Kit Kat & Katie Did

by Lauren T. Hart

  KimE: Especially when it comes to jocks.

  KimE: I wish I could say she has a reasons for it, but I don’t know, sometimes, I think she’s just a bitch, you know?

  KimE: Dude, I can tell you’re bugged about something, you’re dancing every single song. Even the slow ones! And who even was that guy you were dancing with? He looks like a total perv.

  KimE: Claire says his name is Zack, and that he is a total perv.

  KimE: Why aren’t you returning any of my texts?

  KimE: You do have your phone right?

  KimE: I’m just going to assume it’s just way too loud in here for you to hear your phone, or you’re ignoring me for some reason?

  KimE: Does your phone not vibrate, like a normal phone?

  KimE: Whatevs, you’ll get these eventually right? I’m here for you if you want to talk.

  No idea why she didn’t just walk up to me and talk to me in person.

  KimE: OMG. So after you left to go to Julian’s I was texting Mika and she reminded me about this thing that happened to Jayla last year. Jayla was crushing pretty hard on like the entire Varsity team, and was sort of going with this senior guy named Lake or River or some kind of water something, I don’t remember. Mika thinks it was either River or Rain, but she doesn’t really remember either.

  KimE: Anyway, some time in like November or December something happened and she just stopped hanging out with them. All she’d ever say was that it was a bad breakup, the whole team was a bunch of lying A-holes, and she didn’t want to talk about it. Ever.

  KimE: So she totally hates all the jocks now. For who knows why though since she refuses to actually talk about it.

  The texts continued throughout Saturday, where, knowing her the way I do, I thought she showed a remarkable amount of restraint.

  KimE: Dude, for reals, what is the deal with your phone!?!?

  KimE: Text me back.

  KimE: Text me back.

  KimE: Text me back!

  There were quite a few more of those. And then, late Saturday:

  KimE: I’m texting Julian if you don’t text me back!

  KimE: You turned off your phone!? Are you crazy!? I know you’re with Julian but dude, that could be so dangerous! What if there were some kind of emergency? WTF!?

  KimE: Text me back when you plug back in or whatever. OMG.

  I clicked on Kayley’s texts next.

  KayE: That girl Jayla has a serious beef w Dominic. I think she mite be cray-cray. So u no when sum of us went 2 get drinks? On our way back she pulld me aside & told me I should tell u to stay away from Dom bcuz, according to her::: “””he’s a liar and a scammer who just uses girls and dumps them.””” I told her he was actully rlly nice, bcuz duh, he is, & she flippd the flip out! She said she is friends w sum girl he used 2 date & that he messed her up so bad she had to switch schools mid term last yr.

  KayE: Idk if I believe her tho bcuz she also told me not 2 say anything 2 Kims about it. Maybe bcuz it’s all a BIG FAT LIE? I think she just jealous. I think she likes Dom 2 but she tickd bcuz she know she doesn’t have a chance w him.

  And Saturday:

  KayE: OMG, Kims is srsly freaking out about u not returning her texts. I was like::: dude u no how she is — chill. And she was like, yeh, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t dead in a guttr somewhere.

  KayE: I pity her future children.

  I responded to Kimber first:

  KF: Girl, I worry about how much you worry. I’m good, It’s all good. Jayla wasn’t rude, she was just trying to warn me that some people are jerks, and I should be careful. No biggie. I just let the whole ‘small world’ thing stress me out, and I needed to step away for a bit, but it’s all good. Oh and yeah, that guy I was dancing with is Zack Rydell, we have bio together and yeah, he’s kind of a perv, but he’s not a creep or anything. I’ll see you later today. We should make cookies or something. Dead in a gutter cookies! HA!

  And then Kayley.

  KF: I think she’s just trying to protect whoever she thinks is innocent. I know a girl Dominic was dating last year cheated on him, maybe that’s her friend. Maybe her friend didn’t want to look like the bad guy? I don’t know. I don’t really care. Dominic and I are just friends and that’s all we’re ever going to be. Oh, and please stop calling him Dom. I know he said he didn’t mind, but he actually does.

  Two down, one to go. But I was nervous to read his texts for some reason.

  DW: Fair point, I guess. I want to say you’re totally wrong, but you probably aren’t. The truth is there are a lot of people who act like they’re my friend, who act like they want to be my friend — or my girlfriend. But then when I let them really get to know me, it all ends in disaster.

  Except you.

  Mid-day Saturday:

  DW: I know neither of us are glued to our phones, but I thought you would have texted back by now. Am I coming on too strong and freaking you out or something? Or are you just suddenly busy and I’m just stressing myself out over nothing?

  Saturday night:

  DW: Something’s different isn’t it?

  And like a punch to the gut, Sunday morning, while I was gobbling up french toast.

  DW: Shit. I don’t want to lose you, Kat. And I’m really starting to worry that’s what’s happening. Is that what’s happening?

  I knew he usually worked Sundays but I took a chance and called. He answered on the second ring.

  “Kat? Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, everything’s fine.”

  Julian was suddenly next to me. “Oh my what, you called him?”

  “Hush Jules, geez…”

  “Oh girl…” Julian put his hands up in surrender, and returned to washing dishes.

  “You’re with Julian?” His tone was somewhere between worried and relieved.

  “Uh, yeah. I had kind of a crazy end of the week, I needed to unplug and get a solid dose of normal, now I’m returning all the missed texts.”

  It was quiet for a bit on Dominic’s end and then he said, “Are we okay?”

  We? What we? “Yeah,” my voice cracked.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said — texted. There are people in my life other than you that look out for me, and I’m realizing, thanks to you, that maybe I don’t give them the credit they deserve.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, like my boss, Randy, dude’s a saint.” He made a sort of humming noise then went on to explain. “My mom’s basically decided to make harassing me her full time job. She doesn’t have my number, so she keeps messaging me on Facebook every 10 minutes. In between that she’s been trying to find someone who both has my number and will give it to her. My grams told her where I was working sometime Friday and she’s been calling ever since. Randy, told her if she called again he was going to fire me. He never would, but he figured it’d make her stop. It didn’t. So he told her I didn’t work there anymore, stop calling, and hung up on her. She’s still calling, still asking for my number, so now we don’t answer calls from Montana anymore. I sort of had to explain why she is the way she is, and he just said, ‘Some bitches be crazy. I got your back.’ So yeah, you were right.”

  Okay… so there was no mention of this nice girl from school but, from his perspective we barely know each other, so really, what was I expecting? “He sounds like a nice guy. There’s no one else though, no one maybe, a little closer to your age?”

  “No,” he answered so quickly my psyche flinched. “My guy friends at school are school friends and thats it. And after what Lindsay put me through, I’m done with high school girls.”

  “You know that’s not fair, right? Lindsay was one girl, and you’re going to let what she did ruin a potential relationship with every other girl? Why would you continue to let her hurt you like that?”

  “I guess I’ve never really thought about it like that. It’s not like I don’t make new friends. I just… I’m not ready to let anybody get that close. You did, somehow, and that’s enough for me. Bu
t if you’re trying to say something else here.”

  Oh, you mean something like, you should give that nerdy girl who you banter with on the daily a chance because if you did you might find out you like her as much as you like me — because she is me? Uh-huh. Sure. “You know I worry.”

  “Yeah, I know you worry.” I could hear the smile in his voice and worse, I could picture it in my head, and it was sort of crushing my soul. “I worry about you too, Kat.” Forget sort of crushing, there was definitely some crushing happening. “You want to tell me about your crazy week? I’m happy to listen. More than happy to help, if I can.”

  So this was weird. “Uhm… okay. There’s this person who I’ve been trying to get to know better and I thought we were becoming friends, and then I saw that they were struggling with something, so I tried to help and got some serious rejection, so I don’t know what to do now.”

  “This person matters to you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t give up. Speaking from personal experience here, trust doesn’t always come easy. Some of us have been hurt so many times, if somebody catches us in a vulnerable state, we lash out. Gotta prove we’re not weak. Or, maybe they’re just an asshole who doesn’t deserve your friendship.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Thank you. That’s very helpful advice.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “It was, actually. It was.”

  “Well, I’d better get back to work.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you later.”

  “Bye.”

  I ended the call, set my phone face down on the table, look up at the ceiling and growled. “What the fuck!?”

  “I’m going to put the kettle on,” Julian said. “We’re talking about this.”

  Chapter 12

  Dear Diary,

  My life has become a cheesy teenage dramedy. I’m the nerdy girl the popular guy is falling for, except he doesn’t realize I’m the nerdy girl, he thinks I’m someone else. In my scenario it’s someone who looks exactly like me but with more hair and lots more make-up.

  So I guess that means that there are actual people who could see Superman and Clark Kent side by side and somehow not see a resemblance. On a related note, Halloween ought to be extra fun this year…

  Ugh! So what do I do? Do I follow the cheeseball plot-line and try and get him to like the nerdy me until he eventually discovers we’re the same girl?

  Why would I do that!? Oh, that’s right, I like this guy. Not that I’m willing to admit that to anyone other than you — a book with a lock on it. Julian suspects, and by suspects, I mean totally knows, because I’m basically see through to him, but it’s Julian so, whatever, he doesn’t count.

  Alternative two would be to come clean about the whole thing now, figure out a way through the awkward fallout and hope he won’t completely shut me out, the way he already does.

  There are no good options and it’s making me crazy.

  Desperately seeking sanity,

  -Kat

  ・❀・❀・❀・

  I spilled to Julian and he gave me the best worst advice ever: “Just be you, Darling.”

  My angst continued until Monday morning when, by some miracle, I woke up feeling totally chill and knowing exactly what to do. I was going to be myself. I was also going to be two people. Katie, and Kat.

  Dominic was a smart guy, despite his weird object recognition issues. Eventually, he would figure it out and he’d probably be totally wigged, but it was going to be his issues to deal with, not mine.

  Ahh. What a relief it was to be back to being normal not crazy — not as crazy — me.

  “Friday was so much fun!” Zack gushed in 2nd period. “You guys should totally come to the dances,” he said to Aimee and Erin.

  “I was at the dance,” Erin looked miffed. “I said hi to you.”

  “Oh, that was you? I didn’t recognize you without the look of disdain on your face. Yeah, that’s the one,” he nodded toward her scowl. “What about you Aimee? You dance? No?”

  “No. I study.”

  “But all work and no play?” Zack frowned.

  “Gets Aimee an ivy league education,” she grinned.

  “I’m so gonna vote for your dull ass when you run for president,” Zack said with all seriousness.

  Aimee smiled.

  3rd period, Dominic was sitting in the seat just behind the middle seat. Maybe it was a peace offering? Maybe it was a coincidence? Maybe I didn’t care. I took the first available seat, two back from the door. Right next to exchange student Ryo.

  Ryan was leaning over my desk 10 seconds later. “What’s up with the seat change? Something I need to know about?”

  Eeesh. He’s friends with Dominic, whatever I said to him would probably make it back to Dominic. And that was kind of perfect if I thought about it. So I leaned close to Ryan and said, “I was trying to be nice and somebody took it wrong, like I wanted something else, something more, and it got weird, so I’m giving them some space.”

  Ryan rolled his eyes. “What a douche-bag.”

  I shrugged a shoulder. “Well, you know him better than I do.”

  4th period, Dominic gave me a nod and said, “Hey,” as he sat down. I gave him a quick smile and turned away and started talking to Katlynn.

  At lunch, I decided to sit with Kimber and her friends. Fortunately, talk of Dominic didn’t come up because everybody wanted to talk about Zack Rydell, who had apparently blossomed over the summer because everyone had it in their memories that he was short and wore braces.

  I got a text from Dominic during Independent Studies.

  DW: I’m glad we’re still friends.

  KF: Say that in 50 years!

  DW: I certainly hope so!

  I took my usual seat in Life Skills then turned back and handed him a pencil.

  “So, you’re not talking to me, but you’re still going to loan me a pencil?”

  “Yeah, because even if you don’t want to be friends with me, I’m not an asshole.”

  “Ooh,” Kayley twisted in her seat to get a better view of our show.

  He swore under his breath. “Look, I’m sorry if I came off kind of harsh on Friday.”

  I held up my hand, to stop him talking. “It’s cool. I understand it better than you think. You make lots of assumptions.”

  There was more he wanted to say but Ms. Young was calling attention to the front the class, to start the lesson.

  After class, when he was returning my pencil, he kept his grip on it, I let go if it and looked up at him. “I’m sorry,” he said, with big brown eyes. “I don’t really do friends.”

  “Yeah, me either. I gather we’re a lot alike that way. See ya around. I turned and started to go.”

  “Don’t you want your pencil?”

  “You can keep it. I have plenty.”

  Maybe it was shitty of me to distance myself from him but it’s what made sense. Anything between us that might have looked like flirting had always come from him, and yet he was the one who had accused me of trying to get with him. Nope. That’s drama, and the me that is, well, me, drops that kind of steaming hot crap like it’s… well, like it’s steaming hot crap.

  Besides that, he barely seemed to notice. I think he was maybe even a little bit relieved, it’s hard to say. I kept loaning him pencils, his witty banter, slowed a bit for a couple of weeks but it was part of his nature so he was back at it soon enough. “What’s the Spanish word for parrot?”

  “Loro.”

  He slid into the seat next to me, where Kayley usually sat. “What’s the Spanish word for bear?”

  “Oso. You know, you could just take a class if you wanted to learn.”

  “Nah. This is better.”

  “Out,” Kayley demanded when she arrived in class.

  “You know seats aren’t assigned here, right?” Dominic leaned back in the chair.

  Kayley’s hands went to her hips, the right one popping forward a tick. “I’m going to count to f
ive, Dominic.”

  Yikes. I was a little bit jarred, but I grew up with both of our mom’s doing this. I looked to Dominic to see if he grew up with counting ultimatums. He’d become fidgety, and was looking at me with questioning eyes. I’m pretty sure everyone grew up with counting ultimatums, but I think it was my reaction to Kayley’s countdown that inevitably made him surrender the seat.

  ・❀・❀・❀・

  On the other side of my relationship with Dominic, we texted pretty much every day. A lot of getting to know you kind of stuff. We talked about favorite things, least favorite things, the issues with his mom were still a thing, but he’d decided to tell his therapist about his mom’s constant messaging and they were working together to make it stop.

  On his next Sunday off we also had a very long text discussion about how weird it was that no one ever recognized Clark Kent as Superman. He agreed it was preposterous, which I found hilarious, and then he offered this theory that Kal’El had some kind of psychic ability to cloud the minds of others, so they didn’t recognize him or something.