Turning Tables

Chapter 17

~Katie~

The following Monday at school, I noticed Erika looking a little off at lunch like she was troubled about something. "Hey, are you alright?" I whispered.

She opened her mouth only to quickly shut it when Stacey sat at the table. "So, I want details about Friday night after I left."

I looked between the two for answers. "Wait, what happened Friday night?"

Erika sunk in her seat in discomfort and sighed. "Derrick and I...fucked...again." She whispered.

Our faces slowly went from excitement to sad to happy to plain confusion. "Wait, I thought you would be thrilled about that."

"Are you kidding me? Once is bad; twice is worse. We both knew what we were doing and now I feel guilty as shit!" She shouted in a whispered and then looked around the café to make sure no one over heard.

Stacey started to laugh. "You and your morals, but change of topic so she doesn't have a panic attack. Let's talk about you." She switched to my direction quickly.

"What about me?" I asked with a mouthful of my salad.

"About you acting as if Rico is nonexistent in your line of view." She gave me a duh type of response causing me to roll my eyes and shrug.

"I've finally accepted that Rico is an asshole and he is perfect for Ashley." Stacey was lost for words and Erika couldn't say much either. "A new topic would be nicer than you two staring at me like I've lost my senses."

Before they could even begin the new conversation, the said gang sat down at the table within listening distance besides us. I could see through my peripheral Rico taking glances at me and I tried desperately not to remove myself from the table as I sighed in frustration.  

"Well, this is the perfect time to talk about prom." Erika stated and I noticed I wasn't the only one who felt awkward and pretended she wasn't sitting next to the taken man she had slept with. "We need to go today and pick out prom dresses."

"Correction, I'm not going to prom." I blurted. From beside us, I heard a snicker from Ashley, Rico turned my way completely, Jessika looked like a fish out of water, Derrick looked nervous, and my friends looked downright scared. Just by those simple 6 words the whole atmosphere shifted.

"Hold up, rewind. The Barbie, the prom-is-life-, the if-I'm-not-prom-queen-I'm-going-to-turn-into-Carrie head cheerleader isn't going to prom?" Stacey freaked.

"You're joking! Please tell us you're joking!"

"Look, I just have some things I have to do at that time, so I won't be able to make it. I'll see you guys later, I have to go talk to Mr. Farley."

"That weird nurse?" Stace asked skeptically.

"I have a bad case of bloatiness, so I'm just going to get it checked out." I rolled my eyes and exited the table.

"Bloated? Hmm, I thought you naturally a cow." Ashley snickered.

"Wouldn't surprise me, looking at you I gain 15 pounds." She only gave me a confused expression. "Yeah, ponder that for a bit. It'll do your brain some good." I turned in my tray and left out the double doors. Deciding not to go to prom was by the hardest decision I had to make and I had to make a choice between Louis Vuitton and Manolo Blahnik, but with a little tint of reputation I had I couldn't and wouldn't be seen without a prom date.

"Is it because of Rico?" I jumped at Derrick's interruption.

"I'm confused, what are you referring to?"

"I'm referring to you not going to prom." He answered as he stared out into nothing.

I shrugged my shoulders. "I don't care about Rico anymore. Him and Ashley can ride off into the sunset of hell together."

"Is that what really what you've been trying to convince yourself about?"

"Shut up, I'm not convincing anyone anything."

"It's okay to give out sometimes, show weakness. You can't be strong all the time." He replied, realizing how full of shit I really was.

My smile began to fade. "I'm so sick of this shit, you know, battling with Tony and Chrissy, my parents, these bitches. It's fucking exhausting and you know what? I give up, Ashley won. She can have Rico, hell, she can have the school. The media. All I want is...I don't even know what I want anymore, but I realized that I wish I'd never allowed social media to take a hold of me, I am glad I came to this school and I'm really happy that title was taken from me. I was happy about it all along just didn't want to admit it."

"I'm no therapist, but I can tell you this much. Everything will work out in the end." He stated, wrapping his arms around me close.

"How on earth would you know that?"

"You worry too much." He chuckled as we stayed in each others arms for a long while.

A few weeks had gone by, I still didn't exist to Rico and I got invited to pick out prom dresses with my besties.

"Okay, take it off. it's hurting my eyes and your posture." Erika beckoned.

"Really? I think this pink really goes with my eyes." Stacey remarked in a southern accent as she batted her eyes at her.

"Stace, take off the dress and put the black one on." She said unamused.

"I have this feeling black is going to be very popular at this prom." I said taking a drink of my Snapple.

"That's why I've decided to go with the purple one, switch things up a bit."

"Not by much, that purple is so dark you might as well wear black." Erika smirked.

"Um, you can tell my dress is purple thank you very much."

"Of course, that is if you're really close to people." I couldn't help but laugh at their bickering when Jessika and Ashley came into view.

"You're going to look amazing, Ash." I heard Jess gush a few aisles from the far right.

"Of course, I'm going to be prom queen."

"I bet Rico will think so too."

"I could give two shits what he thinks." She snickered and I wanted so desperately to punch her in her across the face. Why couldn't she see what she had? She has an amazing boyfriend who loves her and she's spitting in his face and using him without a care in the world.

Without thinking I rushed out of the shop. "Kate, wait up!" I heard Erika yell from behind me.

I stopped and turned to her. "I have to go. Have fun at Prom."