Chapter Twenty-Eight
I t was a bad sign when I awoke to the sound of the vacuum and it was still dark outside. When my mom got a bug up her ass about anything—a diet, cleaning, organizing, the latest fitness craze, anything, we all suffered.
Maybe if I just keep sleeping, she will get bored and go away.
This line of thinking was futile, of course, the same as hoping a hungry bear would simply walk away from that tasty picnic basket. Mere seconds passed before—
“Up up up girly!”
“Mommmmmmm, it’s Saturday.” I desperately clung to my soft purple pillowcase.
“Yes. A day full of possibility. You’ve been moping around here for too long, but if you’re energized enough to tangle tongues with Luke Miller, you’re energized enough to go with me to yoga. Up.”
“Please, for the love of all that is holy, do not ever use the phrase ‘tangled tongues’ again. I’m going to vomit.”
“No, you’re going to yoga. Namaste. Get up.” My mother unceremoniously pulled all of my covers off the bed and marched out of the room. I heard them being shoved into the washing machine in the distance.
Petulantly, I kicked my feet in the air like a four-year-old before accepting my fate. I put on a pair of oversized sweats and a t-shirt, knowing it would piss off my torturer. My hair was in a messy bun by the time I made it down the stairs.
“Vanessa,” an annoyed voice called out.
“Mother.”
“You have nice workout clothes. That you insisted you had to have. That cost a pretty penny. Find them.”
“You want me to yoga before the sun? I wear this.” It was painfully obvious that my mom was trying to decide if this was a battle she wanted to fight. Apparently, it wasn’t.
It was proving difficult to find my Zen, or align my chakras, or whatever while I was continually swearing at the instructor under my breath every time she said, “just breathe into the stretch and relax.”
I was plenty flexible, but I was not a spotted zebra, or whatever the stupid pose was called.
All of the quiet in the room was overwhelming.
The quiet led to thinking, and thinking led to feeling, and despite the high note on which I ended the previous night, worries of what was to come with Zack and his friends consumed me.
It was an awful feeling to have people with whom I didn’t even want to share air knowing the most intimate parts of my life.
Ugh .
Just thinking about it left an acidic taste in my mouth.
“See? Don’t you feel better now?” my mother gloated as we came out of savasana.
“I feel entirely the same,” I lied. In fact, I felt worse. Being busy was better.
“Whatever you say.” The ride home was quiet, but at least my mom let me choose the music. It was a rare day when we weren’t jamming out to the local “easy-listening” station. The whole concept of “easy-listening” was ridiculous anyway.
When the music is painful, it’s not easy to listen to .
My phone buzzed, and I was somewhat surprised to see a text from Kim. While we had made up from our fight, it felt like things had changed between us.
KIM : Hey. Do you think I could swing by today?
V : Sure. I’m on my way home from the gym now.
KIM : Okay. Like an hour?
V : Ya, see you then .
Odd , I thought.
Until recently, she wouldn’t really have asked. She’d have just shown up. Maybe eventually things would start to go back to normal.
The doorbell rang while I was finishing up my hair. It was still poufy and un-flat-ironed, but that could wait.
“Hey,” I stated once I made it to the door.
“Hey,” Kim replied with a small smile. Even her outfit was timid—a cream colored sweater and wide-legged jeans.
“What’s up? Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Can we just go downstairs?” She chewed on her lip as she asked.
“Yeah, come in.” I led her down the steps and heard a gasp from behind me. “What?!”
“Oh my god, V, it’s completely finished! I mean, I know you said at school it was finished, but it’s like…incredible.”
She breezed past me and began to wander around the room. The fact that I hadn’t even shown my friend the completion of the space gave me a sinking feeling in my chest. I’d been completely lost in the toxic maze that was Zack for too long, and I’d been ignoring people who actually cared about me.
“I’m sorry, Kimmy.”
“For what?” she asked, still inspecting the hanging lanterns.
“Just, that things are weird. I can’t believe we haven’t really hung out since…well, for a while.”
“I know. Me too. It was just easier to lay low, I guess. You and Liv had your thing going, but it’s fine. Things are fine,” she repeated, turning around to give me a reassuring look. It was unclear where to go from there, and an awkward silence began to stretch out between us.
“So, you like it? The room? I’ll have to show you the rest.”
“Yes, I love it. Like, it’s perfect. I, well…can I tell you what I need to tell you first? Because I’m not sure I’ll keep up the nerve if I wait. ”
“Yeah, sit. You’re making me nervous.”
“I’m making me nervous too,” she uttered quietly, her hazel eyes cast downward.
“Given our last fight, and whatever’s going on with you and Zack or Luke or I don’t know, I wasn’t sure what to do, but I’m not good at keeping secrets.
This isn’t gossip. I need to say that before I tell you.
I saw…I saw Liv sort of making out with Zack after class yesterday?
She, or they, didn’t see me; I was leaving late after getting some notes I missed from my mythology class, but they were in the hallway, and I turned to go in the other direction when I realized—”
I hadn’t really registered anything after the part about the making out. I struggled to find my normal breathing pattern, the sting of betrayal knocking it out of alignment. It hit then that I’d been waiting for my friend in the parking lot about the same time.
My flashbacks were taking on a new mutation, and I was envisioning Zack with Liv instead, in the back of his stupid car at the river.
How long has this been going on? Since he made his stupid comment about ‘picking the wrong freshman’ at the bonfire? Is this her trying to hurt me or getting a dig at Vader now that he seems to be with Jenna? She didn’t even like Vader…
I cringed at Liv’s feigned solidarity to hate him. “Loathe him.” Those were the exact words, as I recalled.
What a fucking performance. Maybe she really is a ‘meth-head actor.’
I wished I could still laugh about her dramatics. The wave of anger was too strong to meet head on, so I decided to dive under it for a while.
But underneath the anger was something worse—the crushing realization that I’d been completely alone through all of this. The one person I thought had my back with what I was going through had just been waiting for things to fall apart. And for what? So she could jump in?
How stupid can I be? First Zack, now Liv. Am I really that easy to fool?
“Are you okay?” Kim asked, her expression almost afraid, and I snapped back to reality.
“Yep.”
“V.”
“I’m fine, honestly. They’re both single, I guess. Whatever.” The more upbeat I attempted to sound, the tighter my vocal cords became. “Hey, do you wanna go shopping?”
“You wanna shop?”
“I always wanna shop, of course. I wore pajamas to campus on Friday, I have to wear something to redeem myself on Monday.”
“Lots of people wear pajamas to class, V. You’re being too hard on yourself. And are you sure?”
“Nope, but we’re gonna go anyway,” I admitted, attempting to address the obvious denial from which I was suffering. Kim relaxed a bit at that, and I showed her the rest of the basement before we headed to the mall.
My arms hurt from carrying far too many garments around for too many hours, but I succeeded in finding an outfit for Monday.
And another outfit that was perhaps for the next time Luke asked me out, though I wouldn’t have admitted that to Kim despite her numerous attempts to get me to talk about him.
It was much too soon to be running my mouth about things with Luke.
I had been an idiot with Zack, and I was not going to be that girl again.
There would be no getting hurt, no public humiliation, and no public pajamas.
Ever. Again. I didn’t even know if I was mad at him at the moment…
I had to investigate further to figure out if he had kept the Liv-kissing-Zack scandal from me.
“Thanks for going with me,” I expressed sincerely when Kim pulled up to my house.
“Of course. I really am sorry to be the bearer of bad news. What are you going to do? About Liv I mean?”
“Honestly? I’m not entirely sure. I guess normally I would be devising a plan to dissolve her reputation and make them both look like the slime that they are; I just don’t know if I have the energy for it. Does that mean I’m getting old?”
“Can I admit that I’m relieved to hear that? While your schemes are always entertaining, they’re kind of terrifying too. Maybe ‘growing up’ is a better term than ‘getting old.’ I don’t think you can be classified as old before you can legally vote or drink or like, rent a car.”
“Maybe,” I contemplated. “I’ll see you Monday regardless. In this awesome ensemble,” I added, lightening the mood and grabbing my bags.
“Sounds good, talk to you later.”
After hanging up my purchases, I decided I was capable of getting to the bottom of the Luke matter, even if I couldn’t yet deal with the root cause of it.