Casualties

Alex hadn’t spent the night and they didn’t even end up having sex. They made out a little bit, and there had been a little touchy-touchy, but nothing more. Mostly they just talked and when she explained that she had a science test the next day that she had to study for, he left without even being asked to do so.
She thought of nothing but him that entire night. She wished that she could say that she focused on science and that she was prepared for her test the next morning, but that would be a complete lie. She stopped studying at around midnight and just played U Got It Bad by Usher over and over again while she was lying on her bed. She didn’t even understand why she felt that she could relate to that song because she’d never felt so strongly about somebody and had never given herself to someone that she never wanted to be with somebody else. But for some reason she felt that she understood the message that he was trying to convey in his song.
She heard her phone start to ring and she reached over on her night stand and grabbed it. It was her mom.
“Hello?” she asked.
“Hey honey, how are you doing?” her mom asked and Kennedy could hear the crowd of noise in the background.
“I’m fine, how are you?” she asked because her mom hadn’t called to ask how she was since she’d been 13 years old.
“I’m alright, I just wanted to check up on you and see how you were doing,” she told her sounding a little like she didn’t really know why she called.
“Well, I’m fine,”
“So you wouldn’t be disappointed if I had to stay for a few more hours?”
“How long is a few more hours?”
“Until four, and if I did stay out here then I’d just stay with Janelle at her house. You remember Janelle?”
“No, I don’t remember Janelle, and I guess it really doesn’t matter if you come home or not, so sure,” she said and she had no idea why she was getting so aggravated by her mother.
“Thank you so much honey, I’ll see you tomorrow,” she told her and didn’t even wait for a good bye before she hung up.
“Love you, too,” Kennedy said to herself and shut her cell phone.
Her stomach started grumbling and she figured that she was hungry so she walked out of her room and down to the kitchen and started shifting through her food when her phone rang again. She didn’t look at the ID before she answered, “I already said it was fine,” she said in an irritated tone.
“What was fine?” asked another voice on the other end of the line.
“Alex?”
“Who else would it be?”
“Sorry, I thought it was my mom,” she explained, but was still slightly confounded why he had called her at 12:30.
“What did your mother need permission for?”
“She has to work until 4 tonight and she wanted me to tell her it’s fine and that she can spend the night at one of her co-workers house,” she said.
“I see,” he said, “So what are you doing?” he asked after a few seconds.
“I’m looking for something to eat because I just came to the realization that I haven’t eaten since lunch time,”
“That’s not good,” he told her with a laugh.
“What?”
“Nothing, just… can I come over?” he asked.
“Um, I guess that wouldn’t really be a problem…”
“Do you not want me to?” he asked, sounding like he regretting asking in the first place.
“No, I do, I’ve just never had a boy sneak into my house before,” she confided in him.
“Well, it really wouldn’t be sneaking if there’s no one there to catch us, now is it?” he asked her and she could sense that there was a wide smirk placed on that boys charming face.
“Fuck you,” she said simply because she did not enjoy being mocked, but all that did was make him crack up laughing.
“I’ll be over in a few minutes?” he asked for confirmation.
“Are you going to walk?” she asked.
“It’s only a few blocks,” he told her.
“What is it with you and Jack that thinking more than fifty blocks to my house is just a few blocks?” she exclaimed and all that did was make him laugh more.
“I’ll be there in a few minutes, okay? Don’t start making food without me,” he said then hung up on her.
Despite his warning, she continued to shift through the fridge looking for something to eat and then she got bored and felt more anxious that she decided the best way to calm her nerves would be to invest some of her time with watching mind melting television.
She sat down and flipped through the channels until an old episode of The Power Puff Girls came on and then she got all sorts of excited and was completely into the show that she’d been addicted to when she was a kid. There was a marathon on and they were going to be on until 6 in the morning.
She sat and then she heard the doorbell ring and so she got up and jumped over the couch and continued to watch the screen while she opened the door.
“Hello,” said a sexy voice.
“Hey,” she said in a distracted sort of way then made her way away from Alex without really giving him a proper hello and she sat back on the couch. He sat next to her.
“Power Puff Girls? Really?” he asked in such a ‘this is definitely the epitome of chick flicks’ kind of voice.
“Shut up, I love this show,” she said and they both just sat there and watched the show until it went to commercial.
“So shall we make some food?” Alex asked and stood up and held his hand out for her and she took it. He helped her up and they made their way to her kitchen. He placed his hands on her hips and started kissing her neck.
“You are a horny bastard,” she told him and turned around to face him.
“Would you really want to have sex with someone who wasn’t horny?” he asked.
“Not the point,”
“Besides, I think out of everybody you’ve had sex with I have the most appreciation for your body,” he told her then slid his hands down her sides and back up.
“What should we make?” she asked him as she pulled away.
“How hungry are you?”
“Starved,”
“Alright, then I think we should make some mac ‘n’ cheese, a few grilled cheeses, and eat all of the rice crispys in your cupboard,” he told her.
They did. They made everything and ate every last bite of food. While watching the power puff girls.
“I’m still hungry,” she said to him just after they finished their food.
“You know, I wasn’t expecting you to be able to eat that much with how tiny you are. Where do you put it?” he asked her with a grin.
“I could ask you the same thing,” she told him and then they got up and found Doritos in her pantry and they pulled them out and dumped it into a plastic bowl and they found some M&M’s from Halloween and dumped it in with the Doritos and mixed it up really well. “We should got to my room,” she told him and he turned off the TV and all the lights downstairs.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Alex said and they walked up her stairs into her room.
They sat on her bed and started talking. “So who was the last guy you slept with?” he asked her.
She laughed, “Why would you ask me that?”
“Because you asked me last night who was the last girl I slept with,” he informed her.
“Besides you, it was John Marks,” she told him.
“Oh my god, you banged the quarter back?” he asked her. It was nice being with him, she thought, because he didn’t get jealous hearing about her wild sexcepades. The numerous amounts of people she’d slept with and the rest that she had all the intention in the world of sleeping with. “I never thought you were a jocks type of girl,” he told her.
“I’m not a ‘type’ kind of girl at all. I go where the good lays are,”
“Is that why you came to me?” he asked.
“I didn’t come to you. I didn’t pursue you, we just sort of… fell into place, so to speak,” she said.
“But I am a good lay, right?” he asked.
“Would I still have sex with you if you weren’t?” she asked him with a giggle.
“Well, with all the girls I’ve had sex with, you have definitely been one of the best,” he told her.
“One? One of the best?” she asked, feeling extremely self conscious.
“Well, you’re right below the women I had for a while,” he told her.
“What women?”
“I swear Jack and I told you,” he said and slapped his forehead, causing a gigantic Doritos cheese mark.
“What?” she asked.
“I sort of had an affair with a married woman, she was older, in her forties, but she was definitely the best I’ve ever had,”
“Ew, you slept with a forty year old?” she asked.
“You’ve slept with a forty year old,” he pointed out.
“That was to get 100% in my class,” she told him.
“Because that makes it so much better,”
“Shut up,” she told him and threw a handful of Doritos and M&M’s at him.
“Did you seriously just do that?” he asked her with his serious face on.
She puckered her lips and ducked her head down so that she looked like a little kid who’d just gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar before dinner. “No…” she said really slowly in a little girl voice and shook her head while blinking her eyelashes at him.
“I think you did,” he told her.
“No, I think you’re wrong,” she told him, still being kiddish.
He took a handful of the mixture then slapped it all over her chest and it crumbled down her shirt.
“Really?” she asked him.
“You definitely started it,” he told her with a crooked smile on his mouth.
She grabbed the carton of ice cream on her night stand, opened it, took a handful, “No, no,” Alex said, shaking his head.
She splattered it in his hair and rubbed it back and forth then put Doritos on top of it. He grabbed some and threw it at her face. This started a massive food fight that didn’t end until 4 o’clock in the morning and proceeded in them having sticky, ice cream sex on her floor. There were a few times when one of them would lick each other just to get the ice cream and it always made the other person laugh.
When they were done she got off of him and looked at her clock and it was 5:10 in the morning. “Oh my god,” she said with a laugh then let herself fall on top of him.
“What?” he asked and wrapped his arms around her.
“It’s just past five in the morning,” she told him and licked from his belly button up to his chin. “You taste like chocolate,” she told him.
“Not the first time I’ve been told that,” he told her.
“So you’ve had this much fun before while having sex with someone?” she asked him.
“I didn’t say that. This is definitely the most fun I think I’ve ever had while bringing sex into it, but some girls are just weird,” he told her and shook his head.
“Why do you say that?” she asked him.
“There was this girl I had sex with once when Jack’s parents took us on a trip to Seattle and this girl loved whipped cream, which was fine, but then she squirted it on my penis and put chocolate on it and made this big thing about licking it off and by the end of it, I had not enjoyed myself,” he started laughing at the memory.
“I definitely want to try, but not your penis. Maybe just your chest,” she told him.
“Oh my god, please don’t. I want us to have fun and not be reminded of traumatic sexual experience,”
“Psh, you’re a party pooper,” she told him then got off of him. “Do you want to join me for a shower or do you want to wait until I’m done?” she asked him.
“Would you care if I took one with you?” he asked her.
She thought about it for a minute. The shower was her space and if she took a shower in that shower later and she and Alex had stopped doing whatever it was that they were doing would she really want to be reminded of what she and Alex had done in that shower? Probably not. “I would love it if you took one with me,” she said despite the previous reason not to.
He smiles and got up. “I feel weird walking across your hall naked,” he told her as they walked across her hallway to get to the bathroom.
“You’re such a baby,” she said and shut the bathroom door. She started the water in the shower and just waited for it to heat up to just past scolding. She got in and he got in behind her.
“Oh my god!” he yelled and jumped back.
“What’s wrong?” she panicked and turned around to make sure he was alright.
“That water is burning hot. Can you turn it down?” he asked.
She stared at him. She found it amusing that he, the man, found water a tad bit hotter than she, the women, did. Weren’t men supposed to be the macho ones who could handle anything and women the intolerant ones who couldn’t handle little things? Yeah, right. Men were definitely the pussies in a relationship and every single woman out there knew it, they just let the men think whatever they wanted. “Yeah, I guess,” she said and turned the heat of the water down a titch until it was just above freezing for her.
She washed her hair, he stroked her side, she washed her legs, he kissed her back, she stood under the shower, and he kissed every part of her body. He washed his hair, she held himself tightly against his chest, he washed his body, she kissed him periodically all over his neck, he stood under the shower, and she gave herself to him. Again. And again. And again.
It was easily one of the longest showers either one of them had ever taken. By the time they got out it was 6:15 in the morning. She dried off her body, put lotion on her legs and Alex just sat and watched her in complete awe. He never really appreciated how beautiful she was before. She was exotically beautiful, of course, but that was what made her so magnificent. She didn’t realize her own beauty just like he realized his good looks. She looked up at him.
“What are you staring at?” she asked and it made her blush.
“Nothing, just watching,” he told her and she smiled and laughed then continued.
“We should get breakfast,” she told him.
“Are you kidding? We ate an entire bag of Doritos and an entire carton of ice cream,” he told her while holding his stomach to indicate how full he was.
“Oh my gosh, we definitely didn’t eat the entire carton of ice cream, all of it was on our bodies and same with the Doritos,” she told him, and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Fine, let’s go eat something,” he told her and held his hand out to her to have her help him off the floor.
She pulled him and up and they walked downstairs and she pulled out the carton of eggs, cheddar cheese, Canadian bacon, and english muffins. “What are you making?” he asked her.
“Just sit down and let me make breakfast,” she told him very forcefully and he followed her orders.
She scrambled two eggs, toasted two english muffins, cooked two pieces of Canadian bacon, and sliced four slices of cheese. She put the cheese on the bottom of the english muffin, put the egg on top of it, and then the Canadian bacon, and then the other half of the muffin and put it in the oven for just under five minutes. She took it out when the cheese was nicely melted and right before the english muffin had decided to burn. She put it on the table in front of him along with some freshly squeezed orange juice and a real, authentic smile crossed his face.
“You made me a real breakfast,” he observed.
“Yes I did,”
“Not just a bowl of cereal,” he continued.
“Nope. Not in this house hold,” she told him then took a bite of her own breakfast sandwich.
They ate their breakfast and talked about things that they had going on for the day and Alex continually expressed how sorry he was that she had decided to take AP classes and how grateful he was that he didn’t do good enough academically to get into AP classes, but he wished her luck nonetheless. They also talked about whether or not they should tell Jack about the two of them being a ‘thing’.
“Absolutely not,” Kennedy said when Alex even brought it up.
“Why not?” Alex asked sounding whiny like a 3 year old child that just got told that they weren’t allowed to get the gigantic teddy bear at the grocery store.
“Because, I don’t want him to feel weird being around us just because we’re having sex and then he’ll expect us to act all intimate with each other whenever we’re all together,” Kennedy explained. She got up from the table, put everything in the sink then made her way back to her room and Alex followed shortly behind her.
“But I don’t know if I can keep this from Jack,” Alex said, sounding petrified at the idea of having to keep a secret from Jack. “I’ve never kept a secret from him in my entire life,” he continued, not even paying Kennedy any attention.
She turned on some music and it was happy-go-lucky music that was a lot like Owl City, but not quite Owl City. She looked at all her makeup choices, not paying much attention to Alex’s ranting and raving. She chose three light browns and one dark for the crease and made it look natural, but still bam-in-your-face kind of sexy. She didn’t put on any lipstick, just a little bit of bronzer and blush and a hint of mascara, but no eyeliner.
She let her hair go naturally curly since she didn’t blow dry it after she got out of the shower and there were nice, thick, dark ringlets making their way down her back, she just flat ironed her bangs because they always did a weird thing that she couldn’t handle.
“Please,” Alex said when she got up and she turned around and he was standing right behind her.
“No,” she said sternly.
“Come on, he should know. What about next time he decides to spend the night when I’m here, how will I explain why I’m sleeping with you?”
“You won’t,” she said simply, flipping through the clothes in her closet.
“Why not?” he asked, sounding hopeful that she’d come up with an answer.
“Because if both you and Jack are staying over, you’ll be sleeping on the floor with him – not with me,” she said and threw a pair of flair jeans on her bed and matched it with a band t-shirt and a pair of 3 inch strappy wedges.
“What? You’re not going to let me sleep with you if Jack’s here?”
“Of course not. What part of ‘keeping it a secret’ are you not understanding?” she asked. She didn’t understand why he all of a sudden, after not even a day, he decides that he wants to tell Jack about he and her when he was the one to keep it a secret in the first place.
“I think we should keep it a secret from everybody else, but not Jack. He’s Jack, he should know,” Alex kept saying over and over again. He should have known her well enough to know that pleading did not work with her and when she really had her mind set on something, not even his adorable puppy eyes worked.
“No, he shouldn’t know. Again, I do not want him to feel awkward, and if you feel that you cannot keep this secret to yourself then maybe we shouldn’t be doing what we’re doing,” she said fiercely while she took off her pajama bottoms, tank top and undies and changed into a new pair and then her outfit.
“I don’t want us to stop,” Alex said softly.
“Neither do I, but I don’t want to tell Jack even more,” she said even though she knew it made no sense.
“Alright, we’ll keep it a secret,” he told her and then she nodded her head and said thank you. He pulled her to him and held her close to his chest and rested his head on top of hers then kissed her forehead. “I should probably change,” he told her.
“Yeah, you probably should,” she agreed and pulled away from him.
“I hate to ask again, but do you think I could borrow more clothes?” he asked, having a sheepish look on his face.
“Fine, but next time you ask, you’re going to be wearing one my most uncomfortable thongs,” she told him then threw a pair of neon blue tidy whities at him along with another band t-shirt that he caught mid air but the undies landed right on his face.
“Thank you,” he said and put on the underwear, and shirt, but still wore the same pants as the previous 2 days.
“Alright, should we go?” she asked as she grabbed her bag and tossed it over her shoulder and looked at the clock. It read 7:47. “I was supposed to be there seven minutes ago,” she told him then threw his bag at him and bolted out her door and Alex was right behind her. She locked her door then went to her car and put the hood down since it was almost 80 degrees.
They drove to Jack’s house which was only a five to ten minute drive depending on how fast she drove. She grabbed her pack of cigarettes and lit it up while she was at a stop light then smoked it until she got to Jack’s house. This time he was not sitting outside so she honked and she turned off the car and waited for him to make his appearance.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t tell Jack about us? I really think we ought to confide in him,” Alex said. She didn’t know why he was pressing the issue so much when she already said no.
“I am not going to tell Jack anything, and I already told you the alternative,” she said as Jack made his way out of his house and ran toward them. He jumped over the side of the car to get into the back seat and sat right in the middle as always.
“How are we doing today, guys?” he asked and she took another drag of her cigarette and started her car up again.
“I’m doing well, how are you?” she asked him as she took off like a speed demon.
“I’m good. I got to sleep in a little later than usual and it made me hella happy,” he told her.
“That’s an odd thing to get happy about,” she said.
“You sound like you got laid,” Alex said bluntly while looking out of the car.
Both Kennedy and Jack snapped their attention to Alex. “Alex, could you be an even bigger dick?” Kennedy asked him and rolled her eyes at him when he made eye contact with her.
“Did you?” Alex asked Jack after a minute.
“Did I what?” Jack asked, obviously wanting to avoid the question.
“Get laid last night,” Alex said and Kennedy tried hard not to listen to their conversation.
“Um…,”
“You did!” Alex exclaimed and turned almost all the way around in his seat.
“You guys have to promise not to tell anybody,” Jack said in a super-secret-whisper voice.
“I promise,” Alex said.
Jack looked up at Kennedy, “Kennedy?”
“Yeah, who am I really going to tell? Most people at the school hate me, remember?” she said.
“Alright, I slept with Miranda,” Jack said and Alex shouted.
“Oh my god, man! That’s awesome; she is one of the hottest girls at our school. Was she any good?”
“So that’s why you wanted to go home to do homework?” Kennedy teased him and it made him blush.
“She was great. She wanted to be in control the entire time and she didn’t want me to have to do a thing, it was great,” Jack said, looking up at the sky.
“I know how that can be,” Alex said as he looked at Kennedy.
Kennedy pulled into the school parking lot and turned off the car. “Did you ever hook up with her?” Jack asked.
“Who? Miranda?” Alex asked.
“Duh, who else would I be talking about?” Jack asked with a ‘you’re such a moron’ look on his face.
“Um, yeah, I did, but it was a while ago,” Alex said and he automatically felt guilty about taking over Jack’s happy moment, but it didn’t seem to dissuade him from his happiness.
“When?” he asked.
“Last year at the homecoming game,” Alex said.
“Last year as in the junior homecoming game, or as in sophomore homecoming game?” Jack asked.
“Sophomore,” Alex said.
“I can guarantee that she’s gotten better,” Jack said then hopped out of the car. Kennedy put the hood up and didn’t talk to the guys for the remainder of the moment. She locked her door, gave them a wave and watched them walk toward their door to go to math and talking about Miranda. Perfect, Miranda.
Kennedy walked down the halls and saw Miranda standing in the corner with her friends, tossing her long blonde hair behind her shoulder and laughing at whatever her friend had said. Kennedy didn’t know why, but she immediately felt inferior to her, like she couldn’t meet up to the standards of her, but she knew that she not only met the standards, but she exceeded them.
All of a sudden she felt a hand on her shoulder and it took her out of her zone and she turned around to see Alex. “Hey,” he said.
“Hi, what’s up?” she asked him.
“I just want you to know that Miranda meant nothing to me. I don’t really like her, but I do like you. That’s why I’m with you,” he told her, looking her dead in the eye.
“It doesn’t matter to me either way, remember? We’re not a couple, you don’t need to explain to me who you do and do not have sex with,” she told him, sounding very sure and then she turned away and started to walk to her class.
She didn’t know why she said what she did to Alex, especially since she’d just been feeling inferior to Miranda, but that’s what their relationship was based off of and it was going to stay that way. She didn’t want him to feel like he needed to come forward whenever he had sex with someone other than her, because she sure as hell didn’t want to come forward whenever she had sex with someone other than him.