YOUNG VOLCANOES

twentyone

I sit on the edge of my seat. Starring at the car's dashboard and feeling a gnawing pain in my stomach. A pain caused by all the hurt feelings that I was carrying. I had to distract myself. But before finding a distraction, I had to be there for Kate.

I look at her. Pieces of curls falling from her fancy bun, a little of her eyeliner smearing and her lips pressed together as she drove. She was trying not to break.

"Kate why would you dump him?." I ask her, even if I knew it was a question she didn't want to truthfully answer. She sniffled and with a cracked voice began:

"I told you, Sam. He's a player. I told myself that the first time I saw a sign that I needed to get out of it, I would." she reminds me. But I feel she left him out of fear of getting hurt in a future. After all, he was going away to college soon and Kate isn't one to handle long distance relationships; but they could have spent the summer together...she didn't have to have ended it now. Just when she formerly met his Dad.

"I heard all the horrible thing's he said to you and on top of that: tonight he was a complete different person. His lady killer reputation is more important to him than anything. Tonight: Alex said that I had Felix whipped and Felix scoffed as if the idea was absurd..." she says but I still thought the excuse was too small.

"Kate, I know you where falling for him. You shouldn't be scared of that..." I try to reason with her but she stops at a red light and turns to me. "Sam!. Please, let's not."

I nodd and go back to starring at the dashboard.

"Alex is a cockhead for the record. A complete, idiotic, dooshbag who's never going to amount to anything on his life..." Kate rambles.

If only. But he's gotten accepted on amazing colleges already. His life is going to be great. He isn't an idiot, I am for getting played...I think.

I put two fingers on my forehead and scrunch my eyes. "I was a bet. Our friendship was a mere game. And he won, he fucking won... He got me to turn bad and he got me to try and hit on him while I was drunk...".

I remember the night in the club when I met Nate. The night in which I was doing the dirty deeds and I needed to kiss guy's so I'd drunkinly approached Alex. He'd rejected me.

I think about all the flirting he did with me. It was all a strategy so that when he finally got me drunk, I took the bait and he got the $300. I didn't know exactly when he'd gotten the money but I didn't care. And I knew he didn't care about the money, he only cared about proving himself as the ultimate player.

"I can't believe that I thought he was making me stronger. I thought that because of him; I was able to stand up to bullies and let my voice be heard but all along I was still a joke to all of them..." I open my eyes and sniff.

You are not going to cry.

"Well...no more. Sam, you are more than a person than what he will ever be. And if he think's he's in charge or that he's clever then he's wrong!" Kate exclaims and I notice the car is moving again. I'll explain.

Kate's stages of depression are:

1) Be depressed
2) Accept it
3) Motivation overcharge
4) Internally not be "OK" with it but act like you are.

She was now trying to motivate me as well but I wasn't feeling it. Instead what I felt was like hobo piss. "Listen, I understand that it hurts and that you had a connection with Alex and Nate..." she begins.

"Oh, by the way. Nate's been inlove all this time with his guy best friend" I put her up to date and she hits the breaks. "WHAT?!"

I explain to her me and Nate's confession about the night we cheated. This was the first time that I thought about the night I hooked up with Alex after I'd found out the truth and now I was just horrified by it. Horryfied by the fact it was my first time hitting third base and he didn't respect me.