Never Been Kissed

- TWENTY-FOUR -

                                                   -•TWENTY-FOUR•-

 

I hadn’t been out of the house for the past three days after the wretched ‘Incident’. That’s what I had been calling it now, even though it had been pushed to the very back of my brain so I couldn’t remember it. It was an episode of my life that was not to be named, and I wanted to keep it that way.

To deal, I’d put my phone in the bottom drawer of my desk, where all my junk poems and extra pencils went. Somewhere I didn’t look often. I did it because I knew the girls would try to intervene, when I just didn’t want any human contact. They’d taken to calling the house, but I knew tricks to get around that. I always made sure I was conveniently ‘asleep’ or busy. I’d managed to keep it up for three days and I’d successfully not spoken to the girls.

Or Beck.

I didn’t even want to think about Beck at the moment. It was too humiliating. Especially now that I’d realized I still liked him. A lot. He’d also tried to call me, but after being turned down to talk twice, I guess he’d gotten the drift that I wasn’t talking and he gave me my space. I guess I was glad that he’s made that decision, but a little upset that he refused to come around anymore, like he did from the start. And it was because we were still drifting apart. And this was all because of the rift called Kaila.

Kaila.

I could sympathize with the artificial redhead. After all those spiteful things Betsy had revealed to me at the party, I was now in on what the two girls’ relationship was like. And that was not pretty. It was almost like a sin to be in on Betsy’s dirty work because you were pinned under her hefty, manicured thumb. And I knew Kaila was powerless to it. Betsy would destroy the ‘mini-me’ image she’d bestowed on her, I knew it.

And I don’t think I’ve ever hated Betsy Johnson more than I did in the past three days I was given to stew about it. Was it because I was now privy to her true—no, scratch that, truest colors? Or was it that I’d known ever since we were children that her insides were made of foul, rotten scum? She didn’t deserve to treat people like that. And I still couldn’t understand why she did it. As my old therapist liked to say, people only do things if there is an underlying cause. And there was something disgusting hiding under Betsy’s shiny Barbie-like exterior.

But I didn’t linger on that too long. It made me too bitter inside.

Opal’s scream pulled me out of the task I was currently trying to compete.

My little sister had been throwing tantrums for the past three days because she wanted to go to swimming classes and I couldn’t take her. Not just because I wanted to stay home and wallow in my intense humiliation, but because I wasn’t able to go through the trouble to bring nonna along with us when we went too. Mom had left strict instructions that our cathartic grandmother was not to set foot out of this house and needed to be watched around the clock, in case she got into something that she shouldn’t. And trust me, nonna was good at that. The night I’d gone off to the party, she’d been running from mom again and had pulled all her stitches and needed to be rushed to the hospital.

Opal screamed again.

If there was anything I’d learnt in the past three days I’d spent at home, it was that when five year olds threw tantrums, their screams were comparable to those of demons. Opal’s screaming grated on the ears and could possibly burst eardrums if she turned it up enough. Her blotchy tear stained face invoked severe guilt and she was literally like a tornado, tearing up everything in sight before dissipating into nothing. And by that, I meant crash landing into a nap.