I Don't Like Your Boyfriend

A week before the cotillion, my conscience was killing me. Sterling was so sweet to me and I cheated on him. I cheated on him twice with two different boys. It was eating me inside and it effected our relationship. I would be a bit distant and would give vague answers. After school Sterling cornered me.

“You need to tell me what’s wrong,” Sterling said seriously.

“I can’t…” I said and looked at my hands.

“Did I do something wrong?” Sterling said and I looked into his eyes and saw something in them. There was worry inside of them, or maybe it was guilt.

I shook my head. “It’s me… I did something wrong.”

“What?” Sterling asked getting more worried.

“I… please don’t be mad at me and let me explain after, okay?” I pleaded with my eyes. He nodded. I took a deep breath. “I kissed someone else.”

Sterling blinked. “What?”

“It was about two months ago. I didn’t do it on purpose, I swear--”

“Who was it?” Sterling growled. I could tell he was angry, but it wasn’t directed towards me. I didn’t want Sterling to confront Antonio because then Lora would know and then I would lose her. I didn’t want to lose her.

“It’s not important,” I said softly.

“It is because some bastard kissed you! I need to know!” Sterling whispered harshly. I looked behind Sterling’s shoulder and saw Antonio with his arm around Lora. I quickly looked away, but it was too late. Sterling looked over his shoulder and quickly turned back to me. “Antonio?”

“It was a mistake,” I said quickly. “It didn’t go further than a kiss.”

There was hurt in his eyes, but my conscience felt a lot better. Sterling ran a hand through his short brown hair. There were a few minutes of silence. He didn’t look at me. He just looked at nothing in particular, but he was thinking hard and long. Each minute was pure torture to me. I loved Sterling, I didn’t want to lose him. I’d do anything to make it up.

“Please say something,” I whispered after a couple of minutes.

“Has it happened since?” Sterling asked quietly.

“No, it hasn’t,” I assured. “We’ve kept our distance.”

“Will it happen again?” Sterling cupped my face with his hands.

“No, it won’t,” I said. “Please forgive me.”

He smiled at me sincerely. “We all make mistakes and this will make us a stronger couple. I’m glad that you told me.”

I smiled and could almost cry of happiness. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he kissed my lips.

I wrapped my arms around him. The kiss became a bit possessive. It was like ‘I own you’. He never kissed me like that before and I’ll admit it was a bit of a turn off. I pulled away and smiled as sincerely as I could.

“I forgive you,” he told me he checked his watch and sighed. “I have to go home.”

“Oh,” I said a little disappointed. “I thought you didn’t have anything to do today.”

“I got a call from my mom, and I have to go to this… thing,” he said it very vaguely.

“Okay, then, I’ll see you tomorrow then,” I said and pecked his lips. He pecked mine back and he was off.

“Yeah, see you tomorrow. I’ll call you tonight,” he said with a smile that I loved.

Sterling left. I told my aunt I couldn’t work today. I just wanted an off day. Antonio offered me a ride, but I took Luke’s offer instead. He dropped me off home. I went straight to my bedroom. I laid on my bed and just drifted off to sleep.

Sterling warned me that I should spend less time with Antonio. I agreed with him because Antonio held something that I couldn’t resist. A small smile from him made me want to grin like a fool. I’m just glad I didn’t tell him about Luke because I love Luke… in what way? I don’t know. I can’t imagine my life without him though, that much I know. I know that if I don’t have Luke in my life, something is wrong.

On Monday morning, after a weekend of just nothing exciting, the big bomb was dropped on me. Lora came to me crying her eyes out. At first, I understood nothing because when she cried really hard all she would say was gibberish.

When she was done crying, she told me Antonio broke up with her that morning. I hadn’t seen Antonio because I was with Sterling and Luke the entire morning. Lora told me that he told her it just wasn’t working.

“What did I do?” Lora cried on my shoulder. “I really liked him, Eddy.”

“You’re Lora Armstrong!” I exclaimed and took her by the shoulders and pulled her away from mine. “You can get another guy!”

“And make Antonio jealous and he’ll be on his knees begging me to take him back, which I will and then after high school we’ll get married and have three children. One girl and two boys--”

“Whoa,” I laughed. “Calm down, Lora, maybe you scared him away, did you tell him that?”

Lora blushed and I knew that meant she did tell him that. I shook my head.

“You scared him. Talk to him and explain that you get excited like that.”

“Can you do it? He won’t believe me if I do.”

I thought about it. I had the chance to keep Antonio free, and I knew in less than a week Lora would be onto a new crush. She would forget all about Antonio. But she was my best friend and the least I could do--after making out with her boyfriend--was do what she asked of me.

“Yeah, sure, hun,” I smiled. “During Anatomy.”

Sterling and Luke came back from the vending machine. Sterling handed me a Snickers bar. I pecked his lips as a thank you. The bell rang for Government.

I didn’t pay attention. Instead I was doodling. When I was done, I named the Cowboy Monkey ‘El Valiente’ meaning ‘The Brave One’. I smiled and then the bell rang again.

Antonio and I were in the darkness because Mr. Sonyo was showing us a video about a heart transplant. It was just weird, but pretty interesting to hold a human heart in your hand. You can crush it, or you can make it better. Pretty much, I had Lora’s heart in my hand. I could crush it and not say a word to Antonio, or I could tell Antonio how great Lora was and make her heart better.

“Psst!” I whispered to Antonio.

He turned his blue eyes to me, how was it possible that they shine in the darkness? I forgot what I was going to say for a second but then shook my head to clear my head.

“Lora told me what happened,” I whispered.

“I couldn’t lead her on,” he whispered back and shrugged a bit.

“Shush!” Mr. Sonyo hissed at us.

I took out a sheet of paper and wrote ‘She’s really cool and if you give her another chance you can be really happy’

I passed the paper to him. I watched as he read it and his eyes narrowed. He looked back up at me and shook his head. He took out his pen and wrote back. He slipped it back.

‘I feel guilty every time I kiss her, Eddy, I just can’t be with her knowing my heart belongs to another girl. It’s wrong and I’m not that fucked up’.

I frowned. ‘But--’

The lights were turned on and the movie was over. Crap. I crumbled the paper and quickly placed it in my pocket. Mr. Sonyo told us to give a half page paragraph about the video. I groaned along with the others. I just wrote down whatever came to my mind or what I remembered.

The bell rang for nutrition. Antonio had… other friends now. They were just some kids who were pretty regular. Lora immediately came up behind me and dug in my pocket and took out the paper.

I didn’t realize what it had in it until I remembered, and I tried to snatch it back, but it was too late.

“Another girl?” she gulped. “He likes another girl?”

“Lora, I--”

“He cheated on me? Or did he break up with me to get with her? WHO IS SHE?!”

“A skank,” I whispered guiltily.

“A skank! Exactly, I’m going to find out!” Lora said with her hands on her hips.

“Lora,” Luke chimed in, “Antonio isn’t the type that cheats.”

“All men are cheaters,” Lora hissed and Sterling came beside me.

“Who’s a cheater?” Sterling looked at me to see if she knew, I shook my head, no, and he understood.

“Antonio! I asked Eddy to find out why he broke up with me and make him take me back,” Lora re-read the note. “And he tells her he broke up with me because his heart belongs to someone else.”

Sterling glared. “What?”

“Exactly, does this mean he cheated? Who is the skank?!” Lora growled.

“Maybe you should just let it go,” I suggested nicely. “What do you plan to get out of it?”

“The truth, I deserve the truth. I was a damn good girlfriend. I even tolerated his annoying brother and sister,” Lora growled again.

“Jean and Joseph are not annoying, you just didn’t take the time to get to know them,” I defended them. “Jean is a great girl and Joseph is a little flirt, it’s so cute.”

“Well, I was dating Antonio, not his family,” Lora countered.

Something about her attitude brought out a side of me I didn’t like. “Lora,” I got her attention, “when you’re with someone, you’re also dating their family. It’s whether you like it or not. Sterling and I know each others’ family and that’s why our relationship is strong. We accept each others’ family. You should’ve accepted Antonio’s and maybe he wouldn’t have dumped you.”

Lora was shocked at my words. I was shocked at my words. But she needed to know that it wasn’t all about her. That she was at fault about the breakup. Lora remained shut for the rest of the break.

I went to my art class. Antonio was doodling in his sketch book. I looked over his shoulder and saw that he was drawing a wrestling monkey. I giggled and he heard me. He turned to look at me.

“What’s his name?” I asked as I sat next to him.

“Billy Bob the second,” he smiled.

“Nice work on the big hands, but small body,” I pointed out and we both laughed.

“I had a great instructor,” he smirked. He did that flip of the hair thing. It was so cute.

“Lora read the note we were passing around and wants to know who’s the girl you’re in love with,” I said without looking at him, instead I did random shapes on the desk. I felt his eyes on me though.

“Did you tell her?”

“Hell no,” I finally looked at him and gave him the look of ‘are you crazy?’. “Do you think I’m stupid? She’ll hate me forever. I… told Sterling, though.”

He blinked. “What?” he almost choked.

“I told him, but he forgave me, as long as I stayed away from you.”

“You’re not doing a very good job,” he chuckled and I did too.

“Yeah, somehow there’s always a reason to be around you,” I sighed deeply.

“What time are we going Thursday?” he changed the subject.

“Early,” I answered. He was talking about the cotillion. “Just meet us at my house at seven am.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

Thursday came along too early for me. Lora was still on the look out for the girl. We even sort of stalked Antonio to and from school. She was upset to find out there wasn’t a girl. She asked me to ask him, but I told her if she wanted to know, that she had to do it herself. I wasn’t going to be in the middle because it was creating problems between Sterling and I.

I told him I was only talking with Antonio because Lora asked me to, but he told me it wasn’t my business, and he was right. It was Lora’s business.

On Thursday morning, I got up and got dressed. It was going to be a very long day. Antonio came over to my place at the exact time as I told him. My Aunt and I were ready to go.

The ride was silent because it was the morning. We arrived at the hotel and we went to the reception. There was already so much chaos. I couldn’t believe how many people were working. Mrs. Bulrush put us to work immediately. The flowers arrived and Antonio and I started to get to work.

It took the entire Thursday just to get the flowers right on the stage. It was a lot of work. A lot of yelling at each other, and a lot of messing up and starting over. I was so exhausted that when I got home, I didn’t even eat.

I just hit the hay.

On Friday it was a bit more relaxed. All we needed to do was fix some of the mistakes, and then continue with making the center pieces for a lot of tables.

On Friday night, my Aunt got a call from Mrs. Bulrush saying if Antonio and I could work was waiters because two of the ones she got were extremely sick. She said she would pay us two hundred dollars.

I was up for it.

On Saturday morning, we went again to the reception and made sure everything was good for the night. My aunt did an inspection of the whole place with Mrs. Bulrush and she was really happy. I was glad she liked it because we worked really hard on it. I was proud of our work.

Around the afternoon Antonio and I were told to change into the waiters’ uniform. As I changed I tried to call Sterling to check in because I didn’t talk to him on Friday or earlier that day. But it went straight to voicemail. I left him a message.

I walked out of the changing room and pulled my hair up in a pony tail and moved my bangs to the side to keep them out of my eyes. They taught us how to balance a tray and what we had to do. It was pretty easy. I was going to walk around with a bottle of either white or red wine and ask if they needed their glass filled. Or sometimes I would pick up the empty glasses and empty plates.

Antonio and I watched from the kitchen as the fancy people walked in. They were dressed in dresses and tux that looked like they cost a fortunate.

“That better be fake,” I whispered and narrowed my eyes at the elderly lady with a fox around her neck.

Antonio chuckled. “You’re cute when you’re mad, especially at old people.”

I laughed. “You’re weird.”

“I got it from you.”

“Hey!” Our supervisor snapped. “You’re supposed to be working!” He snapped his fingers at us.

A few hours into the cotillion they started presenting all of the kids. They were a bunch of rich kids. The girls looked expensive and it looked like they prepared all of their lives for it. They were in the arms of very handsome boys, they were all around my age.

“Miss,” someone snapped their fingers at me. I looked down at the man I was serving his white wine and saw that I had filled it to the top.

“Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry, sir, I’ll get this clean right away!” I said as I used my towel to dry around the glass.

“And now presenting the wonderful couple Cruella Valence and Sterling Leister!”

I stopped cleaning and I looked to the stage. The bright light was on Sterling… and Cruella… holding hands? Looking happy? Looking like a couple? Everyone around me clapped. I felt my mind filling with a bunch of questions, and when they kissed so deeply and passionately my heart broke, a gasp even escaped my mouth.