Stay With Them Tonight

I texted Ryan, Jason and Kelly in a mass text that I was going to leave early to study exactly ninety seconds before I pulled my shoes on and walked out the door. I glanced at the Luces’ house, which seemed quiet. I gave a sigh of relief, not wanting any of them (especially Jason) to be ready and want to come with me.

I had made it to the driver’s side door of my truck when the door opened at the Luces’. I turned grudgingly and knew before I looked that it would be Jason at the door. It was, and he jogged casually to the other side of my truck.

I noticed that the wind only answered to him, and his hair ruffled on his head effortlessly. I might’ve been a little envious, seeing as I had to do a lot just to get my hair to hold a curl.

“You’re up early,” I noticed, horribly disappointed that it was him. He smirked at me.

“So are you. You’re also in a rush to get to school.” He added. I shrugged.

“Homework.” I lied easily. Of course I wouldn’t tell him that I was doing it to avoid him, that I cringed at the thought of telling him I was dating Tyler and having him not care. I wanted to avoid thinking of Jason all, much less in any way that “Tyler’s girlfriend” should be thinking of him.

Continuing to like Jason would feel like I was cheating, and knowing Jason (which I was pretty sure I did, at least a little), he would be all for hooking up with me with no regard to Tyler. Sure, it might ruin me and Tyler both, but he would come away unscathed.

You’re over-thinking this too much Allie. You don’t know that it would ever happen. It’s okay to date a guy and be friends with another. You. Don’t. Have. Feelings. For. Jason.

“Where are you?” Jason asked from inside the cab of the truck. I was still standing outside, holding onto the driver’s side door.

“Nowhere. I’m just making sure I have everything.” I said and he scoffed, stuffing his backpack by his feet.

“Likely you were just thinking about food or princess movies,” he guessed. He seemed in a good mood, and it lifted my own mood. I was happy I was dating Tyler, had been since he asked me, it was just the telling-people part I was dreading. More specifically, telling one person.

He doesn’t like you anyway, I told myself. And I don’t like him, I reaffirmed sternly.

I didn’t deny that I had been thinking a little bit about Sinbad. Technically it wasn’t really a princess movie. I turned on the radio, but it was some oldies station (somebody had been messing with my radio) and plugged my phone in instead. Secrets in Stereo started playing through the speakers, and I turned the song up.

I pulled out of the driveway, realizing I had been there forever, and Jason looked like he was starting to wonder what was wrong with me. He kept silent for about three seconds.

“Last night you left so fast-,”

“Kelly was threatening my music! It’s taken me forever to fill that bookshelf!” I defended. It was really only a four-shelf bookshelf, but I had double-stacked the CDs and now owned hundreds of CDs. My master plan was to move to Chinatown and have a CD and music shop with those Japanese comics and make money off of them. Of course, the shelves would only be stocked with about 3 CDs because I don’t want to sell any. But I didn’t need to explain this to Jason, because I already had. And he approved of the idea, and said he would call for all of the Chinese food (he said I would buy it, but I bet he would sneak his own money to the delivery dude).

“I know.” He proved my point, rolling his eyes. I grinned.

“So . . . did your bed spit you up or something? Why are you up so early?” I turned the wheel easily. We were turning off of our street, so I had five minutes to fill with talk that couldn’t get awkward. It seemed every time there was silence Jason broke it with something that made the air turn stale and my insides twist. Like at the amusement park, eating ice cream.

“Playing X-Box,” he frowned a little bit. “I left in the middle of a game.”

“Poor baby,” I cooed sarcastically. “Like you haven’t beaten all of your games. Or played all of them for hundreds of hours.”

“The clock said 1700 hours on Black Ops,” he bragged. I calculated slowly in my head.

“That’s a whole month of playing it straight!” I exclaimed finally. He smirked proudly at me, which I could see when I glanced at him, eyes wide. “I knew you were a freak . . .” I started, a disbelieving smirk slipping out. Jason was probably one of the few guys that could match me in obsessive traits. Not that a lot of guys didn’t play video games, but Jason was especially compulsive about it. There had been days when we had practically had to drag him away in the morning to get dressed for school—all he ever dressed in when playing video games were pajama pants with the multitude of debris that comes of midnight snacks and coffee splayed around him.

“Hey,” Jason said suddenly as I thought about the game room looking like a tornado had hit, chip bags open (how he could eat five different types of chips by himself all at once I had no clue) around him open cans of soda, some only half drunk. It was the only time where he wasn’t concerned with anything or anyone.

“I was going to talk to you about something,” he said.

“I can’t believe the parking lot is ever this empty.” I looked around the parking lot like it was the most interesting thing in the world, taking in the few cars that were there.

“Allie, why do you always avoid conversations with me?” Jason asked irritably.

“Conversation? I have plenty conversations with you!” I parked up front, but Jason clicked the locks shut with the automatic button on his side, looking at me obstinately. I rolled my eyes and clicked my own button so that the locks sprung open again. Before I could open the door, he pushed them shut again.

“Jason!” I yelled. He glared at me. “You’re going to break my locks!” I grabbed at the first thing I thought of.

“Allie, listen to me,” he said, almost pleading. It was the type of pleading a parent did with a child, where they’re not asking, they’re telling you to listen, but in a voice that was meant to make the kid wither.

“What do I have to listen to, huh?” I asked angrily. “Why can’t you just avoid all these talks? You want to say something serious, and I can tell because you’re never serious!” I huffed, giving up and thumping back in my seat. I played with a loose string on the cover of the steering wheel.

“Is it bad that I want to have serious talks with you, then? You just want to talk about whether chickens or turkeys are better?” He asked, his voice saturated with mockery. It was a conversation we had had recently.

I remained stoic, and his face was set in harsh lines, eyebrows pointing down and the smirk replaced with a scowl.

“Are you serious about anything, Allie? Why can’t you just talk, instead of being pig-headed?”

“Pig-headed!?” I yelled, outraged. I had been the first to break the reasonable-talk barrier, and all of a sudden Jason was raising his voice back.

“Yes, Allie, you’re acting like a two-year-old! I talk about anything with you and it’s like talking to a brick wall. And then you go running off to Tyler every time, like he’s a saint!” When he mentioned Tyler I turned a bit red, angry that he brought him into this. He was arguing with me, and I had no idea how Tyler had come up. I froze.

Did he see us last night? I wondered with a bad feeling in my stomach. The air inside the truck was tight, like it was being stretched thin with the boiling emotions between us.

“I never said he was a saint, Jason!"

“No, you just think he is, because you can’t get over whatever you had for him!” he yelled at me.

“I don’t have to get over him! I’m freaking dating him!” Jason leant back so quickly I stopped whatever I was going to yell next, surprised. Something flashed in his eyes before his anger came back, more sharply this time, and he looked so furious I couldn’t look directly in his eyes. Instead, I focused on his chin, and I could see that his teeth were on edge. I remembered then that he had anger issues, and maybe I should have been scared, but his unreasonable anger just confused me.

“Since when? I didn’t hear anything about it,” he said venomously, like I had lied.

“Since a while. It’s not any of your business.” I crossed my arms, leaning back in the seat again and staring forward. There still weren’t many cars in the lot. My anger had dissipated, leaving me replete of emotion. I felt tired, and thought again about how I hadn’t gotten too much sleep after Tyler left, because I had tossed and turned all night. I was still annoyed enough to not answer completely honestly when I said that Tyler and I had been dating “a while.”

“Not any of my business? Unless you forgot, and I don’t think you did, we kissed a few days ago. Were you dating him then?” he demanded. I stalled.

“No,” I answered eventually.

“So you date him a few days after it happens? That’s just as bad.” I didn’t speak. I knew that it felt wrong, but it’s not like Jason meant anything by it. He didn’t want anything from me except a good time. Jason didn’t do relationships. I glared out the window, not wanting Jason to see the suspicious drop of water drop down my face. Stupid hormones.

I didn’t even know why I was crying. From being upset, maybe? I was always a person who cried after confrontation. That’s why I never fought with my parents, and why I hated fighting with Kelly. I neglected the feeling of ragged edges tearing into my body, leaving behind spots that felt nothing, like they were gone.

My chest felt achingly empty already.

“You’re unbelievable,” I heard Jason say to himself. I noticed that he hadn’t used my name recently, not once. It was like he had already forgotten it. I heard the door open and slam back shut.

I turned abruptly to call him back, not really knowing why I didn’t want him to leave, and watched him walk away without looking back. The tears were falling faster now as he moved quickly away, looking like he was trying to destroy the sidewalk with his strides.

When I couldn’t watch anymore, I thumped my head on the steering wheel.

“Stupid . . .” I whispered. My voice broke halfway through on a sob.

*****

Belatedly, I discovered it was a Saturday, and that was why the parking lot was so empty. It took thirty minutes of closing my eyes and leaning my forehead on the steering wheel of my truck to realize that by then, the parking lot should have been crammed with cars and students rushing to get to class. I pulled my head up slowly, my eyes feeling like I had taken sandpaper to them.

“Stupid,” I muttered to myself. I made the mistake of looking at myself in the rearview mirror, and gaped at myself unattractively.

Most noticeable, my makeup had been smeared clear into my hairline, making dark streaks like tiger stripes radiating from two dark holes in the center of my face. I looked sad. I looked depressed, like those posters you see of smokers or suicidal people. I even had a little black mascara or something under my nose. My green eyes, usually a light color, looked dark and turbulent. My hair was a mess, a cowlick swirl of bangs pushed haphazardly back and looking like stray feathers on the very top of a bird’s head. My eyes were drawn to the big red mark running across my forehead, where I had been resting it. It was the dark pink color you get after pressing your face into a sheet for half a night, and I saw faint marks from the swirls and penguins on my steering wheel cover.

I sighed, fixing my bangs so they covered the ugly splotch of forehead. I wiped my eyes on the inside of a soft jacket I had in the truck, leaving black smears. I still looked like I had slept in an alleyway, but at least I didn’t resemble a shaved raccoon.

I drove straight to the place I always did when I was upset, not caring that it was seven thirty on a Saturday. I guess Jason hadn’t thought of it either, so he must’ve come out in a rush. I sighed again as I thought his name, automatically changing my line of thoughts.

I drove like an old lady, because I felt like one. Things had suddenly gotten too dramatic, too stressful. I wanted to curl in a ball to avoid everybody. Except Kelly. I knocked on her door, not remembering driving down our street or even pulling into her driveway and walking to the door, but I didn’t question it.

“Kell-bell,” I said as soon as she opened the door, in her Eeyore shorts and pink top. I almost started crying again, but on second thought, I was tired of crying. It had wiped me out.

“I’m dating your brother.” I said, no preamble.

“I know. I’m so happy for you guys.” She smiled at me, and I felt awful for thinking of Jason as more than a neighbor. For wanting to go after him as soon as he left. For still wanting to find him and apologize for being how I was. But a bigger part of me was relieved that I had Kelly, that I had Tyler, and I didn’t want to ruin that more than I wanted to find him. So I told myself again that I wouldn’t even talk to him, wouldn’t see him more than I had to, that he was just going to be a regular neighbor from now on.

“I just went to school.” She frowned at me, noticing for the first time that I was completely dressed.

“Why’d you do a silly thing like that?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” I was going to tell her everything about Jason, but 1. Kelly was Tyler’s sister, and first and foremost I didn’t want to end things before they even started, and 2. I didn’t know for sure what had happened, except that it had been bad and Jason and I now hated each other.

“Uh,” she said, obviously waiting for me to say something else. I didn’t know what to say, and stared at her blankly. “Okayyyyyy, is there anything else you want to tell me?” she asked, wiping sleep from her eyes. I shook my head no. She shrugged.

“You look like hell warmed over. Come in and sleep or something. Watch TV if you want. My legs are freezing.” She pulled me inside and shut the door, shivering. She walked up the stairs, and I walked up with her. I pulled the extra bed out from under hers (I had one too) and laid down on it.

“Love ya, Kell-bell.” I mumbled, remembering to pull off my jeans before climbing in under the covers.

“Love ya back, Al-cow.” I giggled, a bit crazily. I really needed sleep, but really? That was the best she came up with? I kept the grin on my face, because they say that if you smile, you feel happier, and it was working.

I was Tyler’s girlfriend. Kelly’s best friend. That girl who really liked movies. I counted the ways to define myself like sheep, and fell asleep quickly, with one last disturbing thought.