You're My Backbone

Unfortunately, whatever 'it' was, it stopped.

Despite everything that was said, and his lips on mine, all of it was never repeated and done again. It was like the second we got into school, the past two days hadn't happened at all. Nothing went on; and nothing will go on.

It was Thursday; almost two whole days since I spent the night at Garrett's and we he basically confessed his feelings towards me.

Other than that, which mainly consumed my thoughts, I had been avoiding Darry. I didn't go to lunch yesterday and I really wasn't intending on doing so today, even though I found myself walking towards the cafeteria. I knew I'd have to face her sometime, but in all reality, I really didn't want to.

Luck hadn't been a friend of mine since Wednesday morning, and right now, it still wasn't. The second I stepped through those cafeteria doors, I was approached by Darry, looking, well, extremely pissed off.

"Uh," I bit my lip, staring into the eyes of someone I really didn't want to talk to.

She grabbed my wrist and pulled me out of the lunch room. "Darry!" I objected, attempting to pry my wrist out of her grasp. Once again, I was misfortunate and did not get the chance to do so.

She pushed me into the girls locker room and then shoved me towards the wall farthest from the door. She rolled her eyes and folded her arms over her chest. "What the fuck?" She spat.

I flinched slightly and my jaw became slightly ajar. I swallowed hard and sucked in a deep breath. As I did so, I planned the words I was to say. Once again, I ran out of luck, and could not come up with anything. Not. One. Single. Damn. Word.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Darry snapped, clearly sensing that I had nothing to say.

Something in her tone, in the way that she said her words, made anger boil inside of me. I marched right up to her, in her face and completely lost it. "Don't act like you're the innocent one here, Darry. You're the one who cheated on Jared- who is just as a close friend to me as you are! And you know that."

I shook my head and groaned. "Don't make me feel bad about something I didn't do and had no control over. You did this to yourself and it just freaking baffles me that you thought that you wouldn't lose all of your friends. You expected to have one of us and you must have assumed that was me,"

I began to walk to the exit of the bathroom. Before pushing open the door, I turned back to Darry. "You guessed wrong. You did something that didn't just betray Jared, you betrayed all of us. All of your friends. Including me."

I practically ran down the hall, letting out heavy breaths as I did so.

Darry reminded me of the girls that used me when I was younger. The ones that hurt me and caused not only me pain, but my brother. The ones that put a strain on my family's relationship, that caused it to crumbled right beneath my feet. The ones that caused my father to walk out and mess around with not only his co-workers but our very own next-door neighbor.

I can't blame those girls for my dysfunctional family, but I can blame them for the start of it. They were the trigger of the gun. Once pulled back, hitting each member in some form or way of another.

Fighting back against Darry had given me some closer, I guess. Standing up for myself in front of her, was like standing up for myself in front of those girls, which unfortunately, was something I didn't do.

I ate lunch in the library, reading a book from home. The rest of the period went by rather fast, which I was grateful for. I went to History and sat down at my seat across from John's. I quickly filled him in on everything that had happened the previous period before class started.

For the rest of class, I dreaded going to Study Hall, which was the next period. Yesterday, I went to the library only to discover Garrett was there.

Actually, the entire day yesterday, Garrett didn't say one word to me. It pissed me off, it really did. I wanted to say something, but I feared that maybe what Garrett said wasn't what he actually felt. Maybe he was just caught up in the moment and kissed me a couple of times. Maybe it didn't mean anything to him. I didn't want to bring it up if that was the case.

Despite this, I once again went to the library to discover that he wasn't here, again. Something sank inside of me. Today just wasn't a good day.

I plopped down at the wooden table and pulled out my math homework. I decided to get a jump start on it. I sat alone in the library for a good fifteen minutes without being interrupted. That is, until I looked up to find Halvo, Kennedy, and Pat walking into the library.

I raised an eyebrow at them when they sat down next to me. "Don't you guys have class?" I asked.

"We have an elective class this period. But our teacher wants us to go around the school and hang up fliers. She said we were to disruptive towards the class." Halvo replied.

"And we finished hanging up the fliers." Pat added.

"Ah, I see." I nodded my head.

"So, where's Garrett? Doesn't he have this period with you?" Kennedy asked.

"Yeah, but he didn't show up today or yesterday."

Kennedy, Halvo, and Pat all looked at each other. "Oh." Pat said.

"What?" I asked, furrowing my brow.

"Nothing." Halvo shook his head.

"Yes, there is something." I leaned forward. I knew when these three were up to something.

"Could Garrett not showing up have something to do with you two-"

Kennedy was cut off by both Pat and Halvo holding a finger to their lips. "SHHHH!"

"She's not suppose to know that we know!" Pat's hissed from across the table.

Halvo sighed heavily and shook his head. And plopped his hands down on the table and gave Pat a look. "Well, now she knows. Nice one, Pat."

I put away my math homework and stuffed in into my backpack. "How do you guys know?"

Kennedy scratched the back of his head. "Uh, well, we sorta guessed."

"Guessed?" I asked, eyes widening.

"Yeah, well, Garrett came into school yesterday all happy and shit and so we just started guessing things about why he was so happy. I said that you and him kissed and then he wouldn't reply. So we figured it out." Halvo nodded his head.

"Oh," I nodded my head, understanding. At that moment I thought of something and I popped my head up right away. "You cannot tell John!"

"Pssh, June, you don't think we know that?" Pat laughed.

I let out a sigh of relief and relaxed. "Garrett's been avoiding me." I bit the inside of my cheek.

Pat, Kennedy, and Halvo all looked at each other once again. "Then why was he so happy before?" Pat asked.

I shrugged. "I don't know. But it's pissing me off. He told me all this shit about how he's liked me since the first time he saw me........" I trailed off and sighed. It all sounded so cliche and corny now. "About how much he likes me and how he doesn't want 'us', whatever the fuck that it stop. Now that I think about it... he never even referred to us as being a couple of anything."

I laid my head on the table and shook it. "What if all of it was meaningless? What if I was just some girl-toy to him?"

Suddenly, I felt Pat's hand lightly and gently place it on mine. I raised my head and looked at him.

"I may not know what happened between the two of you, but trust me, you are not meaningless, especially to Garrett."