The Only Exception

The morning after Zack's party, Sunday experienced her first real hangover. It was horrible: her eyes hurt when they came into contact with light, her stomach was churning obnoxiously, and her mouth felt like sawdust. Not to mention the monster of a headache that she was trying to combat with aspirin. But the hangover was nothing compared to the sadness that enveloped her. She woke up early but remained laying on the comfortable couch in the basement for some time, unable to find the motivation to get up and face the day.

As she looked around the basement and found constant reminders of Alex in the piano, the movies that lined the wall and even random little objects, Sunday found it odd that even just the previous morning she would have been thrilled to get up and start the day. It was even more curious that the cause of her current despair had also been the person who had made her want to wake up earlier every morning, just so that she could have more time with him.

The worst part was that she knew that eventually she was going to have to face him and that they were probably going to have to talk about their night at Zack's. Sunday didn't want to talk though. Talking couldn't change anything; it couldn't make Alex love her. Nothing could make someone as wonderful as Alex love her.

At around ten o'clock, Amber had woken up looking happy and quite free of any sort of hangover. She was oblivious to Sunday's inconsolable attitude as she collected her things, seeming quite cheerful. "I've got a paper to write," she said in explanation for her early departure, "but text me later, and we'll talk about last night. And with a friendly pat on the top of Sunday's head, she was gone, leaving Sunday to deal with Mrs. Phillips.

Saturdays were the one day that Mrs. Phillips actually tried to spend time with her daughter. She had a schedule that they firmly stuck to, and she was not willing to break their routine simply because Sunday had engaged in some underage drinking the night before. It took her a whole half hour to yank Sunday off of the couch and insist that they were going on with their plans for the day—which was only accomplished because Mrs. Phillips was so obstinate. She was sympathetic and gave Sunday a cocktail of things to make her feel better: a few pills, a bottle of cold water and a cream to put under her eyes to depuff them, but by noon she was still pushing her daughter out of the house.

The first stop for Sunday and Mrs. Phillips on Saturdays were the nail salon. Sunday got her nails maintained by a lady named Lillian, who Sunday liked very much because she was nice to talk to. She would file and trim both Sunday's nails and toenails before painting them whatever colors Sunday requested. Mrs. Phillips would get her long nails French manicured and gossip with all of the ladies in the salon. After that, the two would go out to lunch and catch up on what was going on in each other's lives. Then, there would be grocery shopping before they returned to the house.

"Good morning, Sunday!" Lillian greeted her as soon as the bell above the door of the salon rang. "You don't look too good, honey. Are you feeling sick?" She led Sunday over to her usual chair. The water in the foot bath was already going, and it was warm when Sunday stuck her feet into it.

"She had a long night," Mrs. Phillips answered for Sunday with a small smile. "She was out with Alex."

Since meeting Alex, Sunday had seen Lillian several times, during which she had spent the whole appointment talking about her new friend. But today, Sunday had no desire to even hear his name. It brought an angry stinging feeling to her nose and made her eyes feel too hot and full.

"What did you guys do?" Lillian eagerly asked as she brought all of her tools over to the chair.

After clearing her throat, Sunday answered, "Costume party."

"You should have seen her, Lil!" boasted Mrs. Phillips. She was seated at a table across from Sunday's chair. "I simply must bring pictures for you next time!"

"What were you?" Lillian asked as she removed the nail polish from Sunday's feet.

Sighing, Sunday spoke again, her voice was quiet and bland, "Goddess."

"And what was Alex?"

A horrible friend. A manwhore, in Amber's words. A mean person who probably didn't know he had even done something mean and who Sunday still wanted to be friends with, even though it didn't seem possible—which made Sunday feel like crying incessantly. She played with the hem of her t-shirt. "Prince Charming."

"That's so sweet!" Lillian exclaimed. She started taking the nail polish off of Sunday's fingers next. "You're going to have to bring him by so I can meet him sometime, Sunday. He sounds like the nicest boy."

A strangled sob escaped Sunday's throat, but she passed it off by coughing. "He's something," she agreed as she slouched in her comfortable seat. "Can I turn the massagers on?"

Lillian pressed a button. "What colors are you thinking today, Sunday?" she asked as she gestured to the shelf of nail polish on Sunday's left side.

All the pinks were too girlie. Yellow was too happy. Turquoise was too bubbly. "Dark blue," Sunday said, pulling a dark bottle of nail polish off the shelf and handing it to Lillian. Both Mrs. Phillips and Lillian exchanged a look. Sunday wasn't usually drawn to dark colors. She liked things that were happy and bright.

"It's, uh, very in this season," Lillian hesitantly agreed in defense of the color. Mrs. Phillips' eyebrows knit together as she looked at Sunday.

All of the attention and worried looks were too much. Sunday picked up an edition of People from the table beside her, gluing her eyes to the pages of the gossip magazine. It wasn't very interesting, and she didn't read a lot of the articles, but all she had to do was stare at each page for a few seconds before moving on. It exempted her from both conversation and if people were looking at her with concern, she didn't have to meet their gazes.

An hour later, Sunday and Mrs. Phillips were walking out of the salon with their fresh manicures and pedicure, in Sunday's case. "That was fun," Mrs. Phillips remarked. Sunday merely 'hmm'ed in reply.

They got into the car, but Sunday's mother didn't insert the keys into the ignition. "Sunday, what's going on?" she demanded. "This is more than a hangover. You haven't been this lifeless since Henry—" She broke off as Sunday's eyes filled with fresh tears. "All I'm trying to say is, you seem like something's getting you down."

"It's nothing," Sunday countered with a shake of her head. "I just feel really sick. Can we skip lunch today? I want to go home and take a nap or something."

"Did something happen with Alex?" Mrs. Phillips pressed.

"I just want to go home!" Sunday snapped in a loud and adamant voice that she never used.

There was silence. Sunday didn't yell, especially not at her mother. Too shocked to think of anything to say, Mrs. Phillips obliged and started the car before starting in the direction that would deposit them at their house instead of one of the restaurants that they usually frequented on Saturdays. As soon as the car was parked, Sunday jumped out, wiping away any tears that had escaped her eyes and walking towards the house. She refused to cry in front of her mother.

But when she walked into the living room, the sight that greeted her was nearly enough to make Sunday throw herself down on the ground at that very moment and execute the biggest tantrum of her life, complete with yelling and tears and pounding her fists on the ground. Alex Gaskarth, the one person that Sunday was trying to avoid thinking or talking about like the plague, was sitting in the living room with her dad, laughing and talking as they paid most of their attention to ESPN.

"What is he doing here?" Sunday demanded as soon as she walked into the house. She had stopped as soon as she noticed Alex was there, and because of this, Mrs. Phillips ran into her as she walked into the house.

She looked up from her cell phone and said, "Sunday, why did you stop walk—Oh, hello Alex."

Both Mr. Phillips and Alex stood up. "Alex came over while you and your mom were still out, so I told him he was welcome to stay here until you guys got back. I didn't think it'd take you that long," Mr. Phillips explained. He gave Sunday a 'you're welcome' smile, which only caused her lip to quiver and a fresh onslaught of tears to attack.

"Well, now that we're here, Alex can leave," she said before turning and walking up the stairs. The anger that had permeated her statement was punctuated by the sound of her door slamming.

In the living room, both Mr. and Mrs. Phillips as well as Alex were all flabbergasted. "Do you think I can go talk to her?" Alex asked numbly as he gestured to the stairs.

"Uh, maybe that'd be a good idea," Mrs. Phillips nodded. "She's been... very temperamental all day, which is quite out of character for Sunday."

Alex nervously walked up the stairs, trying to think of something that he could have done to make Sunday so mad at him. He hesitantly knocked on her door, only to be rebuffed with a very clear, "Go away, Alex."

He opened the door anyway. Alex's ego was much to large to be dismissed with a simple "go away". "Sunday, are you okay?" he asked when he stepped into her room.

"Don't you know what go away is?" she demanded as she looked up from the pillow that her face had previously been buried in. Her eyes were red and there was obvious evidence that she had been crying until the moment that Alex walked into her room, at which point the tear flow abruptly stopped.

He wasn't her Alex, and she wasn't going to let him see her at her weakest.

"Sunday, what's wrong?" he asked as he walked over and took a seat in her desk chair.

She looked away from him and took a deep breath to steel herself before turning her angry and harsh eyes on him again. "Why are you here?" she snapped, ignoring his question.

He was caught off guard. "Uh, you left Zack's early last night, and I came to see if you had a good time," Alex answered. "Is that okay?" he added hesitantly.

"No," Sunday countered, "I want you to leave. Right now." She rolled onto her side so that she was facing the wall instead of Alex.

Alex was completely dumbstruck. "Sunday, did I do something wrong?" he asked, feeling a bit panicked.

"Oh my god!" Sunday was up in a second and crossed to her room, yanking her door open with extreme force. "What part of leave don't you understand?" she yelled at him.

She was angry with him. Alex was very aware that it was something that he had did. But he had no intention of leaving until he understood what it was exactly that he had done. They were getting along perfectly the night before. "I want to know what I did to piss you off!" he retorted, speaking a bit louder than he had intended. He didn't want to fight with her; he just wanted to fix whatever it was that had gone wrong so that they could be Alex and Sunday again.

"Nothing!" Sunday wailed, tears slipping out of her eyes. "Okay? You didn't do anything wrong. I'm the one who was stupid! But now I just want you to go."

"Why?" Alex finally thundered at her, raising his voice more loudly at her than he had ever before dared. "If I didn't do something wrong, then why can't I be here for you when you're so sad?" He reached out to touch her cheek, but Sunday forcefully smacked his hand away. And it hurt.

They stood in silence as their hands stung, Alex's turning a vibrant red color. Sunday looked down, her eyes void of any type of emotion. "We can't be friends, Alex," she said. "We're too different. And... I don't want to be friends." She looked up to make sure he got this last sentence before she pulled the star necklace from around her neck and held it out for him. "I'm sorry."

He opened his mouth to speak, but she just opened her door a little wider. "Goodbye, Alex." She kept her eyes focused on a spot on her floor.

Seeing that he wasn't going to get anything else out of her, the only thing Alex could think to do was take the silver gift from her hand and leave. He was confused, but more so than that, he was hurt. He didn't understand why he was being so cruelly rejected by the girl that he had thought was completely incapable of such animosity. Besides... Alex needed her. He didn't know how to function without Sunday; in such a short time, she had become one of his closest friends, and he had thought that Sunday had been on the same page as him, in terms of what they felt for each other. He had thought that maybe she needed him too.

When he walked downstairs and saw both of Sunday's parents looking very embarrassed and concerned, the only thing that he could think of saying was, "I'm sorry." And then he bolted from the house, slamming the door behind him. He needed a drink. And a strong one.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Phillips was glaring at her husband. "What?" Mr. Phillips finally demanded.

"I fucking knew this would happen, Greg," she snapped in a whispered voice. It wasn't as though Sunday would hear her anyway; she had collapsed onto her bed again. In her sorrow, she had forgotten to close the door again and her sobs were heard by her parents downstairs.

"Don't act like this is my fault," Mr. Phillips snapped.

"I told you that when he made her cry, it was going to be all of your fault!" Nadia yelled. "And do you hear her? She's heartbroken!"

"And you're not the only one who cares that she's sad!" he countered. "You're not the only person with Sunday's best interest in mind, Nadia! She's my daughter too, the only child I have left, and I was just trying to let her have a life!"

"No," his wife countered in an angry tone, "you were just being dismissive with her, saying whatever it took to get her out of your hair. Like you always are! We both know that you think of Sunday as no more than a burden!"

Mr. Phillips threw the remote to the television, and it knocked over one of his wife's expensive vases. "Shut up!" he ordered. "You are not the only person who wants the best for her. I love my daughter, and excuse me for not thinking that imprisonment is the best way to deal with her!" And then he snatched his car keys off of the table by the door, and left.

And Mrs. Phillips was left to deal with the shattered and fragmented pieces of the glass vase.