That, of course, was a foolish wish. To never see Diana Rivera again would require either her or I moving out of the school, and neither of us was planning on doing that.
However, I allowed myself the rest of the week off. Each day I got less and less texts and calls from her, though they never stopped completely until the last day. I guess she finally got the picture, I didn’t want anything to do with her. I deleted every message before I even read them. She finally stopped when on the day before I went back to school Harry picked up one of her calls.
“God damn, I can’t take this anymore. When is she going to get the picture?” He growls angrily before picking it up and snapping into the reciever, “Listen here, princess Diana, he doesn’t want to talk to your lying bitch-ass mouth. What makes you think you get to toy around with his emotions like this, huh? He’s better off without you. Get off your high horse, you slut and go find the attention you’re craving somewhere else.”
He hung up after that, and she stopped trying to get a hold of me, which almost hurt more than her trying to get a hold of me. Was a week all it took for her to give up on me. Just one week?
The first day back to school, well, it felt almost like the week before the party. My old table welcomed me back, but I still longed to be outside making fun of Shel Silverstein. People asked me for help in class again, but I ached for them to offer me some stupid review guides in return. Students were polite to me once more, but I yearned for that sarcastic voice purposely messing up my name. Diana was in none of my classes at the same time I was and at first was relieved until some girl named Pamila told me that she wasn’t at school that day, that she hadn’t been all week.
Then where was she, because she hadn’t been at my house, and I knew it drove her crazy to be stuck inside all the time? So where, where could she possibly be?
I didn’t see Diana again until Wednesday of that week.
I almost didn’t recognize her.
I was walking in the hallway, still trying to get back into the habit of her not walking beside me, (It was going terribly, trust me) when I saw her walking in the opposite direction. Only, it wasn’t her. It looked as if she hadn’t eaten for days, her eyes were dark, and sunken. They weren’t there usual wide open self, instead her eyelids drooped as if they were too heavy to hold up any longer. Her hair was in a ponytail, but it appeared only because it was so badly tangled. Her clothes were wrinkled like she had slept in them.
I had never seen her so down right defeated looking it shocked me enough that I stopped in my tracks and stared at her. Even as I watch some kid who must have thought they were being funny kicked his leg out and tripped her. Though she didn’t fall, her books were knocked out of her hands. I almost called out to the Freshman to put him in his place but I was too selfish, and told myself that she deserves it. For years to come, I would be ashamed of this moment, as I watched her look up, her red tinged eyes meeting mine while she was bent down retrieving her books, I looked away and kept walking.
And that was how the following month went. I fell back into my routine that I had B.D… Before Diana. It wasn’t the same, oh no, it was absolute Hell. but as I said, I was selfish and afraid to confront the truth, so I didn’t speak to Diana. At times, I thought I saw her attempt to make her way to me, but I would scamper off.
Each time I saw her, she looked worse, like she had given up. From what I heard, she was managing to keep up with her grades, but had dropped track, mainly because all the girls made fun of her.
Just as people had once called me Mar-slut, kids were cruel and began to call her Princess Diana. Pamila, who was being the most understanding and seemed to be the only kind person towards Diana, had explained to me that they call her this because they wish for her to die. This cruelty, though perhaps her natural consequences, was not deserved, even a little.
But I had grown accustomed to my new-old routine, though I hated it and missed everything about Diana, it was the only thing that brought me comfort since we had parted ways, and I could not bring myself to rid my life of this new routine in order to go back to her.
About a week before graduation, I was walking out of the school when Pamila Anderson ran out calling my name. I stopped and turned to the small, red haired girl, who was slightly out of breath, “Marcel… You…. God I need to exercise more… You need to hear what I have to say…” She manages to get out between her heavy breathes.
“Okay, shoot. Take your time Pam.” I say with a slight smile. My smiles had become something of a rare occasion, most of them being fake.
Pam takes a minute to cool off then says as though she can barely hold it in a moment longer, “Diana and Lily, they got into a fight. Like an actual, girl on girl fight. But just wait until you hear why. So apparently, Lily and Diana have the same World History class together and Lily started really taunting Dia- Here, it’s easier if I show you. Some kid taped it.” She pulls out her phone and hands it to me and I watch the scene unfold on the tiny screen in front of me.
Diana is sitting in the back of class by herself, which that alone nearly breaks my heart, when I hear the familiar somewhat nasally voice of Lily coming from a few desks down. “Poor Princess Diana, sitting all alone. Maybe if you weren’t such a bitch to people you would have some friends.”
Diana ignores it, staring down at her paper. Where’s the teacher? Why isn’t he stopping this?
Lily, however kept going, “Awe, what the matter Princess? You miss your boyfriend? Did you get to experience that boy in bed, Diana, because I mean, wow, what I fire bomb,” She laughs and a few girls snicker as well, “I could just tell, you know? When I saw him and Harry, I just knew that I had to try them both out. I mean, they were born as a pair, it’s practically my duty to at least take Marcel for a test drive. I’m sure he was begging for it anyway, all it took was for me to slip a few pills into his drinks and act a little bit drunk. Most guys it takes half a dozen pills to have him asking for me the way he was. Then of course after the deed was done I had to call Harry in a crying frenzy and wail to him about ‘the terrible awful thing Marcel had done’. But, oh god, you should have heard the way Marcel moane-” She didn’t even get to finish her sentence before Diana had her pinned to the floor, punching her repeatedly in the mouth, yelling something that I couldn’t understand because of the camera being dropped to the floor…
I stare at the camera in shock. Why would Lily ever be so stupid as to tell anyone her plan, I mean, she could have gotten away with it. but as I watched the video over again, I take a closer look and see her bloodshot eyes. Lily was high as the Empire State Building at the time. Everyone knew that she was a bit of a stoner but she usually kept it well hidden. I guess her last week of school she got sloppy.
So… I hadn’t done anything wrong. It was Lily, it was all Lily that night. She drugged me and used me for her own sick reasons.And Diana was still willing to defend my honor even when I wasn’t there to do it myself.
Diana still cared.
