I Just Wanna Know What Your Best Friend Knows

Monday had never come by so fast; already, the three-day weekend had ended and they were going back to school. Why they had “Professional Development Day” the students never knew, but they didn’t bother to question it either. It was one less day to be stuck in several classrooms for longer than most figured necessary and being assigned a load of homework a majority of them would rather not do. In their opinion, they would much rather hang out with their friends rather than do schoolwork. Who wouldn’t?

5am rolled by and soon the nearly unbearable sound of an alarm clock blared, the excessive buzzing and beeping coming from the undesirable object soon waking up the girl with a groan. She contemplated smacking her hand down on the dark and slightly large button that indicated the ‘snooze’ setting, though eventually, she decided against it and pried herself off of her bed once more, like she did almost every weekday, though she wanted nothing more than to obliterate the blasted object. She hauled herself to her dresser, pulling out the necessities she needed to wear under her regular clothing before shuffling to her bathroom.

Fifteen minutes surpassed and the brunette was half-clothed, wearing only a bright orange bathrobe and neon green slippers; an unlikely, and frankly, a rather unfashionable ensemble covering her body. This was precisely the reason she paired them together. She liked making a bold fashion statement in her own home, even if no one was going to see her making it. It was just a way for the light eyed beauty to have a little bit of fun.

Another fifteen minutes slipped by and the hazel-eyed brunette had her hair straightened, then curled and light make-up applied. She soon stood in front of her closet, picking out a vintage red and black checkered blouse with a black high-waist belt, her lucky pair of pure black skinny jeans, and bright brilliant crimson colored ballet flats. Casual and cute, plus mixing up a few styles was her opinion on it. She would’ve worn her favorite pair of Converse, though she had loaned them to her best friend on Friday, and had yet to receive them.

“Kathleen! Get down here!”

The girl who went by the name of Kathleen groaned, glaring at the mirror in front of her as she heard her older sister, Catharina, or Catie, as she preferred, shouting at her to go down to the kitchen. Kathleen, or Kat, as she liked to go by most of the time, favored a morning where despite the fact that she woke up nearly half an hour earlier than she had to, she’d rather not have her sister’s voice ringing in her ears. She was always arrived a tad too early to school, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Ever since the last bit of last year—junior year, in fact—she’d made it a goal that while she was having a fresh start, she might as well have a fresh start on her punctuality. As her luck and determination have it, she never failed to make it on time afterwards, a feat she was more than proud of. Since she had to be uprooted from her home in Joliet, Illinois, to this still practically foreign place people called Baltimore, Maryland, she figured she had better make the best out of the situation she had found hopeless.

Unfortunately, it had taken a while for her to even consider it, for she had moved in that house being dead-set on making her life one of the most miserable ones anyone would ever encountered. Luckily, she had gotten over that foolish idea and let herself befriend and get along with the others around her, rather than let herself be shunned. The thought of living an existence as lonely as the one she pictured was too much for her to bear, hence the reason she convinced herself against it.

“Shut the hell up, I’m almost done! God, don’t you have some course to take right about now?”

Kathleen knew her words were unkind, but in her defense, that was exactly what she was like in the morning before breakfast. It was certainly nothing out of the ordinary. She hitched her bag over her shoulder and made her way downstairs, plopping into her swivel chair giddily at the kitchen island. She preferred eating her breakfast on the sleek marble that rested on the island, rather than the Formica table in the dining room. Plus, who needed to use a neat and highly-structured sophisticated dining room for ten minutes when they had a simple island? Nobody, that’s who, in her opinion.

At her seat rested a medium-sized plate of fluffy pancakes, whose delectable scent wafted in the air and made her mouth water with hunger, one half of a homemade blueberry chocolate chip muffin she’d made the night before, and a steaming hot cup of French Vanilla flavored coffee. She needed her daily dose of caffeine in the morning or she would go insane in her first few classes, and then fall asleep in the rest of them. Needless to say, it was an important part of her morning ritual.

Kathleen’s face lit up with a bright smile as she picked up her fork, glancing over across the island at her sister, who had just sat down and was about to open up a thick textbook, no doubt trying to get in some extra studying for that huge test she was having at the end of the week. Even while knowing this, she proceeded to interrupt her sister; she had three more days and a morning to study for this test. Kat didn’t have all day to talk with her sister.

“Mmmm. Breakfast is good, Cate,” she commented, her words slightly muffled because of the gooey maple-syrup covered pancake square Kat had just cut and popped in her mouth. Catie smiled when she heard one of her nicknames leaving her sister’s full mouth.

“Thanks Kath, I appreciate it.”

Before an awkward silence could linger any longer in the room, Kathleen quickly proceeded to add something more to the conversation.

“So Cathie, how’s class been? I mean, is college any rougher yet? And are you failing any classes?”

Catie rolled her eyes at her sister; she always had to find some way to turn a perfectly normal subject into one that had some sort of possibly depressing or pessimistic answer. She found that ironic, since her sister tended to be optimistic a lot of the time, especially when she was downing her coffee. Despite this, she gave a shrug as her blue eyes reverted to her younger sister’s direction.

“Class is class. I think pursuing a career in photography was a good idea, and that having a minor in business was exactly what I was meant to do. And no, I’m not failing any classes. Mom would be pissed about that anyways, because I got a partial scholarship, and I took out a loan, plus she gave me a huge starter amount of money. If I lost it, I’d be completely dead. Not to mention that she wasn’t even all that thrilled that I chose photography, but she managed to support me anyways.”

This time, Kathleen found it was her turn to roll her eyes. Catharina always made things sound so difficult in her life, when honestly, it wasn’t. Half the time, the girl was out partying with her friends, then sneaking back home to study for a little bit, and then taking a Tylenol PM for the headache she was bound to have in the morning from being up too late and in addition, they would help knock her out faster. Of course, their mom didn’t know that at all. To her, Catie was innocent and hard working.

Kat nodded, mumbling an “I’m glad you found what you wanted to do, ‘cause as of right now, I’m pretty much screwed,” before shoveling down the rest of the pancakes, ignoring the puzzled expression her sister had while simultaneously pulling off a disgusted face at her younger sister’s eating. She preferred to compare it to that of a chimpanzee, only part of her was sure that a primate could eat better than Kathleen could.

“You’ll figure it out, I promise,” encouraged the elder sister, patting Kathleen’s back in a supportive manner. Kat looked up at her and bit her lip, swallowing down the rest of her food with the tiny remainders of the coffee in her mug.

“Uh huh, whatever you say,” she replied sarcastically. “But thanks for breakfast, I’ll have to make you some myself sometime. And don’t worry, I won’t be late. In fact, I’ll leave right now. I’m hoping Belle got up early because before we used to carpool, she used to wake up and have about forty-five minutes to prepare, which is shocking considering the amount of time she puts into her look. Ah well.”

Catie nodded absently, her attention back on the textbook that laid before her, open at the crisp, clean page of three hundred sixty-two. The Binomial Theorem, it read. She bit her lip to stifle a groan of annoyance as she watched her cheery little sister vanished from view behind the front door. She could hear the car being started up and the engine’s groan growing quieter and quieter as the car left the house.

In minutes, Kat arrived at her blonde best friend’s house, lightly huffing when she noticed that she still wasn’t ready, otherwise, she would’ve been outside sitting on the porch step with an irritated expression on her face and her limbs bouncing up and down while she sat on the concrete, glaring daggers at Kathleen, before subsequently expressing her annoyance by storming over to the car and demanding why her best friend was tardy.

Five minutes flew by in what seemed like seconds. Kathleen had one of the many CD’s from her car she stashed in one of the compartments popped in, the music loud enough for her to sing at an obnoxious volume without any neighbors complaining. Eventually, when those minutes were up, the blonde with the hazel eyes appeared from her doorway, dashing over to the car waiting in her driveway.

“Belle? What took you so long?”

Kat’s best friend smiled somewhat apologetically in Kathleen’s direction as she shut the car door and put her seatbelt on. Kathleen pulled out of the driveway, back onto the street as Belle plopped both of their bags on her lap. That was normally the deal; the person who was driving would come pick the other up, and the one sitting in the passenger’s seat would keep the bags on their lap. It was a system, one that for the most part, worked effortlessly. Though whenever Belle was driving, Kat had to rush them both to make sure they got there on time.

“Sorry. My mom went in my room yesterday to look for something or whatever so she accidentally shut off my alarm clock, so when she woke up, she figured out that I was late and screamed for me to get up while I was sleeping and made me breakfast.” Kathleen nodded her head, peering over at her friend from the corner of her eye before refocusing the majority of her attention on the road.

“Huh. Sounds kinda like my morning. For the record, I think you don’t eat enough anyways. Are you sure you ate breakfast? Because to me, you’re looking a tad underweight.” Kathleen knew this was a topic that when brought up with her friend, would do absolutely nothing other than to ensue the same exact answer each time. Though it seemed like Belle ate sufficiently, her frame—which looked on its way to becoming a skeletal one at that—showed otherwise. Sometimes, it really did worry Kathleen.

“You know I eat a lot and that this is just my body type. Come on, we learned this stuff in middle school health class, and trust me, it bored me so much, I’m surprised I even remember it, meaning I’m not gonna repeat it. But all I’m sayin’ is that I eat enough and that just because I look that way doesn’t mean I’m starving myself or anything. I’m not an anorexic and a bulimic; you would know if I was. So please, just trust me, okay?”

Kathleen sighed heavily before turning her head slightly, so that her line of vision was no longer completely on the road, but rather, Belle, her best friend, whose expression looked terribly sincere. Even though she was worried about her friend, she knew that she wouldn’t lie to her about something so serious as her health. And so, she chose to drop it and instead, her hand reached for the radio, where she turned the volume up a little.

“Ugh. Could you turn this off please? You know I don’t like this kind of music. Not anymore,” Belle whined, remarkably close to Kathleen’s ear to prove her point. Even though she would describe herself as being only a smidgen annoyed, that didn’t change anything at all whatsoever, which is why Kat’s response was merely to shrug and gesture to the radio before them. “Or I can change it since you’re driving,” she suggested, the corners of her lips curling upwards slightly.

“Be my guest.”

Belle grinned appreciatively and turned on the radio to her new favorite station, the one she happened to like ever since she’d gotten out of her previous and longest-lasting relationship the year prior. As luck have it, Kathleen’s favorite music happened to be astonishingly similar to that of her ex-boyfriend, and also, the number one guy on both of their hate lists, courtesy of events that would be better off not being retold.

Kathleen held in a groan as she heard what was on the radio. Nowadays, half of the music wasn’t even as decent as the stuff that she preferred. In fact, half the time, she never quite understood why people listened to that music that she found undeniably unappealing. She figured she wouldn’t ever truly understand, so she hardly bothered on attempting to. Another thing that she couldn’t believe was that her and her best friend didn’t have similar music tastes. She never thought she would befriend somebody that didn’t have one of the most important things in her life in common with her.

Kathleen was quite simply a huge music fan. For the most part, she was open to listening to new things, though a lot of the time, the genres that she was told to listen to were never quite her style. Nowadays, the music that the contemporary radio stations played on their airwaves was just downright terrible, which was why she preferred something a little less contemporary and something with a little more history to it. She wouldn’t know how to explain it other than to say “I like good music,” despite the vague details it withheld.

With about seven and a half minutes to spare, the pair arrived in the parking lot, and with about six minutes left, they were out of the car and chatting about the latest gossip that they’d each picked up amongst themselves, before ultimately separating from each other to go to their lockers. Belle never quite liked the arrangement; she never liked to be alone anywhere when there were people watching, whether it be going to the bathroom sometime when she was done with her lunch, to going to class, to going to her locker. Regardless, she put up with it.

When they separated, Kathleen found her way to her locker and spun the dial, stealing a glance away from her locker and instead, down the hallway. Among the students, she noticed a particular boy sauntering down the hallways. She noticed the pale boy, whose mop of brown hair looked stylishly disheveled, and that his eyes were a rich, dark brown that could make any girl melt to the ground. His tall and partially lankly build was definitely something he could pull off, and on his face rest a smirk of confidence as he nonchalantly strode down the hallways. He was, without a doubt, devastatingly handsome.

His eyes caught hers for a moment, and his signature heart-melting smirk flashed on his features, before sending a wink in her direction that would cause any girl to swoon at his feet. She turned her head away and towards the inside of her locker, biting her lip a little. She could taste the faint, though ever-present, flavor of her favorite pink bubblegum lip gloss as she slipped her things into the locker, pulling out only what she needed and slammed the locker door shut, turning back towards the direction where the familiar boy was walking from earlier, only to find him right in front of her.

Kathleen jumped slightly, her left hand flying to her chest while her right arm tightly gripped the textbook and other materials in her hands as the boy in front of her chuckled slightly at the sight. Her gaze hardened into a glare, though she let out a sigh of relief. “Lord, find some sort of warning signal to use the next time this douche appears in front of me uninvited,” she exclaimed, watching as his expression stayed the exact same, with the exception of his smirk growing wider, which could only mean one thing; wide smirk, huge ego alert.

“You don’t really mean that, do you?” he asked, knowing this was one of the easiest way to push her buttons.

Kathleen sighed, giving him a look that showed that she, in fact, was not pleased. Not for a single second, though she ignored his comment, taking it as a rhetorical question instead.

“What do you want, Gaskarth?”

His smirk didn’t fade as he heard her refer to him by his last name, in fact, he looked quite pleased that he even got a single part of his name uttered by her.

“Now, why would you think I need something from you? Can’t friends visit other friends’ lockers?”

Kathleen let a bitter laugh escape from her lips, rolling her eyes in his direction. He might be one of the most attractive males she’d ever encountered and had the privilege to lay her eyes on, but that didn’t make up for his behavior or his personality. He may have been sexy, but he was also an arrogant jerk that loved to flirt with anything young and in a miniskirt. Kat wasn’t about to begin fawning over him, not now, not ever.

“Because you’ve never willingly approached me before. And yes, friends can visit other friends, but you’re not, nor will you ever be a friend of mine. So get the hell away from me before I rip your dick off and slap some sense into you with it,” she threatened lowly, her expression not showing any sign of this being just a joke.

He didn’t even seem fazed by the reaction he got from her. Somehow, he expected her response to have something related to hostile behavior. “Awh, you wouldn’t want to do that to me, would you?” he asked innocently, causing her to roll her eyes again at him, which brought a question to his mind. Does this girl always roll her eyes or is it just me? No matter, he noticed her grip tightening around her books.

“Don’t make me do something you’re going to regret setting yourself up for, Gaskarth. I’m suggesting as a ‘friend’ to get the hell away right this instant or else,” she replied in a smartass tone, her fingers curled in quotations when she said the word ‘friend’. She was not nor would she ever be a friend to that asshole of a jerk. Her thoughts only continued to become more aggressive as he stepped closer, causing her to lean into her locker accidentally, which only left her in the position she was in, since now he was directly in front of her, the smirk never leaving his face.

“Hmm, feisty,” he mused to himself under his breath, “A friend, huh? What if I want to be more than that?” he replied, his lips edging closer to her own.

“Alex,” she started warningly, giving him a “cut that out or else” look. He had never showed any interest in her before, so what was up with all of this? She certainly hadn’t changed over that three day weekend; that much was for sure. That weekend wasn’t her greatest, but she was determined to make the rest of them memorable in some way. One weekend wasn’t going to blow her whole year, and neither was this encounter.

“What’s wrong? I don’t see a problem here.”

He continued to slink closer to her body, nearly pressed against her, with only a few inches too little of air and Kat’s books in between them. Meanwhile, his lips were closer to her own.

“A-Alex,” she repeated, attempting to use the same warning tone she'd used mere seconds before, only this time, she stuttered and ultimately, it failed to have the same effect as it did the first time. He was starting to realize that she was on the verge of giving into him. At that point before, he had almost been ready to give up and try again later, though her sudden change in control of something as simple as her voice had him reconsidering this idea in mere seconds.

“Come on, Kat. Do something different for once,” he replied, his voice hushed as there was no reason to be as loud as he had been previously. She was reconsidering, her hormones taking control. Her mind and heart were telling her one thing, her body was telling her something entirely different, and she just didn’t know which one was right. As he grew closer, she found herself unable to process what was happening, only what she was beginning to think she wanted.

She wanted this.

She wanted this right now.

A second later, Alex was almost at the other side of the hallway, and Kathleen was attempting to catch her breath. Her brain had restarted what had previously been shut down and she regained control over her body and senses, eventually causing the final result of her pushing him away from where she was. He had shock written all over his face, along with “What the hell?” scribbled clearly on his forehead. Before he could question her, however, she was fleeing from the hallways and to her first class, but not before sending him a wink and mouthing “Next time, remember who you’re trying to mess with.”

Kathleen was thankful that her first class included Belle, and didn’t include Alex. Not only would that be awkward, but she was fuming in her own anger, nearly at her boiling point. No one took advantage of her like that! She wasn’t going to let someone, much less a womanizing man-whore like him, get under her skin and in her head. She wasn’t about to let him leave her baffled and utterly confused. No, she had simply lost her mind when he tried to put a move on her because she hadn’t even expected it. Only one thought could process itself in her mind as she entered the classroom and took her seat.

My life is officially fucked up.