I Don't Want to Lose You (4 page)

             
Theo removed himself from the conversation with the guys and got into mine, as his desk was in the row next to mine.  “You can't try out for the football team.”

             
“And why not?  Because I'm a girl?  The last time I checked it wasn't called the boy's football team, just football,” I said. “And if the coach refuses to let me try out because I‘m a female, then that's sexism and this school nor this district wants me to bring my wrath upon it for telling me that I can't try out.  It is one thing if I'm not any good and I don't make the team.  It's another thing if I'm not allowed to try out because of my anatomy.”

             
The girls were rooting me on by saying, “That's right,” and “You tell him, girl.”

             
Theo responded, “But you don't want to hurt your lady parts and not be able to have babies in the future.”

             
“Then it's a good thing I don't want to have children anyway.  Not to mention I don't have anything right here,” I said pointing below my groin.  “You guys do.  If anyone needs to be concerned about not having babies in the future it would be you guys.  Oh, wait.  You already are.  That's why you wear cups and jock straps and mess.  You guys have the stuff dang-a-langing between your legs.  I can play freely.”  I smiled because of making my point.

             
“No guys are going to want to play with you,” he tried to argue.

             
I shook my head.  “You need to give up because you're obviously not thinking this through.  There should be no reason why a guy on my team shouldn't want to play with me if I'm any good, which I know I'm not because I've never played the game before in my life.  But that's not the point.   If the opposing team has a problem with playing against a girl, wouldn't that be to our team's benefit?  Think of all the forfeitures or the goals that would be made because they don't want to hit a girl.” 

             
The girls kept egging me on until the bell rang.  I leaned over and asked him, “Is there anything else you have to say?”

             
He said, “I just wouldn't want you to get hurt.”

             
I replied, “I appreciate your concern, but you let me worry about what happens to my body.”

             
He looked me up and down with an unfamiliar expression that startled me and then turned to face the front.  Class started.

CHAPTER FOUR

              Since freshman year I had heard Octavio always talk about how good the tennis team was and I should go to see a match.  There had been a handful of times I went to the local park to play tennis with him.  It was something that I used to do with my father when I was younger and I was a bit rusty. Being able to play against someone who just wanted to practice and didn't judge me for the little bit of skill that I had was refreshing.  Finally in my junior year I decided to take him up on coming to a match since it would be at a local park that I could walk to and I wasn't doing anything that afternoon.

             
I sat on the side watching Octavio at his best and came to the realization that he had been extremely kind when playing against me. Then Theo stepped up to play in a game of doubles.  He was really good and every time that he hit the ball with all of his strength, he made a loud grunting noise.  While everyone was watching the ball go back and forth, I was watching him.  His partner had hit the ball over and the opposing team responded. The ball came Theo's way and he immediately responded with such force and speed that the opposition couldn't get to the ball fast enough to hit it.  Another point for Southwood. 

             
The crowd applauded and I yelled, “Yay Theo.”

             
He turned, quickly found me in the crowd and went back to playing.  He knew it was me because no one else called him Theo.  From that point on he tried to play as well as he could, but it was obvious that his intensity was no longer the same.  The grunting discontinued.  I then realized that I had cursed him.

             
The curse of my presence, that's what it was.  I had just started dating a senior named Nathaniel who was on the football team.  When we had been talking to get to know each other better to figure out if we would be a good match, I came to the football games to support him.  Statistics started to be taken shortly after.  It seemed that when I was at the games, he played worse; the team scored less and lost more.  When I wasn't there, he was able to concentrate on the field and he played at his best; the team made more touchdowns and won more often.  It had stunk to be asked to not come to the homecoming game, and this was by the coach who was also my English teacher.  I went anyway and they lost.

             
I guessed that this would be the last tennis match that I would come to as long as Theo was on the team, and it was.

             
I was walking by myself towards my locker at lunch when I saw Theo a few lockers over from it talking to some girl.  He looked relaxed as he was leaning on the lockers.  I stopped walking and just watched them.  I didn't know the girl and she was sort of pretty, but wasn't on the same level as me as far as I was concerned.  By her facial expression, I could tell that she was flirting with him and his posture told me that he was soaking it up. 

             
I checked her out to see what he saw in her.  She was skinny, so I hated her off the bat.  She fell into what I called the “toothpick” category, straight up and down, while I was out at the top, in at the waist and out again at the hips.  I had melons, she had kiwis.  She was dressed in obvious swap meet clothes while I was in a JC Penneys outfit.  My manicure cost more than her whole outfit.  Maybe that's why they called me “rich girl.”  What these people were too narrow-minded to realize was that I was a perpetrator.   I didn't have money, my parents did and they weren't rich either.  Rich people didn't go to school or live in Southwood and they shopped on Rodeo Drive.

             
I snapped out of my thoughts when I saw him stand up straight, smile at her and then turn his head to notice me looking at him with disbelief.  He looked at me long enough to make her wonder what took his attention away from her and she followed his eyes. 

             
I walked over to my locker to get my books out.  He turned his head back to the girl and kept talking, low enough for me not to hear.  While I told myself that I wanted to quietly close my locker, a loud slam brought me quite a few people's attention.  The girl walked by me and looked me up and down while she did.  I gave her the one eyebrow up, tight lipped look that said clearly, “Who do you think you are?” And it came with a complimentary eye roll.

             
He turned around and asked, “So what did you write about for your tall tale short story for Coach's class?” 

             
I could only glare at him, not sure if I was, dare I say, jealous.  I was spoken for and there wasn't a need for me to be.  I had a hard time understanding what was going on inside of me. 

             
“Hello?” he said, waiting for an answer.

             
“I'm sorry, Teodoro.  I wrote about a pig,” I answered, which was true.  I walked away switching, because I was sure he was looking, but I didn't dare turn around to check.

             
When I saw them by my locker talking again, I didn't say or do anything, even after she left and he tried to speak to me.  The day after that, I ignored them again.  The following morning after I read my short story to the class, a note was passed over to me.  I opened it and read, “I liked your story.  It was funny. Good job. Theo.”  His name was underlined three times.  I turned my head and saw him watching me.  I mouthed the words “thank you.”

             
When I went to my locker again at lunch, Theo wasn't there but the girl was.  By the look she was giving me this time, I believe that, if she thought that she had a chance at winning she would have tried to beat me up.  That night, I gave myself a lecture about how unbecoming my behavior was and how my assumption that Theo ever had any type of feelings for me in the past or present was making me act unladylike.  It was unacceptably unattractive and I was determined to behave as though none of that locker stuff ever occurred.

             
The next day in class, I said hello to everyone as I passed them to get to my seat. After greeting Theo, he said, “So you're talking to me again?”

             
I put a dumbfounded look upon my face and replied, “I don't know what you're talking about.”

             
He stared at me while shaking his head as I continued on to my seat.

PART TWO

Senior Year- Class of 1998

CHAPTER FIVE

              Senior year was like a blur from the beginning to the end.  I knew it happened because I was there in the classes and at home writing papers and studying.  I did it all while I was the Editor-in-Chief of the school newspaper and National Honor Society President.  I remember planning fundraisers and working on them while trying to cover stories for the bi-weekly school paper. I had to apply to colleges and try to get some scholarship money.  Something changed in me early on that year.  I became more driven, more focused and more determined to get everything that was a goal accomplished.  There was no room for failure.  Failure wasn't even a word in my vocabulary.  I think my newly formed attitude suddenly served as a pheromone.

             
That year would be different from junior year because I didn't have my on and off again boyfriend around as a distraction.  Nathaniel graduated and was attending UCLA.  I was dating a college man.  Some of my female classmates thought that was so cool, well, with the exception of the two who had already gotten married to men almost five to seven years their senior.