Adapting and Conquering (The story of Bertha's rise and fall)

Chapter Twenty-Three

I woke up, and an intense feeling combined of apprehension, excitement, and a tint of fear surged through me. I'm going to make things right today, I told myself.

I threw on my clothes, applied my makeup (even though now I was the new new Bertha, I was keeping the new physical appearance), and had a cup of that good ol' morning joe. I was feeling quite inspired and energised for the day.

I went to the car, and Billy let me sit shotgun without protest.

My phone let out a ding and a text from an unfamiliar number popped up on the screen. I opened it and the text read Hey Bertha! This is Paul. Heather gave me ur # awhile ago, so I thought I would text u so u would have mine 2.

I smiled and responded Hi Paul! I'm really excited for 2day.

R u going 2 talk 2 them today?

Yep! And I made up with my fam last night. Everything's good!

That's gr8! C u @ school!

C u!

As I entered the school and was walking up the stairs I caught sight of Katie entering the Cafeteria. I called out "Hey, Katie! Wait up!". Kasia looked behind at me and when she saw me, her eyes hardened and the crease between her eyebrows became more pronounced. She spun on her heel and slammed the door. This is going to be harder than I thought, I sighed. I jogged up to follow her. She was already settling down at the table with all our friends, and I came up behind her. "Hey Katie. I really need to talk to you." I pleaded.

"What!" She fiercely cried and flipped around. I cringed when I saw that her face was filled with irritation, anger, and, was that a hint of tears in her eyes? "I honestly really don't feel like talking to you right now." Her voice cracked at the end I forgot about my plan and I became concerned. "Wha-what happened?"

"Bertha." I heard Natalie say. "I think you should go."

"Bu-but why? I came here to apo-"

I was cut off suddenly by Katie. "Have you checked the news recently? No? Well maybe you should! Because this is ALL YOUR FAULT!" I try to interrupt to explain, but Katie didn't give me a chance to. "We HELP you, and then you go off and be a selfish BITCH who cares only about HERSELF! All you want now are BOYS and REVENGE and- and CHANGING yourself!!! HONESTLY WOMAN, I would have thought that you had a little more self dignity! And now look where we are! Heather is in the hospital, with God knows how many bones broken, and I'm here panicking, and all you care about is YOU. NOBODY CARES BERTHA!! JUST GO AWAY ALREADY!!!"

The tears are now streaming fully down Katie face and she looks ready to attack someone, most likely me. "Wha-what?"

Allison speaks. "Apparently Heather got into a car crash." She's glaring at me with almost as much hostility as Katie. All my "friends" gathered behind Katie were glaring at me.

"OMG no!"

"Like you even care!" Katie accuses.

"She's my best friend! Or was..."

"Exactly! And that's YOUR fault! Your petty asshat face caused this ALL to happen! Can you just go away! Please!"

I stumble backwards, not sure if this is reality, or a nightmare. I pray to God that it's the latter, but unfortunately it appears not to be, because suddenly I'm somewhere, I don't know where, crying my eyes out, and I'm not waking up.

I'm not waking up.

And I want my life to be a nightmare, and for me to just wake up in my bed, with my pillow damp from my tears, and for me to be alone in the night, because anything would be better than this.

And I was crying my heart out. Everything was too much, and it was building up. First my mom hating me, Heather and Katie rejecting me, Jacob rejecting me, now this. Everyone hates me. My entire head was screaming, and I couldn't hear anything, just the accusatory voices, and the hostile eyes, all trained on me.

I feel someone's hand on my shoulder. Without realizing what I was doing, I was reaching for that person and burying myself into the stranger's shirt, drowning it in my tears, and sure that they were going numb as well, because there was no way this could be handled on one soul.

The person kept repeating my name, over and over, like a question. Slowly, I registered what was happening and sobs stopped racking my body. I slowly glanced upwards and faced a familiar face.

"Paul?" I asked, realizing how messed up I was.

"Mhm?" He replied, removing his hand from my shoulder and looking awkward at the fact that his shirt now featured a blobby mess of mascara and tears. "Are you okay?"

I take a deep shuddering breath. "Di-did you hear what happened to Heather? Apparently she got into a c-car crash."

His sad eyes responded with no words. I could see tears slowly building up behind his soft brown eyes.

"How did you find me?" I asked.

"I somehow always seem to find you when you need it the most. You're like a magnet to me."

A smile struggled to free itself, but it was instantly suppressed by the mounds of grief and hate.

"I saw what happened in the Cafeteria. I-I think Katie is just broken, the same as you are. Just, taking it out a different way. Instead of crying in an empty classroom, she needed to ... just scream it out a bit... at someone... who unfortunately turned out to be you." He looks like he wants to smile at me, but can't. He's too worried about his cousin.

"Still. She shouldn't do that to me. I feel as if I'm being suffocated by guilt and self hatred right now."

"This isn't your fault, you know, right?"

"I feel responsible... for some reason."

"Don't. Heather isn't dead. She'll just be in the hospital for a little while."

"And she hates me."

"She doesn't hate you. You guys are going through a rough patch. Like I told you yesterday, you guys will pass it."

"I'm not sure... I tried to apologize to Katie, and look where I ended up."

"Just wait it out a bit."

"So... what actually happened with Heather? I only got a little snippet in between the yelling."

"A car smashed into her's on the intersection between Hurlbutt and Narragansett. It hit the right side, so her Mom is fine. I think Grup and Heather both broke a couple bones, but nothing extremely serious..." He trails off.

I sighed, although I'm not sure out of exhaustion, or relief. "At least it wasn't worse," both of us knowing what 'worse' I was hinting at.

"Yeah. Thank the Lord."

Just then the warning bell echoed into the almost-empty hallways.

"Um..." He scratches his head. "You probably have to get to class and I do too."

"Yeah." I sighed again. "Bye Paul."

"Bye," he echoes, already walking away.

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Is this too much drama? EEE! I'm so excited to finish this even though the story is pretty messed up rn.

Anyways, Im too tired rn to write footnotes that much anymore, so these are gonna be pretty short. Unless i have some unrelated topic I want to talk about again, like my stuffed animals LMAO