The Rules of Life

Travis sprang into action immediately. He was at my side, kneeling to better look up into my eyes, fingers wrapped tightly around my hands. At first, I tried to shake him off, waving him away with my free hand trying to dab at my eyes with my napkin. But after a while, once I’d sufficiently blackened the napkin with make-up, I gave up fighting and just cried. I’d never been a huge crier but this entire situation with Travis and with Matt and with everything else was really bringing out the baby side of me. Travis coaxed me out of my chair and we left our beautiful dinner. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and walked me to his room. It was surprisingly clean. I sat down on the bed and he sat next to me, close but not too close. He was giving me space. When had he become such a good guy? Goddammit.

After about five minutes of nonstop water works, Travis finally looked at me and said, “Kinley, are you okay?” I couldn’t say anything back. I didn’t want to lie but the truth, that I was most definitely not okay, wasn’t something I really wanted to talk about. So I didn’t say anything. “Was it the ‘I love you’? Was it too much? God, Kinley, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” Through my tears I could see that he really was sorry. I couldn’t get my mouth to work so I just shook my head and covered my face with my hands.

Air was getting really hard to take in. There wasn’t enough of it and breathing was becoming a chore. I gasped for breath, hiccupping and making extremely unattractive mucus-y noises. Travis handed me some tissues and I took them, pressing them to my face so that they could absorb anything coming out of my eyes and nose. All that hard work to make me look gorgeous… gone. I was a mess. Travis stood up and disappeared out of the room and I thought, here it is, here we go. He’s going to dump my ass for someone who doesn’t cry over ‘I love yous’. And then, and this brought on a whole new round of tears, I thought, good. I’m off the hook. This is over and I don’t have to worry about this anymore. I curled into a little ball and grabbed one of Travis’s pillows. I held it tightly and cried into the soft, fluffy cotton. The next time I looked up, finally cried out, Travis had returned. He sat at his desk, purposely looking away. There was a glass of water beside him. I didn’t move because I was afraid that if I did, I’d start crying again and I’d cried enough for one night.

Travis glanced up. Our eyes met and I could see the relief in them. “Are you thirsty?” I nodded. Travis brought the glass to me and held it while I sat up, not relinquishing my grip on the pillow. I sipped the water slowly. “Are you okay?” I didn’t want to lie but I didn’t want to tell him the truth. I drank the water to buy time. But I finished it too quickly and now I had to answer because Travis was waiting for my reply. My tongue felt thick in my mouth and I nodded. I was already a liar anyway. Another lie wasn’t going to hurt that reputation at all. “Do you want to talk about it?” I shook my head. Travis nodded stiffly. My rejection hurt him but what else was new?

We sat in silence for a long time. I stared into the empty glass and wished it was full again. I couldn’t take it any longer. I couldn’t just sit here and be quiet and pretend nothing was wrong. If I was going to be pretend, I’d have to forget. And there was only one way to do that. Matt briefly flashed through my head. This would hurt him. Fuck, this would hurt me. I’d heard about girls who used sex as their way to get through all the bad stuff. I’d always considered them skanks but here I was, contemplating the same thing. But I didn’t really care. Matt would never find out and I deserved to feel like a cheap whore after making out with someone completely unavailable. While I was dating someone, no less. After the night I put him through, Travis had earned this.

I put my hand on his arm and he looked at me. I didn’t give him a chance to question anything, just leaned forward and kissed him. Travis tried to pull back. I released the pillow and grabbed his shirt to hold him in place. He wasn’t kissing me back but I didn’t let that stop me. I maneuvered until I was straddling him. I knew how to be sexy. Working my hips and lips eventually broke through Travis’s resistance. He was a boy, after all. They don’t have that much self-control. Things escalated pretty quickly after that. Our clothes were ditched and this time no Carly interrupted us. At first, Travis tried to be slow, gentle, but I was having none of that. I flipped him over so that I was on top. This wasn’t an intimate moment, not for me. Travis got the picture. The rumors that had circulated about his sexual prowess weren’t exaggerating. He knew what he was doing. If I hadn’t been so busy feeling sorry for myself and trying to ignore the ache inside my chest, I probably would have enjoyed it. But we weren’t in the type of world where I could enjoy our relationship and the sex was just a distraction.

When we finished, I asked Travis to take me to Sophia’s and he said yes. I wasn’t much in the mood to wear my shiny date outfit so Travis let me wear a one of his shirts over my metallic leggings. I carried my dress in my arms. I didn’t say goodbye to his family. We didn’t say anything during the car ride. Travis was oddly silent and I wasn’t in a chatterbox mood either. He didn’t kiss me when we said goodbye.

Sophia was waiting by the door when I knocked and she flung it open immediately. “Well?!” she demanded. “How was it?!” Dash was nowhere in sight and I didn’t see his so I figured he must’ve already left. That was fine by me. He’d ask too many questions and when he didn’t get the answers from me, he’d call Travis and get the answers from him. My personal life would become more fuel for the gossip fire. I told Sophia to let me comfy. She dragged me upstairs and tittered over how I was wearing Travis’s shirt. When we situated on her giant bed, cross-legged and surrounded by junk food, any heartbroken girl’s dream, she squealed, “Dish!”

I recapped our dinner and Sophia giggled and made high-pitched screechy noises at appropriate times. I explained the dinner and everything and when I got to his speech, she looked about ready to pee herself with excitement. I told her that he told me he loved me and Sophia flipped a bitch—in a good way. She screamed girlishly and scattered pretzels and cookies across her bed. The mess wasn’t that bad until she got up and pulled me to my feet and started jumping around. All our junk food flew everywhere and some got beneath our hopping feet and were crushed into dust. Fucking cheerleaders, man.

When she settled down and threw her comforter off her bed, snacks and all, she eagerly looked at me for the rest of the story. “So, what did you say?”

“Nothing,” I admitted. “I started crying.” I was surprised that I told her that. I mean, sure, she’d find out sooner or later. Travis would tell Dash and Dash would tell Sophia. But I never thought I’d actually confide in the super popular, super preppy, super conniving cheerleading queen.

She blinked at me, eyes wide. “You started what?” She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around me in a hug. She was stronger than she looked. “Oh, Kinley! I’m so sorry! I saw you wearing his shirt and assumed it meant sex but really, the date went awful!” I hugged her back, hesitantly patting her back awkwardly. Still not really up to par with friendly affection, especially from a once-hated enemy.

“We did have sex,” I said. “After I stopped crying. Then he took me home. Here. Whatever.” I reached for the dented plastic container of frosted cookies. They were way too sweet to be eaten alone but I didn’t see any milk so I shoved one in my mouth, not even caring that some of the bright pink icing was currently in mustache formation on my lip or that crumbs had gathered unattractively at the corners of my mouth. I had no one to impress and even though I was starting to think Sophia could be okay, I still didn’t really care about her opinion of me.

“I’m sorry, McKinley,” Sophia said.

I shrugged. “Did you and Dash have a good time?”

“Oh yes. We always have a good time. We ate dinner here and then we went into the den and watched a movie. Then Dash went home.”

“I’m sorry I interrupted your romantic evening,” I said.

Sophia frowned. “What do you mean? We were done anyways.”

“You mean, you weren’t planning on…?” The sex part of that question was implied and I hoped that Sophia could pick up on that. I didn’t want to delve into her sex life bluntly because that would require asking specific, personal questions. Vagueness was all I wanted to handle.

Her eyes widened and she shook her head vigorously. It was only now that I noticed that her hair had been perfectly curled. She’d changed back into sweats and a tank top but I could see the pretty dress hanging up on the back of her door. Her make-up had been washed off but there was still a smudge of eyeliner underneath her right eye and her lips were still slightly stained darker than natural pink. “No!” She blushed. “I mean, we haven’t.”

My mouth dropped open. I’d been under the impression that they had sex a lot. I mean, he was hot, she was hot. They’d been dating since forever. Dash had even alluded to their sexcapades but he’d never come right out and said anything. “You mean you’re a virgin?!”

“Shh! Don’t say that too loud,” Sophia said. “My mom thinks I’ve been deflowered. I swear it was the proudest moment of her life when she thought she found out.” Sophia rolled her eyes.

“Why not? You guys have been together for so long!”

Sophia shrugged. “We’ve come close a lot,” she said. “But I’ve never really wanted to and even though he’s tried to press me into it a few times, he’s never tried too hard. He doesn’t understand, and he really wants to, but he says he’ll wait until I’m ready.” She shrugged again. “We’ve done other stuff. I mean, I’m not a total prude. He especially likes it when I go down on him.” She giggled. Okay. Image in head, thank you Sophia. All I could picture was Sophia bobbing her head at Dash’s waist. A strange, choked sound came out of my mouth and I realized it was a laugh. A few more awkward, painful sounding laughs later and I was finally starting to sound somewhat normal again.

“Enough serious talk,” Sophia said and I agreed. “Fun girl stuff!” Fun girl stuff meant cheesy romance movies, flipping through glossy tabloids and saying ‘oh my god no way’ at everything, swooning over hot guys, doing nails and hair and then passing out sometime around 3 in the morning with Pride & Prejudice playing in the background. It was a new experience, one that I was astonished to find actually fun. So when I finally curled, stomach bursting with sweets and junk, the calories packed on to my thighs, hair glossy and straightened, nails freshly manicured, I smiled. Because even though everything with Travis and Matt was shit, something good had finally come out of this deal. I’d gotten a friend.

It was completely unexpected and from the girl who’d tried to ruin my life. Never would I had dreamed that someday I’d been sleeping in her king-sized bed after slumber partying it up half the night. I almost laughed. But Sophia was snoring softly beside me, a smear of Nutella on her lip, mouth parted slightly. I rolled over on my side and snuggled into the fluffy bed that was ten times more comfortable than my bed at home. Sleep was instantaneous.