The Richardson List

Audrey’s words still echoed in the chambers of her mind, chronically replaying itself over and over again. Carter attempted to try and distract herself with other things, television, computer, anything that would simply leave her in peace, if only for a few moments. Even thinking about Skye was useless. The words just kept ringing through her ears.

It was as she trudged down the halls towards her History class did she wonder about the meaning of the blonde’s words. The feeling and emotion behind them was clear to see, her angered blue eyes remained vivid in her mind, but was Carter truly as Audrey had put it, a whore?

Not a whore, no, that she certainly wasn’t. It was simply one boy that she had, in crude expressions, fooled around with. And they had only kissed a few times; they hadn’t gone any farther then a PG rating.

Carter wondered about the words Audrey had so viciously spat out on the duration of her walk to her next class. Tiffany had neglected to meet up with her at her locker as they had done for a while; whether this was a good thing of not Carter wasn’t sure of. Ranting would have been nice, unleashing the pent of feelings residing in her being sounded appealing. Plus, a second opinion would have been pleasant, for who was at fault was unknown to the raven haired girl.

Was anyone at fault at all?

Audrey had done pot and she didn’t even tell Carter. Of course before they never really talked about doing drugs, so technically they never swore off them, it was just an unsaid thing between them that Carter thought they both understood. Then again, her father had always said “don’t think”, mostly because whenever she did, she thought wrong.

This was a case point scenario, she guessed. She didn’t even really care that she’d done it, it was just that she lied about it to her.

Carter had lied too. She was fooling around, a vulgar term but nothing else seemed to fit, with Skye and hadn’t told Audrey. Even though Audrey had repeatedly expressed her feelings on the boy. When Carter realized this a wave of guilt pulsed through her, causing her to bite her lip.

But then again, Audrey had just exploded on her. That was uncalled for.

It made her feel at least a little bit better as she trudged down the halls, finding her classroom and pushing open the door. Inside were the many peers she had grown familiar with after having almost five months of the same class, but Carter paid no attention to them as she dumped her being in her assigned seat. Her bag fell dejected next to her and the desk next to her was visibly empty due to Tiffany’s peculiar absence.

Chatter around her rang through her ears but she didn’t try to decipher it, remaining drowned in her thoughts. It wasn’t until she heard her name, catching it the moment it slipped passed the girl’s lips, did she shift her attention.

The girl sat a few seats back and was whispering rather obnoxiously with her friend. If she was trying to be secretive the girl was failing miserably for Carter could clearly make out each word the moment that she voiced them. However, she remained unperturbed as she placed her binder on her desk and began doodling aimlessly on one of the empty lined pages, keeping her eyes forced on the page and her mind focused on the girls behind her.

“Yeah, I was talking to Diego, you know him? The cute guy with the Mohawk that’s stoned half the time?” the blonde one asked with a slight giggle to her voice. Carter assumed that she either had a crush on the boy or he was simply a giggle-worthy person when baked.

The two girls she recognized as Carrie and Olivia. She recollected a faint memory of the pair bickering about their foolish scores, a few cruel words being tossed around and a few prides being torn. It had been so long ago and it seemed the two had made up by the way they were huddling close together, whispering like the best of friends.

“Hmm, yeah, the one that’s friends with Brody?” Olivia asked, finding that she had a slight sense of who he was.

A hum indicated that they were talking about the same boy, following a low, “So I was texting him like, ten minutes ago.”

Carter’s curiosity was piqued as she scribbled a poorly drawn heart, bolding it thoughtlessly. She, herself, had no idea about who this Diego boy was, but he was somehow associated with her it seemed.

“About what?” Olivia asked, also as interested as Carter was.

“Well, he was hanging out with Brody and Pierre by the wall by the smoke pit, you know at the other end of the school? And that Carter chick was there with some guy, he couldn’t make out with guy though because he was wearing a hat, but they kissed!” Her voice became shrill with fascination as if she had uttered simply the strangest thing that had ever been done on the face of the planet. Carter wasn’t sure if she should be offended.

A gasp followed this proclamation, Olivia also finding this quite shocking. Carter was starting to feel insulted. But she had decided to put that in the back of her mind and continue to subtly eavesdrop on the conversation. It was wrong, but Carter felt that she was somehow entitled to considering they were talking about her.

“Really? Who know she was getting some!” Olivia laughed lightly at her own joke, covering her mouth as if their whispers had been anywhere near discreet and she was actually trying to be quiet.

Carrie laughed along with her, muffling her giggles as well. “And you know the best part?” she murmured afterward, the grin apparent in her voice.

Olivia’s laughter paused as she registered her friend’s words, her curiosity piqued. “What?” she asked breathlessly, restraining her excitement.

“Audrey, you know that pretty blonde girl has Diego’s had his eye on?” Carrie asked and Carter detected a slight, spiteful undertone to this statement. It seemed that it was the former of her assumptions, Carrie was crushing on Diego.

“Yeah, the one that’s friends with that Carter girl? Isn’t she like, really good friends with Nina now?” Olivia thought out loud and her voice seemed to falter as she was temporarily lost in her mind.

Carter sighed as she doubted the friendship that Audrey and her held.

“Yeah, yeah, her. They have been together a lot lately, haven’t they? Anyways, off topic, apparently she was crushing on this guy and started yelling at Carter and then it turned into an all out bitch fight as the guy sneaked away.”

Carrie began to laugh lightly, finding this somewhat hilarious. Carter failed to find anything humorous about the predicament she found herself in.

However, Olivia also found this somewhat funny and her laughter mingled with Carrie’s in the air, polluting it with their abhorrent sniggers. In fact Carter was tempted to muffle their racket by covering her ears, anything to stop the ringing in her mind.

“I don’t blame her, wasn’t it time she dropped her anyways?” Carrie continued, a smug edge to her tone. “I mean, Audrey’s practically a nine, and what’s Carter? Like, a six-point-something? God, that’s fucking lame.” Another laugh sounded, this one she didn’t even try to conceal as it echoed through the room insufferably.

Carter felt her fingers tense around her pen and the point dig rather deeply into the page, slightly tearing it. The teacher had walked in and all conversations had hushed, including the one between Olivia and Carrie.

Still, the words replayed chronically through her mind, inflicting more pain each time. Carter could lie and pretend that she was unfazed by their vile words, but it was no use.

Instead, she wondered if they were right. Audrey was so pretty, and the amount of friends she could have without Carter constantly dragging her down was high. Of course she had always had other friends, but never were they closer then them to had been. But now they were slowly slipping apart and more people presented themselves to be amazing replacements, well, Carter wondered why Audrey even put up with her.

And Cole had simply disappeared completely. Lily occupied all his time and he made no protest to that.

It seemed that everything was slowly falling apart, and even Tiffany had seemingly abandoned her. She hadn’t even replied to Carter’s text that she had sent while on her way to History. Whether it was intentionally ignored or not was unknown to Carter.

She could never depend on Skye, Carter wasn’t that stupid. It just seemed like everyone she ever cared about was slowly deserting her, and in the back of her mind a voice was telling her that it was her fault, only a matter of time before they realized they didn’t need her.

Finding herself at her wits end, Carter spread her palms against her desk and bushed her chair back before standing up. The teacher stopped explaining the lesson and eyed her distastefully.

“And why have you decided to interrupt Carter?” she asked with a sneer that Carter decided to ignore, she could care less about Ms. Paler’s bitchy moods.

“I don’t feel good; can I go to the office and go home?” she asked in the pseudo-polite tone everyone had adapted when conversing with an adult that they weren’t friendly with.

The teacher sighed, as if she really didn’t want to, but nodded nonetheless. Carter took this as her cue and dumped all her belongings in her backpack and hiking it over her shoulder. Many eyes scrutinized her movements as she ambled out the door without a look back into the class. All she really wanted to do was go home and crawl under her navy blue covers before slipping into a deep sleep.

With a quick call to her mother’s work she was out the doors, in immense feeling of curling up and just forgetting everything sounding so very appealing.

The cell phone in her back pocket vibrated as she stood at the bus stop, waiting for her transportation to roll up and bring her home. Absent-mindedly she pulled it out and fumbled with it, reading the text she had gotten.

It was from Tiffany, asking if she wanted to have her iPod. Carter stared at the small screen for a moment, attempting to fathom why the brunette would suddenly offer her this. She had her own at home somewhere, lying abandoned on one of her shelves; the reason why she would need Tiffany’s escaped her.

She replied with confusion as she climbed onto her bus which, as she had reckoned, was absent of anyone spare an aging lady sitting in the front seat by herself.

The response was delayed and Carter didn’t receive one until she was trekking up her street, her home in her line of sight. It was casual and betrayed almost nothing, a simple “because you need better music” that only caused more confusion.

Carter merely left it at that and threw her phone into her backpack along with all the rest of her things before dumping it on her living room couch was she had entered her house.

Wasting no time at all she trudged upstairs and into her room, sunlight pouring in through the open shades and illuminating the pale blue walls. Quickly she changed into her pyjamas before shutting her blinds and climbing into her bed, pulling up the covers over her face.

Crying she knew would do nothing, but the tears still pricked at the back of her eyes and her nose tingled in a way that she knew they were coming. She was just so overwhelmed with how everything had changed so quickly.

Shutting her eyes, she took a deep breath and tried to clam herself down, hoping to drift from consciousness. She just wanted to forget for a moment. About Audrey. About Cole. About The List. About Skye Richardson.

She just wanted to forget it all.