What happened with Oliver and me on Saturday evening was not as I had represented it to Russell, but that was hardly my fault. In the heat of the moment, suffering from mental convulsions that rocked me back and forth between New Year's Eve and the present, where the picture on the big screen wasn't much better, I had risen from my seat, stumbled into the aisle in the flickering dimness of the theater and descended the stairs toward the exit, while Oliver spared me barely a glance, believing me to be under the influence of either a troubling stomach problem or an overwhelming need for confections.
I found out about this on Monday morning, when we met by our lockers and I tried to ignore him. I didn't know whether to feel angry or humiliated, and I settled for a combination of the two, shooting him a look that I fancied could have caused paint to coil in fear, and then looking away with disappointment. Oliver failed to catch the various meanings I was trying to communicate.
"Where the fuck did you go on Saturday?" he said. It was like having Russell yell at me, only with less teeth. He sounded more wounded than angry. "You just left."
I looked at him stupidly, unsure how to respond.
"I mean," he continued, "you just got up and left. I thought you were going for popcorn or something. But you fucking ditched me."
This was a perspective on the situation that I hadn't taken into account. "I was...." But the words didn't come. But I was re-experiencing a terrible thing that happened to me. But I am too much of a coward to watch a violent movie. "I thought you knew I was upset," I said helplessly. I didn't know Oliver at all, but I believed him without reservation. I needed to go away somewhere and re-examine Saturday night; he had me on the spot and he was staring me down, and I quailed under his ire. Further confusing matters was my surprise at my reaction to all this. Had I been living on the streets again I would have verbally eviscerated him as soon as looked at him, but packed into this school, a captive of the state, I was subject to the rules of polite society, to the consequences complicated by having to see him every day until he graduated in a year and a half.
Oliver's tone softened, but he met my half-apology with disbelief. "You were upset? Why?"
"I... I don't...." I knew exactly, but I got raped a few months ago in a hotel room in the Tenderloin in the act of selling sex and am now experiencing a few psychological issues because of that would not, I suspected, make the situation better.
"Was it me?" he said.
"No." My emphasis surprised us both. "No, it was just... that scene." I was keenly aware that this, this reaction, my secret, could be spread around school, depending on how vindictive Oliver was feeling, and I didn't feel like tempting fate. "I guess I thought I could handle the movie. I thought you knew that's why I left. I thought it was obvious."
"Well, it wasn't," he said. His anger had lost its potency; he sounded unsure of himself. The next thing he was going to ask about was dinner afterward, but the logistics... surely I, unhappy, couldn't have been expected to wait for him in the theater lobby while he enjoyed the rest of the movie? Surely he couldn't have been expected to read my mind, as the situation seemed to have required?
The halls were emptying, and we still had to get to our separate classes. I slung my backpack over my shoulder. "Can we maybe try again?" I said. "Maybe we could go see, I don't know. Something stupid."
"Alice in Wonderland. Yeah. Look. Emily. You swear that's all it was?"
"Yeah," I said, and we parted ways. The relief I felt was half-welcome, my anger with Oliver dangling like a half-finished sentence. I had been cut loose, and I drifted all the way through my next class.
