My Paper Heart

It was almost seven thirty in the morning. We were running early, and we decided to sit around and have a couple of smokes while we waited for Nick.

I kept my From First to Last hoodie tight around me. Sasha's Camaro was parked next to my truck, and he sat in the low seat, smoking a cigarette, listening to the radio. Noah had already gone in, saying he needed to get Starbucks opened up and get some coffee for us.

Sasha looked like he could've rolled over and gone to sleep in the unhappily cramped seats. I could've gone to sleep too. I was a pain to get up in the morning, and it was horrible trying to stay awake before ten.

Darcie sat in the driver's seat, pulling roughly on her cigarette and looking at the screen of her cell phone. She kept checking the time because Seth had eaten some kind of chemical and Miss Carrie had given her back her driver's license to go see the doctor. I told her she could borrow my truck after I confirmed my ride with Nick.

Who still hadn't shown up.

I had gone through two more cigarettes before I decided it was time to head in. I stubbed what was left of my cigarette out on the bottom of my Chucks, and sighed. It had quarter of an inch left. I was usually good to smoke it down to the filter, but I guess that maybe the idea of cancer was catching up to me. Darcie stubbed hers out in the ash tray, and sat up from her position, sprawled out on the joint seat.

Sasha tossed the butt out of the window, and away from us. He stood up and took a royal scratch at his nuts before he stretched his arms above his head, and cracked his neck. I noticed a long, ugly cut that stretched down the soft underside of his left forearm. I cringed. "What the hell did you get that from, Sash?"

"What?" he asked. I pointed at the grizzly wound on his arm. "Oh, that. I fell off when I was dirt biking on the White Tail track and my arm got caught on my muffler, somehow." He shrugged, dismissing it like it was nothing. I shuddered, and it wasn't from how unusually cool it was.

His walk to the front door was brisk, and he kept his oil stained jean jacket wrapped tight around his lanky body. I stared at him enviously, and glanced at Darcie. She already had her My Chemical Romance hoodie on, and she was closing the door.

We entered the mall shortly after. Upon seeing Noah's smiling face at Starbucks, his mouth still full of metal, we were given our favorites. Coffee and junk food. I reached for my wallet to pay for it, but Noah shook his head when I offered him money.

"Sasha paid for it," he told me, explaining why I was to put my money back. I couldn't help the slight blush that burned my cheekbones. Darcie noticed it, and she smiled, giggled, and elbowed my arm. I only bit my lip, and told myself to thank him when we got to Wendy's.

***

"That mascot is racist," Sasha grunted suddenly, moving away from the position at the fryer. He looked dopey with a hairnet on his pale head, wrenching his unruly fire colored hair from his glacial eyes. He stood with his hand on his hip, and one resting his weight on the counter. I raised a brow.

"Excuse me?" I asked, confused.

"The Wendy's mascot. She's racist against red haired people."

"And how does a logo having a certain color of hair register as racist?" Darcie snorted, looking up from the burger's she was flipping. She was growing increasingly snappy as the day grew on. She had quit checking her phone, for fear of dropping it in the fat vats, which Sadie was now unhappily cleaning, complaining about how we were lazy freaks.

"I dunno. I decided it was racist last night when I took Rae's laptop and went to that new wireless cafe thing. I read this article about this huge bunch of redheads marching to sue Wendy's because it was racist." He shrugged dismissively. I looked at him with my head cocked to the side.

I opened my mouth to insult his intelligence when I heard Sadie laugh in a high pitched voice. I whirled around to tell her to shut up, when I noticed that she was still grunting at the fat vats.

My face turned to the front entrance, and my jaw nearly fell on the floor.

Nick had his arm around a tiny blond girl, with big sandy brown eyes. She wore a too-tiny skirt, and a too tight shirt that showed off her obviously up-thrust cleavage, probably thanks to some bra from the local Victoria's Secret.

I raised my brow, unable to find a reason that this scene would actually be occurring in front of me. Darcie seemed confused too. Sasha couldn't see anything because he was in the back next to the lockers.

Nick and the mystery blond continued their trip to the front register, Nick smiling like a fool all the way. That made me extremely uneasy, and I didn't like it. He reached the counter, and dropped the proverbial f-bomb.

"Hey guys! This is my girlfriend, Sidney."

I couldn't exactly grasp what reaction he wanted me to have. Less than two weeks ago he was telling me that he liked Darcie, and that he was going to wait for her to like him, and now he was showing up with some bimbo?

I could tell exactly how Darcie was reacting without even looking at her.

One second after the revelation, she had a dumb look on her face. Three seconds she looked heart broken. Four, hurt. Six, brazenly mad. Seven, damn furious.

From the corner of my eye, I saw her pull her cigarettes out of her pocket, and storm off, her fists shaking. My heart ached seeing her in that state.

Nick's eyes, purple today, found mine, and looked at me curiously. "What's wrong with her?" he asked. I didn't get to answer because I realized that his girlfriend, Sidney, had disappeared, and that there was a frantic squealing behind my back.

I whirled around, only to see Sidney and Sadie jumping up and down, hugging each other.

"My baby sister has a boyfriend! Eee!" Sadie bayed. So that's how come the tiny, pointy blond girl reminded me of Sadie. I hate families of idiots.

I returned to Nick, who looked at me hopefully, like I would congratulate him on this acquisition.

The only problem with this theory was that I wouldn't accept that Sidney was his girlfriend. Darcie should've been his girlfriend. They were made for each other, for hell's sake!

"So, what do you think?" he asked.

"How old is she?" I responded, totally ignoring his query. He looked at me blankly.

"Huh?"

"How old is she?" I repeated.

"Sixteen, why?"

I grunted, and rubbed the bridge of my nose. "Sixteen?" I asked incredulously. He nodded.

I looked around the store, and it seemed that business was going to be slow for a little bit. I turned around and cawed at Sadie to keep the store under watch while I went on break. She gave me a nasty little look before grabbed my cigarettes and exited the establishment, Nick following behind me, knowing I wanted to talk.

I made sure that I was in a different smoking spot than Darcie would go to, and lit up. The cigarette burned my throat, and from inhaling too deeply too quickly, I nearly coughed up a lung. Nick looked on concerned, and grabbed my arm, and clapped my back a few times before I finally calmed down from the attack. I hocked a loogie, and took another, moderate, drag.

Nick seated himself on a ledge, and looked on at me, telling me I could start talking. I wasn't much good at trying to confront people about things that concerned me. So I decided to go on right-out.

"How long have you two been dating?" I asked.

"About three weeks," he answered complacently. "Why?"

"Have you had sex with her yet?" I asked quietly, taking a frantic drag on the cancer stick. He nodded. I felt like I was going to be sick. "Why someone like her?" I asked to myself. But he picked up on it.

"I like her a lot, Goldie. I really do, and she's a great person, and she's funny--"

"Is she pregnant?" I cut him off. I knew that was too much. His jaw dropped, and his look turned hateful.

"Excuse me?" he asked, sounding more like a pissed of middle-aged woman than a teenaged boy. I took a deep breath and looked at his nose. That was how I acted like I was making eye contact.

"Is she pregnant?" I repeated, trying to sound like my head wasn't about to explode.

"Goldie, I really can't believe that you'd ask me something like that!" he barked. I could feel his glare, and I instantly felt sick about asking him in the first place.

"Okay, never mind, ignore that I even asked," I mumbled from behind my stinkweed. I went to turn around, but the short boy grabbed my wrist, and made me face him. Even though he was about four inches shorter than me, he still made me terrified.

"No, Goldie; why would you ask me something like that?" he snarled, through clenched teeth. I didn't make eye contact with him, and at first I refused to answer him, like a petulant child. His grip tightened on my arm and I was reminded of my father.

I shoved him roughly away, and scowled at him as nastily as I could. He nearly toppled over on his baggy jeans. I almost wished he had let his head smash into the concrete. He straightened immediately, and gave me a dirty look. I rubbed my wrist where he held me at, and I knew that it was going to bruise.

"I thought Darcie was your type," I spat vindictively. "What the hell happened to that?!" His face dropped. He obviously didn't know how to respond to this. He scrambled for an answer.

"Well, she doesn't like me!" was what he finally countered with. I shook my head.

"Nick, why the hell do you think that?" I sighed. He opened his mouth to say nothing, but it just hung open.

"Name one time that she's shown that she likes me!" he protested. I rubbed the bridge of my nose with my finger tips.

"When has she not?"

He gave me another absent look, before turning his head towards the glass revolving doors we came out of. Sidney poked her head outside, and smiled wide at Nick. She gave me a second long scathing look, then trotted out to hug Nick.

I nearly gagged from how wrong this was. That should've been Darcie, not some twit.

I turned around and left them. I wanted no more of Sidney and Nick. Hah, Sick.

***

Once back inside I tossed my pack into my jacket pocket, and returned to the cash register. Darcie was nowhere to be found, and I wouldn't be surprised if she was steadily working her way through her pack of Newport's.

Sasha was still doing fries, and Sadie had gone out.

I walked back to the lockers, near the fryer, and watched Sasha work. We talked a little bit, and I made fun of him for his hairnet. He took it good, and made fun of my ugly shirt.

I was about to stick my tongue out at him when I heard the employee door slam shut. My face fell. Darcie.

I made my way up, and say Darcie toss her empty pack into the garbage. That pack was new this morning.

I went to talk to her, when I saw that she was glaring across the room, at the doorway where Nick was telling Sidney to stay put in a furious voice. The girl flipped her hair and walked off anyway.

Nick stormed across the brown tile floor, all the while glaring at Darcie.

Darcie had crossed her arms, and scowled at him, all through his entrance. I backed up towards the employee door, and watched with sick fascination. I'd rarely ever seen Darcie get this mad before.

"Why are you pissed at me?!" Nick shouted in her face.

"Her," Darcie spat, pointing at where Sidney had been. Nick set his jaw.

"What about her?" he barked.

"How could you stoop so low, Nick!" Darcie howled, throwing her hands in the air, making eye contact with him all the while. He slammed his hands on the counter hard enough to make the change in the register jingle.

"Darcie, shut up! You're the one who got knocked up by that prick, Austin!"

Darcie's eyes widened, and her lip curled back. "Oh, so that's why you're dating her! You got her pregnant, didn't you! You pervert, what is she? Fifteen?!"

"She's sixteen, and what's with you women and assuming I'm dating her because she's gonna have a baby!" Nick bleated, bewilderedly.

"Because I know she's not your type! She's a poser! Just look at her, for Christ's sake!" Darcie bellowed. I continued shrinking back, watching the fight. Darcie kept leaning over the counter, and Nick's face got closer and closer, until their noses were centimeters apart, and they were screaming, literally, in each other's faces. I almost thought that they'd kiss, but both of them were to angry to even think about it.

"You're superficial!" Darcie.

"You're spiteful!" Nick.

"You can't keep it in your pants!" Darcie.

"Neither can you!" Nick.

"I HATE YOU!" Darcie bellowed, her face turning red.

"I HATE YOU TOO!" Nick screeched.

A loud crash and a shout made me turn my attention from the fight, towards the back. Sasha was bumping around towards the employee bathroom, holding his cut arm. I looked back at Nick and Darcie. Now they were just giving each other these soul crushing looks.

Finally Darcie pulled back and looked at her cell phone.

"I have to go," she mumbled. She went around back and grabbed my truck keys. She left accordingly, Nick glaring at her all the way.

"Uh, Nick, would you still be--"

"No, I'm taking Sidney and Sadie home after work," Nick interrupted. He turned around and stormed out too.

I sighed, and decided to check up on Sasha.

He hung over the tiny sink, running freezing water over his arm. He flexed and unflexed his fingers, hissing as the water rolled down his arm.

"Sasha, what the?" I asked, wandering in. He grunted, and pulled his arm back. The once ugly cut was now even bigger, and bleeding thinly all down his arm.

"Burnt myself," he groaned. He hissed, and ducked it under the water again.

"On what?! The sun?" I gasped.

"Fryer; can you get me the first aid kit?" he pleaded. I did as he said, dashing out of the cramped room. This sucked. I returned and helped him get bandaged.

"Uh, Sasha?" I ventured. "Can you give me a ride home?"

He looked at me like I was stupid.