Girls Don't Know Jack

Picking Up The Pieces

♫ Supercut - Lorde

A soft knock on my bedroom door forces me out from my safe blanket fortress. Here, I've been wallowing for a couple of days following my suspension.

"Honey?" my mother's voice calls out. "Can I come in?"

With no response, she takes it as a yes, pattering across the hardwood floor before sinking into my mattress. Her calming hand pats my back.

"Are you ready to talk, yet?" she asks me for the fifteenth time in just a couple of days.

From beneath my comforter I groan, "There's nothing to say...my life is over."

Two more days have passed, where not a single person has responded to my desperate pleas for forgiveness over text, voicemail, voice message, or DM's.

No one wants anything to do with Molly Clark.

"Oh, honey," my mother coos before pulling down the lavender blanket to reveal my face. Light flooding in from my window strains my eyes and I whimper. "We need to talk about this."

Embarrassed, I reluctantly sit up, nestling into my mother's side. She's been very patient and understanding about the suspension. Mostly concerned, she took off a few days from work to therapize me instead.

"What were you thinking, dear? Attacking that girl from school," she says studying my face.

Shaking my head I groan. "I was thinking she was out to get me."

"And why would you think that?" she asks with soft eyes.

Burying my face into her neck, I shrug. "Because she was alone with Jack."

Nodding her head she questions, "You like this boy?" I nod. "And does he like you too?"

A whimper escapes me again as I shrug. "I thought he did."

But that was all over with now—there is no way Jack Moody ever let's me back into his life after my latest colossal mess-up.

"Oh, honey." She pulls me tighter for a squeeze. "Your first heartbreak can be so painful. But if he's not the one for you, then you have to leave it be."

But he is the one for me! Or he was, until I destroyed any chance of a happy ending with him.

Pushing away from her, I shake my head. "I've messed everything up."

"Why do you say that, dear?"

Biting my lip, tears start to well in my eyes. "My friends hate me," I mumble.

"Naila and Jade?" she asks and I nod again, sniffling. "You all have been friends for years. What happened?"

"They said I'm a shit friend."

My mother tilts her head at me, her honey-blonde hair swaying. "Have you been?"

Offended, I straighten, fluffing the blankets on my lap in a huff as my tears dissipate. "No—of course not."

"Why do you think they would say that, then?" she inquires in her best therapist voice.

Annoyed, I pick off some fuzz from my purple blanket as I think. "I don't know—I guess I've been kind of consumed with my own stuff, lately. I guess they probably think I'm a bit selfish."

"And are you? Selfish, I mean," she asks with a raised brow.

Definitively, I shake my head. "I don't mean to be," I say.

"Then show them that."

Her simple problem solving stumps me. How does this come so easily to her? Staring at my hands, I perk back up.