Identical Letters

Previously...

I can still remember the way my heart beat as if racing alongside me. I ditched the rest of the day and jogged stupidly to my house's front doorstep. Inside my room I lay for a good quarter of an hour to collect my thoughts and calm my tachycardia. I must have dreamt it. If I learn that I practically "escaped" my major classes today, I might never get out of bed again.

The letter.

I read it once, twice, many times. I don't know. I don't remember. I was lost for words to respond to the request.

I've always liked you. Can I meet you after practice on the 23rd? Anywhere's fine but I'd love to be somewhere private where I can find you immediately and it's just the two of us.
Please be there.

Lance

That was a week ago. I fished the letter on the back page of my Statistics notebook. It suddenly looked old as if I've received it years ago. It's now past the 30 minutes that Mrs. Kaynes asked. Wow, that was fast. Dismiss us now you damn hag, I haven't got all day.

She asked for another 5 minutes to explain what our next homework would be. Calculations. Whatever.

It's now 5:19 and the gym is almost three more college buildings away. I have to get this straight. I'm meeting Lance and I don't have a single Jesus Christ idea what it's all about.

I've always liked you.

I shake off the thought thinking of it as boring. But it's not, and it stays there.

I jog-ran the last twenty steps to the doors of the gym and almost laughed when it wasn't nearly as specific that he told us where to meet. After practice. Okay, so should I wait? I'm impressed that I've actually had guts to lower my pride to a guy. But it's Lance. That's an excuse, right?

I'm nervous. I'm thinking too much. Practice ends at 6:00 and it's still less than half an hour. I decided to idle by the benches just outside the change rooms. Maybe Lance'll ask me out. Maybe not. What do I do? Does he even know me that personally? What if he gets turned off that I'm this smart-ass semi-bitch who hates Math 'cause it's too easy and not worth stressing my brain for? And he loves Math, I know that. I've had group computations with him in 1st year Algebra. But he doesn't remember that. He wouldn't. I was always invisible to him.

I checked my watch, it's says 5:52. I looked at the overhead wall clock just above the change rooms door and it's says 5:42. Damn. I was too early. This is getting boring. I may just walk away. He's probably giving me false hopes and I don't like giving people that much less than receiving them.

I stood and forgot that my book bag was open on my lap. My books landed with a a dull thud having been shushed by the interior of the bag. I noticed my red pen, the one I use to doodle hearts and Lances on my notebooks with, was not secured to the spine of my binder.

Shit.

This is ridiculous. I have to leave. I hate waiting. My eyes scanned below the benches and behind the plant pot beside where I stood.

Nothing. Again, shit.

Then it was there. A red cap visibly wedged below the dents of a locker in the boy's change room. The morons couldn't care less of privacy let alone expose their dirty socks to the mass. Basketball practice isn't over yet, so it's safe and I have a reason to be in there.

The pen is probably 16 lockers away and I just can't resist the disgusting smell anymore. Why are boys so...boys? I bent down, ready to retrieve the stupid pen when I saw a shirt just beside 16's locker. On the upper left breast pocket a name plate hang saying, Lance Michelis.

I gasp-choked.

I sputtered so violently. Damn, I forgot my swallowing reflex that it actually went down the wrong pipe. I coughed for a good few seconds and reached for the shirt while the pain throbs in my throat.

This shirt is Lance's. Which means I'm standing just beside basketball player number 17's locker. Lance Michelis. The locker room doesn't seem to smell that bad anymore.

I've always been this shithead who doesn't give a damn about other people's property, and I might be that person now. I opened the locker and laughed at how stupid basketball players could be for not worrying at all. I could steal all the player's moneys here. No one would know. But the lockers are steel and that would leave fingerprints and graduation is still two years later and I can't afford federal prison so that's out of question.

So what do I do now? If this were Dianne Holly's locker I could've fished out all the shits she's been having that could put her reputation far down to the earth and maybe land up on another continent. But I'm only semi-bitch and I'm a smart-ass so I don't do that. So unoriginal.

There is nothing in Michelis' locker that could possibly interest me. Except his bag. What the hell is the purpose of lockers if they don't "lock" away your properties from the hands of stupid felonies? If he's going to ask me out I might as well set up some rules about privacy starting with his locker. Pictures and porn videos go second especially if they're ours.

Lance's bag is lightweight - the bag of lazy boys. There is seriously nothing impressing about his bag. It's a boy's bag so seeing it neat and full of books might freak me out. He only has five sheets of paper for quizzes, perhaps, and a binder that is swollen at the back. He is so lazy. There are only 6 pages that he's used up in the front to write all his lectures in English and one particular page has this big X drawn across it that must mean he's got it all wrong, whatever it is.

It's 5: 52, say's my estimating brain. Practice is almost over and I seriously don't want to be caught in here. But I also seriously want to read what he doodles at the back.
I turn to the back pages which are swollen from having flipped carelessly through and having scratched with pens on. There are drawings of boys' stuff that don't totally disgust me. There are also some computations that never get right. Some quotes and in-line sayings have been written all over one page. A heart here, a sound of longing there.
Lance is in love. With me? Yes.
I  hope so.
I flip more. I want to see it before I face him. The deal with it is I want to see my name written on the binder he everyday carries.

Carrie. Carrie. Eliz Carrie Jules.


Carrie Jules, open up to me. One page, one line. And it totally caught me off guard. One page, a thousand lines. A writ of someone in amour. But the name. Not mine.

I left the gym.

It has never occurred to me. Once upon last week I was approached with fate and I had always wanted not to believe. But I was there. I did. I shouldn't have given a fuck. He never was meant for me. I was always invisible. I did not know how long I stared at that page but it sure did give me a lot of time. Enough for almost half the team to enter the change room along with Lance. And he saw me. They all saw me.

"Eliz?" He's voice was poison, but I did not care. I was dead even before he actually acknowledged me for who I am.

I don't want to go home. I sat along one of the corridors of my college with the letter in hand. I've always liked you. Carrie? Lance is giving you this. I'd love to be somewhere private. Just the two of us. Nobody gave it a second thought. Nobody knows me too well. I'm not popular. So how else can they be mistaken?
A room somewhere to my right opened and a flock of short girls in yellow ties stumbled out. I stood up. I'm always invisible, they won't see me. They passed by me while a second group spewed out of the door. This time it's a unisex group and they must be the clique of their section. Look how close they are. And look how stand-out she is. Never invisible. They passed by and for a moment I thought she didn't see me.
But she did.
Our eyes met and it was one of the slowest moments ever. Where I  stood with the letter in hand, almost shaken and visibly sad, she walked by in contemplation as to why I was still there, why I can't remain invisible even around her.
Nothing's wrong, I stupidly communicate telepathically. I'll see you at dinner.


And they were gone. I hold the letter up to eye level and made out a small laugh. The letter then goes down the trash bin and I walk home alone like I always do.
Sad. She didn't get to read it. Maybe Lance will write another one. "This time dude get it to the right girl!" He must say.

Sorry. I'm never invisible around you. Maybe I will be if the letter goes to you someday. 'Til then, tolerate me twin sister.

We're Elaine and Eliz Carrie Jules after all.

by ~Myrtillis

~END~