Turning Tables

Chapter 8

~Katie~

The sun hit my face as I slowly woke up. I slowly sat up from my pillow and instantly regretted it as a shot of pain passed through my temples making me lay back down. I've had hangovers but never like this.

There was a small knock on my door before my mom walked in. "Hey, honey. How are you feeling?" She had this sad and worried look on her face which confused the hell out of me.

"I'm fine, but I think I should be asking you that question. You don't look so well." I said disconcertingly.

She gave me a confused glance. "What makes you say that? I feel perfectly fine."

Liar. She always was a bad liar, but she was either highly unaware of it or she she'd push it away and hope other people would do the same. "By the way, Stacey and Erika are here to see you."

Before I could get a word out, the said friends walked in with the same distraught look on their faces like my mother had and it really bothered me. What, did I get shot at last night and just woke up from a coma? "Hey you."

"How are you feeling?" Erika added sadly.

"Confused. Why the hell is everyone acting like I died?" The room fell silent. I guess Casper was explaining the situation to me. Thanks guys for the info'.

"You didn't die last night, dork." Stacey chuckled to make it sound convincing, but I knew better than that.

"Then what hell did happen last night? Did someone die?" Then my world felt like crumbling when a scary thought reached into my throbbing head. "Was it Papa Joe?" Imagining him dead was like imagining all the junk food in the world was banned forever. Not a nice image to have unless you wanted to cry your eyes out for days.

"No Grandpa George isn't dead." Mom rolled her eyes and kind of cheered up her mood. I felt relief and delight wash over me.

"Then what is it because the fake smiles and laughter is not doing you any good. I can see through all of you." I told them sarcastically.

"We're not obligated to tell you." Erika stated.

"What the hell does that mean? Not obligated to tell me. What?" I asked in irritation, like it was okay to fuck with my emotions like this. Like I was nothing. "So, now we keeping secrets from each other?"

"It's not like that, Katie, we just think you should hear it from the horse's mouth. That's all." Erika explained. I was ten times more confused. "We think you should hear it from someone who knows what happened better than we do."

I was lost for words until my dad saved me from the awkward silence with a knock. "Am I interrupting an important girl talk?" He asked, poking his head through the door. At least he didn't have that same depressing look to his face. He stepped in and I spoke too soon because as soon as he looked in my direction, his smile faded. "Hey kiddo, you have one more visitor."

Just then, Rico came into my bedroom carrying flowers in his hands. "Hey Kat." He just stood by the doorway without a single step.

"Okay, well, we're going to leave you two alone to talk." My mother said as she pushed everyone out of the room and closed the door behind her.

"Hey" was all could say. He finally stepped forward to stand next to my bed. "Those for Ashley?"

He looked down as though he forgot he had something in his hands. "Uh...no they're actually for you." He handed me the white lilacs and I couldn't help but smile.

"They're beautiful. Thank you so much." I said studying them.

"You're welcome. Your mother said you liked lilacs, so I ran to the store to get them for you." He finally sat down to make himself comfortable and I looked him in the eye with a serious expression which he caught on and now we were in business.