Cherry

𝕤𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕟

I didn't kill her. I wanted to but I had to come to the realization that it's far too irrational to kill someone for simply having horrible morals.

November passed quickly and so did December. Come Christmas break, I still hadn't spoken to Sylvia. She tried multiple times to talk to me but I ignored her. She still sat next to me during class and at lunch but I paid her no mind. The worst part of it all was that Ivan had begun to distance himself from me. I asked him about it once and he told me that my kindness only hurt him.

"It was nice at first," he'd said. "But after a while, I realized all it would ever be is nice and that, really, you just felt bad for me,"

"Ivan, that's not—"

"No, it's okay Ren, you don't have to be kind anymore,"

"Ivan—"

"Save it for your next charity case," he spoke with a weak smile and walked away.

I only saw him twice after that.

Winter break I was a wreck. I either sat in my room all day and watched the snow fall against the earth or tried to meet Lillian somewhere without her sister finding out. Lillian was the last friend I had left considering the circumstances along with the fact that Avery was out of town for the holidays—but then again we never really saw each other outside of school anyway. My home life wasn't ideal so I tried to avoid it as much as possible. Everything just felt like it was falling apart.

Christmas was underwhelming and the New Year didn't feel very "new".

It was the Sunday before break ended and I was wandering through the baking section of the grocery store when I saw someone I hadn't thought of much in the past two months—considering the only person I could talk to about him was on my bad side, I'd consider that fair. Charlie Connors was eyeing me from the end of the aisle, holding a sack of baking soda and pretending to look for other ingredients but really just stealing glances at me. There'd been plenty of interaction since Ivan's Halloween party, but I'd kind of forgotten about it since I hadn't had anyone to obsess over it with. I told Lillian about some of it but kept most of it to myself.

Once there was no one else in the aisle besides the two of us I said; "What do you want Charles?"

"Hello to you too," he chuckled and made his way over to me as I kept my eyes on the different brands and types of flour in front of me. "How was your break?" He asked, now standing next to me.

"Fine," I shrugged.

"You're lying,"

"What's it to you?" He didn't answer, just looked at me. "I gotta go, see you tomorrow, Charlie," I picked up the bag of flour I'd been staring at the whole time and walked away—feeling his eyes on me as I went.

***

"Ren, are you really gonna keep me shut out for the rest of the year?" Sylvia tailed me as I speed-walked to my locker Monday morning.

"Sleeping with Ivan was a dick move Syl," I spun around to face her. "I knew you had a thing for the emotionally damaged, but you don't even try to fix them, you just use them. It's fucking immoral and I'm sick of it!" She looked at me and I thought I almost saw a tear in her eye.

"Ren, I feel horrible—"

"Good." I crossed my arms and planted my feet. "You should feel horrible. You're a slut and a leach. You may think you care but you only use them to make your damage not feel so heavy,"

"Renny, I—"

"Save it," I put my hand up. At this point, there were quiet tears streaming down her face. "The person you need to apologize to is Ivan," I turned on my heels and made my way to class. New semester, same full-credit classes, so unfortunately she inevitably had to follow me.