Go Around

Kennedy watched the ground as she walked down the hallway the next day at school. She hugged her books tight to her chest while her book bag bumped up against her hip and upper leg. She’d already been to four of her classes and now it was lunch time.
She really didn’t want to go and hang out with everybody because she knew that it would just be awkward, but she headed up the stairs and outside.
She spotted the group of people by Alex’s car and Alex was the first to spot her. He paused and her favorite crooked smile lighted his face as he waved her over to them. She bit her bottom lip and walked over to everybody.
She sat on the hood of Alex’s car in between Alex and Jack, while Rian was standing next to Jack and Lisa.
Alex draped his arm around Lisa’s shoulders and she grabbed his hand that hung there. She smiled up at him and kissed him on the cheek. It was a hard scene for Kennedy to watch but she knew that she had brought it on herself.
“Alex, I don’t want you to break up with Lisa,” Kennedy whispered to him right after he told her he’d be willing to break up with Lisa to be with her.
Alex’s face fell out of confusion. He had been expecting her to jump at the opportunity, but instead she told him no, she wanted him to be with Lisa. His face hardened. “I thought you just got upset at me for not intending to ever break up with Lisa, but now you’re telling me to stay with her?” Alex asked, his temper flaring.
“Alex,” she said and reached out to touch his arm, which he immediately pulled away, “it would be awkward. You breaking up with Lisa and then immediately going out with me. I am still Lisa’s friend and I don’t want her any more than I want to hurt you.”
“Why do you keep saying that you’re Lisa’s friend? You’re not her friend, Kennedy. The only reason you wanted to talk to her in the first place was because you knew that she would be able to get you back into our group… that she would be able to make us forgive you!” Alex screamed at her.
She understood why he was upset and she’d seen him upset plenty of times before, but never at her. She’d seen him yell at guys who pushed girls around and girlfriends that had cheated on him – that was one of the main reasons he’d stopped having girlfriends, because the majority of the previous ones had cheated on him at one point or another.
“That’s not why I became her friend, Alex,” she whispered to him, looking down at her uncarpeted floor. “I didn’t even intend to become her friend. We were paired on a project together and we just had a lot in common. I didn’t want to go to your stupid show, but she begged me to go because she wanted us to repair the rift that I had caused, I didn’t use her to get back to you,” she told him and sat down on her bed, staring at her hands now.
It was true wasn’t it? She didn’t use Lisa to get back at Alex and Jack, right? They had just stumbled upon a friendship and Kennedy didn’t make up things to make herself seem more appealing to Lisa. It all just kind of happened.
While Alex’s arm was draped around Lisa, Kennedy’s leg overlapped his and he reached down briefly to hold her hand. It made their relationship feel more dangerous. Like a forbidden love, except now Kennedy was more like a whore because she refused to put a stop to their relationship.
Jack bumped Kennedy as though he knew what they were doing even though she had told him that they had broken off their relationship. Kennedy’s leg moved away from Alex’s and she let go of his hand, but he reached out to grab it.
She immediately pulled it back and then decided it would be a better idea if she set her hands in her lap to have no more mishaps like that.
Alex’s smile fell from his face and Lisa leaned into him a little more and was laughing at something that Rian had said that Kennedy and Alex hadn’t been paying attention to.
“So guys,” Lisa said with an excited smile on her face, “there’s a party tonight.”
At the word party Kennedy had an instant flash back to this night she had cheated on Alex and she closed her eyes tight to try and get the image out of her head because that night, that was the night that had pretty much ruined them – their relationship, their trust, their friendship, it had all been ruined by Kennedy fucking some random, well not so random, guy.
“Where’s it at?” Jack asked. He pouted a little bit because he was usually the one informing everybody of where the party was, but apparently Lisa was just more in the know.
Lisa caught his little pout and it made her laugh a little bit, “It’s at the beach,” she told them and everybody nodded.
Apparently the beach was the cool place to have parties now because when Kennedy had leaved there the year before; the beach was definitely not the place where people would respond to their being a party.
Neither of them knew what to say so both of them just sat there on her bed, not looking at each other, but not focusing on what they actually were looking at.
“I’m sorry,” Alex said to her in a whisper like voice.
She scoffed, “For what? You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” she told him, watching her thumbs twiddle each other.
“I’m sorry for assuming that you became friends with Lisa just to become friends with Jack and I again. I guess I just didn’t really think that you actually liked her because she’s the complete opposite from you,” he told her, trying not to sound harsh, but Kennedy could hear it.
“Is that why you started dating her?” Kennedy asked because she couldn’t help herself.
Alex looked at her and cocked his head to the side, “What do you mean?” he asked, but Kennedy thought that her question was pretty straight forward and she wished she hadn’t brought it up at all.
“I mean did you start dating her because she was the complete opposite from me?” she asked, this time looking at him but now he averted her gaze.
“Truthfully, at first it was. I needed someone who wouldn’t fuck me over the way you did, but after a while I realized that she was a lot like you in a lot of ways, but those things weren’t things that mattered to me. I guess that doesn’t really make sense,” he said, looking at the ground.
She laughed, “No, the beginning part made sense but then you started rambling and we all know how bad it is when you start rambling,” she said and he rolled his eyes.
“You know what I mean, Kenne,” he told her, and moved his hand over to hers that was sitting on her lap. He stroked the top of it with his thumb and even the smallest little touch from him made her heart beat a thousand times faster.
“Yeah, I understand what you mean…” her voice trailing off because she hated admitting to herself that Lisa was an overall better person than she was, but what she hated even more was admitting that Lisa was better for Alex than she was.
“So do you guys want to go?” Lisa asked with an exuberate fun about her.
“Yeah, I think it’s time we all got drunk again,” Alex said and Jack nodded in agreeance.
“Yeah, we should totally party and get laid,” Jack yelled and pumped his fist in the air and it made Kennedy laugh. She doubted that she was going to be getting laid.
“What about you, Rian?” Lisa asked, raising one eyebrow at him.
Rian took a swig of his soda, “I will if Kara’s feeling better,” he nodded in time with his words. Kennedy hadn’t even noticed that Kara wasn’t there. Kara was Rian’s long term girlfriend of, like, two years or something. Kennedy stopped keeping track after they had sex.
“She will be,” Lisa said, knowingly, “the only reason she stayed home was because she had an oral exam today in her French class,” Lisa scoffed, knowing full well that if Kara didn’t make up the oral that her grade would drop.
“She told me she was sick!” Rian exclaimed, unable to believe that Kara had lied to him.
Lisa laughed, “She told you that because she knows what a horrible liar you are. You needed to tell her teachers that she was sick and if you knew that she wasn’t sick they would have been able to tell,” Lisa informed him with a mischievous smile.
“I am not a horrible liar,” Rian protested and everybody just looked at him in a way to say are you joking? You know that you’re the most awful liar. and Rian just mumbled something under his breath and Jack laughed because he was the only one who heard it.
“Kennedy?” Lisa asked and Kennedy tried to make as little eye contact with her as possible.
“Yeah?” she asked, grabbing a bag of grapes out of her backpack and munching on them.
“Do you want to go with us?” Lisa asked, and Kennedy swore she could hear a touch of concern threaded in her voice, but concern for what was the question.
“Um, I guess I’ll go, but I’ll take my own car,” she told them because she didn’t want to end up getting stuck in the back seat, drunk, with Lisa and end up telling her everything that had happened between her and Alex while they had still been dating.
“Kennedy?” Alex whispered in her ear as they lay down on her bed with his arm draped around her waist.
“Yes, Alex?” she asked, a smile playing across her lips.
“You know that I will always love you, right?” he asked, nuzzling into her chest. She wrapped her arm around his shoulders and kissed his forehead.
“I know that,” she answered. The Alex that she knew and the Alex that everybody else knew where two completely different people. While he was with other people he was loud, obnoxious, funny, crude, and crass, but when he was just with her he was sweet, smart, emotional, and still funny but in a different way.
All he did was nod and kiss her collar bone.
Everybody finished their lunch then Kennedy headed to her pottery class with Alex and he looked down and smiled at her as soon as Lisa had to go the other direction. “You excited to actually go to a party tonight?” Alex asked, as they walked down the hall and got closer and closer to their room.
“Yeah, I guess,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders.
“You’re not much of a partier anymore,” he joked and she punched him as hard as she could in his shoulder, but it ended up hurting her more than it hurt him.
He just laughed at her and pointed. He actually pointed.
“I just kind of got all partied out while I was in New York,” she said and she expected him to laugh, but he didn’t and she hated having to tip toe around the subject of her being in New York. She’d been there for a year and she thought that it was just about time that everybody got over it.
“Did you party a lot in New York?” he asked her after a temporary moment of silence.
She laughed, “Yeah,” she said, “somehow, I’m not even sure how, but I managed to go to a different club every night while there were lines and lines of people outside who had been waiting for hours, but I got to go in first and we were at a different club every night, drinking, partying, dancing… having sex, and somehow I managed to maintain my grades and have a 3.89 GPA,” she said and chuckled again.
She knew that she wouldn’t have been able to do half the stuff she did in New York had it not been for her connections and all of her friends. Her best friend, Audrey’s, dad was a huge music producer in New York and her mom owned a lot of clubs. Audrey was named after Audrey Hepburn because her mom went through a phase right before she’d been born since she had been on bed rest.
“Wow, well, you’ve always been really good at balancing things,” he told her as they walked into their classroom. They sat next to each other like they always did and they each started on their individual projects.
Kennedy wondered if she would ever be able to talk about New York with any of them without them all getting silent and clearing their throats in protest to the subject.
“Can I ask you a question?” Alex asked with twenty minutes left of class.
“You can, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll answer,” she responded back, trying to shape her bowl into the perfect shape.
“Why did you make the stipulation that you have to drive your own car to the party tonight?” he asked, working on a vase for his mom’s birthday.
She let out a sigh, “Because I don’t want to end up getting drunk and sitting in the back seat with Lisa and tell her everything,” she whispered the last part because the walls had ears in high school and things had a way of getting around.
He let out a knowing sigh, “But if you’re going to get drunk then you shouldn’t be driving your car anyway,” he pointed out. He just wanted an excuse to sit close to her in a confined area without anybody being suspicious.
“See, but if I know that I’m driving I won’t get drunk,” she pointed out and finished her bowl by setting it on the table to dry off.
“Alright, well, are you just going to meet us there?” he asked, stopping his own project.
She let a smile form on her lips, “Yeah, I’ll meet you there,” she told him.
“What time?” he asked a little abrupt.
She laughed, “The same time I always get to parties,” she told him and just then the bell rang and she walked out without saying so much as another word to him.
She let out a sigh as she realized that she had to go to her history class… and be alone with Lisa. She walked into her class and set her bag down on the ground by her desk and when Lisa walked in with Alex, Kennedy had to will herself to look away, but when she looked back up Alex was hugging Lisa but staring at Kennedy.
Kennedy shook her head at him, but he let one of his crooked smiles cross his face and he winked at her which made Kennedy laugh and blush before looking away from them again.
Alex pulled away from Lisa and when she went to kiss him on the lips he turned his face and kissed her on the cheek then turned away and left the room… left Lisa standing there, confused about what had just happened.
Eventually Lisa shook it off and took her seat in front of Kennedy. Kennedy slouched down as far as the desks would let her because she was trying to keep Lisa from seeing her, but Lisa turned around and stared at Kennedy. “You’re good friends with Alex, right?” she asked, leaning back against the desk to look back at her.
“Um, well, I used to be good friends with him, but I guess we’re still friends,” Kennedy answered with a shrug. What she meant to say was Well, right now we’re a little more than friends. In fact, I’m fucking your boyfriend.
“So, could you help me understand what the fuck just happened?” she asked. At first, Kennedy thought that Lisa was going to accuse Kennedy of stealing Alex away from her, but Lisa didn’t suspect a thing – she was genuinely confused about what was going through Alex’s head.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Kennedy said, trying to act dumb, which was something that never really worked well for her.
Lisa looked at her, “Didn’t you see what just happened?” she asked.
Kennedy shook her head, hoping that would stop Lisa from talking about what Kennedy had no desire to talk about.
“You sure you didn’t see anything… weird?” she asked again and again Kennedy shook her head, but she realized that Lisa had no intention of stopping the conversation, especially since the kids in their class were still working on their projects.
“Why?” Kennedy asked then slapped herself mentally.
“Because he was about to leave and I went to kiss him, but he turned his head and kissed my cheek. Then he just turned away without saying goodbye or anything. And when he was hugging me it felt wrong, it felt forced. Like he was wanting to hug somebody else,” she whispered the last part then her face shot up and looked at Kennedy. “Do you think Alex is cheating on me with somebody else?” she asked in a panicked voice.
Um, about that, he’s actually cheating on you with me because I’m a better lay. “I don’t think Alex would do that to you. He loves you way too much,” Kennedy said and stroked Lisa’s arm to comfort her.
“Are you sure? I mean, I know that you know him a lot better than I do because you’ve known him longer, but I feel like he might be seeing somebody else. I mean, before he always wanted to have sex, now it seems like he barely even wants to touch me or even look at me when I wear lingerie for him,” Lisa confided in Kennedy and this was definitely a conversation that she didn’t want to be hearing.
“Lisa, you guys have been dating for a while, maybe he just needs to recharge his batteries,” she told her, trying to sound as out-of-the-situation as she possibly could.
“You’re right, you’re right,” she said to herself over and over again, “I just need to give him time, right?” she asked and looked up to Kennedy for guidance.
“Exactly, you just need to give him time. Alex isn’t really used to being in a relationship, so maybe this is just his freak out period. Try not to be too needy or else that will just drive him away, just be cool,” Kennedy said and Lisa laughed.
“You sound like an expert on Alex,” Lisa said then turned around to face the teacher when he started talking about a homework assignment that was going to be due in a few days and that they needed to read fifty pages and answer questions.
When they got out of class, Kennedy bolted before Lisa could corner her again and started asking about how to be a better lay because Kennedy definitely didn’t want to have that conversation.
She got into her car and pulled out of the parking lot without so much as a glance at Alex when she saw him out of the corner of her eye. All she wanted to do was go home and be alone for a few hours before she went to the party and partied like she used to.
She pulled up in front of her house and her mom’s car was still gone. Kennedy rolled her eyes and got out of her car and locked the door before going into her house. She knew that it was her mom’s day off yet she still wasn’t home. Kennedy bet that her mom had found another guy at the bar and was getting involved with him the exact same way she’d gotten involved with Rob.
Great.
Another guy that Kennedy would have to deal with who was nothing but a scumbag.
Kennedy set her bag down and padded into the kitchen barefoot and started rummaging through her fridge for something to eat and then her phone started to ring. She ran over to where her bag laid and she grabbed it out of its pocket and flipped it open.
“Hello?” she asked, breathlessly.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” Alex said from the other end of the line.
Kennedy let out a little smile, “Really?” she asked as she walked back into the kitchen.
“Yeah,” he answered, “I really wanted to see you after school, but I don’t think you saw me. I was by my car,” Alex told her and she knew that he knew that she had avoided him after school.
“Sorry, I was in a hurry,” Kennedy told him.
“Kenne, I want to see you,” he told her in the more playful, childish voice that Kennedy was used to hearing.
“You’ll see me at the party,” she teased him.
“That’s not soon enough,” he told her and he sounded like he was on the verge of begging.
“I am not your beck-and-call girl, I will come to you when I please,” she told him then hung up the phone and smiled to herself. Truth be told, she actually did want him to come over right now because she wanted to see him and maybe have sex with him before the party, but she didn’t want him to think that he could have her whenever he wanted to.
Kennedy eventually decided on grabbing a few slices of cheese and the bag of wheat thins sitting in her cupboard and eating the two together while she sat on her couch and watched a documentary on the history channel about the Romanovs and how they were killed.
The entire time she tried to focus her attention on the documentary because stuff like that completely fascinated her all the time, but all she could think about was her conversation with Lisa during history. She contemplated telling Alex to go back to the way he was so that Lisa would stop suspecting anything. Or if she should just let it all play out and see how that went. If Lisa and Alex broke up, Kennedy knew that it would be her fault and she knew that everybody else would know that it was her fault, too.
Jack had already told her to not get involved with Alex, pretty much because Lisa was a better girl for him anyway, but Kennedy couldn’t help herself. She loved Alex and he loved her. That was just what it was.
And, after all, love did conquer anything and everything, right?