All's Fair in Love and Pain

Wednesday, March 22, 2009

This is the morning that would go down in history as the morning Cody and I didn’t fight. Oh, my, god.
School was such a snooze. I swear I would fall asleep and die one of these days. Then when the teachers tap my shoulder to wake me up they’ll have a wonderful surprise to tell my dad. Ha, wouldn’t that be a shocker.
Jennifer and her boyfriend Alec have been making out for the past half hour in the hallway. How do I know this? Because I have a nice clear view of them from my comfy chair in the library. Don’t they know people can see them? Well, they must not care because they haven’t stopped or at least moved out of the way. He must be a good kisser.
I wouldn’t know though, I’ve never kissed a guy. Shocker, I know, but there’s no one in this school remotely okay for me to date. Not according to my father, anyway. Hey, I’m not the snob, he is. The only guys I would be allowed to date are the ones running for office or on their way to running for office. In my opinion though, those guys were way too stiff. No to mention they only wear suits and their hair is about as interesting as their personality. The best thing about a guy is his hair. A lot of girls would argue with me and say it was his muscles or his money, but it was defiantly the hair. No exceptions. If the guy is bald, dump him. It is all business when it comes to the hair.
Just then I saw the doors to the library open and in came Jennifer, rather loudly, bursting past the isles of books and computers. She was looking for something, but I didn’t know what. People started noticing though.
Then Alec walked into the library and seemed to be heading for something as well. “Jen,” he whispered as loud as he could. He sounded anxious.
“Don’t touch me,” she snapped, but she didn’t bother to keep her voice down. “You always have to ruin things, don’t you?” she kept her pace, walking to the back of the library where Hannah Jones and her friends were sitting.
Hannah had just come in the library a few moments ago looking flushed, and now I could see what the problem was.
“Hannah!” Jennifer snapped.
She looked over her shoulder and bit her lip. “What?” she said nervously.
“You know what,” Jennifer crossed her arms. “Are you trying to steal my boyfriend?”
Alec didn’t move completely in the circle of girls, instead he just chose to silently observe the cat fight. I admired his lust for peace.
Hannah looked shocked and her face got even redder. She opened her mouth to speak but stuttered for a few seconds before forming a word. “No,” her quiet voice rang innocently.
Jennifer’s jaw clenched together and her fists balled up. “Liar!”
The librarian, Mrs. Douglass, held a finger to her lips as a signal to be quiet. She was at her desk mulling over a book bigger than all this years Vogue’s combined, so she wasn’t too interested in the drama to get up and help much.
Jennifer didn’t take it seriously though. “You better stay away from him,” she hissed, and then marched off to leave the library.
Alec stood there for a minute, silently apologized to Hannah, and collapsed down in a chair next to mine.
I heard him sigh heavily and held his head in his hands.
“You okay?” I asked, trying to be polite. Even though our grade level has only a hundred students, I still haven’t spoken to him much in our eleven years of schooling together. Our school was extremely cliquey, and no one spoke to anyone outside of their group unless it was necessary.
He lifted his head from his hands and looked right into my face. I was a little taken aback by his bright blue eyes. I’ve never noticed how beautiful they were as they popped out against his pale skin and dark brown curls. He was a decently attractive guy, different than our schools usually Abercrombie-like males. He had a uniquely handsome look and a fresh style about him. Laid back, but in a well-kept way.
He finally spoke, “ya…”
I wanted to laugh at his glum voice, but I didn’t think he’d appreciate that. “Jennifer seems like the jealous type.”
His eyes widened, which made me think I’d offended him, until he said, “she is!” and I let out a sigh of relief and we both shared a laugh. “Every time a girl says hi to me she goes ballistic! It’s awful,” he shook his head.
“I’m sorry about that. I guess she just wants to make sure you like her more than any other girl.”
“Well, of course I do that’s why I’m dating her! But she just doesn’t seem to get that,” he looked at the floor.
I stared at him and wondered how he could still go out with a girl like this. They obviously weren’t compatible.
“Hey” he said clearing the air again, “you’re pretty smart at relationships, but I never see you with anyone.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I shrugged.
He dropped his jaw, but closed his mouth as soon as he realized that was rude. “I just kind of expected you would have one…” he looked confused.
“Well, I guess I just haven’t really found anyone I like yet.” What I should have said is that my father hasn’t found anyone he likes yet.
“I’m sure a lot of guys like you though. They all talk about you, you know,” he huffed. “They even make lists of the hottest girls in school; you’re always number one.”
“Ha, we do that with guys.” I laughed and felt that I was blushing. He had made me blush… that wasn’t supposed to happen. I wonder if he was planning to run for office.
“Really? Who’s number one?” The funny thing about his tone was that it didn’t expect anything or anticipate his name being said. Any guy who would ask this question would pray it was their name and then sound disappointed when it wasn’t.
“Collin,” I said.
Alec didn’t look disappointed or anything, but he did laugh. “Oh, he’s a really nice guy. Really insecure though, maybe you should tell him he’s the hottest,” he smiled, revealing a row of straight white teeth.
“Oh trust me, we have. He’s still shy though…” I thought about Collin and the way he would be if he weren’t shy. He’d probably have the biggest ego, like Ian.
“The second?”
“Ian,” I rolled my eyes. “And he knows it.”
Alec smiled his perfect smile again. What was it about this guy that was so captivating? But with every smile he drew me in more; like a drug.
“Oh shoot,” I saw the clock above the librarian’s desk. It read 2:48, which meant I was late because we left school at exactly 2:40 in order to get home in time for our tutoring session from 3-4. Daddy always made us do extra work like reading old newspapers and presidential letters. He wanted us to be in the office, so we had to study our country well, and of course get into law school. I hated it. “Well, I have to go. I hope everything works out with you and Jennifer,” I said while packing up my things to leave.
“So do I, and thanks for the support,” he smiled one last time and I reluctantly left the library to sprint to my car.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” I shouted as I through my bags in the back seat and jumped in.
“Say that to Carol,” he frowned.
I shut my mouth and endured the cold ten-minute ride home.
My schedule for weekdays was always very hectic, and there was no time for tardiness. Usually I wasn’t so bad at being late, and I was early most of the time. Perfection was defiantly in my top-ten most used terms. My schedule was crazy on weekdays like this however. It read something like this:

Monday-Friday:
5:30am____wake up and go to our gym-personal trainer
6:30am____shower/ morning routine of make-up/hair
7:30am____leave house-go to school
8:00am____school starts
2:30pm____school ends
2:40pm____leave school
3:00pm____tutor
4:30pm____cheer practice
6:00pm____cheer practice ends-go home
---Homework---
8:00pm____dinner
9:30pm____homework

I loved my life. No, really, I did. It was so…orderly. Gag.
“Good, we’re not late,” he muttered as we got inside and went to our rooms to drop our bags off. We have three minutes to spare.
I knew we wouldn’t be late but he wouldn’t listen to me. He’s been acting weird today and I think I know why. Oh the joys of having an over-protective twin.
We started our tutoring with Carol right on time as I had said we would, and after I went to cheer practice, like I do everyday. Go bobcats.

I got home at 6:15 and departed to my room, on the third floor. Dinner was in a couple hours and I had to start homework or else I’d be up the entire night doing it. So I got out my books and sprawled them out over my bed. I had a desk, but I never used it for schoolwork, it just wasn’t comfortable.
About an hour into my homework-I was staring at my calculus book the whole time, same page-I heard the phone ring. I hesitated before answering it. My first thought was that it would be Sabrina or Sage or one of the guys, but then I got a different feeling. What if it were Sam? I looked at the phone while it rang, over and over again.
Finally I picked it up. “Hello?” I breathed.
“OH, it’s you! It’s so good to hear your voice; you have no idea-” I slammed the phone down.
I sat down on the ground and tried to breath normally, in and out, in and out. He won’t call again, I said to myself. He will think he had the wrong number, or just give up.
“Who was that?” Cody entered my room.
I snapped my head up. “Uh, no one.”
He walked farther in and sat down on my bed. “Who’s no one?” his eyes dug into me, fishing…fishing…got it!
“Sam.”
His eyes enlarged until they looked like blueberries. “Again?”
“Ya…”
“What did you say?”
“I hung up.”
“You hung up? Lex, you can’t just hang up, what if he calls again?”
“Then I’ll…hang up. Again.”
He rolled his eyes. “This isn’t good.”
“Well, technically, it’s supposed to be a good thing.”
“I’m glad you think of death that way.”
“That’s not what I meant. I meant the part about him helping us, not Dad killing us.”
“You know that won’t work. Dad will find out we told someone and he’ll…”
“You told Sam.”
“Only because I had to. He broke your fucking arm.”
“Cheerleading accident,” I hummed.
He glared at me.
“Fine. What’s done is done. Sam knows, so now what? I keep hanging up on him, ignoring his calls? What if he comes over here?”
“Then we’re screwed.”
“Cody, seriously.” My eyes begged him, but he wouldn’t stop making that face. He looked like he was seriously debating moving out or something.
He returned the look and sighed. “I guess we hope that nothing happens. That’s all we can do.”
“Okay.”
“And in the mean time, please don’t make the situation worse.”
“What are you-”?
He shot me a cold look.
“Okay.”