Love Me Love Me (English)

17

Blaze

"Blaze don't stay there all alone. Come with us." Amelia beckoned me from the couch.

"What if your brother sees you?" I asked her.

"My brother's not here."

"Where is he?"

She fingered the edge of her beret as I tried to act as comfortable as possible among all these people.

"I hope I finally lose my virginity."

"Gross, Amelia!"

She had the unfortunate talent of always saying things at the most inappropriate times just to embarrass me. I joined her as my eyes darted to Jackson and Marvin, talking next to us.

"What are you doing here with them?"

"Nothing bad. I'm just here because they're smoking. What's the problem?" Jackson was drunk. That was the problem.

I was reduced to watching Jackson completely ignore me.

He put his arms around Becky, who felt up the crotch of his pants with alarming ease. I sulked, and Amelia noticed.

"Jeez, Blaze, you're bringing me down." She exhaled the pungent smoke from the joint Marvin passed her, enveloping me in the cloud.

I coughed.

"Sorry," I murmured, shrugging it off.

I never had fun at parties. Especially when Brian wasn't there. Meeting new people made me anxious, and it wasn't easy for me to join conversations. I always ended up being the wallflower who was jealous of everyone having fun.

"If I wanted to be around a sad sack, I'd be around my brother."

Amelia was missing a sensitivity chip.

When my silence became deafening, she put her head on my shoulder congenially.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to . . . come on, you know what I mean. I smoked too much."

Amelia was apologizing, but I could tell she wasn't feeling remorse because she kept smiling. She was feeling stoned, and that was enough to convince me.

"Gimme a hit," I said.

She passed me the joint, and Jackson didn't take his eyes off me.

"Is your dad feeling better?" she asked, swinging her head to the beat of the music.

"Yeah, more than anything he was really shaken up. Plus it happened in broad daylight."

Amelia didn't seem very focused. "But they didn't do anything to him? They didn't mug him, did they?"

"They didn't hurt him, but he took a few weeks of sick leave."

"I can imagine what it's like having him at home."

"He's all over me. 'Why don't you go out? Why do you go out? Why don't you study? Why do you study so much?' It's impossible to make him happy."

She laughed as if that kind of behavior was normal. "He'll always be the school principal, Blaze."

"I'd like a dad who didn't give a crap about what I did."

Amelia's eyes went dark, and I realized what an awful thing I'd said. Her dad up and left last year without even saying goodbye to her and Brian.

"I'm really sorry."

"We're even," she answered, putting her arm around me, only to pull it back almost instantly. "I gotta go now."