The Opposition

Chapter 5: Sadie

"And then he had me pushed up against the wall and–"

"Okay! We get it, Lena," Ana snaps, not even bothering to look up from the piece of toast on her plate. She's holding her buttered plastic knife in the air as if she's ready to stab someone with it at any moment.

Lena, who I know from math class and from the volleyball team last year, stands at our table at 7:00 am recounting some eventful night she had with Landon. For a second, I almost forgot Daniel had his party last night, but there was no way that I was going to sneak out in the middle of the night to go to a party where my only options would've been to stand around in the living room or make out with someone on the side of the house, or so it seems. While Lena, and apparently Carter and his crew, were out risking their scholarships, I spent the entire night running around, trying to find some gentle laundry detergent. Apparently all of the athletes at this school use heavy duty stuff that smells like ocean breeze or some shit. Even the girls in Cadwell House admitted to having gentle detergent, but not odourless. Carter didn't specify that it had to be odourless, but I'm assuming it was implied on top of the list he gave me.

After awkwardly knocking on Ms. Preen's (a Cadwell dorm parent) door and asking to borrow her laundry detergent, I was about ready to say screw it and not wash it. But I made a promise and, well, he looked so nice in the sweater, and it matched his eyes so well; I thought it'd really be a waste to not try and clean it. Don't get me wrong, Carter can rot in a hole along with his fancy knit sweaters, but I'm human, and sometimes humans can't help but feast their eyes on pretty things. Pretty annoying things.

Lena seems to have gotten the hint, so she turns to walk back to her friends, sparing us any more information on what it felt like to have Landon's tongue down her throat. I want to pour a bottle of bleach down my throat just thinking about it, and, from the look on Ana's face, I think she agrees.

"I'm going to die in biology," Angie complains, sipping on her coffee.

"You shouldn't have stayed up so late," I tell her. When I got back from running a laundry marathon, I saw both of them curled up on the single bed, watching some sort of rom-com. Angie had tears streaming down her face, and, when I asked what was wrong, she told me that the love interest died and right before the main character found an engagement ring stuffed in this sock drawer. "Romantic," I scoffed. It didn't seem very cry-worthy to me, but if they wanted to stare at a screen until 3 am watching sucky rom-coms, they were more than welcome to. I, on the other hand, fell onto my bottom bunk in a lace camisole and silky sleep shorts and promptly fell asleep.

"He died" is all Angie offers as a response.

"Yeah," I say. "And now you will, too."

She smacks the spoon I used to stir my coffee and now bring to my lips out of my hand. I swing the spoon away from my face, avoiding getting any coffee drops on my PJ set. We're lucky to be able to wear PJs to breakfast, but as soon as class starts we're back to semi-formal attire. "Not cool," I say, too tired, regardless of my seven hours of sleep, to come up with a better comeback. In forty minutes I'll have to put on a cheery smile and act like I got ten hours. I'm so not ready for that.

I take my phone out of my pocket. As soon as I spot the small red dot in the corner of the phone app, I feel my chest tighten. My eyes are weak, so they begin accumulating tears along my lash line. No, I try and tell them. They listen, and no tears fall. I've gotten so good at hiding my emotions. Even when I stepped off the plane three days ago, no one could see my pain. Shit, even I believed I was fine. But now I don't have fears of planes crashing or seeing a cocky prep boy to distract me. The memories flood me. The pain, so much pain, floods me. And I feel like I don't even deserve to feel it. I wasn't there. I left. Because I didn't want to be there. And now she's not there. I look away from the red dot; I know what it means. The voicemail, which I've only had the heart to listen to once, has been on loop in my head for almost two months.