Before the sleep

Chapter thirteen

Mommy

"I hate you so much right now."

I stood in the middle of the dorm I shared with Carmen. Anger and hurt replaced the blood that ran through my veins. My taste buds went sour after having a bit of bitter betrayal. My eyesight was spotted with black dots built by the rage.

Carmen sat in her desk chair, facing me with her unbothered stare locked on the wall behind me. Her brown hair now a very pale blond was let loose on her exposed shoulders. She picked at an imaginary thread on her black off the shoulder crop top before patting her head to make sure every strand was in place.

"What do you want me to tell you?" She sighed. Her gaze went everywhere except to me.

"Why would you do something like that?" My voice came out breathy as I continue to use force to keep my rage at bay. "You've covered for me all the other times. Why would you call them now? You know they were going to go ballistic if they found me alone with a boy."

"I guess you shouldn't have been alone with him in the first place," she shrugged before twirling the chair around and away from me.

I placed my hand on either side of the chair and wrenched it towards me. I walked around to face her. Carmen's royal blue eyes let a small amount of shame and regret out before they returned to a blank stare.

"Why?" I pressed.

I refused to believe she was capable of stabbing me in the back. I'd seen her do it with many others before but I held on to that silver of hope that she truly saw us as sisters. I wanted her to be feeling the same love I felt for her – the same love she was currently crushing.

"I don't have to explain myself to you or anyone else." She pushed my hands off the chair and left the room.

I closed my eyes to subdue the sting of the tears I wouldn't let fall. I was being too weak. I needed to take it like the grown woman I was and peel back the opaque veil I threw on top of Carmen's bad side. I needed to see her for who she is not who I wanted her to be.

I walked out of the room and jogged to the elevator. I caught it before it closed. Without thinking my hands reached and grabbed my supposed best friend out of her escape transportation.

"Irene!" she teared my hands way from her but it was too late since the doors already closed. "What's wrong with you?"

"I need an answer, Carmen." I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at her fleeting eyes.

Carmen wasn't really one to beat around the bushes. She was the kind of girl who would tell the teacher she was getting out of class because she was too horny to listen to a lecture on plate tectonics. She said what was on her mind unless she was lying her way through a favor.

She pulled her phone out and started mindlessly opening every app so she could avoid my gaze. "I called them because I felt like it, are you happy now?"

She returned the phone to the pockets of her jeans shorts and began to play with the tips of her blond hair.

Until now it didn't occur to me that her new dye and new clothes were designed to set some space between us. I knew the time for us to stop dressing alike was coming but I thought I would have known it. I didn't think she was just going to get up one day and decided she had had it with being put in the same category as me.

"No, I'm not happy. I need real answers, not some random words you would throw at a stranger you want to leave you alone. Come on, I'm your best friend. Just tell me, I'll understand."