Casualties

Kennedy woke up the next morning at her normal time and did her regular routine; shower, yoga, breakfast, hair, makeup, and clothes. She drove to pick up Alex and she was dreading it. She didn’t want to have to pretend she didn’t know, but then again, maybe Jack would ruin that for her. Maybe her would say something and let it slip that he told her what happened between Alex and The Skank.
In any case, she pulled up in front of Alex’s house and he was already sitting on his porch waiting for her. He looked worried, but he got up quickly and practically ran to get in the car with her. “Hi,” she said, trying to be as cheery as possible.
“Hey,” he said and he looked kind of surprised that she was that happy.
“How are you?” she asked as she pulled away from the curb and drove as fast as she could to Jack’s.
“I’m fine, how are you?” he asked, sounding concerned.
“I’m great,” she told him hoping that would be the end of their too-long conversation already.
“Are you sure? You seem a little off,” he admitted to her. She shrugged her shoulders as her answers and shortly pulled up in front of Jack’s house. She hoped that Jack would have the common decency not to make them wait today because she was definitely not in the mood to have a meaningful conversation with Alex.
She honked her horn and turned off her car just for show for Alex. She wanted him to think that nothing was wrong, that nothing was bothering her.
Jack came out shortly and hoped in the back of her car and she took off.
“Hey Kenne, hey Alex,” Jack greeted the both of them and he had a smile spread across his face.
“Did you get laid during the party?” Kennedy asked with a laugh, ignoring the look that Alex was giving her that she could see out of the corner of her eye.
“Better,” Jack said simply.
“Better how?” Alex asked. It occurred to Kennedy that Alex may not know what had happened with Jack, but it was just so rare that that every happened that it hadn’t really dawned on her that he wouldn’t know.
“Better as in we had sex all day yesterday,” he said and made the spanking butt motion with his hands.
“All day?” Kennedy asked.
“All day. She spent the night on Saturday and we woke up and had sex and then continued to randomly have sex periodically though out the day,” Jack said as though it were the most magical thing in the entire world. Kennedy still thought that she and Alex having sex with the ice cream on them was one of the best.
Her phone beeped and she grabbed it while she was driving. She had received a text message that read: I still think that us with the ice cream was better. ;) Alex.
Apparently Alex had the same train of thought as Kennedy and she giggled aloud before throwing her phone into the cup holder besides her and she could see Alex smirk out the corner of her eye again.
She pulled into the school parking lot while Jack and Alex continued to talk about Jack’s sexcepades the night before and Kennedy had to practically force them out the her car so she could lock it. She gave them a brief wave before heading in the opposite direction for her class.
School went by pretty quickly for her and she tried her hardest not to think about Alex at all, but it didn’t really work out that well. He kept invading her mind. He was like glitter and herpes, once you get it you can never get rid of it. That was how she felt. She was decided that whenever she talked about him to somebody (nobody since she didn’t have any friends) she was going to refer to him as her herpes, not that anybody would get the reference anyway.
School ended and she walked back out to her car, unlocked it, and waited for the guys to get there. Jack got there first and got in the front seat of her car and looked at her since she hadn’t greeted like she normally go. “Kenne, are you okay?” he asked her blunt and direct, just like Jack was.
“Um, I guess I’m fine,” she said simply, now praying that Alex would get here sooner rather than later so she wouldn’t have to deal with Jack’s inquisitions.
“I don’t believe you,” he told her.
She chuckled. “Really? Why not?” she asked. She loved Jack because she could rely on him to immediately put her in a better mood even if he himself was in a bad one.
“You’ve just seemed a little off since the party and, I’ve got to tell you, I don’t really like it. I want my old Kenne back,” he said and made a puppy dog face at her.
“I’m fine, I’m just going through some stuff and I just can’t seem to get the goddamn herpes out of my head,” she said exasperatedly.
Jack gave her a confused look with his chin slightly tucked in, one eyebrow cocked upward and his head tilted to the side, “Do you have mental herpes, Kenne?” he asked in such a serious voice that Kennedy couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
“Something like that,” she admitted.
“Tell me what’s up. Maybe I can help,” he told her.
She was quick to think of a lie that would work just as well as the truth, “It’s just my mom. She started spending the night at her so-called co workers house again and I’m kind of nervous that she’d secretly staying at Rob’s again and just isn’t telling me because she doesn’t want me to be disappointed in her,” Kennedy told him. All of what she said was true, but it definitely was not her mental herpes.
Just as he was about to say something, Alex walked out of two of the double doors with The Skank hanging on to him like a piece of mardy-gra beads on a college student in Mexico for spring break. Kennedy looked at him quickly and she could tell that he was looking at her, too, but she quickly looked down before Jack caught on to anything by seeing the emotion of hurt flicker across her face.
Alex gave The Skank a hug before leaving her by herself and he came to the car and got in the back seat. Kennedy didn’t say anything before she tore out of the parking lot and started driving Jack back home. Everybody remained quiet. Kennedy guessed that the only reason Alex was staying so quiet was because he knew that if he said one word she would rip him a new one, but she had no reason why Jack was staying so quiet.
All of a sudden, “Can I come over to your house?” Alex whispered into her ear in a not-so-whisper-like voice.
She wanted to tell him no. No, she wanted to yell at him that no he could not come over and that he would never touch her again with his disgusting whore body. But she didn’t. She didn’t want Jack to know a thing so she said, “Sure,” and that was that.
She dropped Jack off and Alex and Kennedy rode silently back to her house. Kennedy got out the car, her heart pounding against her chest like a jack hammer. They walked to her door and Alex still remained quiet and she walked in, him following right behind her.
He took off his shoes which meant, to her, that he was planning on staying for a while. She took off her shoes as well and set her back down next to their sofa table.
They stood there shroud in an awkward silence. “So, how was the rest of your night last night?” he asked her with his hands shoved tight in his pockets, but not looking at her. Small talk. Alex was trying to make small talk. She hated small talk more than she hated liars.
She rolled her eyes and said with a heavy sigh, “Fine, I guess,” she passed him, refusing to look at him.
He grabbed her forearm and turned her around, “Why won’t you talk to me?” he pleaded.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, deciding to take the ‘playing dumb’ tactic.
“Don’t you dare play stupid, Kennedy,” he told her in one of the scariest voices she’d ever heard him use.
“Alex, I really think you’re overreacting,” she told him and jerked her arm out of his grasp and began to walk away.
“What did I do? Please, tell me what I did to screw this all up,” he asked her and it just sent a rage through her.
“You want to know what you did? God Alex, you’re so fucking stupid. You make yourself out to be this intelligent, verbose, incredible person who everyone can relate to, but yet you’re so fucking dense. Sometimes I don’t even know which ones the real you,” she yelled at him, with intricate arm movements.
“I really don’t know what this is about, Kenne,” he told her and it sounded so sincere that she almost believed him. Almost.
“I know, Alex, I know about The Skank,” she told him, on the verge of tears.
“Who’s The Skank?” he asked, totally confused.
“Miranda. I know that you had fucking sex with Miranda,” she blew up at him and she immediately felt like a complete moron. So what did it matter if he had sex with Miranda? They weren’t in a monogamous relationship and that’s what this whole relationship was supposed to be based off of – that they could have sex with whomever they wanted without any of the consequences, but she couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t help but feel hurt and betrayed and… brokenhearted.
Alex stood there completely dumbstruck for a minute, not saying a word, “Kennedy, I didn’t think you cared,” he told her in his softest voice possible.
“I didn’t think I cared either, but apparently I do,” she told him. She never thought she cared if he had sex with someone else. He wasn’t her property.
“How can I make it up to you?” he asked and she was in completely shock. She expected him to tell her that their agreement had been based upon them having sex, not being in a relationship and other things to that extent, but he didn’t. He looked ashamed and sad and even a little worse than she felt. Just like she’d been trying to deny that she was in love with him, maybe he was trying to deny that he was in love with her, too. At least them she wouldn’t be alone.
Instead of saying something that a girlfriend would say, someone nice would say, she said, “I made it up to myself,” she told him with venom and betrayal leaking into her words. He winced and kept his eyes closed for a minute.
“What does that mean?” he asked her, not looking at her.
“It just means that we’re even,” she told him, regaining what little of the old Kennedy she had left. The mean, vicious, manipulate, and vengeance seeking part of her was all that remained.
He looked at her. He knew what it meant, the minute she said it he knew what it meant, but she wanted her to say it and do admit it to both herself and him. “Tell me, Kennedy,” he said in a demanding voice that he used rarely.
“Do you really want to know?” she asked, taking pleasure in hurting him the way he had hurt her.
“Yes,” he whispered even though he didn’t. He didn’t want to know about her and whoever she’d decided to…
“It was Carl,” she said.
“Miranda’s boyfriend?” he asked and laughed.
“Why is that funny?” she asked, getting more upset because he wasn’t hurt.
But he was. “It’s not. It’s just so typical you. I have sex with Miranda so you get back at me and her by fucking her boyfriend. It just screams ‘Kennedy’ all over it,” he told her and she had to admit, she agreed.
She had nothing to say and she felt like he had nothing more to say to her either. She thought about calling it off, but she’d rather him be the one to say that it was over. They tried but it just didn’t seem to work for them and if it couldn’t work for him then it obviously couldn’t work for anybody.
“So, let me get this straight – I had sex with Miranda, or The Skank as you like to call her, and you slept with her boyfriend because you were angry that I had sex with her and you decided to get back at her and me by having sex with Carl. Am I right?” he asked her.
“Sounds about right,” she said, crossing her arms across her chest because she realized how stupid it sounded when he said it aloud.
“I think I have a solution,” he told her. She felt tears go into her tear ducts and she tried as hard as she could to break down and just cry. She didn’t want it after all. She wanted to stay with him.
“What’s your solution?” she asked, preparing herself for heart break.
“You get jealous, angry, and depressed whenever I have sex with another girl and I get jealous, angry, depressed, and violent whenever you have sex with anybody. That leaves one option – we make this a monogamous relationship and we date each other,” he told her, gauging her reaction.
It had not been what she expected. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want things to end between them, but she didn’t want to be in a relationship with him either. She started to think about the Harvard representative that had called her almost two months back and she now wished that she had taken the offer and tried to graduate high school before college started that fall.
“Kennedy? What do you think?” he asked, waving a hand in front of her face.
She looked up at him and his dark eyes, “No,” she whispered simply. She couldn’t explain why her mouth said it, her brain thought it, but her heart said yes. Her heart wanted him to be hers and only hers forever and ever, but she said no anyway to him. Her heart felt like kicking her brain in the face.
He looked taken aback, “Kennedy, I want to be with you and only you,” he told her as he came closer to her and grabbed her hands in his and tried to look her in the eye.
She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t say anything. She didn’t know what else there was to say.
He was going to get angry, “Tell me why the fuck not?!” he demanded. “You have sex with every guy, including me, and you get mad when I have sex with someone else and we’re pretty much in a relationship anyway. I love you-“he said but she cut him off.
“No, you don’t. You do not love me,” she told him and pointed her finger at him while backing away slowly.
“I love you and you love me, too. I know you do. I can feel it in the way you touch me, look at me, kiss me, I know that you feel the exact same way that I do,” he finished and she shook her head.
“You’re wrong. I don’t love you; I’m just infatuated with you. You’re the last man on earth I would ever date,” she told him and it brought her mind to Pride and Prejudice.
He dropped his hands and looked hurt, “Is that really what you think?” he asked her in a calm voice.
“I know,” she told him with her head held high. That was a lie. It was all a lie. Every word that had just come out of her mouth had been a complete lie.
He nodded, turned around and headed for the door, “Don’t bother picking me up tomorrow,” he told her as he slammed her door.
She stood there for a minute and felt her throat swell up, her head start to hurt, her breath quicken and then she just started sobbing. She crumbled to the floor and tried to even her breath, but it felt like she was hyperventilating. The tears just fell and fell down her cheeks and for once she didn’t care that she was in a vulnerable place. She just wanted to sob until she couldn’t feel anything anymore.
Her phone started ringing and she picked it up, “Hello?” she asked in a shaky voice that she tried to control.
“Hi, honey, it’s mom. I need to stay out her again tonight,” Lorelei told her.
“Mommy, I need you,” she cried into the phone.
“What’s wrong, honey?” her mom asked in a concerned voice.
“That doesn’t matter, I just need my mommy,” she told her again and all the while tears kept streaming down her cheeks.
“Honey, I wish I could, but I have to work tonight. I’ll be home tomorrow though, I promise. I have to go though, so I’ll talk to you later,” her mom said and then hung up the phone.
Kennedy stared down at the phone in disbelief while it informed her that her call had been disconnected. She couldn’t believe that the one time she needed her mother; she wouldn’t come home for her. Kennedy thought about calling Alex and then realized that it was him that this was all about. She thought about Jack, but she didn’t want him to know and even if he did know she knew that he would take Alex’s side – he always did.
She truly had nobody. She was on her own.