“Fine, but when this bottle is gone, we’ll go outside then?” she pouts, looking like a child.
“You’re more than welcome to go for a cigarette alone,” I reply innocently. “We’ll all still be here.”
She doesn’t, just as I knew she wouldn’t. She follows me behind to the table and takes a seat next to me. She and Tiana both try and squeeze next to me so tightly that it’s almost unbearable. There’s a part of me that wants to snap at the pair of them to back the hell off, but before I actually reach that intense moment of boiling point, something very unexpected catches my eye. Or someone, if I’m going to be more precise about it.
I don’t know why the sight should surprise me, I know that she’s here, but still… every time I see her it leaves me a little bit on the edge. I’m not quite as comfortable with the person I’ve become as I was before.
Lucie Smith, the girl next door, the one I grew up next to. She’s the real ‘nice’ girl.
I knew her well, once upon a time, in fact I would call her my closest friend back then. We grew up next door to one another, albeit a kilometer or so apart due to the sheer size of my house and the land around it. Her house wasn’t even quite the same size as mine, her family didn’t have nearly as much money, but I don’t think Lucie ever saw me as that. She didn’t think of me as the arrogant rich kid who doesn’t deserve friendship.
Way back then, I adored her, I thought that we would always be friends. I didn’t think there was anything that could tear us apart. She was the girl I trekked through the mud with, who I rode my bike with while we hunted for treasure, who was there when I fell down and scraped my knee. We had a bond so tight I didn’t think anyone would be able to destroy us. Little did I know then it would be me who fucked things up.
I sigh loudly, remembering the day when I told Luci to get lost because I wanted to get Marcey May’s bra off. We were fifteen years old, on the cusp of becoming more adult, and my hormones got the better of me. She was so prissy then, almost annoyingly so, and I started to view our friendship as an irritation.
I was a dick, and the hurt look on her face was utterly more agonizing than the way Tiana looked at me today. That cut deep, especially when she didn’t want to hang around any longer. I guess I didn’t try to get her back as hard as I should because I had guy friends then who understood my need for naked girls better. I thought I was okay. I didn’t even think much of us going to the same college, completely coincidentally so, but every time I see her around campus, it’s like a knife plunging into my heart.
She’s the one girl that I’ve pushed away who I actually miss, and there isn’t a chance in hell of me getting her back. Lucie won’t even meet my eye now, I think I must disgust her. It’s a real shame, I’d like it if she looked at me like I was her friend again, rather than the enemy. I much prefer that expression on her face.
But as I see her hunched over her books, surrounded by her nerdy mates who want to study as much as she does for a life that won’t be anywhere near as incredible or wealthy as my own, and I’m here living the dream, I guess I know who’s won. It isn’t a competition or anything, but I’d much prefer my life to hers.
2
Lucie
I huff loudly, struggling to concentrate, thanks to the racket coming from the other side of the bar. It’s usually a safe haven here during the day, a place where me and my study group can help one another through the most challenging assignments that our English teacher sets us. Today, it’s all about finding a modern day comparison to Henry the Fifth by Shakespeare, which is way it’s harder than it sounds. Made worst by the fact that the partying crowd have decided to start early today. Most of them are drunk by midday that I would never ever allow myself to get. Yes, maybe I’m a control freak that doesn’t like anyone else to have power over me, including booze, but personally I don’t see anything wrong with that. It certainly hasn’t harmed me.
“Urgh, that Kade Roberts is such an asshole!” my roommate, Cindy, cries out in despair. “Honestly, why is he even here? I think it’s obvious that he doesn’t want to be. Why can’t he leave college for those of us who care? I actually give a shit about my grades and I need to do well. I don’t need to listen to that!”
I make an agreeable noise, I get what Cindy is saying, the Kade sitting before us is horrible. He isn’t ever the sort of person that I would let myself be friends with, I’d barely even consider him a person… but that wasn’t always the case. Once upon a time, I thought he was the best person the grace the planet.
According to what I’ve been told by my parents, the Roberts family brought the land near our home when Mom was pregnant with me. They started lengthy renovations that caused her no end of stress. At one point, she almost tried to create a legal argument against the works, but only stopped herself because of how obvious it was that they had money. Much more money than we could even dream of. Judging by the size and grandeur of the house, plus the speed at which it was built, they were loaded. The legal team they could afford would have smashed any hope we had at all. She assumed that she was going to hate them the moment they moved in… but as she saw them arriving, with a new born baby in their arms, she melted. She didn’t have any pregnant friends and wanted someone to share the experience with. By the time I came along, they were the best of friends, practically living in one another’s homes as they raised their children together.
Naturally, this led to me and Kade having a deeper bond that we wouldn’t have formed otherwise. We spent most of our childhood just the two of us and we were both happy for it to be that way. When we got a little older and some of the other kids treated Kade like shit because of his wealth, that only confirmed that me and him should remain tightly in the little bubble of friendship that we had created for ourselves.
And I always thought it would be that way, I didn’t think anything could shake us. I certainly didn’t think that we would end up at the same college, sitting in the same bar, not talking to one another.
Damn hormones, I had to blame them. Hormones and high school, the things that ripped us to shreds.
I guess there was a small part of me that always thought me and Kade would end up together, even if I didn’t realize it. We would play Mom’s and Dad’s together and have fake weddings, all at my request, but that was a prerequisite for what was to come. I assumed that we were tied together so tightly that romance was inevitable, and as I grew into my teenage years, that became extremely apparent in my diary entries.
Twelve year old me started to really notice Kade in a brand new way, and thirte
en year old me was even worse. I would daydream about him, imagine the moment where he would finally declare his undying love to me. I knew that we were years off, but I wanted to prepare myself to the moment my life all changed around.
Those feelings only increased and intensified the older I got, and it seemed the more I liked him, the more he pulled away from me. In high school he joined the football team and became one of the most popular guys around, leaving me in his dust. I was still the same, whereas he had changed dramatically. With the popularity came female attention… and that scared me. I guess because of that I clung too tightly and I ultimately ended up pushing him away. I shoved him in the wrong direction and ended up losing him to Marcey or May. Well, she was the first one, there were hundreds of others after her, but seeing him with her killed me.
My heart shattered in my chest, I realized how foolish I’d been clinging onto someone who wasn’t ever going to want me. Why the hell would he want boring old me when he could have the sluttier girls who would do anything for him? I pulled away to protect myself, I needed to heal my aching heart, and the worst part was he didn’t even seem to care. He carried on in exactly the same way he always had done, as if I meant nothing.
I thought going away to college would be the final break that I needed, but I guess I’m never going to get so lucky. I still have to face him, to see him all the time, to be reminded of what I can’t have.
I don’t want to still have feelings for him, I want to be stronger and better, but sadly I do.
“I’m sure they’ll move on soon,” I reply tartly while focusing my eyes back on my book. “They won’t want to stick around here forever, I’m sure it’s way too boring for them. The clubs in town must open soon?”
“Urgh,” Harper agrees, rolling her eyes dramatically. “I hope so. What a bunch of losers.”
I laugh along with the others, but deep down I fear we’d all prefer to be with them. Of course it’s good to be focused on our future, I’m not denying that, especially when we don’t all have definite secure futures like Kade does, but every now and again I would love to let lose. I think I’ve shut myself off so much that I don’t even know how to have fun anymore. I’m the least experienced in even my group of friends, I’m the only virgin and I’ve only been drunk once as well. I guess to others, I’m boring, but to me I’m just shy.