Who's Shadow

Wednesday

Irony. Irony is being at a wake of a man who had a heart attack from eating to much red meat and then passing away and then eating steak at that mans said funeral.

But this is not the time nor place for jokes so I will save that for twenty years down the road when we all look back and think about Mr.Billingsley. I'm an awful person.

"How you holding up, kid?" Aunt Penny asks.

"I'm not sure. It's like I've been crying for days now so my eyes are dry, I have nothing left and I'm just sitting here emotionless thinking morbid jokes that I should be punched for thinking. But if you were anyone else I would have just said, "Fine, thank you for asking.""

"Well I'm not anyone else, and you will get through this," Aunt Penny says as she sits beside me on a chair in the church. Everyone else was in the cafeteria eating and reminiscing about Mr.Billingsley.

"I just feel so selfish. I want to forget this happened and spend time with my family. We should be celebrating not mourning. This sucks. I'm the world's worst girlfriend for thinking this," I say.

"It's human nature to feel selfish every now and then," she says.

"I should check on Parker," I say standing up. Aunt Penny takes my hands and takes me to the cafeteria.

Jase was in there. Talking to Parker. Parker's face was turning red. His fist clinched up. He took a step closer. Jase took a step back. I bolt over there as fast as I can to avoid a situation at Parkers fathers funeral reception.

I make Parker unclench his fist as I fit my fingers with his.

"Jase I think you should go," Parker says.

"I'll go. I just wanted you to know I was sorry for your loss and I wanted to pay my respects. Plus my father made me come. See you at school," he says. "Alice." He nods at me then leaves. I want to punch him so bad.

"You okay?" I ask Parker.

"No. You?"

"No," I say.

The reception ends around three. Its Wednesday already. The days have been slugs in salt.

We decided ice cream at Mr.Billingsley's favorite place was suiting. Cherry On Top was the oh so creative name of the ice cream shop that has been here for 50 years. And it was definitely the cherry on top to our day.

"Where do we go from here?" Claire asks her self as she puts her head in her hands. Her bowl of ice cream was now a bowl of milk with salty tears on top instead of cherries.

Minnie tends to her mom. Parker playes with his ice cream and I watch him make an ice cream tower decorated with sprinkles. It was ruled by the yellow gummy bears but then the red gummy bears came in and smashed the castle and decapitate the yellow gummy bears. Parker demonstrates this without knowing I'm watching him.

"The yellows were never my favorite either," I say.

"Who actually eats the yellows?" Parker jokes.

We sit there for a minute. I look at his melting ice cream and gummy bears while he looked at me.

"Thank you for being my rock. I don't know what I would've done without you these last few days. You're an angel and don't disagree with me," Parker tells me. He grabs my hands and holds them to his face. "I'm sorry that I stole you away from your parents ever since they've been back," he adds.

"I'm going to bite you if you apologize for anything else," I say.

My phone starts singing Carry On My Wayward Son, I slide my thumb across the screen and say hello. The ice cream place was an outside area so I walk into the parking lot to talk.

"Hey Alice its Ocean. Lulu's frantic I need you at my house now."

"But I just left the funeral. Can it wait?" I ask.

"Whatever forget it. Take care of your boyfriend. See if we mind. I'll just help your best friend through her hardest breakup ever. She's not even my best friend," Ocean says.

"What do you mean.." I start to say but then there's a beep and I realize he hung up on me.

What do I do now? I can't just go to Lulu. This is much bigger. I have to be with Parker. But I could let them have family time. I walk back over to the table and sit down.

"Guys I really have to go, but I will come check on you all later," I say.

Claire tells me thanks for being such a great help, Minnie tells me bye and to bring her Oreos, and Parker kisses my cheek. I start my walk to Oceans house. Its not that far. Everything around here is no more than a twenty minute walk from here to there. I start pounding on the door until Ocean answered.

"Wow, look who showed up," he says with sarcasm stitched into his voice.

"Where is she," I ask.

"My room, but she doesn't want to see you," he says.

I push past him and to his room. The walls had a mural of the beach, ocean, and sunset. His bed was blue and his furniture was white. He has the best room I've ever seen a guy have. Lulu was sulking in the bean bag chair.

"What do you want?" She snaps at me.

"I'm checking on you. What happened?"

"Why would I tell you? You don't care about me anymore," Lulu says.

"What are you talking about? Where is all this coming from?"

"You! You think because your face is no longer pimply like Mount Everest, and you lost the braces, and you finally have boobs, and you're like a foot taller than last year, and you lost a hundred pounds, literally, and you learned how to wear makeup, and now boys pay attention to you that you could seduce my boyfriend. No. That's not fair. Why would you do this to me Alice," Lulu sobs.

"First off, ouch. That hurt. Like a lot. I thought we were never bringing the old me up again. Second of all, and I repeat myself, what are you talking about?" I ask.

"Josh said that he wanted a chance with you since you and Parker will break up soon because of his Daddy's death so he wanted a shot with you. He wants to be with you. If you were still fat and ugly this would have never happened Alice. This is all your fault," she screams at me.

"I'm not listening to you insult me like this," I turn to leave.

"Wait. Since I'm laying it all out on the table I might as well add in that I hate the fact that you never listen to me about Ocean. You two are going to end up together and I don't understand why you have to make it so difficult. You guys are going to end up together. You're my OTP. I ship you guys. And I just now got how funny that is considering his name is Ocean. So can you please stop wasting everyone's time and date the sad slop! Now I'm done so can you please escort yourself out."

We never fight like this. I don't understand what is happening right now. I didn't do anything. She's crazy. I can't leave her like this. She'll hate me even more if I don't end this now.

"Lu, I never even talk to Josh unless I'm around you. You know this. I didn't become thin and pretty to be a slut. I became thin and pretty because I decided I needed to change something about myself for the better. I didn't do it for anyone but me and now I'm getting called a slut and a whore for it. No. I don't think so. You don't get to insult me for being healthy. And for Ocean, you don't control my life. You don't control his life. If he really wanted to be with me he would've told me already. He has never insinuated it or told me so therefore I'm not even going to put thought into it. And guess what? Ships sink. So cry me a river, build a bridge, and get over it. Goodbye," I scream at her. I open the door, push past Ocean, and slam the front door on my way out. I walk about five steps before I sink onto Ocean's front porch steps and begin crying.

This is all so unfair. I have done nothing to deserve this. I've done nothing to deserve almost being raped or Mr.Billingsley's death or Lulu blaming me for her breakup or breaking Oceans heart. Why does God hate me?