Chapter 13

“Graham is in a mood today,” Cathy said as she walked up to me at my locker. “He got all snippy because he found out someone asked his girlfriend out on a date. Twice.”

I knew little about her friends, but I’d heard the name before. The boy was in her band, and if I remembered right, he looked for excuses to get mad at things. I heard he punched a guy for looking at him the wrong way.

“Skipping practice today?” I asked, pulling my things from my backpack, putting them away.

“Yup,” she said. “I get to go home and help Jamie wash his dogs. Super.”

I closed my locker again.

I’d felt guilty all day for not filling Cathy in on my weekend, but I didn’t want to share yet. The day after Poe’s and my almost kiss, he came back to spend more time with me. He’d snuck in, and we watched some TV while not actually watching. We mostly talked about me, and when I was a little kid. He asked me a lot of questions about how my parents had been, which I didn’t understand. I’d never really said that stuff out loud, because Peter was sensitive about the parent stuff. I tried to keep my complaining to a minimum, so he wouldn’t have felt bad.

Jamie appeared out of nowhere, glaring at his sister. “Yeah, you get to. You should be damn honored that Mumbo lets you see him naked.”

Cathy rolled her eyes. “Your dog is nothing compared to Cujo. Does your dog give you high fives? No? That’s right, fucker.”

Jamie turned to me. “Why do you put up with this? You could do better.”

“I really can’t,” I said.

Cathy smirked. “Suck on that, Jamie.” She snapped her fingers in his face, and he batted her away.

The boy leaned against my locker, settling up between us as he threw a look back, and across the way. There lied Kelly, Peter, and a few of their friends. They smiled, and laughed, and it made me sick.

“How’s the chump?” Jamie asked me.

I snorted. “Blind support. I like it.”

He flashed me a smile. “Cathy filled me in. I felt like I had to inform you that I’m on your side, as well as my girlfriend, who thinks your ex is an ass.”

“Thank you… And thanks, Cathy, for telling him.”

She patted her brother’s shoulder. “I had to explain why the boxes were all smushed up. Are you mad?”

I shrugged. “Nah, it’s fine. Nice to know not everyone thinks I’m the clingy loser who fucked everything up.”

“No one thinks that,” Cathy said. “Literally everyone who hears what happened, is on your side. We all think Peter is a selfish asshole.”

My reaction was still to flinch when I heard things like that about Peter. When we had been together, it happened a lot. His personality wasn’t…one that meshed well with others. He got a lot of joy out of correcting people, and that wasn’t any way to make friends.

“Might be a little harsh,” I said. “It just bugs him when things are wrong.”

“Like his method of kissing?”

I gasped and reached over to smack Cathy in the shoulder. “Dude! Why would you tell him that?” I only told her the night before, when she called to see what I had been up to. I started filling her in on what Poe and I talked about. She asked questions…

“It was horrible,” she said. “I didn’t want to know it without telling someone I trusted.”

Jamie patted my head. “It’s okay, kiddo. We all feel really bad for you, but I have much reverence for a girl who could put up with the shit you put up with, and not murder anyone. Good on ya.”

My face burned up, and I had nothing to add.

I looked up at the small crowd a few yards away, and accidentally made eye contact with Kelly. My heart raced and ached as I struggled to get my next breath. I told myself that I was okay, and I could get over it. People got dumped all the time, and that didn’t make me special. It wasn’t like I got cheated on either, so did I have the right to feel this awful?

Kelly stopped looking at me, instead aiming her eyes up at Peter. She smiled wide, taking his hand and holding it. He didn’t like PDA, so he got a little snippy when I tried that kind of thing with him. When I didn’t see him pull his hand away, I felt that hollow thumping that popped up in my chest from time to time. It made me look away.

“Where’s Poe?” Jamie asked me, giving a great distraction. “I thought you guys were all…cuddly.”

We were, but I wanted to know how the hell he knew that. “Cathy tell you that?”

He laughed at me. “She didn’t need to. You’re seen all over the school with him, and most of the time, you’re touching in some way. People notice, and I have eyes everywhere. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I am very charming and wonderful.”

Cathy gagged. “You’re a gross human being, and you have a dumb dog.”

“You bitch,” he whispered. “My dog is majestic as fuck and could eat Cujo for breakfast.”

“Only because he eats everything in the house.”

“It makes my point no less valid.”

To answer the question, I said, “He’s got the last of his makeup stuff to do, then he’s free. And we’re not a thing, just so you know.”

Jamie laughed again, then he winked. “Sure you’re not. Either way, everyone thinks it.”

It wasn’t my problem, so I refused to stress out about it. There had to have been a fast approaching line, measuring how much I could have taken before my head exploded all over the wall.

I looked up at the wrong damn time, because I caught sight of Kelly again. Their friends had gone, and I saw her hands reaching up for Peter’s face. She took it and pulled him down to her. For one brief moment, she saw me before her lips touched Peter’s. Then they kissed, and I felt like the wind got knocked out of my lungs again. I bit down on the inside of my cheek, trying to keep from making an audible sound of my heart shattering again.

I knew that they were dating, and I had for weeks. So why did it still hurt this badly, when I got a confirmation of them doing something I knew they had already been doing? It made me feel insane, and pathetic that I cared. All the things that Peter and I did, they did now. It was part of the deal, and it shouldn’t have taken me by surprise like that. It still felt like a gunshot.

“What a prick,” Jamie said, turning to see Kelly and Peter going at it. “Ya know what, I would be more than happy to French you in public if you wanted a little revenge. My girlfriend might be salty about it though.”

I scoffed. “I doubt Peter would give a shit if I was kissing someone else.”

It only took one smile and an eyebrow quirk from Cathy for me to feel afraid. “I don’t think you’re right on that one, babes. He came over to our table to make sure you weren’t with Poe. And I don’t care what you think, that was what he was doing. So I think your ex might be a little jelly.”

I rolled my eyes. “He dumped me.”

“So?” Jamie said. “That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t get a little pissy at the thought of you with someone else. That’s the thing about assholes, they’re assholes.”

I smiled.

“So he wouldn’t like you doing what he’s doing. If you would like, I will lend my tongue to you. Ana wouldn’t mind.”

“Hell,” Cathy said. “She would probably volunteer to help.”

“That’s true,” Jamie said, digging his phone out of his pocket. “I can text her and have her here in three minutes. We can stage a three-way.”

Cathy shuddered. “Eww, but I like your thinking. Petty revenge can feel real good if you do it right.”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

Cathy tilted my head up, making me look at Kelly and Peter again. Kelly knew I stood there, and she did this anyway. I had no way of knowing if Peter had been aware too, and I didn’t think he would have hurt me on purpose. All the times he had before, had been accidental.

“Damn,” Jamie sighed. “He really does that weird, opened mouth thing.” He made a face. “That’s fucked up.”

I made a sound of disgust again and turned to Cathy as she went on. “Think about it. You’re suffering, and it might make you feel a little better.”

“Isn’t that a bit childish?”

“Absolutely. You don’t have to be the bigger man all the time. I’m not saying we murder Peter—though I am totally open to it—but what he’s doing right now, that’s evil. He knows you can see, and he’s kissing her. He knew it wasn’t his business, but he came to mark his territory with you when he caught wind of you and Poe. Peter isn’t playing fair, and he’s got no right to try and mess with you. I say, get a little revenge.”

Because I must have liked the pain, I looked to Kelly and Peter one more time. Their kiss ended, and she smiled at him as she put her arms around his middle. We made eye contact, and that smile didn’t fade. Her gaze lingered, as did the pain in my chest.

Then I smiled right back. “Yeah, I think we can work with that.”

Cathy jumped up and down, clapping. “Heck yeah. Let me get to work on this. Mama will make it all better. For now, we should get home. Come, my love.”

She held her hand out for me to take, and I did. On my other side, her brother did the same. When I had both of my hands held, I got escorted down the hall in style. I should have been more embarrassed than I was. Strangely, I kind of liked it. I felt lighter, having people that liked me, playing with me like that.

As we passed Peter and Kelly, he watched me. Jamie smiled at him and said, “Hey, how’s the archeology going?”

“Huh?” Peter asked.

Jamie turned while walking, still able to face him. “Ya know, because you love spelunking.”

“Jamie!” I hissed and smacked his arm.

He griped at me and turned back around. “Shut up. That was funny.”

I looked to Cathy for backup, but she only shrugged. “Sorry, he’s right.”

I supposed he was…

Cathy gave me a ride home before she had to head off for her dog bathing party. I walked into my house, and nearly got trampled by Orny coming to give me a hug. He made me bend down to him.

“I saw lots of birds today,” he said. “They flew away when I yelled.”

Laughing, I said, “I’m sure they did.”

“Okay! Bye!” And he took off in the other direction. I got left in the dust by a small child who then started screaming about a video game I had never heard of. While he did that, I went into my room.

Since I got lucky enough to not have any homework, that meant I had a boring afternoon ahead of me. No Cathy, and no Poe to save me from the emptiness of this room or this day.

I started cleaning again, making sure that all of my clothes had been folded properly, and nothing looked crooked on my bookshelves. It didn’t, but I still messed with them a whole bunch. Though everything had been perfectly arranged, nothing felt right in here. I looked around, and it all seemed so empty.

Something tapped on my door before it opened up, and my mother peeked her head inside. “Can we talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure.”

She and my father came in, and quickly closed the door before the kids found out where they were. They stood across from me, and it felt like a little chess board. I did not like it.

“Am I in trouble?” I asked.

“Actually,” Dad started. “We wanted to talk to you about your current situation.”

I still didn’t feel any better from his non answer. “Um…”

Mom held her hands up. “We’ve taken notice that you haven’t had any…problems, in the last couple weeks. I like to think that it’s your new friends keeping you out of trouble.”

“Yeah,” Dad agreed. “That being said, it felt a little wrong that we would be restricting you from them, when they seem to be making you feel better. We wanted to let you off grounding.”

That happened much sooner than I thought it would have, and honestly, I’d started to think I’d be grounded until I graduated. Maybe longer, since I would have been stuck in the house anyway.

“Really?” I asked.

“Really,” Dad answered. “That Cathy girl seemed nice, and I would rather you be out having a life, than stuck in this room moping. It’s not healthy, and I think you have enough to deal with already. We don’t need to add to that pile.”

Since I didn’t know what I needed to say to get out of this cleanly, I hesitated. If I screwed this up, then I might have lost my damn mind.

These past couple weeks had been something that I realized then, I’d needed. Time with Poe and Cathy helped me with the loss, and I didn’t feel so doomed anymore. Peter had been my best friend, and I felt it like a heartbeat, every moment I wasn’t with him. Those times I reached for my phone, wanting to tell him something, and remembered he was happier without me around. I would have sullied his days, so I kept to myself. Now, I reached for the phone to talk to Cathy and Poe, and it felt good. Not because Peter had been replaced, but because my friends were much more than that. They made me feel wanted, and slowly and painfully, I’d started to realize that Peter didn’t do that. When I hung out with my friends, I didn’t have to look at the broken parts of me.

“We really don’t,” I said. “God knows I’m damaged enough.”

“Aw,” Mom sighed. “Don’t say stuff like that. You’re not damaged.”

“Okay,” I said, because I didn’t know what else I could have said to Mom. She would have argued with me, and I couldn’t deal with a fight right now.

“The kids are screaming,” my father said. “We should probably go take care of that before things get broken.”

Mom nodded. “Clover, you should try and get out a little today. I don’t like you in here. At least come out and spend time with the family.”

I would rather have sat outside on the driveway if I wanted to not be talked to for the rest of the day. “Actually, I should make a phone call. Maybe tomorrow or something.”

Neither parent tried to fight me on it and got the hell out of my room as soon as they could have. Dad closed the door, and I went for my phone. I had the number going through before I even sat down.

It started to get to the point where every time I thought about talking to Poe about something, my heart would kick up. I guess my anxiety liked to attack me when I didn’t see it coming. A hazard of being me.

When Poe picked up, I breathed out in relief at the sound of his voice. “Hello, dear. What can I help you with today?”

I smiled to myself. “I got let off of grounding. I was hoping you were free. Maybe we can go do something.”

He paused for half a second, and I almost had a panic attack over it. “I’ll be there in three minutes.”

I sent out a prayer of thanks, grateful I didn’t have to recover from even more rejection. “Great, I’ll put some pants on.”

“Don’t punish the both of us.”

Oh, and there went my heart again. It sputtered, and my brain reminded me of being in that booth, about to kiss Poe. I couldn’t have denied that it excited me, and I wanted to murder the kid who’d interrupted us. Something poked at me, telling me I should attempt to set that up again. I didn’t see any graceful way to make Poe kiss me, and it was a weird thing to want anyway.

“Come convince me then,” I said, losing my sanity for long enough to make me sick.

But Poe chuckled, and didn’t hang up on me. “I shall.”