In All This Chaos

After Jared and Kendele left I went back in to the ballroom to supervise the workers as they were setting up. There’s just about a week left until the actual gala itself and so far we’re just starting to get the decorations down, and tomorrow we have to get the menu set in stone.

I sat at one of the undecorated tables and watched as one of the guys hung fixtures from the lights and chandeliers; the other was coming over to me, holding the roll of streamers that Kendele so rudely chucked.

“Um, excuse me,” he said coming over to me, making me turn to look up at him.

“Yeah?” I replied as I looked up at him. Opposed to the other maintenance guy, he was younger. Much, much younger – right around my age, actually. And saying he wasn’t attractive would be such a total lie. He was clad in his one piece, navy blue jumper which was obviously his uniform. When I looked up at him, our eyes met. My blues ones with his big, bright hazel eyes.

“I found this on the floor, were you planning to use it for something?” he asked, holding up the roll of streamers and forcing me out of my trance.

“Uh, yeah,” I replied probably sounding very unintelligent. “They’re supposed to go all around on the walls,” I added, making a circle in the air as a gesture to all of the ballroom walls.

“Okay, I’ll go do that now,” he said with a smile, before walking away to go do his job. I couldn’t help but notice the small gap in between his two front teeth as he smiled, which, in all, just added to his cute factor.

I was watching the cute guy hang the streamers for a while until Jared busted in and started causing a scene.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked a little angrily, coming up behind me.

“Doing what?” I questioned, standing up to face him in order to stand my ground against a very pissed off looking Jared Monaco.

“You know what, Bay,” he retorted harshly. “Why are you being such a bitch to Kendele?”

“I’m not being a bitch. I’m being me.” My hand found its way to my hip, signaling that I was ready to fight this out.

Jared shook his head in argumentation, “This is not you.”

I rolled my eyes and retorted, “What do you know about me?”

“I’ve been friends with you since seventh grade,” he said matter-of-factly, “I think I know you by now.”

“I highly doubt that. You only see me when I’m with John.”

“Is this what this is about?” he asked like realization finally hit him.

“What?” I was confused as to what he was getting at. Why the fuck would he bring useless John into this conversation?

“John,” he stated, that knowing smirk still adorning his features.

“What about him?”

“Do you not want her around because of him?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” He wasn’t making any sense and I was getting agitated with every passing second.

“You like him.”

“No I don’t.”

“Oh come on, Bay. Everyone can see it,” he stated, shaking his head at the fact that I wasn’t agreeing with him. “You two have been smitten with each other ever since you first met.”

I rolled my eyes at him and his crazy notion, “We’re just friends.”

“Well if it isn’t about John, then what is it about?” he asked, trying to get to the root of the problem. “Why don’t you want her around?”

“I – I just don’t,” I decided to say because in reality I couldn’t tell Jared why I didn’t want her around. No. I couldn’t tell Jared why because I really didn’t know the answer to that question myself.

I didn’t feel like fighting with Jared anymore, so I grabbed my purse and exited the premises.
_________________________________________________________________________

After leaving the Hilton I stopped by at home to grab some stuff from my mom’s place and then made my way to John’s.

When I pulled up to John’s house I noticed him sitting on the porch with a dazed and confused look on his face as he stared into the distance and ran his fingers through his hair.

“Hey,” I said greeting him as I walked up the walkway.

“Hey,” he said back, getting up off of the chair he was sitting in. “What’s up?”

I shrugged, “Nothing really.” Holding up the folder and soft cover book of Wuthering Heights in my hand I suggested, “Wanna get some of this school shit done with?”

John looked over at the homework sitting in my grasp with a look of contemplation before he sighed, “The sooner the better I guess.”

Once we got up in John’s room, I went straight over to his bed and plopped myself down with a large and heavy sigh escaping through my lips.

“I don’t understand why McAllister is making us do our summer assignment a week before summer even starts,” I openly complained to John.

John closed the door and came to sit down next to me, the bed sinking down underneath him. “She knows we won’t do it,” he replied to me.

“True.”

I pulled out the assignment sheet from my folder and placed it on top for easy access and placed the book in my lap, studying the cover.

“What’s it about?” John asked. He was now lying on his side, propping himself up by his arm, facing me.

“I don’t know,” I shrugged, not really caring. “Some fucking classical love story I guess,” I took a guess from what I heard about it from other people. “It’s from the Jane Austen era I think,” I added, not like it helped and not like John cared anyway. “She has a sister who writes books too, though,” I added while I was already spilling out useless information.

“Twins? I’d like to get me some of that,” John said, raising his eyebrows up and down.

“You’re such a pig,” I shook my head at him. “And I doubt they’re twins.”

“Damn,” he said trying to sound hurt. “That woulda been hot.”

“They’re dead,” I told him matter-of-factly. “Unless you’re into that sort of thing,” I joked, laughing to myself at the thought of John fucking some corpse. It’d be something he’d do if he was extremely drunk and there was a morgue around.

“Nah I’m into girls in my room,” he countered, stretching his arms out and encircling them around my waist so he could pull me down with him.

“John, stop,” I scolded him. “We actually have to get something accomplished.” I tried to squirm free of his grasp but he was just too strong for me.

“But it’s not due until September,” he whined, pulling me down towards the bed and closer to him.

“Chapters one and two are due Tuesday.”

“Four days away,” he countered. “Hell, it’s a half day, let’s just cut,” he suggested excitedly. “We haven’t done work the entire year and she’s a pushover, she wouldn’t care.”

I shook my head at him, trying to suppress the smirk playing on my lips. “Let’s at least try and read the first page,” I suggested, finally being able to sit up.

“Fine.”

I sat up pretzel style with the book in my lap, turning to the first page of Chapter One, ready to begin reading out loud for both John and I.

“Where’s your glasses?” John asked interrupting me not even two sentences in.

“Not here,” I said, trying to continue with the book.

“Why?”

“Because I’m wearing my contacts,” I responded blandly.

“Why?”

“I hate my glasses.”

“But you look cute in them,” he told me sweetly.

“Another reason why I don’t wear them around you,” I said to him. “You’d just spend the time thinking about ways to get in my pants.”

“Psh I don’t only do that when you’re wearing glasses,” he tried to joke with a wink.

I finally tore my eyes away from the novel to look him in his freckled face noticing that he had this big grin plastered there. “Shut your face.”

And surprisingly he did.

I read through the first two paragraphs and I was already confused as to whom the narrator was, and my brain just really didn’t want to concentrate on this stupid work in the first place.

“Alright I’m bored,” I said, throwing the book down.

“That’s my girl,” John mused, holding his arms out nice and wide for me to come and join him lying down on his bed.

I gladly crawled into my best friend’s arms, and let out a sigh. There was something about John and just being with him like this that made me feel safe, very calm, and protected.

We just laid there together for many silent moments; both of us lying on our sides, my back against John’s chest.

“So what’d you do with Kendele?” John was the one to break the silence.

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Why?” he questioned, tightening his grip on me, pulling me in closer to him than I already was.

“I just don’t,” I told him. “Jared ruined the day,” I added, figuring that he’d find out eventually so he’d better hear it from me first.

“What happened?” he questioned. “And don’t leave anything out.”

I took in a breath before I began to explain the events of the day. “We went to set up streamers in the ballroom, and I leave for like five minutes and Jared shows up claiming that he’s here to ‘save Kendele from the demon’s wrath’. Then she flips a shit on me and runs off and Jared follows her and takes her home so I’m just left there finishing the job by myself and then Jared actually thinks it’s okay to come back and yell at me for her flipping a shit! And I couldn’t take the yelling anymore so I left. And came here. The rest is history,” I vented out in one breath.

“That’s why you wanted to do school work,” he said lowly and more to himself than me. “You needed to clear your head.”

“Yeah,” I confirmed for him, although I knew he didn’t need an answer because he knew me so well. “So how was your day?” I changed the subject.

“Pretty good,” he said chipperly and I could tell there was a giant smile present.

“You said that with a smile, what happened?” I said, turning around in his arms to face him.

“Nothing.”

“John Cornelius O’Callaghan the fifth, you tell me this instance!” I demanded, poking his chest.

“Not a chance,” he shook his head, that smile still there. He then rolled over to lay on his back.

“Fine. Be that way,” I huffed.

“I will,” he smiled. He knew it was getting to me.

I let the subject drop since I figured that I wasn’t going to be getting any answers from this bastard today. Not like I really cared anyway, I was just curious, considering that we usually tell each other everything – and I mean everything.

I crawled up into John’s chest, letting the silence take over us again.

“I think he’s obsessed with her,” I whispered, talking mostly to myself than to John.

“What are you talking about, crazy?” he chuckled, questioning me.

“Jared,” I stated. “I think he really likes her.”

“Really? What makes you say that?” he seemed curious.

“Didn’t we go over this before?” I asked rhetorically before explaining myself. “He tried to take her on a date, which we crashed, he took care of her at the party and the day after, and then he’s like fucking Spiderman and comes right to her rescue today,” I stated. “And she likes him back, just maybe not as much.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“I do,” I said surely. “I see it when she looks at him,” I said as I was tracing the patterns of the design on John’s Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers shirt that he was wearing.

“It’s common courtesy to look at someone when they’re talking,” John informed me. For some odd reason he was arguing with everything I was saying on this subject.

“Nah, it’s not just that,” I shook my head. “They steal glances over at each other all the time, and smile and blush when they notice the other staring,” I told him about one of observations. “And today when Jared walked in I saw her smile when she saw him even though she was pissed at me.”

“I still don’t think there’s anything more than friendship there.”

“Oh you don’t?” I countered, turning to look up at his chiseled face. “And what makes you qualified to judge?”

“The same thing that makes you.”

“So you’re a girl and you know these things?” I retorted in good fun. “I always knew there wasn’t something right about you, O’Callaghan,” I joked. “Now fess up. What do you know that I don’t?”

“Nothing.” He was staring up at the ceiling and wouldn’t look at me. That was a sure sign that he was lying to me and that he was hiding something.

“You obviously know something,” I called him out, and then added, “You brought it up.”

“No I didn’t,” he tried to deny. “You did with your pointless girl rambling.”

“And you’re the one that pressed the subject and disagreed with me! So you obviously know something!” I argued, throwing John’s arms off of me and sitting up to look him square in the face. “Tell me.”

“No.”

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“John just fucking tell me, we’re supposed to be friends!” I yelled at him.

He jolted up and yelled back, “We are friends!”

I crossed my arms over my chest and huffed, “You sure don’t act like it,” looking away from John and towards the carpeted floor.

“Bay, stop fucking doing this,” he sighed exasperated.

“Doing what?” I snapped at him, looking him right in the eyes angrily.

“Turning things around and then blowing them out of proportion!”

“I’m not blowing it out of proportion,” I retorted matter-of-factly. “I just want you to tell me what you know!”

John shook his head and ran his fingers through his long and messy brown hair. “Do you really want to know?”

“Obviously!”

“Me and Kendele kissed.”

The blood rushed from my face and I just sat there staring at him in utter disbelief and shock. “You what!?” I finally choked out. I didn’t give him time to answer that though. I got up from the bed and grabbed my stuff, “I’m outta here.”

Like usual, I stormed out of John’s room, him following up on my trail.

“Bay,” he sighed, calming himself down. “Where are you going?” he yelled behind me as he followed me down the stairs. “Bay, come back,” he called as I exited through the front door. “Just – stop!” I yelled desperately now, and for some reason I stopped in my tracks, giving him a second, my back still facing him though. “Please come back,” he begged. “We can do the assignment, and only the assignment,” he compromised promisingly. “Please?”

I kept on walking and got into my car.