Entry forty-three:

When I eventually walked out of the women’s bathroom, after having adequately washed my face (or as much as I could in a germ/disease infested public restroom) and brushed my teeth (Jessie brings one in her deadly suitcase of a purse every time she goes out. She calls it being prepared. I call it OCD), the game had already started.

(I think I failed to mention this game was THE game of the season (at least on the local high school scale). The Relatively Wealthy/Smart/Nice Guy/Athletic all-boys private school vs. the Obscenely Rich/Snobby/Asshole/Super Athletic all-boys private school. Everybody turned out for this game. I mean, I even saw some depressive Goths from school in the bleachers, jumping up and down and waving their red-and-blue pom-poms in the air as they joined in the “FLUSH THE JOHNNIES! FLUSH THE JOHNNIES!” chants. This game was BIG.)

Anyway, since the game had already begun, there were literally three people in the lobby: the creepy mustache-wearing vender guy who sold the candy/cotton candy/popcorn and whose garbage can I defiled; a stupefied-looking Dude type who sat, swaying, on a bench by the entrance, beer in hand; and Shawn.

The pedophile-like vender only glanced at me, twitching his ‘stache as he did so. (He probably thought I had puked in his can because I was totally shit-faced. Which would have been very, very funny and ironic in other, less puke-inducing circumstances.) The Dude didn’t look at me, which I didn’t take too personally. He looked so hammered that he probably didn’t even know where he was…

And then there was Shawn.

At the sight of my less-than-glowing self, he jerked his hands out of his jean pockets. And as he quickly took a few steps forward, his dirty blonde hair slightly blew in the wind like a overwhelmingly gorgeous lifeguard cast on Baywatch would as he ran to save a beautiful, helpless woman who was drowning, thrashing and whatnot in the shark-infested waters —

But then he, unlike the studly lifeguard in my mind, hesitated.

“Don’t worry, Shawn. I’m not going to puke on you.” Somehow, I had the heart to laugh.

He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again.

FRICK! my mind shrieked. He’s too disgusted by my chunk-blowing display to say anything!!!!!!! I’VE EFFED UP ANY CHANCE OF US BEING TOGETHER BECAUSE I BECAME A MULTICOLORED ORGANIC FOUNTAIN!!!!!!!!!!!! (Note: Thank you to for that lovely synonym of “vomit.” After all, I like to keep the lingo fresh and original in MY journal, dammit!)

Jessie, seeing the criticality of this moment, piped in with a “Sooooo! Why don’t we go watch the game, hmm? Doesn’t that sound like a GREAT idea, guys?” and a wide, kind of manic smile as she steered me by the arm toward the stairs leading to the super-expensive, exclusive box seats.

I didn’t really know what to expect would be in such a place, having not been in one before. Gathering knowledge from the limited amount of athletic movies I had seen, I was guessing these box seat overseers would provide some sort of liquor and, like, pretzels or something.

Damn, was I right about the liquor. When Jessie dragged me in, all I could see was the various employees pulling approximately twenty different nozzles for foreign beer I had never heard of in my sixteen years of life.

Such a vast assortment of booze as was shown in that room could not miss the notice of young men — especially those who waxed their eyebrows, frequented a tanning booth regularly, and woke up especially early just to apply gel to their hair every flipping morning. (I’m serious. Jessie has told me such appalling, appalling things.)

“Do you think I can pass for twenty-one?” Geoff asked Jessie with a cheesy grin as soon as we had spotted his big blond head and secured our seats next to him. (Jessie sat to the right of him; then Kristen, then me…and then (dun dun dun) Shawn.)

“No,” she said with a glare and a scowl. As stated before, Jessie DE-SPI-SES underage drinking. Like, really.

Geoff’s cool grin never strayed from his smooth, evenly tanned cheeks. “You know I’m just kiddin’, baby.” He draped an arm over the back of her chair and leaned in to say in a husky voice: “You know I would never do anything that would upset you.”

Jessie sighed dreamily, practically dissolving into a puddle. “Oh, Geoff…”

Cue Geoff eating Jessie’s face off.

I seriously had to hold back my want to projectile vomit again as I heard them going at it while I sat quietly beside Shawn, who was acting like a motionless (and apparently deaf) stone. Or maybe he was actually watching the game, like I was pretending to. Because all I could concentrate on was the smack smack and moans…

I finally got enough control of my motor system to nudge Kristen in the arm.

“Do they usually do this?” I whispered.

She gave me a look — a look that said she wanted to run through the large glass window overlooking the basketball court and splat on the hardwood floor below.

“Yes,” she said through gritted teeth, angling her body away from the happy couple’s groans and sighs of ecstasy.

“Why haven’t you said anything about it before?” I could barely stand it then. But multiple times? I would murder them both with a beer bottle opener.

“And what would that do?” Kristen hissed over the din of a very intense bit of saliva-swapping. “Jessie would just get mad and never want to do anything with me again. I’d rather just sit through…well, that.” And she pointed to the Tongue Twisters, who were completely oblivious to the world, as they continued to share fluids.

I grimaced. “That’s disgusting.”

She shrugged, like the martyr that she was, and plunged her hand into an industrial-sized bag of Skittles she must have smuggled into the building.

However, I could not so easily dismiss the subject. Here I had thought I was Jessie’s closest best friend — the one she told everything. But how could I compare with Kristen’s sacrifice of sanity? I mean, I’ve known Jessie my whole life — and yet not long enough, I guess, to know that she was the let’s-make-out-in-any-dark-place-available type of girl.

What had happened to my bestest of the best friend? Why didn’t she tell me she and Geoff were to the make-out level, let alone tell me about their first kiss? I mean, Jesus Christ, does she think I’m too juvenile to get it? Because I haven’t experienced certain “things”with a guy yet? Because she didn’t want to rub it in?

Why didn’t she tell me?

Kristen interrupted this depressing series of rhetorical questions by poking my arm with a sticky, rainbow-stained finger. “Are you feeling okay, Lex?”

“Yeah,” I muttered, just as the Relatively Wealthy/Smart/Nice Guy/Athletic all-boys private school made a three-point shot. The crowd — including the unusually peppy Goths — below us erupted with shouts and cheers. “I’m fantastic.”

But I sure as hell didn’t feel fantastic. I felt depressed, as I looked at Shawn’s still, silent form in the corner of my eye, and realized my blazing newfound love — the one that had scared me, had caused me to throw up my insides — had been so easily eclipsed.