Without A Doubt

Chapter 2.

On the way home, my mind was flooded with thoughts of Mariah and the other two girls that have recently broken up with me. I always do this. I tell myself that this time it will be different, that this time maybe I'll fall for her, but it never happens. I know it doesn't seem like it but I'm not one of those people that has to be in a relationship, I'm perfectly fine on my own. If anything, I'm happier on my own. It just so happened that these girls have been coming onto me. Something about dating a girl makes them think that they're edgy or defiant. They're just pretenders, because as soon as it's over they'll go and sleep around with every guy they come in contact with. It doesn't bother me much. I get to mess around with them and then when they start to see that I'm emotionally unavailable, that's what one girl told me, they break up with me and I'm free. To anyone looking at it from the outside it looks like I enjoy dating around and jumping from girl to girl, but I don't. Sometimes I wish my social status wasn't as known as it is because it's like everyone's watching what I do. Keeping up with every girl I date. I don't even think I was on anyone's radar until I started to excel in my sports. After I started getting noticed during games and track meets sophomore year everyone suddenly wanted to be my friend, and it didn't help that the people on my teams were all very well known throughout the school. Apparently being on the same team with them made me part of their friend group. If I ate lunch in the cafeteria with them I would only be drawing more attention to myself. No thank you.

When I got home I walked into the kitchen and saw my mom and dad sitting at the kitchen table eating something my mom had made. They both smiled at me when they saw me standing in the doorway.

"Hi sweetie how was school?" I sat down at the table while my mom got up to make me a plate.

"It was good."

"Anything eventful happen?" My dad asked.

"Nothing worth mentioning." I sat at the table and listened to my parents talk about their days at work. Apparently one of the customers at the bank was really pissing my mom off. My mom looks like the nicest person you'd ever meet, and most of the time she is, but she'll talk shit about someone to us if they piss her off. That was a whole story in itself. My dad on the other hand had a great day at work. My Dads a chiropractor so he spends the whole day aligning people's bodies. He has fun with it I guess. I told them a little bit about basketball practice. It's always weird switching over from one sport to another. My shooting is off, but it'll straighten up after a few practices. My dad offered to buy me new basketball shoes but I told him it was okay because the school buys all varsity teams new shoes. He laughed and said that we'd better not get some ugly gray shoes like we did last year. I laughed out loud and so did my parents. Those shoes were terrible.

After dinner my plan was to take a shower, do my homework, finish my book and go to sleep. I was already reading my book when I got the text from Emma telling me to get my ass up and get dressed. So much for my peaceful Friday night. It's already 10 o'clock, but I can't say no to Emma. I did as I was told and left the comfort of my bed and the adventure in my book to go and have a life. How annoying. After I finished getting dressed I went into my parent's bedroom to tell them I was leaving. When I walked in they were lying in bed, my dad on his laptop and my mom watching some criminal documentary. When they looked at me my dad raised an eyebrow.

"And where are you going?"

"Emma wants to go to a party tonight. Can I go?" My mom eyed me.

"Well I guess if you're already dressed." I smirked at her.

"Thank you. You're the best."

"Make sure you have your medication." My dad shouted at me as I walked out the door. The medicine is just in case. I don't take it every day. Right around then I got the text from Emma saying that she was outside. I grabbed my little purse thing and walked out to the car.

"So where are we going?" I asked Emma once I was in the car.

"Jackie's ex-boyfriend Asher is having a party tonight."

"Is Asher the one..." She cut me off

"The one that she stayed with even though he cheated on her a bunch of times? Yes." This is what I hate about high school. Everyone knows everyone's business. Why can't people just keep things to themselves. Even if Jackie hadn't threatened me about that night I still wouldn't have told anyone about it. Not even Emma.

"Alright then. Let's go do something stupid." I just smiled as Em returned my devious look and drove off.

Asher's house was in one of those nice neighborhoods that's like 5 miles from the school. Emma parked one street over from the house because there were too many cars on Asher's street. As we walked the short distance to his house I prepared myself for the upcoming night. At parties I have to be someone different. I have to be what everyone expects me to be.

--------------------------------------

"Come on Mayson just tell us how you do it." I'm currently standing in the kitchen surrounded by some guys on the basketball team. Emma was off doing who knows what.

"Yeah come on, just tell us." One of them asked. They're bombarding me with questions because a couple of minutes ago Mariah came up to me out of nowhere and stuck her tongue down my throat. She then told me that this doesn't change anything between us, but that I could still call her anytime I wanted. Funny thing is I think she was sober.

"You guys really want to know my secret?" They all nodded their heads like little kids asking for permission to go outside. I looked at Jason who just shrugged his shoulders at me.

"The secret is, you do... nothing."

"What? No way. That's not possible." One of the boys questioned.

"They come up to me." I laughed and shrugged my shoulders. The guys just rolled their eyes and laughed. I stayed with them a little bit longer. Something about being in a group of boys is somewhat comforting especially since they don't hit on me. I've known all these guys for a while now because of basketball. They're pretty cool. We stood there talking and joking around for a little while longer until one of the guys said

"Hey where's your other half?" It took me a second to realize that he was talking about Emma.

"Oh, shit I've been talking to you idiots, so I don't know." I laughed.

"I'd better go find her." With that I waded through the crowds to go find Emma. As I waded through the crowd I found her in the living room sitting on some guys lap. Emma is something else. As she was sitting there I could see her looking around the room for me. When we made eye contact she cocked her eyebrow up at me just the slightest. Time for me to bail her out. I could see the guys hand starting to move down her back. Her shoulders tensed up just enough. I grabbed her arm and spun her to her feet.

"I'm going borrow her." I gave the guy a somewhat grimacing smile. He returned my look with a confused stare like he didn't know what was going on. I pulled her all the way to the kitchen where she just started laughing as she poured herself another drink.

"He was cute." I joked.

"He just broke up with his girlfriend and is looking for a rebound."

"And that's a problem becuaseeeee?"

"Because I could already tell that he wanted more."

"Well that sucks." I shrugged.

"What about you? What have you been doing?"

"Talking with the ball for brains." I said pointing at the guys that had migrated their group outside to the back yard. Em nodded and then took a sip out of her cup.

"Mariah's been eyeing you since we walked over here." I looked over to where Mariah was standing with her little group of friends. Might as well. I made eye contact with her and gave her a little wink. Em caught me and was about to tell me something but before she could Mariah started walking over here. Em gave me a smile and said

"Let me know when you're ready to leave." Then walked off. Mariah didn't say anything, she just grabbed my hand and lead me to some back bedroom of the house. She was my girlfriend a couple hours ago, so technically I'm not breaking my rule about not sleeping around with random girls.