Nothing Else Matters (9 page)

***

  Stu was on the floor about to burst with laughter when I told him about my evening.

  "Do you see this?" he said, pointing to his face. "I'm crying. I'm actually crying. I've never heard anything so hysterical in my life."

  Suddenly finding the humor in the whole situation, I joined in the laughter as well.

"But seriously," I said a few moments later, breaking up the hilarity of the moment. "What am I gonna do? How can I break up with Amber without her going Fatal Attraction on me?"

"Why do you need to break up with her all of the sudden? Just let it end naturally like all your other relationships."

"What do you mean? How do my relationships usually end?"

"Well," Stu sat up and crossed his legs Indian style. "You usually date three types of girls. One: the hot gold-digger. She dates you until someone better comes along, then she dumps you and moves on. Two: the hot psycho. She's completely possessive and drives you crazy from day one, but you stay with her as long as you can because the sex is good. When you can't take it anymore you get caught making out at a party with another girl and she dumps you. And Three: the hot romantic. She's completely in love with the idea of you, but once she dates you and realizes you not only have nothing in common but that you'll never love her as much as she loves you, she cries a little, and then dumps you and moves on."

"Whoa, you've put a lot of thought into this," I said a little surprised at his summation.

"Reyna and I came up with these categories about a year ago after Savannah and Ashley fought over you in the girls' bathroom. They were both type twos."

"Reyna." I sighed.

"Yeah, Reyna. Now, she's the kind of girl you should be with. But that'll never happen."

"Why not?" I asked, starting to get offended.

He looked at me like I was dumber than a boat made of Corn Flakes, then said, "Because she doesn't fit into one of the categories."

I mulled this over for a moment while Stu set up Guitar Hero on the Xbox. I was a walking stereotype. My little brother was able to sum up my love life in like fifty words. And he'd had the help of Reyna of all people. No wonder she wanted nothing to do with me romantically. She would take it as an insult to be my girlfriend.

"Wait a minute," I said finally. "Why wouldn't a relationship work with the hot romantic? Why wouldn't I be able to love her as much as she loved me?" I asked, thinking I'd found a flaw in his reasoning.

"Because you'll never be able to love any woman as much as you love Reyna," he said simply as he started strumming to “Dream On” by Aerosmith. "And the sooner you realize that, the happier you'll be."

"I do realize it."

"Seriously?" Stu turned off the game. "All right, Scottie. It's about time."

"What do you mean?"

"Scottie, you've been in love with her for years."

"I have?"

"Yes, but you've let Sam's prejudice keep you from acting on your true feelings. What made you finally come around?"

I shrugged. "I guess I started thinking about who would be by my side if I wasn't a star athlete. Who would still care about me if I never threw another touchdown pass for the rest of my life? Besides you, there was Reyna." I didn't want to tell him that the reason I started thinking about this was because lately I thought my body was giving out on me and I feared that a career in sports wouldn't be in my future.

“So, what’s it like? The whole being in love thing,” he asked.

“It sucks!”

“
Ooookaaay
. That’s so not what I expected you to say.” Stu sat down Indian style on the floor and waited for me to elaborate.

“Well, it does. It feels like…it feels like an eighteen wheeler is sitting on my chest and the only relief I get is when I’m around her. Then I feel free.”

“Wow. That was equal parts terrifying and beautiful.”

“Exactly,” I said.

Stu stretched out on the floor and clasped his hands behind his head. “How did we end up like this?” he asked. “How did we grow up with a lunatic for a mother yet still turn out relatively normal?”

I shrugged. “I think it was easy for you. You came out of the womb hating Sam. You did everything in your power to be her exact opposite. If she told you the sky was blue, you’d insist it was green just to piss her off. So, of course, if she’s crazy and racist, you’d be sane and tolerant. It took me a little while longer.”

“How’d it happen for you?” Stu asked.

“Do you remember the summer I went to soccer camp in New England?”

Stu rolled his eyes. “How could I forget? I was only five, but I remember Sam trying to make me learn golf. She thought I could be the next Tiger Woods.”

“I was eight-years-old and my mother had sent me a thousand miles away for six weeks. In all that time, she only called me twice. Once to make sure I was doing my daily triple fives and once to try to get me to convince you to stop throwing your golf clubs at her.”

Stu giggled. “That was the best part of the summer, man. I think I clocked her once in the head. If there was a golf club throwing competition in the Olympics, I’d definitely get the gold.”

“Any way,” I said, interrupting Stu’s only happy memory of his mother. “I shared a cabin with fifteen boys from Ghana, Nigeria, Brazil, Angola, and Japan. Each of them talked to their parents every day and got care packages and letters from them all the time. Sam had taught me all my life that those people were somehow defective because of the color of their skin. Well, that got me thinking. If they were defective and still received unconditional love from their parents, what did that make me? So, I couldn’t bring myself to hate them anymore. Not when they were obviously better than I was.”

Stu stood up and put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “You’re not defective, Scott. And Sam does love you in her own sick, twisted way. She just doesn’t know how to show it like a normal human being.” Suddenly it was as if he was the big brother and I was the little brother drinking in his wisdom.

I felt a lump develop in my throat. How pathetic was I about to cry because my mommy didn’t love me?

“Man, she has really screwed us up,” Stu said sitting back down on the floor. “You have a complex about feeling worthwhile and I apparently think the sky is green.”

I laughed and then hit him in the head with a pillow. Stu always knew how to lighten the mood at just the right time.

"In any case, we’ve got some work to do. Since you finally know how you feel about Reyna, we have to figure out a way to get rid of Amber.” A grin spread across Stu’s face that I have to admit was a bit creepy. Or maybe it was just the black lipstick that made it creepy. “I think it's time to give her a taste of real psycho, Kincaid style."

Nov. 3, 2008

Monday morning Reyna sulked while loading her tote bag with books. She regretted not talking to Scott. Maybe he was serious about his feelings and really did care for her. What if she was breaking his heart? But then again, what if Scottie just saw her as the next flavor of the month? Someone he just wanted to try on for size then toss aside.

She pondered this for a moment. This wasn't just any guy. This was Scottie. Her Scottie. The boy who would sneak over to her house in the middle of the night and read her a bedtime story when she couldn't sleep. The boy who, on the ten year anniversary of her mother's death, skipped school with her and took her sailing since she couldn't make it back to Puerto Rico. He would never hurt her. And deep down she knew she loved him, too. When he kissed her she had felt ... she felt … She couldn't even explain it. It was a sensation she had never experienced before. It was explosive. She closed her eyes and smiled thinking back to that moment.

She made a decision. She was going to give Scottie a chance. As long as he'd broken up with Amber, that is. Just as she closed her locker and turned to go look for him, Derek Strong blocked her path.

"Reyna, my queen," he said, leaning against the locker next to hers. He took off his sunglasses then looked her up and down while licking his lips. Reyna rolled her eyes. His arrogance made her want to puke. He wasn't half as important as Scottie was on the team yet he thought he was Terrell Owens or something.

"Hey, Derek. What's up?" Reyna knew what was up. He was probably going to ask her out again, like he had every week for the past six months. Ironically, she refused to date him for the same reasons she refused to date Scottie.

"Oh you know what's up, girl," he said, stepping so close she could smell his aftershave. It actually smelled pretty good.  Maybe she could buy Scottie some as a gift. "You and me, Fall Ball, what do you say?"

"I say the same thing I've said to you the other fifty times you asked me out."

"Come on Reyna. We look too good not to be together. I'm sexy as hell and you're as beautiful as an angel. We owe it to the world to ... unite."

"That was perhaps the corniest thing I've ever heard in my life."

"Well it doesn't change the fact that it's true."

"Look, I will never ever —" Just as she was about to tell Derek how she really felt in no uncertain terms, she saw Scott walk by holding Amber's hand. Her breath caught. She was wrong about him. He wasn't her Scottie. He was the Scott Kincaid, the pride and joy of Charleston Prep. The entire weekend had been a lie. He didn't really want her at all. "Never ... um ... never ever ... um," she stuttered while staring at Scott's arm slip around Amber's waist. "What about Friday after the game?"

***

  Reyna sat in the Trainer’s office staring at her computer. She tried to focus on fixing the bugs in the computer program she wrote for the school wide election, but every two or three seconds she had to wipe away a tear.  She couldn't believe that she, Reyna Lewis, was crying over a boy. How could she let this happen? How could she let herself get so attached to him? Oh, who was she kidding? These feeling had been six years in the making. She loved him and there was nothing she could do about it.

  She laid her head on the desk and let the tears flow. She had finally admitted to herself what Scott meant to her and for nothing. He would always be a philandering womanizer. He had seduced her one minute, and then went back to his girlfriend the next. She still couldn't believe he could be so heartless.

  "Reyna, what's wrong?" She jerked at the intrusion. She hadn't even heard Scott enter the office.

  Without thinking, Reyna picked up a coffee mug filled with pens and launched it at his head.

A lifetime of athletic training had honed Scott's reflexes so well that he was able to expertly shield himself from the projectile with his Calculus binder. The mug crashed to the floor while pens flew in every direction.

Reyna brought her hands to her mouth and gasped. "Oh my God. I can't believe I did that. Are you okay?" She rushed to his side and checked him over for bruises.

"Yeah, I'm fine. But why did you throw that at me?"

Once she was sure she hadn't caused any damage, she punched him in the arm. "That's for making me think you cared about me, then going back to Amber. I guess you really do prefer blondes." Reyna went to her desk and tried to get back to work.

"It's not like that. I swear. I do care about you. I love you, Reyna."

"Ha! If you loved me you wouldn't have been all over Amber today."

Scott sighed. "It's not what it looks like, okay? It's all part of Stu's plan."

Reyna gave him a confused look. Scott approached her desk and knelt in front of her. "I can explain," he said, taking her hands in his.