We'll Shake Up This Town [10] Travis McCoy

The week went by slowly, it felt like years since Monday. The day after she went to Travis's house and found out her dad had a girlfriend, she woke up 3 hours late for school, and opted not to go at all. The next day, She spent the whole day making up the work she had missed, taking refuge in the library. Thursday, She didn't stop by her locker all day, carrying her books around to avoid Travis, but Friday she couldn't avoid it any longer. She nervously opened her locker door, glancing around warily to see if any particular face was heading her way. She reached in her bag and pulled out her books, putting them in her locker before closing her locker again. She'd made it through safely.
Or she thought she had.
"Mia." Her eyes widened and she turned around to see Travis with Karol standing close behind him. She felt like her heart had dropped to her stomach and she shook her head.
"I have to go.." She said.
"No, I've been looking for you all week, you can't avoid me forever. I want to explain-"
"You don't need to explain anything, I understand." She said, nodding towards Karol.
"No I need to explain. You don't have it right, thats why Karol's here. Can you listen?"
"No! I don't want to listen, I don't want an explanation, I want to be left alone, okay?" She snapped, and the whole hall went silent. No one had made such a fool of Travis McCoy before, no one had talked to him like that before. He was respected, and this new girl was not showing respect. She scoffed and brushed past him and everyone else standing in the hall. For a second she thought maybe she was being too harsh and that maybe she was being too brash but she brushed that thought from her mind.

She was doing the right thing.
She was doing the right thing.
She was doing the right thing.
Maybe she'd say it enough times she'd believe it.
~

She sat in the gym with her legs crossed, sitting on top of the bleachers, watching her fellow classmates play basketball. As it turns out, it was too cold to continue going outside, so this semester would be indoor sports. Not like they did anything outside either, but now they were playing basketball. And it also turns out that suddenly everyone in the class wanted her in their team, since she was one the tallest girls in the class, and not even girls, she beat out most guys too.

But she didn't want to play, she didn't want to do anything except curl up in her bed and sleep until she couldn't even close her eyes anymore. This week had taken its toll on her, plaguing her with restless sleep and jittery nerves, and she had never felt so sad before. It wasn't just a feeling, her whole body felt different and her heart was heavy. The stupidest things were at risk of setting her off into tears, like a dead butterfly, failing a quiz in Algebra II, or just being skipped in line at lunch, things that happened all the time but felt so much worse now.

And worst of all, she wanted badly to tell Travis she was sorry, that she overreacted, that she liked him and wanted to try things with him, but she couldn't. She didn't know why but she couldn't talk to him right now, she just wanted to forget him because she didn't want to feel what she felt. It was all so messed up and complicated on levels she couldn't even begin to understand so right now, she tried not to think. She sat on the bleachers and watched the game of basketball, to which the score was 0-0 because both teams equally sucked, and tried to ignore Monique's concerned glances from the other side of the gym.

Finally, the bell rang, and the students dropped their pathetic game and filed into the locker rooms to change back into their street clothes. Mia, who didn't even dress out today, walked down the steps of the bleachers and opened the gym door into the parking lot outside. She walked past the cars, there was no one there yet, as the bell had just rung and the parking lot was at the end of the school.

But there was someone there.

Travis McCoy.

He called out to her from his car, and she glanced in his direction, and for a minute they both just stared at each other from afar. He looked at her, noticing she looked tired and worried, and stressed out too. Her hair was more of a mess than he'd ever seen it, and she had dark circles under her eyes. She was still as tall as ever but she didn't look confident, just awkward in her skin, and he jacket was an ugly shade of green.

But she was still beautiful.

Mia stared at him too, and he had the same circles under his eyes as she had, but they were barely notable against his darker skin. He had a cut on his cheek and if she didn't have such good vision she would have missed it, and she paused to think where he had gotten it from. He had his head in his hands, and his eyes were big and full of emotion, raw emotion.

Any girl would jump for a chance at him.

Why wasn't she jumping?

Suddenly her eyes welled up with tears, and she had to bite her lip hard to keep from crying. She walked towards his car slowly, debating each step until she was standing in front of his car door and he was opening it for her, and the tears were spilling over the brim of her eyes. They didn't say anything to each other as he pulled out of the parking lot and towards the general direction of her house, but missing it completely and stopping in the corner of the street.

She took the time of the drive to inspect his car in the daylight and try to compose herself. She looked at the papers scattered all over his dashboard. The were filled with scribbles in messy handwriting, pages and pages filled, some with one line on a page, another with a page front and back. She craned her neck to read what was on the paper nearest to her.

A hop, skip, and a leap away from rock star
And not too far away from fillin' pop's shoes
The idyllic hard workin' type of callous feet
Complete with wife, kids, dog, house, and picket fence
That's nonsense
I'm convinced I'm built for better things
And won't settle for the empty smile that cheddar brings
It seems like I'm working hard simply 'cause it's what they say I have to do
You graduate and then you either get a job or you go to school
12 years wasn't enough?
That's more than half of my life spent
Trying to make the world accept me
Plus I've got the papers saying that I made it through

"Don't read that." Travis said, reaching over and grabbing all the papers and pulling them into a messy pile, before putting them in the glove compartment.

She was startled by his tone of voice, but nodded, then looked out the window. She was waiting for him to say what he obviously needed to say to her.

"Can you at least look at me?" She hardly recognized his voice at all. It was strangled and pained, and something else she had never heard before in Travis's voice. Vulnerability. There was a vulnerability in a voise she couldn't ignore so she looked at him. In her mind she was angry at herself for brining out this side of him that she had never seen before.

"You chase after someone, you try to catch their attention. You make mistakes but try your hardest to fix them. But there's only so far you can go before you realize when it's time to stop. I'm gonna do what you asked me to do. I'm gonna leave you alone. Mia, you've made your feelings clear, so I'll just stay out of your way so you can go ahead and try your hardest to forget me. I give up."

Mia nodded, and she didn't know why. She didn't want Travis to do anything of what he just said, but she nodded anyways. She couldn't stop herself. So he put the car in drive and went down the street to her house. All the while she couldn't breath, she couldn't talk. He chest hurt and she needed to breath but she couldn't. She felt lke if she breathed she would cry and she wouldn't, not in front of Travis.

She had brung this on herself.

When he reached her house, she scrambled out of her seat quickly, she needed to get out of his car. He pulled out her driveway, she waved half heartedly but he didn't wave back.

He had given up, her father has given up, Paige had given up on her marriage, and she felt like giving up on herself.

She waited until he was at a safe distance away and he wouldn't be able to see her to take the gasp for air her body was begging for. And as she felt the air fill her lungs her emotions errupted and she cried. No, she sobbed.

Not only for Travis, there were countless other reasons why she cried. Because she missed her friends and becasue they weren't her freinds anymore, because she hadn't kept in touch, because her dad had a girlfriend, because her mother was a failure, because her brother was too young to understand, because no one liked her, because she was truly alone, because of everything.

Because nothing made sense.

And Travis watched sadly from his rear view mirror, watching her sit on the ground and pull her knees to her chest and he felt something he hadn't felt since he was a kid but he felt it with her.

Helpless.


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