Casualties

Kennedy hadn’t been able to focus on her science test the entire time she was in the room, but luckily for her, her teacher was allowing people with scores below C’s to do test corrections, which was when you got your paper back for a week, got to correct every answer you got wrong and if you got it right then you got half credit on it. Kennedy had no idea who came up with that method of teaching, and usually she thought it was a dumb idea, but she was very relieved when her teacher told the class that.
Science was her last class and as she walked out of the school she got a text message from Alex reading: I have to stay after school, I’ll see you later.
She nodded to herself and walked out to her car and saw Jack leaning up against it, looking like a total stud. “Hey,” she said and slipped her phone in her pocket, forgetting temporarily about Alex.
“Hey,” he said, “how was your test?” he asked.
“It went alright,” she said.
“Now, is that you just being humble or are you seriously worried?” he asked with a laugh.
“You’ve obviously never taken an AP test before, have you?” she joked as she unlocked her door and the three others. Jack got in on the passenger side and waited when she started the car, he looked confused.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m driving you home, what does it look like I’m doing?” she didn’t really understand the question.
“Why aren’t you waiting for Alex?” he asked.
“Oh, he had to stay after school for something or other. I don’t know,” she said as she rocketed out of her parking space and out of the parking lot.
“Do you want to hang out?” he asked her.
“Sure, your house?” she asked.
“I was kind of hoping for yours,” he admitted.
“Please don’t make me go to my house. I’ve been there all week, I want to get out and go somewhere else,” she told him with desperation written all over her face.
He let out a hearty laugh, “Alright, I guess we can go to my place,” he said then waited a second, “… or we could go get some ice cream first,” he suggested with a hopeful smile on his face.
“Ice cream – definitely,” she told him, then flipped a bitch and started going the other direction to the best ice cream in town.
Jack had started talking to her about Miranda and how much he really didn’t like her personality, but if you duct aped her mouth shut then she’d be pretty. Whenever Kennedy was with Jack, she couldn’t help herself but laugh. He was just such a fun, loveable guy who deserved nothing but the best.
She pulled up in front of the ice cream place and they both got out. She pulled her wallet out of her purse, but he put her hand up to her, “I got it,” he told her and pulled his own wallet out of his back pocket and pulled out a 10 and handed it to the cashier. “I’ll have a double scoop of the cookie dough,” he told the worker. He dished it up then handed it to Jack.
“What’ll you have?” the guy in the awful colored apron asked her.
“I’ll have a double scoop of the brownie fudge and the caramel,” she told him and Jack just stared at her. “What?” she asked after they left the ice cream place.
“I’ve never been with a girl who gets a double scoop of ice cream before,” Jack told her.
“Then you must not have been out with a lot of girls,” she giggled.
“Not true, most of them just get a single scoop of the frozen yogurt without fat in it,” he told her imitating a preppy girl with a high pitched voice.
She giggled, “That is definitely not me, and you should definitely know that by now,” she told him, being very serious. She started to drive towards his house.
“Well, I was just so used to thinking of you like a guy that now that I know you’re a girl it’s weird to think that you still have guy habits,” he told her.
“You mean it took you this long to figure out I was a girl?” she said, making fun of him.
“Shut up, you know what I mean,” Jack said and punched her lightly in the shoulder.
They drove to his house and she pulled up just behind his mom’s car and they got out and walked up the pathway to his porch. He opened the door, “Hey mom,” he yelled then shut the door when Kennedy got into the house.
“Hi, sweetie, how was school?” she asked, walking out of the kitchen and she saw Kennedy, “Oh, hi Kennedy, how are you?”
“I’m good, how are you?” she asked.
“I’m doing great, can I get you anything?” Jack’s mom asked.
“No,” she said and held up the ice cream that was still in her hand.
“Alright, let me know if you need anything,” she said then walked back into the kitchen. Jack walked up the stairs and into his room. His room was a complete disaster. There were clothes everywhere, trash scattered, and dirty towels all over the place.
She didn’t understand how anybody could ever live like that. She was such an OCD neat freak that even having the smallest thing out of place would drive her absolutely insane.
She sat on his bed after throwing off some boxers and he laughed at what a neat freak she was, but he sat right next to her. “Are you seeing anybody?” he asked and she automatically felt her heart quicken. He knew.
“No, why?” she said, trying to be smooth which is what she’d always been best at.
“Just curious. I haven’t really seen you with any guys in a while,” he observed.
“Yeah, I’ve slept with most of the good ones,” she said and it made him laugh. “How’s Rian and his girlfriend?” Kennedy asked partially because she hated Rian and she wanted to know how he was doing and partially because she wanted to get off the topic of who she was currently seeing and not seeing.
“They’re alright. She talked him into going to prom,” he said with a laugh.
“Oh my god, Rian in a tux. Take a picture for me,” she said and tilted her back so it was against the wall.
“Oh, I will. They’re going to be my blackmail pictures so that I can get him to do whatever I want,” he said then laughed maniacally and tapped his fingers together, Mr. Burns style.
“You’re such a loser,” she told him and pushed his shoulder.
Her phone started vibrating so she grabbed it out of her pocket and looked at the caller ID. Mom again. She flipped it open, “Hello?” she asked.
“Hey sweetie, I have to stay late again tonight,” she said, she didn’t even ask this time.
“Alright, well are you going to be coming home?” she asked, not really caring all that much.
“I don’t think so. Janelle offered to let me say at her place again, but I just wanted to make sure that you had everything that you needed,” she said, obviously trying to make this conversation go as fast as possible.
“Yeah, mom, I have everything, you don’t need to worry about me,” she said.
“Alright, hun, well I’ll see you later then,” she said then just hung up on her again. Kennedy wondered what was going on with her mother lately. She hadn’t seen her for two days and she was never usually that short with her, and she had never previously trusted her when she didn’t come home from work – she always had someone check up on her to make sure there wasn’t a raging kegger going on at her house, even though her mom knew she was way to responsible to ever do that.
Kennedy shut her phone then shook her head. “What was that about?” Jack asked.
“I don’t know. My mom asked me for the last two days if it would be alright if she worked until four and just spend the night at her co-workers house instead of making the drive home,” Kennedy explained.
“That is odd,” Jack said.
“Yeah, I don’t even know what my mom’s thinking. She used to just take those shifts when we were having financial difficulty, but I know we’re not in that situation because I help her do our taxes and I pay our bills. I don’t know what’s going on,” Kennedy said finally and then after a minute just shook her head, “Anyway, are you seeing anyone?” she asked.
“Just Miranda, but she doesn’t really count because she has a boyfriend,” Jack said with a shrug of his shoulders.
“Oh come on, Mr. Player, you don’t have anyone else on your radar?” she said and hit his shoulder with her arm.
“Well, I do kind of have a crush on Amy,” he said.
“Amy the cheerleader?”
“Yeah, that one. I hear she’s really good in bed,” Jack said.
“So do you just want to get laid, like Alex, or do you actually want a relationship with somebody?” she asked, getting into serious mode.
“I don’t know, both, I guess,” he said.
“You should really try being in a relationship, any girl would be lucky to be your girlfriend,” she told him, touching his forearm.
“Like you’re one to talk. Any boy would be lucky to have you as a girlfriend, but you’re not exactly the committed kind, are you?”
“We’re not talking about me right now,” she said, not wanting to bring up Alex and how confused she was over that whole thing.
“Well, you can’t really lecture me when you won’t even take your own advice, now can you?” he asked, looking her directly in the eye.
“Oh, shut up,” she said with a laugh. He just didn’t get it. Jack was the type of guy who could be in a committed relationship and get along just fine and be with a girl who truly loved him who he loved back – Kennedy couldn’t. She didn’t have the capacity to be able to love someone more than she loved herself and she definitely didn’t feel that she deserved anybody else love. It wasn’t a really plausible idea for her to be in a relationship with anybody until she got over those few simple facts.
Her phone rang again. “Hello?” she answered.
“Hey, it’s me. Can I come over?” Alex said from the other end of the line.
“I’m hanging out with Jack right now, sorry,” she told him, not really feeling all the bad. He was perfectly able to hang out with her after school, but he chose to stay and gallivant around, so she was perfectly capable of saying ‘no’ to him because she was currently preoccupied with hanging out with someone else.
“Oh, alright, well can I come over later?” he asked.
“I just kind of want to be alone tonight,” she said, even though she knew she’d break down and let him come over later.
“Is everything okay? Did I do something wrong?” he asked.
“Yes, everything’s fine, no you didn’t do anything. I’ve just had people at my house all week and I’m not used to having so much company so I kind of want to be by myself for a little while,” she explained to him.
“Then why are you hanging out with Jack?” he asked, starting to get irritated with her.
“Why are you getting jealous?” she asked.
“I’m not,” he denied.
“Then it shouldn’t matter,” she told him then hung up on him. She threw her phone, frustrated, at Jack’s bed and grunted to let her frustration out.
“Who was it?” Jack asked her after a minute.
“Oh, just this guy,” she said.
“Was it Alex?” he asked, not sounding jealous, just curious.
“What? No. Just this guy I’ve kind of been seeing,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders and grabbed her phone away from Jack’s leg.
“Anyone I know?” he asked, still not believing her that she and Alex weren’t having a thing.
“Even if it was, I wouldn’t tell you. We’ve agreed to kind of keep it a secret,” the minute she said it she realized that she should have regretted saying it, but she didn’t. It’s not like she was telling Jack who she was seeing, just letting him know that she was seeing someone secretly and hopefully he wouldn’t mention anything to Alex because she didn’t want Alex getting pissy at her for telling Jack something just between Alex and Kennedy.
“I see,” Jack nodded, and you could tell a difference in his disposition. He felt bad because she didn’t trust him enough to let him in on her little secrets, but it wasn’t just her in the equation there were other people to be considered.
“I think I should go. I have more tests to study for next week,” Kennedy said after a moment of awkward silence.
“You have the entire weekend to study, why do you want to leave early?” Jack asked her, sounding disappointed that after such a short amount of time after being at his house, she wanted to leave.
“The more you study the better. I’ll probably study through the entire weekend, too. My mom’s probably not going to be home at all, so maybe I’ll see you,” she told him when she got off his bed.
“Just give me a call – I’ll be here,” he told her with a sad smile.
“I will,” she promised then walked slowly out of his room, out of his house, and into her car. She didn’t know why she felt so paranoid. Probably because he’d come so close to finding out about her and Alex having a thing, but that was really no reason to get overly paranoid as she was doing.
She pulled away from the curb and drove in silence back to her house. She walked in and the house was completely silent. It was like a ghost house, so immaculately clean that it looked as though people hadn’t lived there for months; no dishes in the sink, no dust on the shelves, no shoes, bags, or sweaters skewered throughout the living room area – there was just nothing and she wondered how she was able to live like this. If someone had murdered her, did she really want people coming into her house and not believing that someone had actually lived there? No. You want to people to see you, your personality and taste, thrown into how your house is, but this had no personality or taste. Her couches were all black and her chairs were all white. Her entire kitchen was stainless steel; all her tables (coffee table, sofa table, kitchen table) were all black with rot-iron chairs. The rugs were white with black detailing. That just how their house was. How a bartender was able to afford that, she would never know.
She walked into her room and shut her door and just lay on her bed, shutting herself from the rest of the world, which she did incredibly well and for once was glad that it was the weekend that she would be able to spend entirely by herself.
Even though her mother hadn’t asked her, she knew that she’d be getting a call from her around midnight asking if she could spend the rest of the weekend to get more tips, and time and a half.
For once she wished that Alex was just here with her, lying right next to her with his arms around her. She’d never felt so compelled to be with somebody.