Sanity Siphoned

CH9: First Fooled

Chapter 9

After how her night ended with Michael and then having to lie to her mother, Julienne felt miserable. She fell asleep in her dress after growing painfully exhausted from her tears. She woke up feeling no better. Her eyes opened but she made no effort to move from the bed.

This thing with Michael could only end one way and she was a fool to think…she wasn’t sure what she thought. Their time dancing under the moonlight was a fairy tale meant to end quickly. They lived in real life and in real life people like them didn’t get together.

Their stolen kisses and caresses, it was all a dirty little secret. Michael said as much last night when he stumbled to make sure his friend didn’t suspect someone else was there.

Julienne was sick and tired of being everybody’s fool.

Except she didn’t care enough to try and do something about it. She’d always be the girl everyone stepped on for the fun of it, the one that didn’t matter and blended into the wall the different surroundings. She was a broken chameleon the world forgot.

~*~

Michael knew she was pissed at him. She was a girl after all and girls hated to be ignored and told they weren’t good enough. He didn’t mean for her to take it that way but he was sure she did. She was always quick to think the worst where he was concerned and who the hell could blame her? He thought again.

Last night had been meant to change that and instead the gap between them was bigger.

All his dreams last night involved trying to figure out how to get back on her good side and finish what they started in the boat’s cabin. He was pacing his room trying to make some sense about the whole thing when his brother spoke.

“You’re going to make a hole in the carpet. I guess last night didn’t go well.”

“It was really good and then really bad.” He told his brother all the details. “I could kill Cody for showing up on the docks.”

“You lied for a reason.”

Michael pulled at his hair. “Of course I lied! Do you know what’ll happen if people find out I have a thing for Julienne Teller? I didn’t want to hurt her feelings last night but there was no way I could tell the truth.”

“Then she took it exactly how you meant it.” Shane said trying to play devil’s advocate.

“I didn’t mean that she wasn’t good enough or something. It’s just where we are in our lives and in that place people like us don’t get together.” He winced at the shallowness of the words. It wasn’t that she wasn’t pretty, she was and could even be beautiful when she tried like last night but at the same time she was a social basket case and there was no over looking that in the crowd he hung out with.  It would end up being one or the other; the friends he knew all his life or a girl he wasn’t sure how he felt about.

“I’m so glad I’m not in high school anymore. The politics make no sense. You don’t need your friend’s permission or some fake popular status to tell you who you can and can’t date. But if you are going to follow that bullshit then you might as well leave her alone like I keep telling you before you really hurt her.” Shane offered up his advice as best he could and even helped him plan last night but he never once supported his brother’s quest to be with Julienne. She was fragile and Michael was only going to break her heart.

Michael opened his mouth and closed it in the same moment when his bedroom door opened and his mother stepped inside. “In case your father asks when he gets back I’m going to meet Ellen to discuss some figures and then we’re going out to lunch.”