Little Talks

.: Chapter Twenty :.

Kita and I meet eyes. He gives me a helpless smile. I smile back, and run blindly into Amelia.

Her drink spills all over her light blue bodycon dress.

I expect Amelia to start yelling at me as she used to in middle school. I have a flashback to a lunch day when I ran into her when I was talking to Celina, not paying attention where I was going. Her whole lunch got splattered over her then boyfriend's basketball sweatshirt, which she was wearing.

"Oh my god! Look where you're going next time you dumbass retarded swine."

I never knew why Maddy was friends with her.

Right now she doesn't look as mad as she did; she almost looks happy. And also very drunk.

"Oh my god, it's Ah-lee-ah!" Amelia yells in her usual giddy, bitchy voice. 

"Ah, hey," I say awkwardly. I didn't know she would be so... decent. Especially if she remembers me. "Sorry about that, I can get you a towel."

"No it's okayy, I think the brown makes my dress look even better!" 

"I'm sure," Celina smiles and tries to lead me away, but Amelia keeps talking.

"Anywayyy, Patricia and Mal should be coming back soon, they're just getting drinks right now. Hopefully, they won't mess up my order this time. Last party- you wouldn't believe it- Mal got some guy's pubes in my cup! Like, oh my god, how even?"

While Amelia is ranting about her odd story, most of it full of "um"s, "like"s, and "anyway"s, Celina whispers to me: "Well isn't she a charm. I think we should go, like, now."

And so we do. Amelia gets distracted by some mediocre-looking guy who she thinks is a ten, and Celina and I make a break for it.

We pass Patricia and Mal on our way to the food table, and they both look as fake as usual. They seemed to be arguing, and Mal looked so mad she was about to pour her drink onto Patricia.

We make it over to the snacks and I'm suddenly hit with how hungry I am. I see a full table covered with any snack imaginable, from those basic diabetes-causing sugar cookies from my childhood to Takis that could easily burn my tongue off, even though I'm Asian. I feel like I could eat a horse, but I decide to get a small, conservative paper plate with only two sugar cookies and a pile of Cheetos Puffs instead.

I look at Celina's plate and it seems to have one of every snack on the table. Brownies, muffins, Doritos, Sun Chips, Fritos, Lays, Thin Mints, tortilla chips, and guacamole were all on her plate, fighting for some room.

"You wanna dance or sit?" Celina asks through a mouthful of food.

I look around and see Julia sitting alone, staring into her cup. 

"Let's sit," I say, walking towards Mary.

Mary looks up at me when we get a few feet away from her. "What do you want."

Not a question, I notice, it sounds more like a demand for me to go away.

"We were going to sit and talk with you, is that okay?"

She rolls her eyes. "Yeah. I guess."

I sit down next to her and Celina sits on my right. 

"So, how have you been doing?" I ask after a bit of quiet.

"Good, I guess. Rio keeps wanting to fuck though, and I think he may break up with me because I want to wait. "

Celina nudges my shoulder. "It's true, Rio's being a dick lately. And he's been making so many innuendos with our friends."

"I mean, that doesn't mean he's going to cheat on you," I say to Mary.

"Yeah, obviously, but Celina also has heard in the hallways of some shady things he's been doing behind my back."

"Damn, I never thought he was that kind of guy."

"Yeah, none of us did."

We stare off in silence into the dancing crowd, the music still blasting above us. I catch the eye of a guy that I vaguely remember. He's Hispanic, tall and has deep brown eyes with brown hair with the basic white boy hair cut. He's dancing with some Asian girl, who I'm assuming must be his girlfriend, since they look so comfortable with each other.

Mary follows my eyes and a look of sadness comes over her face. "Look at them. Aren't they so hot together?" Something about her tone puts me off.

"Why so sarcastic?" 

"That's Rio," Celina says for her.

My face heats up. I haven't heard how their relationship has been since we went to high school, but I didn't think it could get too bad. 

"I don't think that girl goes to our school, she must be a gymnastics friend of Maddy's," Celina notes.

"Yeah. I used to be friends with her when we were younger, we were in soccer lessons together, forgot her name though."

"So... Are you gonna confront him about it?"

"Ha ha, no. Rumor says he's gonna break up with me soon anyway, so I might as well wait for that."

"What? No, you need to stand up to his douchebaggery and break up with him so he doesn't think you're naive."

Mary sighs and takes a swig from her cup and stands. "You're right. Even though I don't know what  naive means, I know I need to break up with him."

She marches over to Rio and the chick and pushes them apart, sending the girl stumbling into another couple. Mary stands up straight and points her finger at him accusingly.

"What was that for?" he steps back.

"Why do you think?" she clenches her teeth. "She's not your girlfriend. I am. She's dancing with you and getting your attention. I'm not."

Rio smiles awkwardly, "c'mon Butterfly-"

"Don't 'Butterfly' me," she mocks, "I have loved and cared about you since we first met and yet you still treat me like you don't care about my feelings!"

He shrugs. "I never said you had to love me."

Her jaw drops.

"I cannot believe you. We're over."