by Marie Cole
"So, are you one of them now? Ready to get drunk and high with the popular kids?"
I avoided looking at him, scared that if I did he'd see how desperately I did want to go. How desperately I wanted to go anywhere with him.
"No. Come on, Els. It's not like that. I think it'll be fun. And we should experience it at least once, right? It's like a rite of passage, every high school movie has a big high school party. Besides there won't be drinking."
I rolled my eyes again and shook my head. "That's the biggest pile of bull crap I've ever heard. If there won't be any drinking then what are all the popular kids going to be doing?"
He shrugged. "Playing video games, it's hip now. I need my good luck charm by my side." He reached out and tried to take my hand but when I felt his fingers zap mine I pulled my hand out of his reach.
"Or you could just go without me. I'll draw the wrong kind of attention, unlike your girlfriend." I refused to say her name again.
I pressed my lips together and kept my eyes straight ahead, my arms crossed under my chest. He was wearing me thin and I knew that if he looked in my eyes he'd know it.
"Please, Elly?" He ran ahead just enough to turn around and walk backwards in front of me. His hands were clasped together and pressed tightly against his chest. "Please, please, please?"
Damn him and his puppy dog eyes! "Fine!" My heart skipped a beat as I saw a light pole coming up behind him. I grabbed him and pulled him to the side just in time, "Just turn your ass around so you don't run into something."
His smug smile taunted me as we continued to walk, "I'll pick you up at eight, then?"
"Nine. I'm not going to be the first one to arrive at the high school party."
"Fine. Nine it is then."
"Fine."
My mind was already wandering to my closet, mentally shuffling through all my options, trying to think of something that would be flattering yet comfortable. Not too formal, not too informal. Something cool without trying too hard.
"You alright, Els?" I blinked as Kent's face came into focus. I'd been staring at him absently.
"Yeah. This is your street." I pointed to the sign on the corner we'd stopped on. "See you tomorrow."
"At nine," he finished with a nod.
Chapter Twelve
KENT
The party was in full swing when we entered at half past nine. The loud thumping music could probably be heard a block away and I turned to look at Elly. I had to get pretty close to speak so she could hear me.
"Drink? Non-alcoholic?" I teased her.
She rolled her eyes at me, "Whatever." Her shoulders shrugged as she tried to slink away from me.
With a frown I followed Elly. I had no idea where the games would be if they'd even decided on it at all. Perhaps Jen just told me that to get me to come.
The house was crowded, and we had to turn sideways to get through the throng. Admittedly it was much easier to get through after Elly had cleared the path. Despite her nonchalant attitude towards a beverage she'd led us to the kitchen where a few guys were standing around an ice cold keg.
"Hey, Kenny G, want some brew?"
A couple of the guys snickered and clapped the smart ass, Doug Baker, on the back for his efforts.
"I do." Elly said as she grabbed a cup and held it out towards the hose.
"Woah! Elly-phant is getting in the party spirit. How about you?" He filled her cup as he nodded towards me.
I could feel my cheeks getting a bit red. Not from being embarrassed, but because he was making fun of my friend. My eyes shifted towards Elly. "I'm good." I said rather softly.
Elly didn't even bother looking at me. Once her beer was full she turned around and started sipping it. Okay, not sipping, chugging. I watched her for a moment before glancing around. No one was staring or pointing so that was a good thing.
"But you should chill out with the name calling, man." I said as my eyes moved from Elly to the cup in her hand. I was starting to have second thoughts about this party in general. Elly and I could've played video games at my house. There wasn't anything here that we couldn't have gotten at my house. Except all the assholes.
"This is a party, man, not an alternate universe. Elly-phant knows I'm just fucking with her, don't you?" Doug, the asshole, reached out and tugged on Elly's hair. She responded by shrugging and holding out her cup.
"Whatever. Just fill it up."
I felt the anger bubbling up inside of me. Who the hell did Doug think he was, anyway? He was just a dumbass with a cool hair cut.
"Don't call her that again, I'm warning you," I said loudly.
He smirked at me and I watched as his eyes dropped to Elly's cleavage as he filled her cup again.
My cheeks started to burn, "Dance with me, Elly. " I said as I tried to get her away from those guys and the keg. She was going too fast and I didn't like it. My over-protectiveness was starting to kick in. I'd made her come to this party and I needed to keep her safe.
"What? No," she waved me off as she tilted her head back and chugged her second beer.
Doug was watching, smiling like a predator. "Do you want another refill?" he asked.
I saw the scene, playing it in my mind like some bad story, Elly drinking too much and passing out and these guys with their hands all over her. The thought alone caused my fists to clench at my sides, ready to defend her, even though technically the jocks weren't doing anything wrong. Yet.
I took the cup from Elly to make sure she didn't drink more and set it on the keg table. "We do have to eventually go home. " I said to her as she frowned at me, reaching for her cup. I grabbed her hand and held it tightly between us.
"Yeah. In like four hours. I'm just bracing myself and at the same time participating in the high school ritual." She roughly pulled her hand from mine, staring me down, challenging me.
"Come on Kenny G. Let the chunk drink and maybe someone will get lucky tonight. " Doug commented.
It was the straw that broke the camel's back. I whipped my head around to Doug and yelled, "STOP CALLING HER NAMES!"
Elly's mouth dropped open but I barely saw it past the red that was clouding my vision.
Doug looked shocked for only a millisecond before he put the hose down and stepped around the table, "No, I don't think I will. What are you going to do about it, four eyes?"
Before my better than average intelligence brain could process the situation my hand balled into fist and, just like in those fighting games I played, it connected with his right eye.
There were collective groans all around and I barely had time to take them in before Doug was standing up straight again, his posture extremely offensive. He pulled his fist back and pummeled it right into my gut. The breath left me immediately, but I didn't have time to react before his other fist connected with my face and my glasses were knocked off.
"Stop!" I heard Elly cry out as I whipped my face back towards Doug, who was a blurry mass among other blurry masses. I could feel my left eye starting to swell but I wasn't going to stop and I couldn't figure out why. I didn't get hit again because apparently the blurry masses kept the one from doing it. I felt a warm hand grab mine and I was quickly pulled away and into the dark evening.
"So much for video games," Elly muttered at my side.
I pressed my free hand over my eye, the anger still vibrating through my body. "Fuck him. " I was still thinking about the potential of his hands on her.
"You over-reacted."
"No, I reacted." I roughly pulled my hand from hers and shoved it into my jean pocket. "Why did you just stand there and let him call you names?"
"Because you wanted to go to the stupid party in the first place, and I didn't want to ruin it for you!" Elly's voice had risen at least an octave and I felt the tension in my jaw as I clenched my teeth.
Great, now she was mad at me. How did I explain to her something I didn't even understand myself? Yes, I thought there would be video games. Yes, I thought that now that I was Jen's boyfriend I could
go to a high school party where the cool kids played and play along with them. Maybe I had hoped that the new Jen's boyfriend status would rub off on Elly too and that they wouldn't pick on her because she was with me.
I was mad at myself for not being smart enough to realize that wasn't how it worked. Mad that as a result Elly was put into the bully's line of fire. And mad that Jen was the only reason why any of them accepted me in the first place. It wasn't right.
"Whatever. We left. You got your wish."
I felt the sharp pinch of something hard being pressed against my chest and tried to blink the blurriness away to see Elly's face as she stood, stopped, in front of me.
"I didn't want to go to that damn party in the first place. Take your glasses and go back. You'll be cool now that you have a Doug-induced black eye. I'm going home."
"Elly!" I tried to grab her but she was too fast. I slipped my glasses on and considered myself lucky that the eye I could see out of also had a clear lens to gaze through. "Elly, don't be a bitch! Come back!"
She was across the street now and turned around to yell back at me, "Fuck off, Kent! Go back to your real friends!"
My jaw felt like it was going to pop right along with my fists. I'd just defended her and somehow that made me the bad guy? She was so ridiculous! She made absolutely no sense! I about faced and stomped back to my car. My party mood was gone. For now I just wanted to drive. Maybe girl-logic would come to me while I was drowning out my own thoughts with some Slipknot.
Chapter Thirteen
KENT
Elly was still mad about the party thing when I saw her the next day. She tried to duck into her house before I saw her in the backyard but she wasn't fast enough.
"Elly! Come on! Talk to me."
She hesitated and for a minute I thought she was going to blow me off completely but, lucky for me, she decided to walk over towards me. She didn't ask me to come inside, she just held onto the chain link fence between our bodies.
"Kent. You've been a shitty friend ever since Jen came into the picture. We don't hang out unless she's not here. And that's pretty fucked up. If you can't hang out with me then we don't have a friendship anymore. You need to figure some shit out and talk to your girlfriend because I'm done trying to act cool about it."
I stared at her, dumbfounded, and she must have taken that as a response because she retreated inside. On the walk home I thought about what she said and for three weeks I tried it her way. I invited her out with me and Jen. We went to the movies together, out to eat, but nothing had brought us closer, in fact it had only seemed to push us further apart. She was so distant, so cold, and where as I should've been enjoying the little time I had left in high school I was stuck between a rock, Elly, and a hard place, Jen.
"Kent, I've been very patient with this Elly thing," Jen said as we walked through the halls together between classes.
I clenched my jaw. Elly wasn't a thing, she was my friend. Used to be, anyway. The squeeze in my chest reminded me that the thought was depressing.
"I know. I'm sorry, I'm just out of ideas. Since you don't want me hanging out with her alone I'm out of options."
Jen sighed as we entered class and sat down with me in the back. She took ahold of my hand and stared at them. After a moment she met my eyes. "Kent, look. I can't go on any more dates with you and her. You need to pick. Me or her. I can't do this anymore."
"What?" I felt my heart racing in my chest.
"You need to decide if you want to hang out with her or if you want to hang out with me."
"Why can't I do both?"
She shook her head and dropped her gaze to our hands. "You know how I feel about her. She has feelings for you, Kent, unfriendly feelings. Too friendly feelings. She's going to try to take you from me and I can't let that happen. I..."
My heart beat faster as I held my breath. Was she going to tell me that she loved me? I waited but the words didn't come.
"Jen, come on. That's not true. And not fair. She's just a friend."
She shrugged, "Maybe not. But that's the way it has to be. We don't get much time together as it is because of school and studying. You either go on dates with me, alone. Or we break up and you can see Elly whenever you want. It's just that simple."
Class started and she turned around after giving my hands another squeeze. I stared at the back of her blonde head as I thought about the ultimatum that she'd just given me. I loved Jen, I was pretty sure of it, but Elly was my best friend.
I tried to envision my life without Jen in it. I thought of her moving on, dating an asshole like Doug Baker. I didn't like that at all. It would crush me to see her with another guy, kissing him, laughing at his jokes, touching him.
And then I thought about my life without Elly. It was what it had been prior to the past three weeks. And it was livable. By the end of class I knew what I had to do.
After class I parted ways with Jen and intentionally bumped into Elly on the way to last period.
"Elly, hey."
She glanced at me and then really looked at me. She knew something was wrong. Shit, I hadn't done a good enough job of hiding it. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to tell her what I needed to if she knew it was coming.
"What's wrong?" she said, her eyes wide with worry.
I looked down at the ground, willing myself to appear nonchalant.
"Jen, um ... " God this was hard to say. Man up, Kent, and just say it! "Jen and I aren't doing so well and I need some time to work things out with her."
"O...kay."
"Just, like, don't plan on seeing me for awhile or whatever."
She was so quiet but I didn't dare look up. I didn't want to see what my words had done to her.
"Whatever. Good luck with that. I hope it works out for you two." I could hear the soft quiver in her voice as she tried to hold it together. I watched as her Doc Martens sidestepped me and then disappeared. I turned and watched her walk away, her hands swiping at her face as she went.
I was an asshole but true love was worth it. It had to be because this hurt like hell. But breaking up with Jen would've hurt more.
"Mmm," Jen murmured as she brought my hand to her lips for a quick kiss. "Dry humping is so good. But not nearly as good as the real thing. Everyone thinks we're doing it anyway, shouldn't we just go ahead and do it?"
I groaned as she rubbed against my already raw junk. "No. It doesn't matter what everyone else thinks. I want our first time to be special."
She smiled, "You mean your first time."
She loved rubbing it in my face that she was experienced and I wasn't. That was the whole reason why I wasn't ready to have sex with her. She would probably expect something earth shattering, and I was sure that for my first time inside of her I would be anything but.
"Yes, my first time. But more importantly our first time, as a couple." I pulled her down for a kiss, loving the way her moans filled the small space of her backseat.
"Do you love me?"
I felt my cheeks heat at the question. I did, I knew the answer, but I was afraid to tell her. What if she didn't say it back? Would I be able to handle that kind of rejection? Without knowing the answers to those questions I remained silent.
She smiled sadly and crawled off my lap despite my protests. "No, it's okay, Kent. I mean, it's okay if you don't feel it back."
I quickly swallowed the lump in my throat before this moment passed by. "Feel it back. Are you saying...?"
She looked at me as if I were stupid and then nodded. "Yes, I love you, but I don't want you to feel pressured to--"
"I love you too!" I wrapped her up in my arms and pressed my lips to hers. In that moment I didn't think about anything else. Just me and Jen. And how happy we were when we were together.
Chapter Fourteen
ELLY
Jake: Hey Elly, how's it going?
Elly: Fine...
Jake: Why don't I believe you?
Elly: Because you're a weird IM-mind reader?
> Jake: What's wrong?
Wait. Let me guess... Kent.
Your lack of response makes me think I'm right on the money. What happened? I haven't been online in awhile, spill.
Elly: I think... I think we aren't friends anymore?
Jake: What??
Elly: Yeah. He told me a few weeks ago that he needed space.
Jake: Were you stalking him?
Elly: If you think stalking means Kent begging me to hang out with him and Jen and me saying yes then... sure. But I don't think that's what that word means.
Jake: Why did you say yes?
Elly: Because he asked me to?
Jake: Elly. If he asked you to jump off of a cliff would you do that too?
You know what? Don't answer that.
Elly: I'm pathetic.
Jake: No. He is. He's going to lose a very cool friend. But you really shouldn't let him abuse you like that.
Elly: I know.
Jake: Prom is coming up soon, isn't it? Are you going?
Elly: Doubtful.
Jake: Elly, come on. Isn't there someone you want to go with?
Elly: ...
Jake: Besides him?
Elly: No. It's fine. It's a stupid school dance anyway.
