How to Fall Apart

Chapter Six

"So you and Kenny disappeared for awhile last night," Alissa wiggled her eyebrows devilishly at me. She was wearing a big t-shirt and her favorite plaid pajama bottoms but still had her makeup on from the night before. Most of the tiny black and red jewels had rubbed off during the very little bit of sleep we'd gotten.

"You noticed?" I asked, surprised. She had been pretty trashed, I wasn't entirely convinced she was sober yet. I scrubbed at a purple frosting stain on the white tile floor.

"So...?" She prodded.

"So... what?" I couldn't help but smile, remembering the way Kenny had kissed me the night before. How he'd pushed me up against the wall and kissed me until my legs felt like jello.

"So what happened?!" She asked, exasperated.

"We kissed," I admitted. She raised an eyebrow as if to say 'that's all?' "That's it, seriously. We just kissed. A lot."

"Well, that's boring!" She looked almost disappointed. "You were gone for like half an hour. You had plenty of time!"

"Plenty of time for what?" I laughed, grabbing a fresh Clorox wipe. Alissa had initiated a little food fight and that is what had brought Kenny and I back upstairs. That and I was looking for an escape when he started to unlace my corset. "I'm not exactly going to swipe my v card in your basement with 50 drunk people as background noise."

"What do you expect, rose petals and champagne?" She snorted.

"Not exactly. But I want it to be more special than a drunk quickie!" I moved onto the next cupcake smear on the floor.

"Well I'd keep your expectations low," she said scornfully. She scraped chocolate frosting off of a cupboard.

"What was your first time like?" I asked carefully. I could tell that her first time wasn't exactly special by her attitude about it all and I wasn't sure if she would want to tell me about it. She gave the cupboard a final swipe and then turned to me.

"I pretty much swiped my v card at a party in someone's basement with 50 drunk people as my background noise." She sighed, sitting on the floor next to me. "I was 15, he was a senior. A really cute senior. I thought he liked me but he just liked naive virgins that let him take their panties off at parties." Alissa looked down at her hands, picking at her black nail polish. She looked sad, an emotion I was pretty sure I'd never seen from her. She pretty much bounced back and forth between happiness and anger, I wasn't sure how to handle a sad Alissa so I just stayed quiet and let her keep talking. "I remember seeing him at school that next week and I went to go talk to him. He wouldn't even really look at me and then this girl came up to him, this super pretty senior. It was his girlfriend and he kissed her right in front of me."

"Wow." I couldn't imagine how bad that must have felt.

"Yeah. It was super shitty. I mean, his poor girlfriend, he cheated on her all the time and she didn't even know. I felt stupid and used but at least I wasn't invested like her," she said, switching gears from sad to pissed off. "And that, among other very valid reasons, is why I will NEVER be in a relationship. I'm never going to let some guy play me like that."

"Not all guys cheat." I told her, not that I was entirely convinced of that myself.

"You just keep telling yourself that fairy tale," she laughed, patting me on the head like I was a little kid trying to convince her that Santa Claus was real.

"So what's the deal with Kenny and Erica?" I asked her later when we were washing the makeup off of our faces. I tried to keep my voice casual, like I didn't think it was a big deal. I was not a very good actress. One look and Alissa could tell it was really bugging me.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that!" Alissa said reassuringly. "They had a thing once upon a time but that's been over for awhile."

"Define awhile?" By the way Erica acted it didn't seem like it was very long ago.

"It was just a summer thing," she was being vague. We took the garbage out and I was pressing her for more details when we heard the garage door opening. I hadn't met her dad and stepmom yet, they were rarely home and when they were Alissa avoided them and they didn't seem to bother with her. She looked around frantically to make sure we hadn't missed anything and then we were making our way downstairs when her dad came into the foyer from the garage.

"Oh good, Alissa, take this, your mother has a migraine," he handed her a suitcase and went back out the door.

"Step mother," Alissa grumbled, but accepted the suitcase and took it upstairs. I followed. She took the bag to the door of their room but didn't go in. I hung back as her dad and step mom came up the stairs. Her step mom was wearing big dark sunglasses, her dark hair was twisted up and she had a rather expensive looking red pea coat on. She sniffed the air and turned to Alissa with a patronizing smile on her face.

"How sweet of you to clean, Alissa." She said, lifting her glasses off her face. "Funny how I can't even get you to rinse your dishes when we're home but you seem to clean the house spotless every time we are gone." She raised her perfectly shaped eyebrow just a tiny bit. Alissa had said that she was a fan of Botox and I couldn't help but stare at her smooth forehead.

"Well, that's because I don't mind being upstairs when you're gone, Avery." Alissa smiled right back. Avery opened her mouth to say something but then turned to her husband.

"John!" She whined like a tattling child.

"Alissa Jane!" Her father chided. "You need to show some respect." I started backing toward the stairs. Avery's eyes landed on me but she just looked away as though I didn't warrant notice.

"Yes, Sir!" Alissa sarcastically saluted her father, then grabbed my hand and dragged me downstairs.