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Chapter 25: Pat-rick(y)

"Hey Mom." I walked into the kitchen, video camera in hand. "What are some negative effects of love?" I hit the record button on the camera and zoomed in on my mom as she was washing the dishes from dinner.

"Why do you ask?" She turned around and her eyes widened when she saw the video camera. She immediately squealed and held up her soap-covered hands to hide her face. "Why are you filming me? Turn that thing off!"

I closed the viewfinder and shut the camera off with a sigh. "Come on Mom, it's for a school project."

"Well if it's for school, get some of your school friends to be in your video, not me." She turned back to rinsing off the plates.

"I don't have any friends, remember?" I grabbed a dish towel and began to dry the dishes and utensils piled on the counter.

"I thought you were going to meet up with Ivory. Wasn't that where you were less than an hour ago?" My mom gave me the look that I better not be lying to her or I was going to end up buried ten feet underground.

I nodded. "Yeah, we met up at the library and talked about our project and... other things. But Mom, it's worse than I thought. I knew I was a bad friend, but not only was I a horrible friend, I was a horrible person! How could I be so blind?" I dropped the dish towel and held my head in my hands, the full impact of Ivory's mom's death still barely comprehendible.

"Oh honey." My mom dried her hands off and then wrapped me in a hug. "It's all going to be okay."

I shook my head. It wasn't.

My mom placed her hands on my shoulders. "Kennedy, you're my daughter, and I know who you are. I've watched you grow and mature every day for the past seventeen years, and I know that you are not a horrible person. You are smart, funny, talented, but most of all, you are real. And real people make mistakes. You can learn from your mistakes, but don't beat yourself up over them. Remember, forgiveness doesn't come easily, or quickly. None of the best things in life do. Just do what you can, honey. That's all I'd ever expect you to do."

A tear traced down my cheek as I hugged my mom tighter. "Thank you Mom, seriously I don't know what I'd do without you."

"I love you Kennedy." She smiled at me. "I know you'll make me proud."

"I will." And I decided it was time to start keeping my promises.

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"Hey Aubrey!" I ran down the hallway after the queen of evil. I quickly caught up to her since I had the advantage of not wearing heels.

She whirled around to face me. I had to step back to avoid being slapped in the face by her chestnut hair. "What do you want bitch?"

I held up the video camera and hit record. "Tell us about your past relationships."

Aubrey's eyes lit up at the sight of the camera; she loved being the centre of attention. Plus, I had just given her an opportunity to talk about her favourite subject: boys. "Oh, where to begin? Well that depends, how much time do we have?"

I sighed. I was going to be here for a while.

Xxxxxxxxx

Later on, I was walked into the girl's washroom and came face to face with Hailee. "Oh, hey!" I exclaimed in surprise.

"Hey..." she trailed off, clearly suspicious.

"Remember that time you and Sacha got into that fight over Sean?"

Hailee nodded slowly, her ponytail bouncing with her head movement.

I pulled the camera out of my bag. "Can you tell us about it?"

Xxxxxxxxxx

By the time the bell rang signalling the end of the day, I had interviewed over ten people about the difficulties that came with love, including all of my old friends; Sacha, Hailee and Aubrey. There was only one more person I really wanted to talk to, and I was hoping I would get the opportunity to now.

"Ricky! Ricky!" I yelled as I raced down the staircase, my eyes struggling to chase the trail of his green backpack through the crowd of high school students.

I pushed open the school doors and ran along the sidewalk, ignoring the stares and laughs of random strangers. "Ricky, come on! Talk to me!"

I finally caught up to him just as he was unlocking the door to his care. He slowly turned to face me. "My name is Patrick."

Confused, I stared at him blankly. "Okay, Patrick. Sorry, I thought you didn't mind that I called you Ricky."

Patrick shrugged. "I didn't use to."

I looked down, unable to meet his eyes. It was like the piercing blue colour could reveal all the awful things I've done.  "What changed?"

The question held a lot more weight to it than just his name, and he knew it. "I don't know," he sighed. "Why don't you tell me?"

"Rick-Patrick." I caught myself. "I told you, I don't know what I did wrong! All I know is that for a few days, I really, really liked you. But after Sacha's party things haven't been the same. You're mad at me, and I don't know why."

Patrick leaned against the doorframe of his car. "Are you really going to make me repeat it?"

I hesitated, and then nodded assertively. "Yes."

"Come on, sit down." Patrick gestured to me to follow him around to the other side of the car. He opened the passenger door and waited for me to step in. He closed the door behind me and then walked back over to the driver's side. "Alright. Now we can talk."

"Great, now tell me what happened."

"We were both pretty drunk," he began, which was stating the obvious. "But I liked you, too. And I liked you when you were sober, and I liked you when you were drunk. You are a really funny drunk."

I laughed, partly because what he was saying didn't make any sense, but mostly because I was nervous.

"Listen, you wanted to hook up, okay? And I turned you down, not because I didn't want to hook up with you, because I do, I mean I did..." He shook his head as if to clear it. "I just didn't want to do it when we were both wasted. It didn't feel real, and I didn't think you were in your right mind."

I nodded. I didn't remember begging Ricky to hook up with me, but it didn't surprise me.

"And you did that cute pout-y thing you do sometimes, and I was like aw Kennedy don't be like that, let me go get you some more water. And you just kind of nodded and started swaying around and I thought you were going to pass out or something, so I ran to go get you the water. And I came back, and you were gone. When I asked Scarlett where you went, she said you went off to Jack's house before she could stop you. And it's not too hard for me to imagine what you did there."

"Ricky, I mean Patrick, I didn't do anything with him, I swear. I didn't know what I was doing, and it was nothing to do with you. I actually really appreciate that you said no to me, you were totally right. Thank you."

Patrick shrugged. "It's all good."

"I'm really, really, sorry. I was so stupid. If I could do it over again-"

"But you can't." Patrick cut me off. "You can't do it over, you already made your choice."

"But I would take it back in a heartbeat!"

"Goodbye Kennedy."

With a heavy heart, I opened the passenger door and stepped out of the car. "Goodbye Patrick."