The Consequence of Silence

“You need some help?” Sean asks. I look down at Jasmine, who’s passed out on the floor, my hands around her ankles.

“Um, yeah,” I say tiredly. “It was getting kind of hard to drag her by myself.”

Sean easily picks her up in his arms and starts carrying her outside. I follow him but quickly realize with a sinking feeling that we walked here.

“Need a lift?”

Bryan is standing in the doorway, keys in his hand. I know it’s completely desperate to say yes, but there’s no other way I’d be able to get Jas home otherwise.

“That’d be great,” I smile. I could at least try to sound flirty to eliminate all of the desperateness.

Bryan comes over, takes Jas right from Sean’s arms and walks to his car, where he gently deposits Jas in the back seat. Then he turns to me, “You coming?”

“Oh…right, yeah,” I say, mentally slapping myself. I get into the front seat and he pulls out of the driveway. Right as we turn out of the driveway, Jas stirs and slowly her eyes blink open.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Bryan laughs.

“Morning, gorgeous face,” Jasmine slurs. I freeze, but shake it off because she’s completely drunk and doesn’t even know or mean anything she says. Bryan, however, is smiling to himself. He’s probably just making fun of her in his head. “Want to be my beautiful boyfriend?” Jas giggles.

“Jasmine, go to sleep,” I tell her, rolling my eyes at Bryan. “Sorry about her. She’s a little nuts.”

“No shit,” Bryan smirks.

We pull up a few driveways away from my house and Bryan helps me carry Jasmine onto the lawn. I ask him to watch her for a couple of minutes as I silently creep into my house and return with some makeup remover and pajamas. Then he gives my shoulder a squeeze and leaves me to dress ourselves in our pajamas and remove our makeup. I can’t even bring Jasmine inside, she’d give us away, so instead I lie down onto the grass next to her and try to fall asleep.

The next morning, I tell my parents we decided to camp outside because of the temperature indoors. They aren’t suspicious about Jasmine’s chronic headache because they know I’m a goody-goody and would never lie to them or go to a party. I’m still the same innocent little girl to my parents. And to the rest of the world.

Things only get worse on Monday. Everyone has a newfound obsession with Jas, who apparently made quite a few new friends and admirers because of the party. The party that was supposed to be my moment. My chance to become famous and mature in everyone’s eyes. But no, once again, Jasmine has stolen my spotlight.

Nobody cares that I kissed Joel; nobody knows. I don’t even think Joel knows. He’s gone back to ignoring me and treating me like Jeremy’s little sister and I’m sure it’s because he doesn’t even remember that he hit on me at the party.

I walk towards the cafeteria with Jasmine, who won’t shut up about the party.

“Aura, everyone says I slept with some guy from another school, is that true?” she squeals.

“Yup,” I say monotonously. “You also got so drunk Bryan and some other guy had to carry you to Bryan’s car and drive you home.”

“I don’t remember that!” she laughs. “But that was so sweet of him! I should thank him!”

“He’s coming over to see Jeremy today,” I brag. “You may have to wait until tomorrow after school.”

“Don’t be silly,” she replies. “I’ll keep you company while he’s there. I know you get lonely when Jeremy has friends over.”

“Oh no, I—”

“I’ll come over right after school. I’ll see you then, unfortunately I can’t eat lunch with you right now. I have to talk to Steph,” she says, referring to the senior partying legend. I assume Steph’s all ready to accept Jas into her inner circle, but not her innocent friend who didn’t get drunk or do anything with any guys. All her innocent friend did was sit in the front seat while Bryan drove Jasmine home.

So I walk into the cafeteria alone and look around for anyone I could sit with. Unfortunately, since I hadn’t made any friends during the party, I still have no one to sit with when Jasmine’s gone.

I hesitantly walk up to the table Jas and I usually sit at to eat lunch, and the girls there look at me blankly. I go for an empty chair but a girl named Brittany puts her hand on it. “That seat is saved,” she says. “They all are.” I fake a smile and turn away from the humiliating moment, but there’s nowhere else for me to sit. I try to keep my cool as I head for the library.

I step into the library and glance around, seeing no empty tables. I’m about to turn and leave the library when I notice the handsome British boy from the party. Maybe he remembers me, I think excitedly, and I change course to head for his table.

“Hey, is this chair saved?” I ask him, my hands on the chair closest to him. He turns to be and stares at me for a couple seconds before the recognition registers in his mind.

“You were at the party,” he says. God, I love his accent. “The one I spilled beer on…I didn’t know you went to our school.” Ouch.

“Well I do,” I say uncomfortably, still not sure whether it’s okay to sit down.

“Are you a junior?” he asks. I consider saying yes but that’s something that he could so obviously figure out that I don’t.

“Uh, sophomore actually,” I respond. He stares at me for a moment.

“You look familiar…do you have a sister in twelfth grade?” he asks.

“Brother, actually,” I sigh. “Jeremy Scott?”

“Oh…Jeremy’s little sister! Yeah, Jeremy’s talked about you a couple times…”

“Oh,” is all I can respond to that.

“Oh, go ahead,” he says suddenly, just remembering that I asked him about the chair. “You can take the chair, I don’t have anyone coming.”

“Take it?” I ask stupidly.

“Well, yeah…didn’t you ask for it?” he asks, sounding confused. Of course. He wasn’t even considering the possibility of me sitting with him.

“I don’t think there are any other tables, actually,” I say awkwardly. He looks down at his planner and frowns. “I was hoping-”

“You can sit here,” he says. With a sigh of relief, I drop my book bag on the floor and lower myself into the chair…just as he begins to load his books into his bag. “I still have to type up a paper. See you around.”

“See you,” I say weakly.

“Oh, and uh,” he says quietly, leaning down closer to me. “I’m sorry about the party, you know, the beer, and the hitting on you…if I had known you were Jeremy’s sister, I wouldn’t have…we don’t have to mention it to him, do we?”

“Course not, no worries,” I reply.

“Great.” He slings his bag over his shoulder and leaves the library, and just like that, my fate is sealed. Why does nothing ever work out for me? Why can’t I escape this stupid image? I’m trapped forever in a cage marked “Jeremy’s Baby Sister – Treat With Caution.”