Paper Flowers (Pretty Plastic People) ★

031. One Secret Too Many

031. One Secret Too Many

At Aquino High, everyone seems to have an ulterior motive.

I spend the rest of the evening in a daze. It's the inconvenient kind, the kind that makes me useless to do anything other than sit on my phone or watch TV. My homework sits in a stack on my nightstand, textbooks piled so high they look precariously close to toppling over, and yet I only glance  at them once or twice before deciding to postpone the work.

Someone knocks on my door at around eight o'clock, and a few seconds later Allison pokes her head in.  She's already in her pajamas, and her dirty blonde hair is piled high on the crown of her head in a messy bun.

"Have you started the calc homework yet?" she asks me.

I pause the movie playing on my laptop. "No, why?"

"I'm having trouble with it." Her gaze shifts from my laptop to my untouched homework before she adds, "Have you started anything yet?"

I respond by collapsing back on my pillows. I'm not used to this feeling of procrastination to the point of uselessness, and it's making me even more frustrated. Somehow, though, my brain won't focus on anything other than Taylor. Even thinking about sitting across from him and eating dinner sends a flurry of butterflies into my stomach.

"Why are you so distracted?" Allison presses.

I shrug. Every part of me wants to tell her about me and Taylor, or even about me and Spencer breaking up, but I can't.  I need a girl friend's advice: am I moving on too soon? How can I cope with a breakup and a new relationship in the same day? But my mouth doesn't open for me and Allison keeps staring at me with a confused expression, the weight of a million secrets forming a chasm between us.

After a few more seconds Allison crosses the room and sits down on the bed beside me. "Well, as long as we're not doing homework I have some serious news for you. About Brynn."

"Brynn?" I push my computer off my lap, my attention suddenly fully on my sister. "Is she okay?"

"I have no idea. I mean, I don't even know if she knows yet."

"Knows what?"

Allison tucks a piece of hair, a wisp that had falllen out of her bun, behind her ear.  "Luke's cheating on her."

A foul taste rises up from my stomach and settles at the tip of my tongue. Poor Brynn has been through enough already with her relationships. First with Taylor—remembering that incident makes me shudder inside—and  now with Luke? How many times can her heart be broken? Turning back towards Allison, I ask, "How do you know?"

"I stayed late after school today to talk to Mrs. Rutledge, because I'm really having trouble with this math. On my way out I saw Luke duck into the classroom next door and I thought I'd say hi to him—you know, because he's dating on of our best friends and the least I could do is get to know him. So I walk inside and he's making out with some nerd—an underclassman, I think."

My blood is boiling, but I'm saved from having to say anything before Allison continues bitterly, "I should have known. Maybe I still have a messed up view of things from our old social pyramid,  but Luke never deserved our Brynn anyway. It didn't even seem like she really liked him."

"At least she shouldn't be too heartbroken then." I say this with a clenched jaw, because no matter how invested Brynn was in the relationship she should have been with a guy who treated her like a princess. "I'll talk to Brynn about it tomorrow."

Allison nods. "You should probably get started on homework," she says resignedly. "Let me know if you figure out calc."

When she leaves, I set my laptop on my nightstand and pull out my math textbook and calculator.  Now I feel even less like working on homework—my thoughts are preoccupied with worries about Brynn on top of everything—but I make myself focus. Good grades don't earn themselves.