Stained

Chapter 71

"What the hell," I whisper yell just as she shouts, "why the fuck would you want to go on fucking birth control?!"

Heads whip toward us and some teenagers laugh, one guy even undresses me with my eyes. I look away and concentrate on rubbing the ice cream off my cardigan with a napkin.

I hope it doesn't stain — this is my favourite cardigan.

"Hazel, why—."

"Shut up!" I grind out through clenched teeth whilst relentlessly wiping at my cardigan.

I see her prop her arms up on the table from my peripheral. "Why do you want to go on birth control? Are you seeing someone?" There is hope in her voice.

I angrily throw the napkin on the table because I've ended up spreading the stain. "No. I want to because you told me it regulated your periods so I thought it would do the same for me. They're all over the place and sometimes they don't come for three months at a time and when they finally do..." My face scrunches up at the memory of Damien picking me up because I couldn't walk. "They're brutal."

"You should go to your doct—."

"No, I—."

"You can't get them without a doctor prescribing them," she shrugs apologetically knowing exactly why I don't go to the doctors.

"Did they help you though? Did you see a difference from before you started them to after?" I ask. I'm not embarrassing myself like that ever again. Even now I can feel a blush rising up my neck from the memory alone.

"Well kind of, yeah. But everyone's body's different. They did give me bad mood swings at first and—."

"Bad mood swings?" My tablets increase my anxiety as it is, so maybe I shouldn't take them...

She laughs. "Yeah the first week that I was on them I was so cranky. Poor Sarah came over and we even called you but you were at Huddersfield..." she shakes her head. "Anyway we were playing Just Dance and she won and I had a full-on argument with her over it. Bless her she was so shocked and confused.

The argument drew my mum into the room and she started shouting at me because I was shouting at Sarah and then I found a reason to be mad at her too. And then Hayden later on." She smiles. "He came at one in the morning just to drop off my fav..." her smile fades and my heart clenches along with my fists with the urge to punch him.

I'm not a violent person, but when someone hurts someone I love... it makes me want to beat them up. I even conjure up a scene in my head of me doing just that. And guess what? My therapists didn't even advise me to do that.

Maybe because it's unhealthy? I don't know. It helps the anger so I don't care.

"I guess I'm not going on birth control then," I laugh to pull her out of her thoughts but it doesn't work. I try something else. "No wonder Sarah begs me to come out with you two when I say no."

Still doesn't work.

I kick her foot under the table. "Hannah!"

"Huh, what?" She shakes her head, disoriented.

"Snap out of it."

She sags in her seat with a sigh. "I need a fucking rebound."

"You don't need a rebound," I refute.

B—."

"No buts. You don't need a man, ok? Now stop ruining mine and your ice cream thank you very much." I take a big bite for emphasis but it ends up dribbling down my chin, making us laugh simultaneously and the waitress beside us stare at us as if we're aliens. Eh, aliens are better anyway.