.....

I tacked random things on the walls: cut outs from magazines, pieces of models I’d worked on, comics I found funny or truthful, souvenirs of all kinds, even doodles from my notebooks with slogans to live by.
My room had only recently gotten a door. Mom had decided that I was too old to still have a wide-open room. I was thankful to be able to keep little Knaves out and just close out the world! I had fought my neurosis as long as I could. I kept my head under the pillow and reached up to the headboard of the bed slipping my ipod out of the dock. The volume of the music instantly reduced without the help f the speakers. Kimya Dawson was singing playfully.
I rolled to my back holding the ipod over my face, sliding the pillow behind my head. The harsh light of the room seemed unnatural. My fingers instinctively connected to my facebook app. I had to know if I had any notifications. Nothing popped up. I checked my wall to see if there was something there, again nothing. Well, I thought maybe no news is really good news.
Then I heard it. An instant message.

Samantha: you okay?
Aiden: fine, u?
Samantha: you took a pretty bad hit
Aiden: ☹ you saw that?
Samantha: yeah, haha, no worries
Aiden: yeah my dad really thinks he’s funny
Samantha: he is
Aiden: not so much if you’re his kid
Samantha: true i guess
Aiden: I know…so did you follow me out
Samantha: it was kind of funny, when you tried to take out the mannequin, I wanted to see the rest
Aiden: I’m glad my pain is entertaining for you
Samantha: hehehe
Aiden: seriously not cool
Samantha: but you have to admit if it wasn’t you, it would be funny
Aiden: maybe
Samantha: don’t be mad…it was kinda cute ☺
Aiden: so glad you like klutzy guys
Samantha: w/e you totally faceplanted on the door and still managed to get to the car
Aiden: it was pretty cool outside of the faceplant
Samantha: glad you’re okay ;-)
Aiden: thnks
Samantha: will I c-ya tomorrow
Aiden: what’s tomorrow?
Samantha: school
Aiden: right…yeah…c-ya tomorrow

Samantha’s status went to offline, but I couldn’t stop staring at the screen. I did a capture to save it for later. I looked back through our conversation and read it again and again. I completely analyzed the chat, knowing the whole time that it was ridiculous and that the chat was simply friendly and nothing more.
Nevertheless, I analyzed it. I tried to suck any meaning I could from the lines and between the lines. Her first concern was my safety, a good sign. She had giggled/laughed at least twice, another good sign. And she had smiled at me. But best of all, she had winked. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, I knew that these things meant nothing, but that didn’t stop me from reading too much into them.
Let’s be honest im is good and fun, but you can’t get a real feel for what people are thinking. There’s no subtext like there is during a phone conversation or a face-to-face chat. However, I wanted to be persuaded, so I persuaded myself.
I had grown up with Samantha. We had always been kind of close, but things change. We left elementary school and went off to middle school together, the best of friends. Then something happened. I blame chicken.
Sounds crazy, I know, but I blame it all on chicken. We reached the sixth grade and suddenly things change. The scary and freakish rite of passage known as puberty had attacked like a pack of lionesses taking down a gazelle.
Samantha got boobs and I got pimples to go with my freckles. She shot up the social ladder and I couldn’t find the bottom rung. But I was funny and so every rung tolerated me to a point. Samantha and I started talking more before we moved to the high school, but I knew better than to get my hopes too high.
But I still hoped. I hoped for more from the girl next door that I spent my life chasing and never really catching.
Looking back, I can see the danger in my hoping. I had enough on my plate, and Samantha’s sudden interest in me could have simply been her way of practicing her game.
I flipped back to my facebook and changed my status: is floating in a sea of incongruity.
I half laughed and redocked the ipod. I didn’t shuffle this time. I wanted a very specific song: “Palabras más, palabras menos” by El Canto del Loco.
Sure it was in Spanish and all I knew it said was more words, less words…I think, but I liked the sound, and since it was in a foreign language, it was easier to allow it to say what I needed when I needed to hear something.
I let myself sink back into my bed. I pulled my comforter up over my head. My life would have been bad enough what with my tortured soul and love for a girl who probably didn’t notice me like that, but I wasn’t lucky enough to only suffer the slings and arrows of young love, I had to suffer through the bizarre sense of humor that only my old man. Could get away with for so long without child protection services taking his kids away.
I could feel his presence well before he spoke. I just wasn’t going to acknowledge him. He tapped my foot a few times, but I didn’t move. I wasn’t about to make this easy for him.
“Okay, I get it,” he said pushing my feet to the side, “You’re mad.” He sat down on the edge of my bed. “Okay it was a dick move to run out while you were talking to Sam—“
“Samantha,” I corrected pulling the covers down.
“Sorry, Samantha, but believe me she’s been Sam for a long time. My point is this, I’m sorry.”
“For what?” I asked.
“For being a jerk, okay. But hey it builds character, right?”
“Your type of character building, Dad, tends to leave scars…physical and emotional.”
“Stop being melodramatic. I haven’t emotionally scared you for weeks!”
I pulled the covers back over my head. Dad reached over and pulled them back down. My ipod had quit playing when it reached the end of the album. “Look kid, I know how it is. It wasn’t that long ago that I fell in love. I’m just worried about you. I know how you are and I know how Sam—Samantha can be. She’d a lot like her mother in that respect. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“Okay so you’re saying I should just forget the whole Samantha thing. Fine. So what do you suggest?”
“Chase some other skirts. Hang with your boys. Just don’t get all involved with a girl who isn’t likely to return your feelings. You love passionately, kiddo. You throw yourself into everything with a reckless abandon, but when that initial fire begins to smolder, you move on. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“You already said that,” I said.