Harp Un-strung

“I heard you slept with Claire,” he says, sheer disdain evident in his voice.

Is he Claire’s boyfriend? I heard she had ditched whoever-it-was.

“I didn’t,” I reply, leaning back against my locker.

“Don’t you fucking lie,” he seethes.

“If it helps you think clearly, go ahead,” I say calmly.

I sure look like an untouchable in his eyes. Leaning back against the locker and seemingly uncaring of his queries will have him thinking twice before laying a hand on me.

Even though my insides are squeezed in panic and screaming bloody murder, I maintain a calm, visible exterior. It’s one of my defense mechanisms against idiots like the one standing before me.

Someone clears her throat.

It’s Claire, her face neutral and devoid of any emotion.

“Claire! Please tell me you didn’t sleep with this retard.”

Claire steps forward, a hand’s distance away from him.

Then, she slaps him.

The sound is flinch worthy – a loud, resounding smack – that seems to stop time itself. Most people stop and watch the drama unfold.

“Whom I sleep with is none of your fucking business,” she seethes quietly.

Jaw, meet floor.

I really expected her to deny the fact. Jim’s face is a bright red color, even more so than a fully ripened cherry. He works his jaw to say something, but nothing comes out.

“Fuck off!” she screams. He looks between us, his face a mask of an angry scowl, and then he walks away, shoving people on his way out.

Well, that was unexpected.

Then, she faces me.

It’s deer-caught-by-the-headlights moment.

“I hope you didn’t freak out. He’s an asshole.”

“He,” I say, picking my bag off the floor, “isn’t the first numpty I’ve come across in my life.”

“I’m sorry. He shouldn’t have said that.”

“It’s okay,” I shrug it off. “Although you should’ve told him that we didn’t, er, sleep together.”

“Didn’t we?” she asks, an amused smile playing on her lips.

She feels different. More amiable and less tense than our previous meeting. She’s like one of those secrets that are within reach, yet feels so far.

“Not exactly,” I reply with a grin. “So, are you coming over to work on the project today?”

“Yes, of course.”

I nod. “That’d be great.”

Sam approaches me from around the corner. He stops dead in his tracks. He eyes Claire, his expression best described as one of annoyance. Claire acknowledges him with the raise of a perfect eyebrow.

“Mike, time to go,” he says in a curt voice.

“Yeah, sure,” I acknowledge him, and then turn towards her. “See you later, Claire.”

“Of course.”

Once we are out of earshot, Sam jumps the question, “You two are doing it, aren’t you?”

I almost fall flat on my face.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“What makes you think that?”

“The way she looked at you,” Sam says quietly as we pass a bunch of kids, “all she needed was a drool.”

Claire seemed perfectly normal, although her cold attitude had changed substantially. This was a definite improvement.

“That’s an exaggeration, my friend,” I say and pull the door open for him.

“You’re blind even with your eyes wide open,” he says.

I know it can never happen. We are two different people, different personalities, different backgrounds and different mindsets. Like oil and water, that can exist together but can never mix.

We will be friends, at best, but nothing more.

“Do you have a dog?”

It’s the same as the previous day. Me and Claire sitting at the dining table, writing our shares of the project, me in my illegible scribbling and she in her cursive calligraphy. Add in an occasional glance to her stunning self, and you can sum up this wonderful evening for me.

So, you can see why that question about Snuffles feels unexpected.

“Yes, I do. What happened?”

“Nothing, I met him in the hallway last night.”

That’s interesting. I wonder what he must have done on their first meeting.

Scared her out of her mind, I imagine.

As much as I would have liked, she doesn’t stay like the last time. As she is about to walk down the steps, she turns around and looks at me.

“I am glad that you’re my partner,” she says sincerely. “I shouldn’t have underestimated you.”

“It’s okay, I guess.”

“Thank you for being so understanding,” she says, leaning over and placing a quick kiss on my cheek.

“See you tomorrow,” she says and walks down the steps, to her car.

She drives away, leaving me rooted to the spot. I stare at the street and wonder if she just did what I think she did. An embarrassing blush creeps up over my cheeks as the realization takes hold in my befuddled brains.

Damn.

She deliberately bumps into me at the cafeteria line the next day.

“Sit with me, please?” she wheedles.

My heart flutters with joy, there’s music and orchestra playing in the background, but then she says, “I have some important things to discuss.”

Bummer.

My eyes flick towards Dan who’s standing right behind her. He shrugs nonchalantly, and I take this as approval.

“Sure, why not?” I reply.

I give myself a mental kick a few moments later when I realize whom I’m going to sit with. Her friends, more like sharks to me, acknowledge me with varying degrees of amusement and sneers. She sits down with her girlfriends, motioning me to sit opposite to her.

“Mike, these are my friends,” she says, although not quite as happily as I expected. “Girls, meet Mike.”

An awkward silence permeates the table as her friends, all four of them, wonder what the fuck is going on. Finally, one of them breaks the ice.

“Hello Mike,” the stunning redhead greets me first with a legitimate smile, “I’m Missy.”

“Nice to meet you, Missy,” I acknowledge. “My cousin told me a lot about you.”

“Oh,” she says, somewhat surprised. “What did he say?”

“Almost everything there is to know,” I say. The grin accompanying my words isn’t intentional, but I can’t help it.

Her face reddens with embarrassment.

“I…about that…”

“Don’t worry about it,” I assure her. “I understand.”

“What is it, Missy?” another one of her girlfriends asks.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” I answer for her. “Just a private joke.”

“You are not as anti-social as I thought you’d be,” Claire admits.

It stings to have your personality judged like that in public, but I am no stranger to such comments. She realizes what she said a bit too late.

“Sorry,” she says sheepishly.

I shrug. “Nothing that I haven’t heard before. Anyway, tell me what you wanted to talk about?”

“There are a few things about Little Home that we should add. We have to adjust it somewhere in between the management part.”

“That can be done. We can stick a few pages in between. I’m an expert on that.”

A group sits down by the adjacent table. It’s like an informal congregation of the school football team.

“I hate the bloody coach,” one says, loud enough for the entire hall to hear.

Claire pointedly ignores him. “Do you think we can do overtime?”

“Yeah, me too,” pipes up a second one, intrusively. “Who the fuck appointed him? He selected Nathan over Kyle. What the fuck!”

“Sure,” I reply, trying my best to ignore them. I can’t help but feel defensive when one of my friends is mentioned like that.

“I hate these goddamn niggers,” the first one says. “I’ll tell the coach to suck Nate’s black cock and fuck off somewhere else.”

Those last words prick my ears with stunning accuracy, and something inside me just…snaps. It isn’t every day I encounter racist remarks. All my life, I was taught to stand up against bullshit. Dad in particular, took out the time to hammer it into my head. My hands start to shake as I feel the familiar black rage boiling over.

And Claire?

She heard it perfectly well. She looks at me wide-eyed, noticing for the first time that something is wrong.

How can she just sit and look as if nothing happened?

I can’t pick up a fight. I can’t do that to Aunt Sherry. Being expelled twice in the same year wouldn’t be good for my career either.

I stand up abruptly, breaking their chatter and walk towards the exit. My appetite is certainly ruined.

Thanks to her friends.

“Mike!” she calls.

Looks like she followed me outside, but I’m in no mood for her. I walk quickly to the corner of the building. As soon as I round it, I break into a full sprint. I run until I'm damn sure that I've lost her.

Good riddance.

~ Regrets ~

Shit hit the fan.

Never thought I’d be using that phrase in my life, but today I did. Everything went from picture perfect to terribly awry in just a matter of a few seconds.

I never paid much attention to the happenings on my table. There were a few bigots, but with time, I had learnt to filter their comments. It wasn’t something I supported, just something that I never felt the need to rectify.

Until today.

He’s friends with Nathan. Of course, he would not want to hear a single word against him. How could I be so dumb? How could I not see it coming?

He just…ran away. I tried to follow him, but he disappeared.

I feel like crap.

By the time I’m home, I’m almost in tears. I ruined something, and I don’t know if I can fix it.

“Joyce?”

“Hey, Sweets. What’s up?”

“I need your help.”

“What happened?”

“I screwed something really bad.”

“Talking helps, you know?”

“I don’t know if he’s willing to talk.” The sheer disgust on his face goes through my head like painful reruns.

“You can always talk to me.”

I tell her everything. It’s hard to go through the exact details, but I force myself to tell everything there is to say.

“I don’t know why I didn’t say something,” I say, my voice breaking down, “I know I should’ve said something, but I couldn’t.”

“Oh dear,” she says.

“I’ve never felt so awful.”

She doesn’t say anything as I sniffle and blow my nose into the tissues.

“Claire, do you trust me?”

“I wouldn’t be telling you this if I didn’t.”

“Okay,” she says, stalling to think. Then she says, “Then answer me this, and answer it honestly: Why is this Mike so important to you?”

“I don’t know,” I say quietly, “He feels like a genuinely good person, like when I’m with you. I can trust him.”

“Do you think he’s more important that your friends?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes or no. Would you choose him over your friends? Is he that good?”

I remember his smile, the way he cares about those who mean something to him, the way he helped me when I needed help and never asked anything in return. I wonder if any of my friends would’ve done the same.

“Yes,” I answer this time.

“Okay, then,” she says, “You have a lot of things to do, things which you haven’t done before. If not for him, do it for yourself. Can you do it?”

“I will.”

“That’s my girl,” she says. I can almost see her encouraging smile. “So here’s what you have to do…”

Apologize.

A verb, meaning to express regret for something that one has done wrong.

It’s a completely foreign idea. Why should I apologize when I haven’t done anything wrong? All my life, I’ve gotten whatever I ever wanted. Who requires an apology when I can threaten them into submission? I have never apologized to anyone in my life. Ever.

That’s going to change.

“You have to apologize first, Claire,” Joyce had said. “If he means something, you will have to apologize.”

“What should I say?” I asked.

“You have to think that for yourself. Just mean what you say, okay?”

First step is to apologize.

But I have to get hold of him for that.

He arrives in class just before the bell rings and is out as soon as the recess begins. He never looks once in my direction.

How do I get hold of him?

“What are you doing here?” he snaps.

“I wanted to apologize,” I plead.

He’s at his home as I had expected, but really pissed off. His stare is condescending at best.

“I know you want to get on with your project, so don’t fake this apology thing. We can complete the work and go our different ways. You’ll never hear back again from me after that. For now, just leave.”

“Hear me out for once, please?” I insist.

“I don’t want to hear anything coming from you.”

I couldn’t sleep last night, thinking over my actions again and again. Like Joyce had said, it’s time for a change. I just need a chance.

“Please?” I asked softly.

He doesn’t say anything else, staring down at the patio’s wooden floor instead. I hate myself for putting him through such conflict.

“I…” he begins, still not looking at me, “I thought you were a great person, an intelligent girl who knows the difference between right and wrong.”

“I don’t support them, okay? I just ignore them.”

“Is that an excuse?” he asks.

“No,” I say. “They mean nothing to me.”

“They’re your friends, Claire,” he says sarcastically.

“Why are you being so hard?”

He just stares at me, saying nothing.

“You don’t know, do you?” he says after sometime. “Do you know how hard Nathan worked to get on the team? His family doesn’t have the money to spare for his football gear, so he works to pay for everything that your spoon-fed friends get just by clapping their hands. He barely sleeps four hours, slogs through the day and still keeps a smile plastered on his face at school, just because he doesn’t want to dump his problems on his friends.”

“You see, I was this close,” he says, raising his index finger and thumb with barely an inch separating them, “to losing my temper and beating the crap out of your sophisticated friends.

“Just go away,” he says tiredly, “I don’t want to talk or hear your apologies.”

“But –”

“The library will reopen in two days. We’ll continue our project from there. Goodbye.”

With that, he slams the door shut.

“You again?” he asks exasperatedly.

“I want to say something and I’m not going anywhere without saying it.”

I had composed myself for fifteen minutes before knocking on his door again. He hangs his head and sighs in defeat.

“Okay,” he agrees.

“Hear me out first, and then you can decide for yourself,” I plead softly. “I know it was wrong, but I had gotten used to it. It’s not an excuse; I’m trying to explain how things were.

“I’m sorry…I truly am,” I say sincerely. “I can’t take back my words or actions, but I swear I won’t ignore it or support it, ever. Can you please forgive me? I promise I’ll try to improve myself.”

A dry chuckle escapes him. “Why do I matter? Why, all of a sudden, do you want to change? I find that fucking hard to believe.”

“I didn’t realize how bad it was until I met you. You were different. Everything about you made me realize how mucked up my life had become. I felt like a disappointment that day you left, and I knew I had to make it right. Please believe me.”

I can feel tears on my cheeks, but I ignore them. A sad smile cracks his lips as he looks at me, gauging me, wondering if I am lying.

“You know, I hate to see girls crying like this,” he says, reaching forward and wiping my tears away with a gentle stroke. “I want to believe you, but it’ll take some time, okay? I’m too upset to make decisions right now.”

“Are we good?” I ask quietly.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, we are almost good.”

It feels as if a great weight lifted off my chest, and I can breathe freely now. A sense of dread and misery that I never thought I had dissipates.

“Thanks for trusting me.”

“I trusted you. I just felt you were misguided in parts,” he says, smiling. “What made you apologize? I don’t think you made the decision all by yourself.”

“It was my cousin,” I say truthfully. “She’s like this completely opposite version of me.”

“Wow.”

“She is one of the kindest people you’d ever get to meet,” I say proudly, mentally thanking Joyce for her encouragement.

“She must be,” he says, “to make you do this.”

A sudden burst of dizziness makes me grab hold of the doorsill. He looks at me in alarm and put his hands on my shoulders for support.

“Are you okay?” he asks concernedly.

“I’m just feeling a bit woozy,” I manage to say. His entire house revolves in front of me, making me shake my head in disbelief. “It’s getting late. I should go.”

“Like this?” he asks, “Are you sure you can drive?”

“Yeah, positive,” I say, accompanying it with my brightest smile.

I wobble back to my car, holding its door to gain a modicum of control. I think I’ll rest for a little before I drive. He is by my side the next instant and opens the door for me.

“You can stay over, if you want,” he says. “You look very tired.”

“It’s okay,” I say as smoothly as I can and slip inside to my seat. “Goodnight, Mike.”

“Goodnight, Claire,” he replies but doesn’t go back, watching me fumble with my purse and pockets instead.

“Where are my keys?” I mumble under my breath.

“Looking for these?” he asks, jingling the keys in front of me.

“Thanks,” I exclaim happily and reach for them, but he pulls them away.

“You’re not driving, Claire. You’re ill.”

“Who are you to tell me?”

“Your partner.” He smiles, and with my car keys spinning on his little finger, he walks back into his house, whistling a tune.

I sigh in frustration and follow him.

“Thanks for letting me stay over.”

I feel even worse than a few minutes ago, with a splitting headache burning away my thoughts. I don’t think I could drive like this.

“It’s nothing.”

He pops a thermometer under my tongue and goes about making dinner.

“You’re running a fever,” he says, checking the thermometer, which reads slightly over a hundred degrees. “When was the last time you ate?”

“This morning, I think.”

“And the last time you slept?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Yeah,” he says, raising a critical brow at me, “you look like a raccoon.”

“What?”

“Just kidding.” He laughs. “You have some serious dark shadows.”

“I didn’t sleep last night,” I say. “I tried hard but couldn’t.”

“You’re going straight to bed after dinner,” he says.

“I can’t really sleep without the pills,” I blurt.

His jaw hangs slightly as he processes what I just said. I do a face-palm, but the damage is done.

“Why?” he asks, completely shocked. “Why would you take sleeping pills?”

“Because I can’t sleep, genius,” I retort.

He shakes his head and goes back to chopping vegetables. I stare at the marble kitchen island, feeling ill, dead tired and wondering if I was repenting now for some sin in my past lives.

“Sometimes, I can’t sleep at night too,” he says.

“What do you do then?” I ask. Having seen a sample of his nightmare before, his self-admission has me genuinely intrigued.

“I try to recall happy things in my life,” he replies after some time, “things that make me laugh. Despite how sad I might be.”

“I don’t know if I have even one such memory,” I say glumly.

“There was this one time when Dad took us out golfing,” he begins. “I was young, perhaps six years old, so I was only allowed to watch. It was a first time for Mom, but she ignored the trainer’s instructions and went straight ahead to the hitting zone.”

I can feel his joy bubbling from this distance. More than his memory, it’s the way he reveals his past that catches my attention.

“Mom took the first swing, and the golf club went flying straight into the lake. The second swing landed on the golf buggy’s windshield, shattering it to pieces.”

He laughs softly as the memories burst forth.

“The trainer tried to stop her, but she took a third swing and hit that poor guy right on his head.”

We end up laughing together. I try to conjure the hilarious scene that it must’ve been.

“Dad teased her for an entire month, saying that he was traumatized by dreams of flying golf clubs.” His shoulders shake in mirth, but then, it stops. My laughter dies when I realize he’s not with me.

“Those were happy days,” he says softly. Going to the fridge on his left, Mike takes out the salad. I notice tears when he turns around.