, you, you…” he said, stammering over his words. “You cross this boundary in my life, and I don’t know how to deal with it.”

I raised my eyebrows inquisitively. I wanted to shove him, but then I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, so I let him continue instead of going with my urge to knock him down. “What do you mean?”

“Nobody knows about my home life. I keep home and school totally separate,” he said, scratching between his eyes. “You cross that boundary. You know all about my home life. No one is supposed to know ‘bout it. You can’t be in both worlds. My life is a big pile of shitty and it’s probably better if you just stayed clear and I dunno, the whole situation, it’s just, it…, uh… kinda scares me. And I’m just angry at you for this stupid reason, and I guess I was trying to get you to go away or something, but I’m so sorry. I really didn’t want to hurt you. I just blurted it out without thinking. It’s so stupid. I know it is,” Elias said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. It looked like he was starting to cry. “I just wanted to say I’m truly sorry, and I really am.” He looked down at his feet.

“So you don’t want people to know about your screwed-up life? What about me? You going and shouting that crap at the party. And now it’s all over the internet!” I turned and started down the sidewalk back towards my house.

“God, I know. Can I somehow make it up to you?” Elias asked, tailing me.

“No!” I started into a slow run. He ran next to me. I ran faster, and he followed suit. We ended up at the bottom of the cement stairs of my apartment building. “Seriously, scram.” Jesus, he was getting really annoying.

He didn’t listen and sat down on the bottom step. I let out a deep sigh, threw my hands up, and sat next to him. I gave him my stare of death; I drew in my eyebrows and scowled my lips, and in response he gave me a crooked half-grin.

“What?” I said, exasperated.

“Have you ever considered expanding with your comic? Maybe try to make some money with it? Bring it to the next level?”

I shrugged. “No, why? It’s just my silly comic. A distraction for me really.”

“Since the video went up, so has the amount of your blog followers.”

“Okay, and?”

“You have a growing pool of people out there to sell things to.”

I still wanted to harm him, but the little turd was making me curious.

“You could sell print versions of your comic, or e-books and tee-shirts. Did you know that you can even sell subscriptions to your blog?”