Pull Me Closer

It's like a G-spot on my head.

Kami

My head snapped up when I heard someone slide into the booth across from me. When I saw Mel, sitting nervously with dark bags under her eyes and her hair in a state of unattractive disarray, my eyes widened and my eyebrows raised in surprise and, I'll admit, a little bit of pleasure. What can I say? She's a bitch.

"What do you want?" I asked, my voice a complete monotone, returning to the drawing I was doing of Cerabus in red crayon, making it obvious I didn't consider her.

She swallowed heavily and looked everywhere but me.

"Where's Jett? I heard around campus that you two are inseparable," she said after a long pause, sounding more than slightly bitter, as she wrung her hands together in a gesture I recognized as her being nervous and a little ticked.

"The garage, he had to pick up extra hours since he took last week off. What do you want, Melanie?"

She ignored my question and her gaze turned sympathetic.

If only it was real.

"I heard about Robbie, Kami. I'm so sorry, I know how close you two were," she said.

I clenched the crayon too tightly in my hand and it snapped in half. With a frustrated sigh, I threw it on the table and latched my gaze onto Melanie's, causing her to flinch.

"Yeah, well, he never liked you too much. Thought you were fake," I said. My lips twitched up with no real humor and I let out a wry chuckle, "Knew you were fake," I corrected.

She jerked like I had physically slapped her and looked away, biting her lip.

"Kami, I-" her voice broke and she cleared her throat. "I'm sorry. I was just...that night when I called you after my date with James, I wasn't really talking about James being the one. I was talking about Jett. When we went back to James's apartment after dinner, Jett was there and I met him and..." she shook her head and smiled a little, "God, Kami, I don't know how you spend so much time with him and ever think straight. He was and is the single most gorgeous person I've ever met. I didn't-I didn't want to introduce you to him because I knew one look at you and he would...he would want you more than me," she said softly.

I didn't say anything, just kept looking at her with a blank expression.

"When you two went out to lunch, I just knew you would get along great. At their apartment, when I talked to Jett, the whole time I was thinking about how much you two were alike. When you came home so late after lunch with him, I was...really, really jealous. I snapped and...I'm sorry."

I was quiet for a while then I shook my head.

"Do you know what pisses me off the most, Melanie? Yeah, I was pissed that you yelled at me for going to lunch with Jett. Yeah, I was really pissed that you tried to make it sound like I ditched you when you did it all the time. But what really, really just makes me so freaking mad was that you were using James, who really liked you, by the way, to get to Jett. Who does that? When you broke up with him, some people who were at the diner that day told him that you had tried to get with Jett. He was heartbroken, Melanie. Absolutely heartbroken. He wouldn't talk to Jett for a full three days because he thought Jett had slept with you."

Melanie's eyes flashed with surprise and she shook her head in denial.

"Why would he be mad? We were never official," she said.

I leaned forward and looked at her like she was the stupidest person alive.

"You and Jett had barely talked and he didn't even acknowledge your existence and you still threw away our friendship like yesterday's fucking garbage over him. He still doesn't, by the way, acknowledge that you're alive."