The Fourth of July and the Surrounding Events

CHAPTER 1

"It doesn't matter!" Jayde yelled through the phone, "Don't act like you won't have fun." 

We had been arguing on facetime for about 20 minutes now, and I wasn't getting anywhere in terms of winning. 

"Fine," I muttered under my breath. Just do it, Alexandria, she's right, it'll be fun. "Fine fine ok you win, I'll be at the curb in 15," I told my best friend of four years.

Jayde tended to push me to extremes, and this was one of them. I didn't especially want to go to her boyfriend's Fourth of July lake party, with his fancy fireworks and shit, but Jayde has had her hold over me since freshman year. Yeah, Mateo and I are close, but I'd much rather watch the fireworks at the beach with Jayde, which was our tradition. 

We had played softball together in 7th and 8th grade and because of all the team hangouts, we became super close. We would talk about all the typical tween girl shit and fail at applying makeup in attempts to becoming "pretty." And that's all we did, fail. Until the summer before freshman year, when Jayde actually did get pretty. And I don't mean pretty in a loose way. I mean drop-dead gorgeous. Guys and girls alike started wanting her, and well, I was jealous, but not because of the typical "jealous best friend" cliche. Plenty of girls wanted me and I suppose guys too, but being a queer teen girl, men weren't really in my sights.

I was jealous because I wanted Jayde. I didn't know why I wanted her because everything beforehand had been simply platonic, but she's all I could look at. Unfortunately, I could never tell her that. It would displace our existing friendship, which is the last thing I want to do. So for the last four years, I settled for being best friends, because at least that way she wanted me, right?

Jayde was blessed with good genes and it was obvious to everyone around her. She was pretty much the only one who couldn't see it. Her long swishy black hair and dark eyes drew you in like a bee to a flower, and her slender figure was sculpted to perfection. Next to my shoulder-length wavy ginger hair and bright blue eyes, we looked like a pair of models, but that, like much everything else in this world, came with its downsides. 

Her boyfriend Mateo was one of them for sure. They started dating at the beginning of our freshman year and have been going strong ever since. He has treated her like his queen every single moment they've spent together, and obviously, I'm happy for them, he's so in love with her and vice versa, but every time he kisses her, or she tells me about the date they went on, the strings of my heart snap. 

Another downside would be my mother's constant badgering. She has wanted me to be a model since I was a baby, and for a while, I did too. Until my dad left and she started dating Tyler.

Tyler and my mom have been together for nearly four years, but he's ruined a lot in those hellish few years. He is the scum of the earth that made Jayde never want to come over, and I, never want to be home. I've told my mom thousands of times how much I hate him, but Tyler the Asshole pays for everything so she won't leave him. I get that he provides for us but he's the lamest excuse of a man possible. No, he doesn't deserve to be called a man. With all his hissy fits he throws, he really is a child. 

I really did want to be a model, it was my biggest dream as a child, but Tyler, much like with every other dream I've had, managed to snap it in half for me.

Quickly changing into a white bikini and shorts, I yelled down the hall to my mom that I was going with Jayde to the Michaelson's party. "Alright Lexi, have fun, don't do drugs, you know the deal," my mom yelled back equally as loud. Honestly, sometimes I have no idea what she's on. I've never touched so much as a cigarette and I certainly don't plan on it. She tries so hard to be the "cool mom" but she's never really delivered. She's more of the alcoholic MILF everyone tries to sleep with. 

Walking down the steep driveway, I saw Jayde in the car her dad bought her. It was a sleek black Maserati with tinted windows. As she put it, the car was an "I'm sorry we missed your entire life" present. I also got one of those from an "anonymous source" on my 16th birthday. My dad never thought to write a letter or call, but he could send me a fancy car out of nowhere, after 6 years of being an absentee father. Jayde's parents weren't exactly multi-millionaires, but they were well off.  Everyone in the fucked up beach town of Rockland is. You're either rich or broke. There is no in-between.

"Get in loser we're going shopping!" she squealed in her usual peppy voice, quoting Mean Girls.

 Oh god, this is gonna be a long night. Start the clock for more than 4 hours of third-wheeling the two love birds. "Hey Jaydey," I said calmly as I settled into the passenger side of the car, "cute top." Did I mean her top was cute or did it just accentuate her chest nicely... 

"Thanks, honey," Jayde cooed back, "you look hot per usual." 

Blushing, I continued the normal small talk, of how Mateo is, have I talked to any girls recently, and where are we crashing tonight, the works.