My Gorgeous Nightmare

I woke up to my phone ringing nonstop. I was actually getting some decent sleep for once, so of course someone had to interrupt. Between blinking rapidly and squinting at the screen of my phone I managed to get my contacts back in the right place and could see that Dianna had been calling me nonstop for the past hour. I hit the little green button to answer as soon as my phone started ringing again.

“What’s so important that you had to call me for so long?” I asked.

“Well, if you’d answered the phone earlier I wouldn’t have had to call you so many times,” Dianna said innocently. I rolled my eyes, waiting for her to continue. “Last night Chloe caught her boyfriend cheating on her, and so tonight a couple of us are going out to the clubs for a girls night to cheer her up.”

“And why do I have to go?” I asked. It’s not that I didn’t want to go out with Diana, it was just her other friends. Particularly Chloe. Throughout all of high school, Chloe had tried to change me and control my every move. That didn’t go over well with me, so Chloe and I had a big argument and the only reason we see each other any more is because we were both friends with Dianna. The rest of their friends got along with me, but we were almost complete opposites, so we didn’t spend much time together either. Pulling myself out of bed I listened as Dianna came up with some excuse about wanting to spend some time with me before she left for college in a few weeks and this would be fun, and blah, blah, blah.

I told Dianna I’d go if she would shut up and let me get ready for the day. She wanted to go shopping and I was tagging along. Dianna let me go after telling me to let myself into her place when I was done.

I went through my morning routine, stopping to tape a note to Ronnie’s door explaining where I was going to be all day before running across the street. I punched in the code on Dianna’s front door. They had one of those weird locks that could use a key or you could punch in this little code to unlock the door. Even after all these years of coming over, I still found it weird, and always will.

Dianna’s parents were watching tv in the front room when I entered. They were used to this, and had already set out coffee and some breakfast for me. While I ate the three of us talked. Yes, I got along with my friend’s parents. If you have a problem with that, you can just learn to deal with it. I really couldn’t care less.

After a while, Dianna came down and we headed out. We spent several hours driving around Vegas, trying not to run over all the idiots that ignored the DO NOT WALK signs and walked directly in our path. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you looked at it, we hadn’t hit anyone by the time we got home.

I let myself in my house and headed to the stairs so I could take a shower so I could do my hair and make-up for tonight. I was halfway up when I heard Ronnie. “A.C., is that you?”

“Nope, it’s the Boogie Man,” I said. I resumed my mission when I heard Ronnie laughing along with someone else, who I assumed was Max. I’d always wanted to meet Max, and part of me couldn’t believe I was passing up my first chance to hang out with him, but at the same time, since he and Ronnie were friends again and Ronnie was living in the same house as me, I’d get another chance to see Max.

I found Dianna in my room when I finished in the bathroom. “Did you talk to Ronnie and Max?” I asked.

“I waved to them, like I usually do.” Dianna wasn’t into the same type of music as I was. She listened to more hip hop and pop, and couldn’t really care less who the two downstairs were. She was still one of my best friends though, so we dealt with it.

We still had close to an hour before we left to pick up the rest of our little group for the night. I led Dianna downstairs to the kitchen, where I started searching for food. “You do remember we’re going out to eat soon, right?” my friend asked.

I nodded as I pulled a bag of goldfish from the cupboard. “But I’m hungry now, and I’ll be hungry by the time we eat later. You should know that.”

“Hey, E.B., someone wrote on your stomach,” Dianna said, poking one of my tattoos.

“Yes, because I let random people write on my stomach all the time,” I replied sarcastically.

“I wanna write on your stomach!” Ronnie shouted. That was the first time I noticed Ronnie and Max sitting at the kitchen table. Oops.

“I didn’t know you were in here,” I said, pretending to be angry. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

“Because you didn’t have goldfish before,” Ronnie said. “Oh, by the way, Dianna, A.C., this is Max. Max, this is my sister A.C. and her friend Dianna.” I waved to Max, while Dianna just smiled.

“What’s up?,” he asked. “I’ve got to ask though, first you’re E.B., then you’re A.C.?”

I nodded. “Nobody calls me by my real name. A.C. are my initials, and E.B. is for Energizer Bunny,” I explained. The four of us sat their in silence for a few minutes. Well, Dianna and I stood, but Max and Ronnie were sitting. I continued eating my goldfish.

“Toss me one,” Ronnie demanded. My bad aim caused the little cracker fishy thing to fly too far to the right, and Ronnie, who was attempting to catch it in his mouth, stretched al little too far and fell out of his chair.

“Sorry,” I said in between laughing. Max motioned for me to toss a goldfish at him, so I did my best. My aim was off again, but Max managed to catch his fish before hitting the ground. We spent the next half hour like that, taking turns tossing goldfish at each other. Until we heard the door opening and my mom’s voice.

I ran out the room, slipping my jacket on before returning. The shirt I was wearing showed my tattoos, which my mom didn’t know about, so I used the jacket to hide them. I had two phrases in Latin on the sides of my stomach, just above my hip bones, the Avenged Sevenfold bat on my right shoulder blade, and the Batman logo on my left shoulder blade. I trusted Dianna to say something about how she was waiting for me to finish getting ready before we went out for the night.

As soon as I entered the kitchen, my mom began criticizing my clothes. She hated the color black, and guess what one color I was wearing. Before she could go too far, I dragged Dianna to the door after me, saying we had reservations and had to get going. We were out the door and in the car before my mom realized what had just happened. Dianna was used to this sort of thing, so she just drove off to Chloe’s house, where everyone was supposed to meet. I sent a quick text to Ronnie apologizing.

“I explained everything to Max, and he’s cool. But he wants to hang out with you sometime,” Ronnie replied.

“Of course!” I replied. “We’ll have to figure something out, and soon. But you two need to catch up and have some time together again. Have fun.”

Ronnie and I texted the rest of the ride, and before I knew it, it was time for me to pretend to feel bad for Chloe. Before shutting off my phone, I sent Ronnie one last message, telling him to give Max my number. With that, our little group was off to Denny’s, then the Strip.