That Was Then

35-Now

Wednesday morning in class Vivi hands me a picture. The girl in the picture has a messy Afro, a hideous cheetah print top, braces and acne. The girl is Vivi about five years ago. My mouth gapes and I laugh lightly, handing the picture back to her. "I figured it was only fair," she grins and tucks the picture away in her backpack.

"Well, thank you."

"What's the deal with you and Kya?" She asks. Caleb flashes me a look, overhearing her question. The kind of look that urges me to come clean, but I ignore him.

"I dunno," I shrug. "I'm sure she's not a fan of her boyfriend flirting with me." Vivi raises an accusatory eyebrow. "Okay, okay... or me flirting with him!" I glance over to where Seth sits on top of his desk, telling some football story to the guys like they weren't playing same game as him on Friday.

"Well if that were the case Kya would be going after half of the female population of our school. She seems to have a particular distaste for you," she insists.

"I have no idea.."

"Hmmm," Vivi is unconvinced. Thankfully the bell rings right then so I don't have to answer anymore questions.

Later, after French class, I follow Paige out of the classroom. Like me, she doesn't have another class after French. I try to trail her inconspicuously to the library like I have the past two days. I watch as she greets the librarian and then slings her backpack into a chair at a corner table before sitting with her back to the door. She spreads out an array of books and notebooks in front of her and I almost chicken out like I did yesterday. Instead I steel myself, head up, shoulders back, and walk purposefully over to her table. I sit down across from her at the table and this pale, doe eyed girl is hard to reconcile with the girl who threw my clothes into the showers in gym class three years ago. Her already huge dark brown eyes widen and her pink mouth forms an O when she looks up from her homework and sees me.

"Blakely," she says my name and swallows hard. I don't say anything at first. I'm making her uncomfortable just sitting here and it's almost funny how different things are. Once upon a time if I saw her coming I would duck into the nearest classroom or bathroom, anything to avoid her. Now she almost looks afraid of me. She licks her lips and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. Even her red hair looks muted, not so vibrant as it was. She's not wearing any makeup and her clothes are baggy on her small frame.

"What happened to you?" I finally ask. She purses her lips together and for a minute I don't think she's going to tell me.

"Kya..." she says and I nod because I kind of figured she had something to do with the change in Paige. But I want more details. She sighs and sets her pencil down before continuing. "Freshman year things changed after you left, like she needed to find a new target or something." She looks down, talking to her notebook instead of to me. "We needed a new target." It's not an apology but with the acknowledgement at least she's taking ownership. "There was this other girl that was in some of Kya's classes that she... we went after for awhile but, well Caleb got involved and that didn't last long." She smiles up at me, a conspiratorial smile, I guess she's heard about the flirtation between him and me. But I don't smile back, she might be sorry and she might have been put through her own hell from Kya but that doesn't negate what she did to me.

"Anyway..." she looks back down at her notebook. "Kya had a thing for Seth. We all had a thing for Seth but you know how Kya is, she saw him first. I had a class with him though and she had never even talked to him yet so I didn't think it mattered when he started flirting with me." Paige picks her pencil up again and passes it from one hand to the other. "Well, it definitely mattered to her. She started pushing me away and I didn't even know when they started seeing each other. Then she caught us together at a party and things got pretty bad." She looks up at me guiltily. I suck in my bottom lip and try not to feel too bad for her, I know exactly what that feels like. The only difference is that I didn't do it to someone else first. "He's the only guy I've ever even kissed and she spread all these rumors about what a slut I am. She told everyone that I gave Seth an STD, we didn't even sleep together. I had to change my phone number twice because she was giving it to guys online saying I wanted to meet for sex." She was already whispering but she lowers her voice even more.  "I tried making new friends, I was doing okay for awhile but then she convinced one of the girls that I was sleeping with her boyfriend. Even my parents thought I was sleeping around." Paige chokes on her words, swallows and keeps going. "I, uh, started hanging out with some people I probably shouldn't have but they were the only ones who would hang out with me. My parents kind of freaked out and sent me to live with my aunt the rest of freshman year," Paige looks up at me, angry tears filling her eyes. "Kya told everyone I left because I was pregnant. I'm pretty sure that half the school thinks I have an illegitimate kid out there somewhere and I'm still a virgin."

"Wow, she is fucking evil." I finally say after digesting all of the information.

"Yea..." Paige sits back in her seat, looking exhausted from talking about all of this. "She's still evil but the wicked bitch's reign ended when she joined the cheer squad sophomore year. She became friends with Allie and them and tried pulling that with Eden. She learned real quick that it wasn't going to work anymore. Now she just has one minion, Marley." Paige makes a face and I start to laugh before remembering that I still hate her.

"Well, thank you for telling me all of that," I tell her, readying myself to leave.

Paige nods and I stand to leave. "Hey Blakely..." I pause, "for whatever it's worth, I'm sorry for everything."