15. Kieran
KIERAN
Senior Year
“Thank you for watching, and don’t forget to like and subscribe! And remember, never dim your sparkle for anyone! Bye, loves, see you next time.” I wave at my computer and hit stop on the recording.
In the last few months, my account has started gaining traction, and I think I have the potential to grow it into something special.
But at the same time, I’d love for that to happen after I graduate.
I get bullied enough as it is; I don’t need the whole school to find out about it and team up with Jace and his never-ending taunts.
If anyone other than Danny has seen my videos, no one’s said anything to me, and I’d like to keep it that way.
I double-check my video is saved and start getting ready for my shift.
As predicted, working has been amazing. I love the employee discounts, and I’ve been able to learn even more about makeup application, trends, and the things people care about when they’re purchasing their beauty supplies.
It’s also helped with content since I always know the new products.
It’s even made me start quietly dreaming about my own products in the future.
By the time I park and get into the mall, I walk into the store right on time. “Hey, Casey,” I greet my co-worker as I pass her to drop my stuff off in the back.
“Hey, Kieran,” she replies before approaching a new customer that just walked in.
The girls I work with are all nice, but they’re work friends; I don’t talk to any of them outside of my shifts. Most of them go to a different school or are older, and since Danny is back, he’s who I spend most of my free time with.
If I wasn’t heading to college next summer, I’d definitely want to learn an instrument just so I could tag along to band camp with him.
The stories he shared sound every bit as wild as the movies make it out to be.
He told me he gave his first blowjob this summer, and hearing about it only makes me want my own experience even more.
God, I feel like that’s all I can think about these days.
After putting my coat into my locker, I head back out onto the sales floor, and my pleasant mood immediately sours because Olivia is standing in the middle of the store, looking right in my direction like she was expecting me to appear.
“K, can we talk?” she pleads, coming right into my personal space.
“No.” I attempt to dismiss her and walk around her, but she sidesteps to block my path.
“Please, Kieran, I’m so sorry. We really need to talk.
Just for a minute, please,” she practically begs.
Some of my coworkers are looking at us now, and this is not the type of attention I want, so I huff out a big sigh and motion for her to follow me, attempting to move her drama to the back corner of the store.
“What do you want, Olivia? You’re causing a scene at my work,” I sneer at her.
I don’t understand why she thinks any of this is okay.
We haven’t talked to each other recently, other than when she came in here with Jace last month.
And the time when my mom very embarrassingly thought I’d want to date Jace. I still can’t believe she said that.
“You were right, K, and I’m so sorry,” she says with tears in her eyes. “Jace and I broke up, and I really miss you. I never should have dated him in the first place.”
It takes everything in me not to roll my eyes. What does she think? I’m just going to forget everything and accept her apology? Jace probably broke up with her, and she immediately came running back to me.
“You know he’s made my life hell, Liv,” I remind her.
“And he never stopped. He’s continued to harass me while you’ve dated him, even if he only did it while you weren’t around.
You think I’m just going to accept you back in my life?
No way. You screwed that up. You can go now.
I have a job I’d really like to keep,” I say with a huff.
Even if it does feel really good that she came here, begging to be friends again.
“I’m sorry, K, I’ll go. But I just want you to know that you’re right. Jace is obsessed with you. Other than baseball and his dad, you’re basically all he talked about the whole time we were together.”
That snaps my focus back to her. “Seriously?”
“That’s why he dumped me. I was sick of him bringing you up all the time, so I finally suggested that if he wanted to talk about you so much, maybe he should be dating you and not me.
” She sighs. “It must’ve really pissed him off because he said ‘I’m not gay, why would you even say that shit?
We’re literally dating.’ ” Her impression of his voice is pretty funny, but I don’t react.
“Then he said we were done. He was way angrier than I’d ever seen him. ”
I can barely process what she’s telling me right now. Jace broke up with her because she suggested that he date me?
He was obviously pissed if he ended things with her over it, but the idea is absurd. I know there’s no way he could ever want me. Jace Ryan is straight.
Not like I even care; I definitely don’t want him either.
Despite my best efforts to ignore him when he’s harassing me, he can’t seem to leave me alone. He used to do it around his friends, I guess for laughs, but lately, he’s been doing it in more isolated places—cornering me when I’m alone in the hallway and following me into the bathroom or library.
Their breakup scares me. What if he ups the ante to get back at me for something that’s not even my fault?
I swallow my new panic and take another look at Olivia, thinking about all the times I had to face Jace’s wrath alone, and harden my resolve. “That sucks, but you need to leave. I’m not getting fired over this,” I say, not letting that final bit of information she slipped change anything.
I don’t know what to do with her comment, but I’m not going to accept her half-assed apology, either. I bet if Jace reached out and said he wanted to get back together with her after this “breakup” that she’d go back to him in a heartbeat.
If she wants to be my friend again, she needs to prove it, and even then, I’m not sure I’ll forgive her.