It’s funny how in the beginning, I never heard a whisper about his sexual escapades; it’s as if he’d gone out of his way to hide that side of himself from me, which for some reason only pissed me off even more once I found out. The fact that he’d been dipping his wick into anything with a heartbeat long before I came along did nothing to alleviate the absolute hell that I found myself in.
Then others started commenting about the noticeable change in me and asking what was wrong. Words would choke me, and I’d just sit in misery, trying to come up with a plausible excuse. It was even Tyler who’d suggested that maybe I was missing my old school and friends, an assumption I did not correct but clung to if only to keep the truth a secret. But I wanted to kick him as hard as I could when he came up with that one and tried comforting me. Dumbass.
Somehow I always knew, though, the dark truth that I fought so hard to hide even from myself. I was jealous, plain, and simple. Having to sit there day after day listening to them go on and on in great detail about what they did together, the ways in which they shared a part of him that I never will, just burned me up inside.
Having to hide my true feelings, to keep a smile on my face was starting to make me physically ill. And the only thing that kept me sane was the fact that he never slept with the same girl twice; at least that was the rumor being whispered about in their little enclaves and was a bone of contention for some.
I found solace in that fact and was able to breathe a little easier, as the suggestion solidified my belief that he couldn’t possibly have any real feelings for any of them. I’d daydream that one day he’d come to his senses and realize that he didn’t want any of them and that it was me he wanted to be with. That was until Sherry Stevens, the not so new girl in town.
Sherry is one of those model types, the kind of high school girl that everyone envies. Even the most boss bitch in the whole school couldn’t hold a candle to the blonde beauty. She was perfect in every way, as was evident by the way the whole football team damn near salivated over her and the whole damn school male and female just seemed to gravitate to her like moths to a flame. I hated her on sight.
I remember the sick feeling in my heart the first time I saw her. The way my whole body went numb and I had to run to the bathroom to throw up. I hadn’t even seen Tyler and her together yet, but somehow I knew, that where the others had failed, she would succeed. She was perfect for him.
Just acknowledging that fact made me want to crawl into my bed and stay there for the rest of the school year. My only consolation was that all the other girls hated her as well because they saw it too. The fact that she was sweet and easy going didn’t help, I wanted to smash her face in, and that was before she and Tyler had even said two words to each other.
And then the day came. I feel sick even now as I remembered that scene and drew even closer to him in bed, only finding comfort when his arms squeezed me tighter. I’d watched the scene unfold from across the room in the cafeteria. The way she’d pretended to run into him.
I knew by then that she’d heard the stories, but even without them, it was a sure bet that those two were destined to meet. She’d only been here a couple of days, but the laws of physics dictated that two such perfect specimens were meant to be together, at least that’s how I saw it in my teenage mind.
Suddenly the girls that I’d been hating on for the past few weeks became my allies, even though they didn’t know it, only for the sheer fact that they hated her. They didn’t say it to her face, of course, but it was obvious from their whispers that their minds were moving along the same path as mine.
It didn’t help that her dad knew my stepdad, or at least that’s what I heard her say to Tyler when she walked across to meet him, her hand held out to touch his and that too white smile on her face. And that jackass had grinned and looked at her like they were long lost friends, which as it turns out they kinda sort of were.
It turns out they were once very good friends when they were about two or three and used to play together before her family moved away. They hadn’t seen each other in all that time, but it was obvious as they stood there in the middle of the cafeteria playing catch-up that the two of them couldn’t wait to bridge the gap, to make up for lost time.