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Completely Clueless
I feel so guilty I might throw up. Wouldn’t that be a great way to start the night? My first time going to a party and I puke my chicken and rice all over the welcome mat. I can hear the gossip on Monday. Did you see Zhara yack her guts out on Friday? No? Well, you should’ve. She looked like an idiot! I might agree with them too. I probably do look pretty idiotic at the moment, climbing the stairs to Benton’s party, pretending I actually belong here.
You could, I think to myself. You’ve never tried so how do you really know for sure?
Despite my semi-optimistic thoughts, I almost turn around. But when I glance over my shoulder, Taylor, one of my closest friends, catches my gaze.
She smiles. “Relax, you’re going to have fun.”
Swallowing hard, I nod and keep marching forward, even when my legs begin to tremble.
“Zhara, stop shaking,” Taylor says, moving up beside me. “You need to chill out. It’s just a party.”
I swallow the massive lump that’s been wedged in my throat ever since I told her I wanted to go to the party. “Sorry. I’m just really nervous.”
She sighs heavily. “You should’ve taken a couple more shots before we left. You’d probably be more chill.”
I shake my head. “No way. I almost puked up the one I had.”
She adjusts the hem of her thin strapped black and pink dress as we near the third floor. “Shots aren’t supposed to taste good, silly.”
I fiddle with the hem of my shirt, feeling self-conscious. Compared to the short dress and four-inch stilettos she’s wearing, my pale pink shorts, white tank top, and gladiator sandals make me feel way underdressed.
“Then why’d we drink them?” I ask, knowing I probably sound dumb.
She shrugs. “That’s what I always do before I go to a party. It’s like my warm up before the big game. You know, like how we stretch before we cheer.”
I nod like I understand, but I don’t. Drinking before partying? So that’s a thing?
God, I’m so clueless. When did I get so completely clueless?
“Don’t worry, you’ll catch on after a party or two,” she assures me, reading the confusion all over my face. “That is, if you go to another one. I was shocked when you said you wanted to come to this one.”
I’m shocked myself. I’ve never been to a party before, at least not a crazy, drinking, famous end of the school year party, like the ones Benton throws. Taylor’s been to her fair share, though, and I’m hoping she can show me the ropes so I don’t seem so out of place. Although most of the time I feel that way anyway, even when I’m with Taylor. We’re completely different from each other and it shows big time.
We haven’t always been that way, though. Back during our freshman year of high school when we first became friends, we had a lot in common. We were both shy and a little naïve, had never had a boyfriend, loved spending Saturday’s watching morning cartoons, and had crushes on most of the varsity football team, even though we knew they were way out of our league. We were so close that sometimes people thought we were sisters. But the end of our sophomore year, Taylor outgrew her shy, naïve, never-had-a-boyfriend phase, and transformed into a fun, popular, flirty, party girl who’s dated most of the varsity team. Me, I’m stuck in the same place. I never go out on weekends, I’m kind of popular I guess, but mostly by association through Taylor. I’ve never kissed a guy. And I’ve been told I can be very dull and boring.
I can’t help who I am, though. When I think about changing, I get so stressed that it feels like a giant elephant is squashing my chest and crushing the oxygen from my lungs. Whenever that happens, my first instinct is to suck in a breath and get the air flowing again. The problem is I’m afraid to take that breath. Afraid that if I open my mouth, I’ll end up screaming until my lungs burst and everyone will see me for who I truly am. A girl who’s lost, frustrated, and confused, instead of the put together, proper, goody two shoes people portray me as. Sometimes I want just do it, take an inhale and exhale and yell, I’m not really as good as everyone thinks! And I don’t want to be!! But then I remember the final words my mom said to me before her and my father died in a car crash.
“Zhara, this isn’t you,” she said after I told her I wanted to make some major changes in my life.
I was almost sixteen years old and felt trapped in a life I didn’t believe I belonged in. I wanted to quit cheerleading, stop focusing on school so much, explore more things, have more fun, be a little reckless for once in my life, like Taylor.
My mom didn’t agree, though.
“I know you mi
ght think you need to try new, maybe even crazy things, but I’m afraid a few years down the road, you’ll regret giving up what you have now.” My mom placed her hands on my shoulders and smiled at me. “You’ve always been my good little girl. I love that I can rely on you to talk your brothers and sisters out of doing stupid stuff. That’s who you are, sweetie. And just wait, when you’re going to some major, fancy college, you’ll look back at this moment and be glad you didn’t give everything up.”
I felt so frustrated with her. My parents had always thought of me as the one who kept an eye on my siblings, while everybody else got to do whatever they wanted. Even my twin sister, Alexis, wasn’t nearly as responsible as me. She went to parties, her grades were considered passable, not great, and she was allowed to explore her artistic talent through paint, photography, sculpting, and any other class she asked to take. My mom supported her ever-changing dreams. Me, if I got so much as an A-minus on an exam, I got drilled with questions about what was going on, as if a tiny grade slip stemmed from some major crisis.
Usually I kept my mouth shut, and gave up on the argument, but that day I was exhausted from being someone I wasn’t.
So, I had opened my mouth and let the pressure in my lungs burst. “I don’t want to be this person anymore! I don’t know who I am. And I’m tired of pretending to be someone I’m not. I’m starting to hate my life.” I shook her hands from my shoulders and stepped back, glaring at her.
My mom’s lips parted in shock. “Zhara, you don’t mean that—”
“I do. You and dad are always on my case. Zhara do this. Zhara do that. Zhara be perfect. But you know what, I’m not perfect. I don’t want to be perfect. And I’m sick and tired of listening to you guys tell me I am!” I stormed for the door, shaking so hard from the anger.
I didn’t understand why I couldn’t be whoever I wanted to be, like my older brother, Loki, who was away at college studying philosophy and had no set future goals. Or like my oldest sister Jessamine who just moved to London to attend culinary school and chase her dreams of being some fancy chef. Even my younger brother, Nikoli, who was barely fourteen frequently changed his mind about what sport he wanted to play. He even dropped out of tennis because he decided he wasn’t that into it and no one gave him crap about it.
“Zhara,” my mom chased after me. “Come back here. We need to finish this discussion.”
I barreled down the stairs. “Leave me alone!”
As I reached the bottom of the stairway, she caught hold of my arm and pulled me to a stop.
“I’m not going to leave you alone,” she said, struggling to stay calm. “Not until you calm down.”
I jerked my arm away from her. “I’m tired of being calm,” I snapped. “I want to be able to feel however I want, not how you tell me I should feel.”
Her eyes widened, taken aback by my sharp tone. “Sweetie, you can do that. But I’m not going to let you walk away during a fight. That’s not what we do. We talk through stuff.”
“I’m tired of talking.” I yanked open the front door. “I don’t ever want to talk to you again.”
I didn’t really mean it. But we never did get to talk again, because the next afternoon she died.
