Maybe I Will (21 page)

Dad walked into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. He was wearing the bike shorts Mom got him for Christmas. They were supposed to be baggy, but they looked pretty snug to me, especially after months of seeing him in sweats. He kissed Mom. “Can't wait to break in the new shorts. Check out all of these pockets.” He unzipped the leg pockets and then zipped them up again, stuck his hands in the side pockets, and then whirled around to show off the back zip pocket that was supposed to be hidden.

“Looking good,” Mom said with a smile.

Dad came over and rested both hands on my shoulders. “I'll have all the bikes in good shape by the time you two get back. Are you ready to ride this afternoon, Sandy?”

“I am,” I said.

For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.

—Richard II
, Act II, Scene i, Line 8

M
OM DROPPED ME
off in front of Doc's office building. “Do you want me to come in with you?”

“Mom . . . “ I searched for words.
I'm not a little kid anymore. You can't hold my hand forever.
I just shook my head. “I'll be okay.”

“Just call me if you need me or whenever you're ready.”

I walked into Doc's waiting area. No sign of Shanika.
Maybe she won't come after all.
I rang the buzzer to let Doc know I was there. She came out and motioned for me to have a seat beside her in the lobby.

“How are you doing this morning?” she asked.

“I'm okay.”

“I am really pleased that you are here and willing to talk with Shanika,” she said.

I shrugged. “I'm not even sure she'll really come.”

“Sandy,” Doc said gently, “Shanika is already here. She was feeling a little nervous and asked if she could come early. Shanika was afraid you might not come.”

“It's not like my Mom gave me a choice.”

“I'm giving you the choice now,” said Doc. “Do you want to talk with Shanika?”

I got up from the chair and paced back and forth. Doc let me pace for several minutes.

“Sandy?” Doc said finally.

I stopped. “What's the point?” I turned to face Doc, but no other words would come.

“It's up to you,” Doc replied.

“I don't have anything to say.”

“Then you don't have to say anything,” Doc reassured me. “Are you willing to listen?”

I sat down again beside Doc. “Do you know what she's going to say?”

“I have an idea, but I'm not sure Shanika really knows exactly what she'll say once she sees you.” I was staring at the floor. Doc waited until I looked up and she could catch my eye. “I believe Shanika's here because she really cares about you.”

I laughed. “You mean like a big sister? Or my taekwondo instructor making the extra effort to see if she can help?” I shook my head. “She's done enough, thank you very much.”

“It's up to you,” Doc said again. “You are free to leave, or I can ask Shanika to leave, and you and I can keep the appointment without her.”

I sat with my arms crossed, bouncing my right leg. I kept waiting for Doc to tell me what to do, so I could just refuse. Or if I did what she told me and still failed, it would be her fault for telling me to do it, not mine. But that's not how Doc worked.

“You asked me a minute ago what the point is.” Doc continued to sit there all calm and collected. “One of the things that seem to
be working well for you right now is taekwondo. You might be able to avoid Shanika at school, but what about taekwondo?”

I sighed and slowly raised myself out of the chair. “Let's just get it over with,” I conceded.

Doc led me back to her office where Shanika was sitting on the loveseat. “Have a seat, Sandy.”

Shanika stood up. “Hi, Sandy.” I kept my distance and decided it would be best to have the table between us. I picked a chair at the far side of the table. I expected Doc to sit in the chair next to Shanika, but she didn't. She sat down behind her desk and gave Shanika an encouraging nod.

Shanika sat back down, this time in the chair next to the loveseat. “I guess you probably feel pretty mad at me right now,” she began.

I could feel her eyes pleading with me to look at her, but I fixed my gaze on the table.

“I'm pretty mad at me, too, so I really don't blame you.” Shanika came over and sat down at the table across from me. She tried to put her face in my line of vision, but I turned away. She reached out her hand and touched mine. “Sandy, I'm sorry,” she said.

I pulled my hand away. I wanted to look at her, but tears were flooding my eyes.

“I never meant to hurt you, and I really am sorry.” Shanika whispered.

Doc walked over with a box of tissues, put them on the table between us, and joined us at the table. We both looked at her. She handed us each a tissue. I blotted my eyes, but still didn't say any-thing.

“Is there anything else you want to say, Shanika?” Doc asked quietly.

Shanika grabbed another tissue from the box and blew her nose. She took a deep breath before answering, “Just that I hope Sandy can forgive me and that we can still be friends.”

“Sandy,” Doc said quietly, “is there anything you would like to ask Shanika about what she's said?”

My emotions scampered furiously about like a hamster in one of those little plastic exercise balls. I was as dizzy as if my body were physically spinning right along with my emotions.
Shanika still wants to be friends. Don't blow this.
I leaned back in my chair to regain my balance and tried to sneak a peek at Shanika, but lost my nerve. I took a deep breath and told Doc, “I want to know why she didn't tell me herself before . . . why . . . if I was her friend . . . why I had to hear about her and Aaron from the police.”

“I wanted to tell you, Sandy!” cried Shanika. “Honest, I did. I tried about a million different ways to tell you in my head, but it seemed like it would only make things worse.” Shanika was up walking around now. She paced as she talked. “But you're right. I should have told you. I wish I had told you.”

“But you didn't,” I said still staring at the table.

“I was afraid,” admitted Shanika.

I looked into her eyes for the first time in a week. The bright excitement that had shone last Saturday was gone. All I saw now was pain.
Whose pain? Is it her pain I'm seeing or just a reflection of my own?
I finally forced my mouth to form the words, “You were afraid of me?”

Shanika started to nod, but then shook her head instead. “Not afraid of you—just afraid you wouldn't respect me anymore.”

“Like whatever Aaron did to you was your fault?” I asked.

Shanika winced at Aaron's name. “I did date him, Sandy. I wanted to go out with him.” She sank into the chair next to the
loveseat. “He was cool and popular. I was all excited that he liked me.” She buried her face in her hands and said something else I couldn't quite make out. She leaned back in the chair and exhaled deeply. “I never imagined he would be like that.”

Part of me wanted to make Shanika tell me every sordid detail of what Aaron did to her, but I'd read the police report. I already had a pretty good idea. The police had grilled her just like they'd grilled me. And in the end, they hadn't believed either one of us.

“I believe you,” I whispered. “I believe you.”

We were all silent until Doc asked me, “Is there anything else that you'd like to ask or share?”

I shrugged, not having a clue where to go from here.

“Do you still want to be friends with Shanika?” Doc asked, her voice leading me tenderly toward the answer in my heart.

I nodded.

Doc turned to Shanika. “How about you, Shanika? How do you feel about your friendship with Sandy?”

What Shanika said next totally blew me away. “Except for my family,” she began, “I've never cared about anybody as much as I care about Sandy.”

We talked with Doc about what we each expected from the friendship and how this would work at school and taekwondo. Finally, I felt ready to move forward. “Do you think it would it be okay if Shanika drove me home?” I asked Doc.

Shanika's eyes lit up and she smiled broadly. “You got it!” Shanika exclaimed. But then she hesitated and looked at Doc.

Doc nodded. “Sandy, why don't you call your mom and clear it with her.”

It felt so good to be sliding into the passenger side of Shanika's car. After we were both buckled in, she said, “That is one nasty bruise on your forehead. Does it still hurt?”

“Not so much anymore.”

“Well, you look like you've been trying to break bricks with your head!”

“At least I waited until after the musical to do it.” I laughed. “Lucky for me I've got such a thick skull.”

“You are lucky alright,” Shanika shot back with a grin. “If you'd stuck me with that understudy Gavin the Lost Boy, your butt would be even more bruised than your head!”

'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners. So that if we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with many, either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with industry—why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills.

—Othello
, Act I, Scene iii, Line 8

W
HEN
I
RETURNED
to school on Monday, somebody had been spreading the rumor that I really thought I was Peter Pan and had cracked my head open trying to fly. Lots of people commented on the big bruise, but no one ever asked me how I really got it. I saw Troy a couple of times across the lunchroom, but he avoided making eye contact each time. Cassie must have always seen me first, because I didn't see her or Aaron at all.

The last few weeks of school passed quickly. I had been attending practically every taekwondo class offered, and Shanika invited me to her graduation party. Her plan was to study business and communications at the university where Dad taught so she could still live at home and teach taekwondo classes.

“Someday I'll own this and a dozen other do-jahngs,” she told me.

“Do you think you'll sign up for any of my dad's literature classes?” I asked.

Shanika laughed. “If I do, I'll have to hire you as a tutor!”

“Whoever heard of a college student hiring a high school student to tutor her?”

“Exactly,” said Shanika. So I guess she planned to avoid Dad's classes as much as possible.

The summer youth theater program would fill up most of the month of July for me, but Mom's firm hired me to work part-time as an office gopher for the time I was free in June and August. So I started riding in to work with Mom in the mornings, but then Shanika would pick me up after lunch and I'd spend the afternoons hanging out with her at the do-jahng, taking classes or just helping out.

One night we stayed late so Shanika could work on her weapons routine for the world competitions. Shanika had picked a fast-moving song with a powerful beat for her performance. After she'd practiced her forms and freestyle, she put her weapons away and turned on some music that sounded like a dance club mix. “Free-style!” she shouted and began dancing all around me.

“Come on shake your body. Sandy, shake your body,” she chanted as she pranced and twirled. She pulled me along with her, and I tried to follow her lead, imitating whatever moves I could and ignoring the rest. Shanika whipped around and tried to bump hips with me. “Come on bump your boo-tay. Sandy, bump your boo-tay.” We danced and bumped until we finally collapsed in the middle of the floor laughing hysterically.

I lay flat on my back, knees up, chest heaving from the exhilarating work-out.

“Now that's what I call dancing!” Shanika exclaimed. She was lying on her side, head propped on one hand supported by an elbow.

I rolled over on my side and propped my head up to face her. When our eyes met, I felt something click inside me, connecting me to Shanika forever. I sat up, but I still couldn't take my eyes from Shanika. Her nose and forehead glistened with beads of sweat, but she looked absolutely beautiful. So full of energy, and so full of life. A wave of warm excitement washed over my body. Shanika and I were suddenly suspended in time. There was no past and no future, just the two of us together in that present moment.

“You're trembling,” Shanika said. She reached out and took my hand in hers. I had no idea how cold I was until I felt the warmth of her hands. I felt a treasure chest of butterflies opening inside me, their wings fluttering freely about in my stomach.

Shanika's smile captured my gaze and I watched her lips form my name. “Sandy?”

I couldn't take my eyes from her lips. I felt my own lips part ever so slightly as I drew in a taste of the air around us. I savored the breath that Shanika exhaled as my lungs slowly filled. Every breath seemed to draw us closer together.

Shanika leaned in close to my ear and whispered, “Have you ever wondered what it would be like to kiss me?”

The electricity of this idea sent a tingling sensation throughout my body. I breathed in deeply and our eyes locked.

“You mean before right now?” I asked. I tried to blink back my surprise.

Shanika nodded.

I shook my head. “Have you ever thought about kissing me?” I asked.

Shanika's lips spread out across her face into the biggest grin I'd ever seen. She nodded, still holding my gaze. “Only about a hundred times.”

I bit my lower lip. “How come I never knew that?”

“I was afraid. I wouldn't want to risk our friendship.”

We were both whispering now, our faces so close that our noses nearly touched.

Shanika turned her head ever so slightly. “You can kiss me now if you want.”