Drop Dead Bitches

Chapter 13: The Foreigner
It’s a new year, bitches! You know what that means, right? New resolutions no one will stick to, a fresh slate that will be covered in filth by next month, and for me, a new mission. Derek De Luca, you better watch out. XXX -E.

Derek laid on his bed, eyes closed as he listened to his music but not even music could drown out his unwanted thoughts and flashbacks.

“Dad, please!” he cried. “You don’t have to do this, we’ll find another way!”
“There is no other way, Derek!” he boomed.
“Don, listen to him!” his mother yelled, tears streaming down her face.
“No!” Derek bellowed.

He bolted upright after he had been shaken to wake up.
“Szia! Hello, Derek!”
He stared at the girl with curly brown hair and chocolate brown eyes. The girl looked so familiar but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Where has he seen her before? She slowly smiled at his confusion and he instantly knew who she was. “Isabella?”
She giggled.
“Oh my goodness, what’re you doing here?!” he asked, getting out of bed to give her a tight embrace.
She giggled. “Hungary got boring.”
“Is it just you?!” he asked.
“Just me!”
His mom and dad arrived at my door. “I hope you don’t mind showing your cousin around town,” dad said.

“How was your break?” Colin asked as he and Alexis took a stroll around town.
“Despite all that happened at my Christmas party last year, it was wonderful. I may not have experienced snow and such like you did in Virginia but my artificial snow was enough.”
He chuckled. “So you aren’t bothered at all by-”
“Of course not,” she said quickly, stepping in front of him to look Colin in the eye. “Theresa Santos and Derek De Luca are dead to me. I hope I never have to see their faces around here ever again and with the gossip still at it’s pinnacle, I doubt I will. For all I care, Theresa can by living it up in Croatia while Derek is hiding under his bed, scared to even come out and face the public eye.
“Or not,” Colin mumbled, his eyes looking past her.
“What?” she asked, turning around and gasped.
Walking the opposite direction and their backs turned to Colin and Alexis was Derek and what seemed to be Theresa.
“It can’t be,” she breathed, looking the girl up and down. The hair, the body, it had to be Theresa!
“Alexis, where’re you going?!” Colin called. “Alexis!”
“You two!” Alexis yelled. “Derek! There-” Alexis froze in embarrassment when she realized that the girl wasn’t Theresa at all.
“Alexis?” Derek said, confused. “What’re you doing?”
“Oh… I just thought that…. Bye!” she said, turning around and rushing back to Colin who stifled a laugh.
“Don’t say a word,” she said between her teeth.

Caitlyn exploded in laughter, unable to breathe.
“Shut up!” Alexis demanded. “It was an innocent mistake!”
“True, but you can’t deny the humor in it! Does little Alexis miss Theresa?” she asked as if Alexis was a baby.
“No, what I miss is the scheming!”
“At least you have the satisfaction of her being gone.”
“Too bad our plan didn’t come through when someone else exchanged our pictures!”
“Yeah… who do you think did that?”
“Does it matter?” Alexis laughed. “Whoever did it helped us so thanks to them.”
“Where do you think she is?”
“Definitely not in the Harbor, that’s for sure!”
Caitlyn laughed, “because you would know.”
“Who is that girl Derek was with anyways?” Alexis asked herself.
“A new girl?” Caitlyn scoffed. “No surprise there.”

“Wow. I missed a lot, didn’t I?” Ryan asked, not bothering to look away from his video game.
“Don’t act like you weren’t living it up over break,” Colin laughed.
“…what do you mean by that?” he asked, finally looking away from his game to look at Colin who was lounged in a chair with a drink in his hand.
“In Florida…?”
“Oh,” Ryan laughed nervously. “Living it up with my family is what you meant.”
“Yeah…. What did you think I meant?”
“Two player?” He quickly changed the subject and tossed a controller to Colin.

“America is such a… wonderful place!” Isabella sang as she danced back into the house with a burger in her hand.
Derek chuckled. Isabella reminded him of Belle from The Beauty and the Beast. The way she sang and danced and was always cheerful. Obviously, nothing has changed since childhood.
He remembered the first day they met when his family came to Hungary to visit his mothers side of the family. That visit didn’t last very long after their grandfather shut the door in their faces but that didn’t stop little Isabella from finding a way out of the house to meet her long lost family from America.

“Hey, wait!” a little girl with a high-pitched voice yelled from behind them. She wore a frilly white and yellow dress that blew in the wind as she ran to the De Luca’s and meet the family she’s heard so much about from her mother.
Derek turned his head around, him being the only one who heard the shouts of Isabella. “Momma, who’s that?” he asked, tugging at her hand.
His parents turned around and Isabella came to a stop in front of them. “Szia!” she chirped.
Mrs. De Luca smiled down at the little girl. “meg kell Isabella, igaz?”
She nodded her head, her curls bouncing up and down. “Isabella Marie Giordano, kor hét! I am seven!”
“What are you doing out here Isabella?” Mr. De Luca asked. “Your mother will be and father will be looking for you.”
“Momma and Poppa are in town. I’m here with Granddad! We’re playing bújócska! Hide-and-seek,” she giggled.
“I love that game! Can I play?” Derek asked. “Momma, can I?”
“That wouldn’t be such a good idea, darling” Mrs. De Luca said.
Derek sighed and smiled at Isabella. “Sorry. Maybe some other day?”

After all that time, Derek was just happy to see his cousin. It was nice knowing that at least one relation wanted something to do with the De Luca’s after all they’ve done but there was just some things that were better left unsaid.

Alexis walked back and forth across her bedroom that night, not sure why she was getting so caught up in wondering who the girl with Derek was. Has he moved on so fast? Oddly, she felt surprised. She thought that hoping from girl to girl was behind him, a person of his past but realizing that in a four month period, he has had a thing with four girls now including herself, Theresa, a brief fling with Caitlyn, and now who ever that girl was.
She suddenly stopped pacing and realized how stupid she felt. She was Alexis Wilson, she didn’t have to sorry about stuff like this! Whatever she wanted, she got and right now she wanted an answer. She went downstairs and took a key off the hanger without caring which one she felt like driving.
She stopped outside the De Luca household and right before she walked up the front porch, she froze. Where had all her confidence went off to? She felt a sickening twist in her stomach by just the thought of seeing Derek and acting like the jealous girl that once-or still does. Maybe-have a crush on him. She had to leave before someone sees her but right when she turned around she spotted Derek’s car coming. Panicking, she ran to the side of the house and hid in the shadows, peaking around to see Derek get out of the car with the girl.
Derek then stopped in his place and grinned. “Alexis, I know you’re there,” he called out.
Alexis flinched, wanting so badly to blend into the night.
“I saw your car,” he called out again and laughed.
She let out her held in breath in a sigh, straightened herself up and pushed back her hair as walked out of the shadow confidently with her head held up high to keep her dignity and pride.
“What were you doing back there?” he laughed.
“That’s none of your business,” she said smugly as she walked by him without glancing over.
Before she got a chance to open her car door to make a dramatic exit, Derek got in front of her, his face only inches from hers. He looked into her eyes as if searching for something but her eyes were cold, incapable of showing anymore emotion towards him.
Alexis finally got tired of this staring game. She just wanted to get home and crawl into bed but she refused to let it show so instead she said, “your girlfriend is probably concerned to why you’re getting so close to me.”
A smile slowly appeared across his face and he stifled a laugh .
She shrugged her shoulders. “That’s probably what you want anyways. Sweet talk every girl, bring up their hopes, make them feel special only to leave them for someone else and forget about the girls who’re still clinging to you, hoping that someday you’d choose them but… you won’t. Get out of my way, Derek. I want to go home,” she said, pushing him aside and got into her car.
Once he finally added up what she just said and the way she’s been acting, he knocked on her window.
“You suck!” she yelled from inside the car.
“What?!” he yelled back, unable to hear her muffled voice.
She sighed, rolling down the window. “You. Suck,” she said slowly.
“Alexis, you’re misunderstanding the situation!”
“Oh, really? Enlighten me because I would love to know,” she said with thick enthusiasm in her voice yet she didn’t stomp on the gas like she intended to.
“That girl is my cousin from Hungary and right now she probably just wants to go back inside the house where she’s going to stay since she’s a part of a foreign exchange program! What has gotten into you, Alexis?!”
“Oh…. Okay, well I should probably go then.”
“Not before you tell me why you’ve been acting so strange lately!”
“Bye!” she rolled up her window and started her car.
Derek quickly ran in front of the car to prevent her from driving forward. Too bad he forget cars could go in reverse. She backed away from him and headed home, leaving Derek frustrated.
“Derek, there seems to be a letter for you,” Isabella called from the porch.
“Who’s it from?” he asked, walking towards her.
“Theresa… Santos?”
Derek’s heart skipped a beat by the sound of the name that he hasn’t heard for quite a while. “Let me see.” He tore open the letter and unfolded it. As he read the letter a wave of relief rolled through him, glad that his parents weren’t the ones to find the letter before him since they were still unaware of the latest Harbor gossip. He just wished it would stay that way but he knew very well that someday they would discover that in five months, they would soon become grandparents to a little girl. His little girl.

I watched as Derek folded up the letter and shoved it into his coat pocket. He looked over at his cousin and she flashed a sweet smile. I pulled up my collar, hiding my face so neither of them could see me but I knew I caught her eye.
Derek opened the door and walked in followed by Isabella but before she stepped through, she turned her head taking a second glance at me then walked in, shutting the door and bolting it. I watched as she pulled the curtains over the windows and flipped the lights off.
I smiled grimly in satisfaction as I walked down the street. What do I have to say now, you might ask? Absolutely nothing. You’re just going to have to wait and see, bitches.