The Kiss Off

The Kiss Off - Chapter One

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Chapter One 

'What rhymes with "douchebag"?' I asked as Vanya turned knobs and pulled the legs out on the tripod. I chewed on the end of my pencil. 

I had just the tune for this song. I'd been trying to find the right lyrics for awhile now and I knew this was it. A match made in rock and roll heaven. 

I sat on the end of my bed, Stella, my acoustic guitar in my lap with a notepad beside me and I started bouncing the half-chewed pencil against my knee, thinking. I read back what I had of the chorus so far:  

Goodbye,  

you didn't say why,  

but I'm not gonna cry  

cos baby this is your Kiss Off. 

Goodbye,  

you cheated on me,  

but I'll get even you see,  

I'm telling you to just Kiss Off. 

I hummed it back to myself and nodded, a smug smile creeping onto my lips. He wasn't going to know what hit him, neither of them would. It was going to be brilliant.  

'Hand bag?' Vanya suggested. 

'Hmm,' I said.  

We both knew it was bad.  

'How about skank-whore? Does anything rhyme with that?' 

'I don't know about skank-whore, but lots of things rhyme with skank,' Vanya said. 'Bank, thank, tank, rank. Mind you, Poppy, I don't think that's really the message you want to-' 

'No,' I said, the cogs in my brain started turning and I scribbled notes down onto the pad.  

'Okay good,' Van said with relief. 

'No I mean no, it's good.' 

'Oh.' 

'Okay,' I said. 'Yeah. Good. I'm ready.' 

They weren't getting away with this shit. I had been having a good night, an excellent night, in my opinion it was one of the best house parties Ravi had thrown. Until they showed up.  

I was playing someone's acoustic guitar, sitting in a camping chair in a circle around the bonfire, taking song requests. Pepsi had shot out my nose when I laughed at how off key one of the boys was singing, and how the girl in the leather jacket was slowly sinking into the long grass as the red beanbag peed out Styrofoam balls all around her. Another guy started doing a wicked beat box until that girl from the Student Council (what's her name, the one with the red hair) pushed him backwards off the picnic bench. She took his place on the bench and he just lay in the grass and dirt behind them, his legs sticking up in the air like he was still sitting. No one was singing anymore, we were laughing too hard. Even my other best friend Mads, beside me on a folding chair had stopped staring through the windows toward the front door long enough to join in the shenanigans.  

Vanya had been inside, taking part in a very competitive "throwing food into someone's mouth" competition. I watched her scoop up a gummy bear from the lolly bowl and toss it at the open mouth of that guy with the wonky eye, who's friends with Ravi. Well, of course he's friends with Ravi, he wouldn't have been there otherwise. He caught the gummy bear and the group of them raised their hands in triumph. Vanya had laughed as she gave wonky-eye'd-friend-of-Ravi a high-five. 

I took another swig from my Pepsi and turned my focus back to the guitar. Just as I strummed a note, Mads groaned and kicked at the grass. 

'When do you think he's going to get here already?' She'd checked her watch with a huff.