Forever & Always

Chapter 9

In the next couple of weeks, Shane and I completed our Government project piece by piece. It was long and at times, painful, but we actually got alone much better now. Like I said before, he seemed to be a completely different person when he was just alone with me, than when he was in school, which could be annoying at times, but was also kind of sweet. Sweet in some sick and twisted kind of way, but you get what I mean. 

Anyway, we started hanging out a lot more and eventually, I stopped hating him. Shane and I were friends once again, he was acting more and more like his old self every day, and I was starting to apply to colleges. 

The only thing that wasn't okay was Annie. Noticing that the two of us were hanging out more, Annie resorted back to the oldest mean girl trick in the book: starting rumors. You name it, she said it. Pregnancy scares, abortions, STDs, immigration issues, stuffing of bras and then by extension, boob jobs, everything. Nothing really stuck because the people I went to school with weren't total idiots, and because none of them really made an impression, Annie was just getting angrier and angrier about it. 

I asked Shane one night while we were working on the project why they had broken up. "Because I had been with her for a while and nothing ever changed with her," he explained. "She was always the way she is right now. But I had to change for her and that's not what a relationship should be like. Plus, she thought I had feelings for you, which made her jealous." 

He didn't say much about it afterward and I didn't really feel like pressing the matter either. I didn't even mind the rumors anymore, once I started to hear about how ridiculous they were getting and how little damage they were causing. I was more preoccupied with Shane. We were best friends again, and the best part was that Lacey and Sara were warming up to him, too. 

Now, when I say 'warming up to him', I'm not saying they exchanged numbers and were hanging out on the weekends together. I meant they graduated from shooting death glares to keeping a straight face no matter what he said, even if it was funny (you could tell they were trying hard to keep their straight faces when he made an especially funny joke, which was hilarious on our end, because it was just coming off immature for them at this point). He even started sitting with us at lunch. For the first time in my life, I was at the mercy of a boy, and I didn't even mind it. 

****

"Ugh, why does she always have to be such a bitch?" I said out loud about one of the housewives on the TV. One of our new favorite activities to do was watch really horrible television shows together and make fun of the worse characters. 

"I bet you twenty bucks those boobs aren't real," Shane said, putting another handful of popcorn in his mouth. 

"Oo, I would totally take that bet," I said, grabbing some popcorn for myself. "I'm willing to bet you that if one of the other wives slaps her in the face, you're going to see a wave of orange spray tan hit the wall." 

Shane laughed, almost choking on the popcorn in his mouth. My phone went off just as Cheryl was getting all up in Linda's face. It was a text from my mom. "Be home in 10. Any ideas about dinner?" I answered that I was up for anything and then remembered that Shane could not be here when she got back. She didn't know about him yet, and even if she had known him, she still would think the worst like we were having sex or something. 

"Hey, it's that time again, you got to go," I said, jumping off the couch and practically pulling off too. 

"Wait, I want to see if Cheryl finds out that Amanda slept with her son!" He exclaimed, but I pulled him up and handed him his shoes. 

"I'm sorry, but if you don't get out of here, you're going to have to deal with my mother thinking her daughter is going to be on 'Teen Mom' next season," I said, opening the front door and ushering him out.