Reasons for Recovery

by Blair Burden

Chapter 11

  August 21

  I awoke to screaming from outside the pool house. Still drowsy, I hurried to the glass door and it was Marla and Raymond fighting—again. I covered my eyes as I tried not to look outside the door.

  “You’re a whore!” Raymond screamed.

  “I’m not!” Marla cried.

  “How can you be pregnant?”

  “Huh?” I gasped as Raymond was walking toward the pool house in tears.

  He slammed open the door and he began slamming his fist on the wall. In the most anger I’ve ever seen, he began to pull the wallpaper off the wall. “You know what?” he said while keeping his eyes on Marla as she paced around outside.

  “Hmm?” I wrapped myself in blankets, as all I had on was skimpy underwear.

  “What are you doing?” he turned around at me. “Did I bother you? Were you sleeping?”

  “Um, no I was getting ready for class,” I said. “It's Monday.”

  “Marla is a whore!” he said, ignoring me. “She’s pregnant and I know it isn’t my baby.”

  “How’d you know she’s pregnant?”

  “She said so!”

  “And you know for a fact you’re not the daddy?”

  “Yeah,” he said as he calmed down. “I hate her.”

  “Yeah then,” I said as he sat next to me. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Sometimes I wish she were dead,” he muttered.

  I gasped and stood up, “Don’t ever say that. That can be held up against you. I said that once about my friend and a month later she was dead and everyone was on me about it.”

  “You don’t understand though. If she were gone, everything would be better—”

  I moved from the awkward situation and walked over to the mirror. “I don’t think you should say that. What if something really did happen to her?”

  “I don’t care!” he cried. “I just don’t understand why Marla is such a bitch?”

  “Girls can be that way.”

  “Are you like that too?”

  “Um, I don’t—”

  “Don’t answer that.”

  The room grew silent and I wondered if he would be leaving anytime soon so I could get ready for school. I watched him as he began to pace around the room, probably thinking up a crazy scheme. I cleared my throat, trying to get his attention.

  “Am I bothering you? Were you going to do something today?” he sobbed. “I’m just so lonely now that Marla is with someone else.”

  I gasped in shock as I never seen a grown men cry like him. “Well…I only had school. It’s not like I need an education.”

  “Oh Cassie, you’re too funny. That is why I love you.”

  I stiffened up and walked to the bathroom. I slowly shut the door, hoping he would leave me alone. “I really need to get ready for school!”

  “Oh, I can wait,” he said as I imagined him blowing his nose in a dirty tissue.

  Wait for what? I thought. “No, I mean…I don’t want to be late,” I said as I quickly put on a pair of ripped short-shorts and a plaid shirt. “I have a lot to do today, I might not be home tonight,” I lied.

  “That’s okay, I guess. I just thought you would stay around now that Marla won’t be coming home.”

  I sighed, “Well, I guess I can change my plans—”

  I opened the bathroom door and in fright, I jumped back because Raymond was standing right there with a box of tissue in his hands. “Thanks for talking to me.” Raymond put his shaky hands on my shoulders and tried to pull me in for a hug.

  “Well, you are my friend…” I said in an awkward stay-away-from-me tone.

  I knew this moment too well. It was the awkward scene in movies where the people end up doing something they would regret. Then, I would get pregnant again and Karen would call me a slut. I saw a movie like that on Lifetime before. I did not want to be a slut and I did not want to be pregnant again—

  Raymond gently put his hands around my neck and gave me a huge kiss on the lips. I did not know what to do, so I continued to kiss him. I had never kissed anyone like that before. And I know what you’re thinking, but Cassie, you were pregnant—so! I never kissed anyone before. A part of me wanted to stop…but it felt loving.

  Raymond stared at me with tears in his eyes and then he scratched his nail into my wrist. It hurt, but I did not push him away.

  “This is so wrong,” I said.

  “Um, I have to go!” Without saying another word, he ran out the pool house with tissues flying out his pockets behind him.

  Later that day, at school, it was even more awkward. I found myself trying to avoid Karen as much as possible. She wanted a ride to school, but I refused and said I needed alone time. When she wanted to take a study break, I told her I had to make an important phone call. I did not want to tell her I made out with her hot dad. Could she blame me though? He was so hot nice.

  I hid in the bathroom during art class practicing my thunderbolt makeup on my face. I did not mind being in the bathroom. I was not alone—the cigarette bunch ditched in there too.

  I coughed up yellow spit as the cigarette bunch grew larger and the more hairspray they sprayed on their already big hair. I sat closer to the bathroom window to get fresh air and instead of using the stained wall mirror, I used my own handheld one.

  “Busted!” Karen came into the bathroom with her hall pass. She used the hall pass so much to find me; it was “Karen’s pass to find Cassie.”

  I hopped off a stool that was next to the window and tried not to make eye contact with her. I assumed like most teenage girls, Karen could read my body language. I had the whole kiss with her father written all over my face. I packed my bag and just as I was about to leave, Karen pulled me back.

  “Are you avoiding me?” she said. “I haven’t seen you all day.”

  “I’ve been busy,” I lied as I washed my hands. “I told you I was having a long day.”

  “With what?” she laughed. “Ooh, cool thunderbolt!” Karen had a small mind and she sidetracked easily.

  “Yeah, you like it?” I asked, trying to distract her from the previous conversation. It worked!

  “Totally, so yeah Betsy and I are gonna get pizza with the dance team after school. Want to join?”

  “Hell no! Me in a room with a bunch of teen giggly girls—I’ll pass,” I snapped.

  Karen hugged me and put her tiny arms around my waist, mesmerizing my every move. “I knew you would say that—but there is pizza!”

  I pushed her off me and she nearly slipped on toilet paper. “No—”

  “Wait! What was I talking about before I got confused…something about you avoiding me?”

  “I don’t remember,” I beamed as I walked toward the bathroom exit. “You should get to class. I don’t want you to get suspended because of me.”

  “Both of us need to get to class.”

  “Uh, no!”

  “Cassie,” she whined, “you’re supposed to graduate this year. How are you, if you ditch all the time?”

  “Technically, she isn’t ditching, since she’s at school,” Jordan interrupted as he walked passed us.

  “See, at least someone agrees,” I said.

  “Well, I think it’s bad,” Karen said. “You should be on top of school. You don’t have much time.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked Jordan as he headed toward the exit. “Did you get suspended again?”

  “Nah, I got kicked out for talking too much, but I swear my talking was school related,” he said.

  “Oh really?” I laughed.

  “But, I’m going to eat. Are you hungry?”

  “Why do you always ask me that?” I said.

  “I don’t know, it’s just a habit,” he winked.

  “Do I look like I don't eat or something?”

  “Ha, no,” he chuckled. “Sorry, I always offend you by asking that.”

  “Actually, I am. I don’t have my car—”

  “Jordan should drive you!” Karen but
ted in.

  “But, that would be ditching,” I said.

  “Since when do you care?” she laughed as she pushed me next to Jordan. “I’ll see you at home tonight. We can do makeovers later?”

  “Um no, you know I don’t like you touching me,” I said.

  “Hmm, I’ll make you change your mind. I’ll bring a movie home and we can stay up all night watching Mean Girls. Oh yeah, you remember that,” Karen paused and began to whisper, “that note I wrote you. Well, I left it in your room. Read it when you get home, okay?”

  “Whatever, Karen,” I snapped, annoyed about her stupid letter.

  “Well, I’ll see you later,” she shouted and ran back to class.

  “So you want to go out to eat?” Jordan said.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “Maybe what?”

  “I’m a little confused here—”

  “Why?”

  “Why are you stalking me?”

  “I like your shoes,” he changed the subject.

  I looked down at my old ripped dirty brown boots—he was obviously lying. “Um, thanks.”

  “So, do you wanna go out to eat?” he asked as he pinched my leather jacket. “And I won’t take no for an answer.”

  “Bummer,” I said. “Well, yes, I don’t want to eat with you.”

  “And I won’t take ‘don’t’ as an answer either,” he said.

  “I can’t—”

  “Cassie…” he whined.

  I also knew that scene well too from many movies I had seen. He was the popular hot guy, who would ask me, the lame unpopular girl out because of a dare. I would find out and then I would be very dramatic as if I did not know the whole time.

  “Nope!” I said.

  “Why not?” he said.

  “Because I’ve seen this happen many times before. I’m not a toy, Jordan.”

  “Seen what happen many times?”

  “Nothing, I have to go to class.”

  “I’ll see you later, then?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Bye Cassie.”