The date stares boldly at me on my calendar. Though it may be the 8th, I've gotten a late start to marking up my month. Instead of enjoying my fall break away from school, it is as if my body decided to leave my brain there and be a mindless entity for a week. All I've thought about is finals; rather so whether or not I passed my trig final. I tried to hold to the fleeting joy from Havana's practice decathlon during the test, but I still visibly remember the plips of sweat stains that marked my paper as I handed it in. Thankfully there's anything at all to remember, for if I held my breath any longer I surely would've lost consciousness. It's been eight days since, and every day I wait and wait until my mom comes home with the mail for my final quarter report card, but none yet. I'd ask Mallory if she'd received hers yet, but the Setiawans are living it up in ever-still sunny Florida, which has only made my anxieties worse on account of the fact that I haven't been able to release them to the one person I know I can.

That's what I thought, at least, until last night.

*****

To square away more money and hours built up for sick days, and given it's prime time for rampant allergies galore (which amps the cold and flu factor plenty before winter even rolls around), my mom started picking up more hours on some days here and there. As she hadn't been home by at least 6:00 P.M., I knew it would be a late night for her, which ultimately doesn't matter much since we didn't travel. Alas, the last few years of school breaks have been the same, but it's only because we can't let our guard down in the event my dad experiences an emergency and we need to drop everything. I don't mind, really, because, unlike Mallory, my need for travel is little. Call it the homebody in me, but I'd rather lay on the couch and watch my shows than go to an amusement park or risk salmonella at an all-you-can-eat hotel buffet. It does get lonely at times, but for fall breaks, at least the week goes by relatively fast.

This time, though, it feels as though time decided to snail on, and in its trail of boredom came the tidal wave of overthinking. Test finals, Dad, and the other reason I've been dreading the marking of my calendar this month -- October 24th. Where there should be a perhaps "not-so-big as to make it too obvious" circle with the words "UnDoSieTech Concert" inside it and decorated with exclamation points around it is a blank space for that Sunday. Jhene's words in the hallway that day sting me fresh to this day, and it's been weeks since she booted me from the trip. The worst of it is that I've yet to tell Mal about it, and the show being in a little over two weeks time has started to weigh in my reality heavily. I've tried not to think about it for several reasons; to mourn a night where my best friend and I pitchily sing our hearts out amongst a sea of fans, sharing in our endless, boundless teenage spirit is one thing. To think about the disappointment on Mal's face when I finally do tell her is another. What's absolutely killing me, however, is that night ... somehow, some way, I planned to confess my feelings to Mallory. An action that I would've probably detailed every moment to the millisecond of Hansoul's sneakers squeaking in rhythm to the song "Garden" just for it to all fail in the most cliche of ways until it bubbled over and spilled out of me. In an environment, no less, where you couldn't even hear the sound of your own thoughts 98% of the time for how loud the venue would've been. Perhaps it was a long shot; after all, I'm not entirely sure on what it is that I'm looking for, or how I'd come to be this "out" person of a ... "gay" nature. "Lesbian" nature? I haven't done much exploration on labels, but whatever chances of doing the work through my speckles of foolishly blind confidence I would've had are dashed. And it hurts. Major.

All of these going-ons culminated in the moment I attempted to distract myself from all these thoughts hammering in my head as I put on an episode of NOVA. A typical 7:00 P.M. for me, and this time Mom was generous enough to leave pizza money, which I utilized to the fullest when I ordered a large Supreme with the works (I'm not even much of a fan of toppings on my pizza that isn't plain pepperoni most of the time, but hey, can't be sad if I pack away the pounds). As I crunch on each slice doused in parmesan and crushed red peppers, learning about the mystery of two missing men on a quest to climb Mt. Everest, my heart pangs when (in a coincidentally cruel joke from the Universe) I hear the names of one of the missing men: George Mallory.

George. Mallory. Oh irony, you twisted fiend.

I muted the TV and quickly swallowed the remnants of my slice, fearing I would've vomited before I could. I rolled against my side to face the couch cushions behind me, and all those feelings of hurt and fear crashed like waves against my back. Ugh, and again, the one person in the whole world I want to vent away to? I can't, and even if in theory I could by omitting names, I still couldn't do it because she's thousands of miles away from me! And as it were, knowing Mal was out of reach, I only thought of one other person more than her than I would ever want to share all my deepest secrets to: Dad. I put my head in my hands and screamed, but cut it short fearing my mom's barreling footsteps down the stairs to rip me a new one for screaming in the house. But oh wait, Mom's not home tonight. The momentum of finishing my screams dissipated quickly, and soon the living room filled with thick silence. An unbearably suffocating silence that I so did not need at that moment. And before I knew it, I reached for the house phone and started dialing numbers.

Beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep-beep. "Wait ... what was it again?" Beep.... beep-beep-beep?

Briiiiiiiiiiiing. Briiiiiiiiiiiiing. Briiiiiiiiiiing.

"We're sorry. The number you have dialed has been disconnected or is no longer in service."

"What?!" I clenched the phone. "How, we were just ... oh, unless ..." 

Beep-beep-eep. Beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep-beep? Beep? Briiiiiiiiiiiiing. Briiiiiiiiiiiiing.

"Hello?" 

Crap, so it was 9909, not 0999. Damn dyscalculia... but wait, it worked! Wait, no, crap, it worked!?!

"Ahem, right..." I cleared my throat. "Is this -- "

"Who's this?" The voice on the other end interrupts me. It sounds ... awkward. Almost unreal. "Why are you calling?"

"Uh, y-yeah, I'm looking for --"

"I'm going to report you to the police!" The voice screeched in the phone. Okay, so 99% sure I dialed the wrong number again, and I was not about to chance my fate with law enforcement over it! 

"N-nevermind! Sorry!" I say, rushing to hang up the call. Just as my thumb hovers over the END button, I hear muffled snickering and what sounds like an authority figure. It's all in Spanish, so I can't make out what they're saying, but I'm frozen to hang up. 

"Eh-o?"  I hear distantly after about 11 seconds. 

"H-hello...?" I speak again.

"Hello?" A new voice greets me this time. Chills run up and down my spine -- this voice. I know this voice.

"Hi ... Havana?" A beat.

"This is she." 

"Oh, thank God," I let out a sigh of relief. "Uh,  i-it's me. Zo, me being Zo." 

"Oh, Zo!" Havana beams on cue with the smack of my facepalm. Could I have sounded any more awkward? "What a surprise!"

"Yeah, you're telling me," I mutter. 

"Huh?"

"N-nothing!"

"Oh, well I gotta tell you," Havana goes on, "it's kind of shocking that you remembered my number!"

"Ah, right, 'remembered'," I feign in my voice, trying not to give away those moments prior I got greeted by an automated voice messaging system. "Well, here I am."

"Here you are, yes!" Havana chuckles, the feedback of it tingling against my ear and making me shiver. "Oh, and sorry about before. My little cousins are visiting, and one of them beat me to the phone." Ah, so that was the awkward voice I heard; now it's obvious that was a child putting on an "adult" voice to scare me. I'm... ashamed that it worked so well.

"So, to what do I owe the honor?"

"Well, I --" I pause. Oh. If only for a moment, I felt my brain stroll back into my head and whiplash me back to reality. The reality of which, on an average Thursday evening during my fall break, for absolutely no reason at all, I just called Havana Sommers.

I am on the phone, with Havana. Huh.

"Hello?" I hear her cut in.

"Uh, right," I shake my head in disbelief. "I ... I don't know." 

"You ... don't know?" Havana matches me in confusion. 

"I-I mean, like, I don't know," I repeat, pinching the bridge of my nose. "I was just really bored and needed to get my mind off some stuff and obviously you might know I can't call Mal because she's out of town until Sunday, so I just picked up and dialed without thinking." What in the word vomit was that?! Havana doesn't say anything. I can't even gulp the golfball-sized lump of embarrassment down. "S-sorry ... is that okay?"

"Of course it's okay," Havana answers. The crunch of what sounds like leather comes through the phone, so I assume she's also sat on a couch. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," I lie. "Yeah, no, everything is ... just, dandy!" The glow of the NOVA episode fills the room evermore as the Sun departs for the night, and the stinging scent of red peppers and cheese mingles along with it. An almost picturesque moment of what seems to be the pinnacle of my sixteen years. If it wasn't so pathetic, I'd write a poem about it. The plights of melancholy. 

"Actually, no," I say after a bit. "No, I'm not okay." 

"Oh." Havana simply says. "Do ... you want to --"

"No." I cut her short. Look, okay, maybe I did feel a need to call Havana to fulfill some sort of ... wanting to talk, but it's not so easy to be openly ready to admit all of what's on my mind to someone I've mostly had conversations within the capacity of our student-tutor relationship (sans the one time I totally spilled my guts and cried over Dad. God, I cringe at the memory). Which, speaking of things on my mind, I still don't have an answer for whether I want to continue said relationship because I don't have a definitive case as to its progress because I don't have my stinking report card yet! WAIT!

"Oh, uh, did you get your report card in the mail yesterday?" I ask suddenly. 

"Oh yeah, mine came in today actually," Havana confirms. "All A's!"

"Wow, congrats," I say through gritted teeth. It's not as though she'd know this, but all because of my dyscalculia, I haven't had straight A's since I was in 7th grade, and what I wouldn't do to have that high again.

"Why, did you?" Havana asks.

"No, not yet ..." I answer. "And it's bugging the hell out of me."

"Why?" 

"Oh gee, I don't know," I start. "Maybe because one of my grades turning out okay is dependent on some tutoring I've had done lately. Not that you would know that, though."

"Okay, you got me!" Havana laughs. "Though again, I have to ask -- why? You were doing great in our sessions."

"For homework and one little quiz here and there, but this is my final grade," I explain. "If my mom sees I'm not doing well, she'll question what I've been doing to correct it instead of attending 'student council' meetings!"

"Right..." Havana trails. "Why don't you just tell her the truth? You've got three more quarters of trig left and a whole other year of math after that. Don't you think it's best to just bite the bullet now?"

"Maybe but..." I bite my lip. As always, Havana is right. "But I'm still up in the air about us."

"Us..?" Havana says. Then it dawned on me how that sounded.

"Us, being our tutoring, not anything like an "us us", you know?" I quickly clarify. "A-and not that there isn't an "us" as like, far as friendship goes, you know?" Oh my God, strike me down. Now. 

"Huh," Havana starts. "I think that's the first time you've called me your friend."

"What? Oh." Oh ... I think it is, too. "W-well, we are, right? Or can be?"

"Of course," Havana agrees. You ever heard words from someone over the phone and can just tell there's a huge, goofy grin on their face? She's too easy to read ... 

"Hey, so ... whilst we're on the topic of friends," Havana continues. "I've been thinking about the friends I'd like to invite for a birthday get-together, and now I would like to extend that invitation to you. If you were interested."

"Oh?" I cock my head. "When is it?"

"The get-together or my birthday?" Havana asks.

"Both..? I guess I never asked until this point when your birthday was."

"Well, my birthday is the 19th, but the get-together would be on the 23rd," Havana answers. "Nothing too crazy, just wanted to invite a few friends over for some chill time at my place. Ring in the big eighteen, you know?"

"Eighteen..." I repeat. "What's that feel like? Turning eighteen?"

"Hm, I suppose I'll be able to better answer that in twelve days time," Havana nips. Ah, duh. 

"Right." I say. Gosh ... Havana Sommers, one of the most revered of our school, is inviting me to her birthday party. Now, there's something to be said of popularism and how cliques and status plague our halls, but there are opposite ends of this to consider: there's Jhene-type popular; the tried and true plastic smiles and high-pitched nastiness kind. Then there's Havana-type popular; should walk around with the biggest ego on account of her resume but presents humbleness and humility. Either of these do not phase me one bit. There's never been a strive to be "popular" for me and never will be, nor is there fear in my heart to quake in my boots whenever they walk past our lockers with their fruity perfumes and better-than-thou attitudes.