Snake Devil

“So what do you think. Should I ask out Belinda?” Lance asked, leaning casually across the counter of the Starbucks’ where I worked.

“Why would you ever think about asking out that she-devil?” I wailed. Lance threw me a confused look.

“Umm, Emma, isn’t that ‘she-devil’ your best friend? Not to mention that she’s hot.”

“Wiser people then you have fallen for that. Listen. Belle’s fine with girls… well, relatively fine. But when it comes to boys she really lives up to her name.” Lance just stared at me, bemused and I remembered that not everyone is interested in the etymology of names. “Her name is Belinda. The second part means ‘a snake’. First part probably comes from ‘belle’ meaning beautiful. Put it together and you get Belinda. A beautiful snake.” Lance laughed.

“She can’t be thatbad,” he said light-heartedly. In return I scoffed.

“Lance, believe me when I say she’ll suck you dry,” he chuckled, and too late I realised the error of my words. “She’ll just use you, Lance, till you’re just a Belinda-carcass like the rest of these goons.” I gestured to the patrons of the coffee shop. He rolled his eyes over-dramatically, mocking me. “What the hell is the point of asking my opinion if you’re not going to listen to me?” I asked, but trailed off seeing the devil herself standing at the open door in a cropped jacket; short, black, figure-hugging dress; shiny black leggings and ridiculously high heels.

Lance turned to see what I’m looking at then pushed himself away from the counter.

“I’m gonna give it a try,” he murmured as he walked towards the door. “See ya Em.”

I watched the short exchange from behind the counter, powerless to stop it.

Lance just about refrained from swaggering as he walked up to Belle, the long strides making him seem more confident than he really was. Belle watched every mood he made with a decided look of boredom on her face. They exchanged a few words –formalities- then Lance gathered up the courage to ask her to go see a move- tomorrow night maybe? Belle shrugged; what the hell, might as well make it now. You can take me out to eat afterwards. Lance grinned; he thinks he’s done pretty well.

Belle turns to me and blows a kiss and I know our planned evening together is cancelled.

Then, before they leave, Belle turns to lance and asks him a question.

I don’t need to be able to lip read to know she’s asking his name.

Belle uses guys.

She’ll reap all the benefits of being a girlfriend without ever actually committing to anything, then as soon as she’s bored she’ll drop the current boy and be on to the next.

And there always is a next. Belle’s gorgeous, and she knows it too. Her confidence only adds to her charm.

Thing is, she wasn’t always like this. Up until about four years ago she was perfectly normal. Guys still fell over themselves trying to ask her out but she was always very prudent.

Then she fell in love. Some boy called Chad, and he was everything Belle was not.

He was the same age as us, but he hung out with the people in the year above, ditching school with them to drink, smoke and generally misbehave.

They met by chance.

Belle and I were sitting in the park gossiping about all our friends when he wandered over and asked if either of us had a light. Two ‘no’s. He shrugged and began to turn away but then suddenly he stopped.

“Wait- I know you, right?” Neither of us said anything, choosing to let him figure it out himself. “You’re in my maths class,” he said finally, pointing to me, and then at Belle “and you’re in my tutor group.” He nodded to himself and finished turning away, being apparently satisfied.

He started coming to school after that. Actually he started attending all the lessons he had with Belle or myself, being overly nice to us, carrying our bags, helping us get stuff.

Belle fell for him, hard.

When he asked her out she didn’t even hesitate to say yes. She barely waited for him to finish the question.

It was the day of their year anniversary when Belle found out he’d been seeing and sleeping with other girls for seven months.

To say that she was upset would be putting it lightly.

For months after that she was off the rails. She was getting completely wasted every day. We lost contact. It wasn’t my fault but I still feel like I should have tried harder. She finally came her senses, she told me, when she woke up naked in bed one morning and realised that the person she spent her night with was none other than Chad.

It broke her all over again: apparently the face of the boy who broke your heart really isn’t the best thing to come down to at two o’clock in the morning.

So she cleaned up after that.

It took a while, she’d developed physical dependencies on quite a lot of things during that time, and she’s yet to kick some of them.

But while she –mostly- retained her sobriety it seemed she had lost her soul.

Since then she’d seen more boys then I could remember, and dumped most of them well within a fortnight.

They all yearned for her, of course. Who wouldn’t? The majority of them still hung around here, trying to catch a glimpse of her, or talk her into going out with them again.

She never did.

It was sad. Devastating, even. Because of one boy Belle lost everything she’d once been and became an entirely different creature.

She still didn’t care about herself, and almost every bit of humanity in her had been stolen.

Not just by Chad, but by every guy after that till her reawakening, the ones who took advantage of her fragility.

She isn’t the person I knew four years ago, and I don’t know if she ever will be.

But I can’t hate her. I can’t give up hoping on the person who once informed me that I am ‘the most important thing in the world. As long as Emmy’s okay everyone else can go to hell’, even if she was drunk while she said it.

I made up my mind when she arrived on my doorstep at three in the morning a year and a half ago, half dressed and sobbing uncontrollably.

I would never again let her go.