At times there existed a sense of numbness, a disconnection with reality that haunted me. I was stuck in a fog that I couldn’t see clear from. It was as if our relationship never happened, or we were broken up without saying the words.
While at school, I went through the motions in a haze of automatic motions and responses. Perhaps the same glass jar which trapped my feelings for Caleb also provided a protective barrier around me around me in public. Only to be broken when something set me off, causing me to enter real life and usually act like a spaz.
The first couple weeks back in school, even a new school, had been the worst. On my second day, I’d left chemistry class to use the restroom, walking down an empty hallway. Rounding a corner, I’d bumped into a guy wearing a navy blue shirt. I’d completely freaked out. It brought me right back to the attack. Josh had worn his navy football jersey that game night.
The poor guy who’d collided with me had probably carried bruises from me hitting him. I pictured him showing them off to his friends as he told them about the crazy girl who’d ran into the girls’ bathroom after punching the crap out of him.
Locking myself in a stall, I’d missed my next two classes that day. I’d almost expected to be called to the office in the afternoon for suspension. I could only guess the boy had no idea who I was or he’d laughed it off.
On the phone with Caleb, a part of me always burned to confide in him, tell him how messed up I really was. Instead, I constantly assured him everything was fine. The part of me that still wanted him to see me as I used to be always held me back from opening up. I was too embarrassed by my weaknesses to tell the truth. Soaking up his love in phone calls and letters was what I lived for nowadays. I couldn’t take the thought of losing his precious love.
But I was afraid of him turning away from me after he was released.
Did he think about what Josh did to me? Did it disgust him? Would he even want to touch me like he used to?
I imagined him getting out of juvie and realizing he didn’t want damaged goods with anxiety problems. In my worst moments, I pictured him deciding he didn’t love me anymore.
I studied the girls at school, the happy ones who kissed and held hands with their boyfriends. Was that what I’d looked like with Caleb, so carefree? Would Caleb want the kind of carefree girl I’d been? Didn’t he deserve that?
Right before Christmas break a guy on the basketball team asked me out. While he was waiting for a response, I’d just stared back at him in panicked silence. The appropriate response had been drumming in my head. All I’d had to do was tell him I had a boyfriend, but I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth.
Eventually, he’d given me an odd look deserving of the freak I was and walked away shaking his head. I’d missed the period after lunch that day and hid in the bathroom again. Every time I ditched a class, I had to tell the school psychologist so it could be excused.
The confessions were their own special humiliation and they always notified my dad.
When Caleb had casually mentioned one day over the phone that he wished we could talk during his phone time during the weekdays, I’d almost laughed. How could I tell him I missed class all the time? That the girls’ restrooms at school were becoming my own person panic rooms? I even had a favorite stall in each one. I might as well take a Sharpie to the metal walls and write Gianna was here...again.
Weekends breaking with the crew were actually somewhat calming. I slept over some Friday nights at Jared and Cece’s house and we went to ballet together Saturday morning. We usually ate at her family’s restaurant afterward for lunch. By the time we got back to her house in the afternoon, the rest of the crew waited in the garage for a session.
I knew there was no way they knew about what happened. Caleb had promised not to tell Dante or Taye. Other than me, my friends didn’t know anyone else from Broomfield. The paranoia about them finding out existed anyways.
At first, when the guys had to get up close to me during a routine, I’d start to feel panicky. Blaming it on my newly healed injuries, I’d tear myself away from whatever guy I danced with, trying to get myself under control. I’d fooled most of them, but Jared and Cece’s concerns had been harder to brush off.
Cece kept giving me probing looks. She questioned my supposed cheerleading accident and Caleb being locked up around the same time. I lied as I always did, feeling guilty for the necessary deceit, but preferring it over my best friend finding out about the attack.
Jared was even more intuitive than Cece. Maybe it was some sort of ingrained male instinct, the ability to sense a damaged female. The old Jared would have pounced on Caleb being in juvie. Instead, he treated me with nothing but consideration, in a purely brotherly way.