Hey, Darling.

Bonnie was looking at me like she was trying to blow me up just using her brain. Kennedy was slouched over me, his head on my shoulder. My hands were on his forearms, stopping him from lying on my completely. I tried to shake Kennedy awake but he didn’t open his eyes.

Then I started crying.

Bonnie was yelling at me - things like “You fucking boyfriend stealer!” and “You can have him, I don’t want him anymore!”

I didn’t care what she was saying. It was beyond me why she was still talking. I just remember really, really wanting her to shut up. But she didn’t.

I was just sitting there, holding Kennedy’s temporarily comatose body, and crying. I didn’t really know why I was crying. I think I was embarrassed because I let him kiss me so easily. I was also embarrassed because I liked it a lot. I was mad because he didn’t tell me he had a girlfriend. I was mad because he had just apologized and things were starting to look up, but then he had to go fuck everything up.

Did he always have to fuck everything up?

Finally, Bonnie stalked away, yelling some more cringe-worthy insults and heading back inside. I wondered why she cared so much. It didn’t seem like they had been together for a while.

I wondered if I could actually get up. I was holding Kennedy’s ponderous body, and I didn’t want to just roll him over and leave him in the law. Did he deserve that? Yes. Was I that mean? No.

I had just started crying harder - my face scrunching up and my breathing getting heavy - when a group of three emerged.

John looked surprised, Mia looked amused but sympathetic, and Garrett looked pissed. I tried to take a hand away to wipe my tears from my cheeks, but that made Kennedy fall even closer to me.

I looked at all three of them as they stood there, just staring at me.

“Help?” I asked quietly, sniffling at the same time.

Garrett was the first one to break out of the trance. He just nodded and walked closer. He leant down, and with one big pull he got Kennedy off of me. He set him on the ground. I watched him as he pulled Kennedy away, and by the look on his face I suspected he was mad at me.

If I was him, I would have been mad at me. I just screwed everything up even more. Why did I have to go kiss him? I should have just ignored him and then everything would be easier.

I should just like Garrett. That would make things so much easier. That was the solution to all of my problems! Mia wanted me to have a summer fling; I could just get closer to Garrett. Garrett wouldn’t hurt me. He’d hold my hand in public and he’d walk with me and he would never, ever kiss me when he was drunk. Garrett was exactly what I needed.

I told myself that seventy-nine times as John and Garrett picked Kennedy up and started heading him towards the house. I repeated it a couple more times as Mia looked at me, shook her head, and then started following the boys back in the house.

I kept on telling myself that. Garrett was the person I needed to fall for.

I kept saying it, but I didn’t believe it. Now it was easier to admit: I liked Kennedy. A lot. I liked him a whole fucking lot, and that hurt a lot more than I had expected it to because now he probably didn’t like me back. Maybe he was just doing this because he thought it would be fun. I didn’t really know, but it bugged me.

I cried for a couple more minutes. Finally I steadied my breathing and wiped away one last tear. I slipped my moccasins back on, and hiked my bag high on my shoulder. I needed to find a way to leave without gong through the house. There wasn’t a gate connecting the back yard to the street.

There were less people outside. The ones that were out here seemed to be too involved in each other to care what I was doing.

I pulled a plastic chair from the pool area and placed it directly next to the wooden fence. I readjusted my purse so it was now slung across my body. Then I stepped on the chair, slung one leg over the fence, steadied myself, and then slung the other. I adjusted myself so I was sitting on the fence, my but barely touching the different planks, before I closed my eyes and jumped down.

As I walked towards the front of the house, I realized my other dilemma: I had no idea which way my grandmother’s house was. I didn’t know what street it was on or the things next to it. I also didn’t know how long it would take me to walk there, because it took fifteen minutes to get here in the car.

If I was rational, I probably would have just gone in there, apologized profusely, and then waited until John and Mia were done to go home. I was not, however, feeling rational, so I just started walking.

I clutched my cell phone in my hand as I walked down the street. It was now officially night time here, and though the street had lights, they were dim. I felt that paranoia creep up but I tried to fight it down. I would be fine. I had a cell phone and I knew self defense techniques. I didn’t need to worry.

I still did.

I had been walking for seven minutes when I heard the footsteps. They were hard a fast, thundering down the pavement and getting closer to me. I wanted to look behind me and see who it was, but then I told myself that they were like sharks - they could smell fear. I also told myself that if I was going to get killed tonight I didn’t want to see the face of the person killing me.

The footsteps were closer now, and the person had to be less than five steps behind me. The footsteps slowed down to a walk and then I started counting to my head. I was at two when there was a hand on my shoulder.

I screamed.

“It’s just me!” Garrett yelled as a I turned around to face him.

My hand was steadily pressed against my heart as I breathed heavily. Him being there relieved me but made me nervous at the exact same time.

“Oh.”

“Are you okay?” He asked me, looking a bit concerned as I tried to even my breathing for the second time that night.

I nodded. “Yeah. You just scared me.”

“Sorry,” he apologized.

“’S okay.”

Garrett and I heaved a sigh simultaneously. And then we chuckled together too. He, however, got his serious face back a lot quicker than I did mine.

I looked down at my feet.

“Why’d you kiss him?” Garrett asked me suddenly. I wiped my head up to look at him.

“He kissed me first.” I blurted out. It was the first thing that popped into my brain, and then I had to remind myself that we were having a logical conversation, not playing Word Association.

“And you just had to kiss back?”

“I didn’t know what else to do! I tried to pull away! And okay, maybe I didn’t really want to, because he’s a good kisser, but I didn’t know he had a girlfriend! I also didn’t know that he would pass out a couple minutes later.” I was talking really fast and I was using my hands a lot, which was something I did when I was either nervous or irritated.

“So you would kiss him if you were sober?” His expression still looked the same, like a rock, and I wondered if I was hurting him or relieving him.

“I--” I shrugged and brought a hand up to rub my temple. “I don’t know.”

“How do you not know?” His mask broke a little bit, but only to let that incredulous face peek in for a couple of seconds.

“Ask me when we’re both sober!” I exclaimed, feeling frustrated with this conversation already. “And it depends on how much of a dick he’s been in the past twenty-four hours before mouth to mouth action.”

When I’m frustrated, I’m really sarcastic. My mother used to hate it.

“Do you like him?”

What was with Garrett and all of this hard, kind of personal questions?

“I-I-,” I stopped, and then I tilting my head up to look at the sky. I didn’t know if they were supposed to give me an answer or some kind of sign, but they gave me nothing. I had nothing. “I don’t know.”

Garrett looked disappointed that he didn’t get an answer, but I think he could see the stress on my face so he finally let it go.

He stepped forward and for a second I think he was going to give me a hug, but then he must of thought better of it because he stepped back and shook his head.

“C’mon,” he said. “John gave me directions to your house and you’re going the wrong way.”

All I did was nod and follow him.