by Olivia Grey
“Fuck you, Jemma. Seriously, fuck you.”
I loved getting him riled up.
“Come on Axel. You enjoyed each and every minute of it and if she hadn’t run away like a little baby you would have banged the both of us and worn the success like a badge of honor. So don’t go around pretending that you’re this innocent guy who would never do anything to hurt Frances or any of those other nerds. You use people and if you found a way to use Frances, you wouldn’t even think about hesitating.”
“Use people,” he huffed. ‘I didn’t use anyone for anything. If you hadn’t been playing dirty games with me then we wouldn’t be in the situation we are now. I treated you right. That’s all I’ve ever done.”
“You ruined us, Axel. Not the other way around. Up until a few months ago, I would have done everything for you. I wasn’t the one who took a crap all over our relationship.”
“And what exactly did I do, Jemma?”
“You know what you did,” I yelled, finding it hard to tame myself.
Keep calm Jemma, I reminded myself. I couldn’t lose it. I needed to be in control of the situation. Axel couldn’t- not even for a minute- be led to believe that he had more power over me than I did over him.
“You took it the wrong way. I said something stupid during a fight and you completely brought things to a level they weren’t supposed to reach.”
“When someone tells you something in confidence, you don’t use it against them.”
“I didn’t use it against you. I said some stupid shit.”
“You kept doing it, Axel. This wasn’t a one-time thing. Every time we’re in a rough spot, you think it’s okay to bring that crap up. And that’s the problem. It matters to me and it’s just a fucking weapon to you.”
“Then why are you still holding on to something that hasn’t existed for such a long damn time.”
“Because that’s not how it’s going to work. We’ll play this thing out until our time in high school comes to an end.”
“I’m so sick and tired of pretending, Jemma. I really am. You’re not happy. I’m not happy.”
“We won’t be happy without each other,” I reminded him.
“Yes, of course not. As long as you don’t have me under your wing, you won’t be able to sleep.”
“It’s just easier if we stay together. Okay?”
“And if I decide to leave?”
“If you decide to leave, your scholarship leaves right along with you. So do the checks to the hospital for your father’s treatment.”
There was a long pause while I waited for him to bark back.
“Have it your way, Jemma.”
‘I’ll see you in school,’ I smiled, ending the call and placing my cellphone on the table.
Axel didn’t stand a chance in this war.
22
Frances
Getting used to the new me took a while, but I had help acquiring the reassurance and support I needed to stay strong. There were a lot of things that I blamed Jemma for. The days immediately after the day that changed me, I’d completely shut her out. In fact, I’d tried to shut everyone out. There were phone calls that I never picked up. She’d also left voicemails that never skimmed the surface of the problem.
“Come on Frances, pick up the phone,” she’d whine.
Or.
“At least send me a text so that I know you didn’t slit your wrists or lose yourself in a ditch,” said another.
“Is it time for me to go on the hunt for a new best friend?” she had asked through text.
Nothing from the heart because, simply put, Jemma didn’t have one.
Empathy just wasn’t in Jemma’s nature..
As for my mother, she knew there was something wrong and tried with all her might to pry it out of me.
“The flu,” I had told her, forcing up a rather dry cough.
She didn’t buy it, but she didn’t force me to go to school either. Maybe it was the puffiness of my eyes or the depression in my tone. Something in me managed to buy her pity and for that, I was thankful. Until day three when she’d decided that good grades were more important than spared feelings. In all fairness, she did give me an ultimatum. Either I told her what was really going on with me or I wheeled my backpack over my shoulders and exited the house at eight o’clock sharp. I decided that facing my existing demons was easier than turning my mother into a demon that I needed to avoid. And so, on Wednesday morning, I made my way to school, met Jemma by the girl’s locker room and pretended that everything was okay. As far as afterschool escapades went, I managed to skip out on them. The willpower that I’d previously lacked was coming to me bit by bit.
There was indeed one person who didn’t allow me to hide in my shell once the school day came to an end. Axel. People often refer to their partners as their ‘better half’. In the case of Jemma and Axel, one party certainly deserved the title. The compassion that I’d hoped Jemma would show, was the compassion Axel showed.
The love I hoped Jemma’s pores would exude, was the love I felt from Axel. When it all came down to it, Jemma was waiting for me to pick up the pieces of my life, cutting myself on each shard while she remained scratch free. Things didn’t quite happen that way. Instead of trying to mend myself, I’d left the pieces on the ground, cried over spilled milk and convinced myself that I was ruined. Axel, he’d been there as much as I would allow. All those tears I’d cried, night after night, weren’t always wiped away by my own hands.
Realizing that his phone calls, text messages and attempts to get through to me in school weren’t working, Axel made an even bolder move. It was about four days into my sob story when I heard something similar to pebbles crashing into my window before tripping their way down the side of the building. A bird, I’d thought but no bird was that persistent. This continued for a few minutes, with me convincing myself that I was just hearing things. We lived in the modern times and Romeo simply didn’t exist in this day and age. My house had a doorbell; one that even in the deepest of sleeps, I could wake up to. Like a normal human being, Axel could have used the doorbell. But no, he insisted on scratching little dents in my window with pebbles he plucked from my mother’s garden. Not wanting to draw any more attention to my house or to me, I decided it was best to see what he wanted. I didn’t head down to the basement to grab a ladder. Neither did I tangle the ends of bedsheet to create a Rapunzel-like rope. I simply, dragged my feet downstairs, waved a quick ‘hello’ to my mother and squeezed myself out the door.
You know someone’s guilty when they just can’t shut up, my mother always said. Going by her word, Axel should have been tossed behind bars with no hopes of receiving a key. As soon as he saw my face, words fell from his lips with no delay, no pause, no hesitation. Guilty. But of what?
“It’s late,” I’d said, not answering the questions I wasn’t sure he asked. Not accepting apologies I wasn’t sure he’d made.
“How can you still be friends with Jemma but shut me out the way you have?”
“Because Jemma and I were friends before. You and I were just…”
“Staring at each other for years, hoping we could have something but afraid to ask.” His attempt to finish my sentence had failed. And royally so.
We weren’t there. We weren’t a couple. We barely even knew each other.
“Strangers,” I finally said. “You and I were strangers. Nothing more.”
“What did she say to you?” He rolled his hand into a ball and cracked one knuckle after the other. “I’m guessing she said nothing, because she didn’t have to. That’s the thing about you that I don’t understand. You’re so smart but yet so stupid.”
“You came here to insult me?”
“I’m not insulting you. I’m trying to ask why on earth you think it’s okay to forgive Jemma and treat me like shit.”
“That’s a bit over the top.”
“It’s not.” He blew out an exhausted breath and dropped his hands to his sides. “You’ve just thrown all the blame to me a
nd I’m not sure what you want me to do with it. I can apologize a million times and that doesn’t mean shit. But when it comes to Jemma, she’ll fuck up and you’ll be the one delivering the apology.”
“I think you should go.”
“No,” he said, planting his foot in place, as though daring me to move him.
“What happened between the both of us, it’s not something I want to remember.”
“But it’s something you’ll never forget,” he said matter-of-factly.
He was right. Every night I went to bed was another night that I replayed the scene in my head.
“And you standing here is just another terrible reminder.”
“Why can’t you see the good in it?”
“Because there’s none to be seen. I made a terrible mistake and I have to live with that but I don’t have to deal with you.”
“Frances, just give me a chance," he said.
It wasn’t the words that stopped me from walking away. His tone, oozed in desperation, struck me hard. He wasn’t going to cry. Even though his eyes were glossed over and his lips trembling, he wouldn’t cry. I cried. Weak little girls like me, we were the ones who found it easy to soak our pillows. Girls like Jemma and guys like Axel, they kept their emotions intact.
“I hurt you. I get that. I’m the asshole who couldn’t help himself and you’re the girl who was too hypnotized by Jemma to realize the repercussions that your actions would bring. But let me explain something to you Frances.” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t have sex with you because I wanted to brag to my friends about a stupid threesome. I did it because when I looked over at you on that bed, I remembered the first time I walked into Rebel High. I remembered how hard it was to keep my eyes off you. In the hotel room, I didn’t think about Jemma. I didn’t think about a threesome. All I wanted was to kiss you.”
“We did more than that,” I reminded him.
“Because I couldn’t help myself. Because you…” he said, moving closer to me. “You were the girl that I’ve dreamt about ever since I moved to Florida.”
His face was so close to mine. Cinnamon breath tickled my nose every time he exhaled.
“You have Jemma,” I replied, keeping my gaze focused on the cracks in the ground, the chipped nail polish on my toenails.
Those big brown eyes wouldn’t get the chance to hypnotize me.
“Jemma took me. That’s all it was. She made a move and I didn’t decline because I’m a guy. But I still thought about you. I still dreamt of kissing you.”
I swallowed, loosening a lump that had risen to the top of my throat.
“Pretty,’ he said, ‘is easy to gain enough confidence for. Beauty and brains, well, that’s what makes my knees buckle.’”
He brushed my hair away from my face and without thinking, I looked up. I could see a reflection of me in his eyes and I wondered if he could see himself in mine. For a moment, my mind went blank, like it needed to restart in order to get a fresh take on what was happening. Kind of like a computer. It gets stuck on something that doesn’t make sense and you’ve got to reboot in order for it to find its footing again. Axel and I, we didn’t make sense.
“I’ll kiss you if you want me to,” he said, his lips close enough that if I puckered up, they’d touch my lips.
I nodded.
‘I’d like that,’ I admitted.
Close eyes. Shut out world. Forget the past, the future and everything in between. Nothing about kissing Axel felt wrong. He was convincing, too convincing, maybe. My mother would say I needed to learn the difference between convincing and conniving. Was that it? Was Axel just like Jemma? Did he have all the right words and combine them with all the wrong intentions. Regardless of the goosebumps that rose all over my body, along with the sensations that tickled in my stomach, I pushed Axel away. A part of being ‘smart’ was knowing better.
“Jemma is my friend,” I reminded him.
“And I might be falling in love with you. I might have fallen in love with you the first time I walked into Rebel High.”
It took me a bit of time to process what had really transpired that day. Coming to the conclusion that Axel and I were a better equation than he and Jemma was easy but actually following through with the execution of it was the hard part. High school was almost over and not wanting to revert to the girl that I once was- partially because I knew my old friends would no longer have me- I kept what was happening between Axel and me in the dark. It was a horrid thing to do, I knew that. Cheating was never acceptable, but something about being with Axel just felt too right to let it go. My relationship with Jemma was different now. The leash she had had me on was loosened and my after school activities were no longer left in her hands. Those decisions were mine to make and I’d chosen Axel. Sneaking around like two foxes in a chicken coop, we started a relationship that caused the stars to jump out of line.
23
Jemma
They both were avoiding me; there were no ifs ands or buts about it. Frances was like a ghost, disappearing into the night without a trace. Let’s not even get to Axel. He thought he had it all figured out, but he was wrong. What I had planned for him would shatter each and every dream he could have ever dreamed up. I was the force that determined his existence. Whether he shone or whether he dimmed like a worn out light bulb was my decision. Admitting that he needed me was hard, but somewhere deep down, he couldn’t shake the feeling. That was a fact. And so he stayed. His attention to me dwindled with each day that passed by, but our status didn’t and wouldn’t change. Jemma’s boyfriend, that’s who he was and who he’d be. It wasn’t a comforting thought for him, but he had no choice.
We were at the two week mark when I decided that the fire was running out of fuel. Both Axel and Frances felt too comfortable in their own skins. Keeping me in the dark about something that was as bright as day to me was no longer going to be an option. Not to mention the fact that Axel’s attraction to Mr. Jones seemed to be increasing at an intolerable pace. I’d warned him about that, fraternizing with the enemy. Of course, he was always quick to tell me that Mr. Jones was just a friend, a counselor. If he needed counselling then he should have turned to a professional because just the thought of Mr. Jones made my blood boil. The way that man looked at me made me think he knew something that he shouldn’t know. And if he did, Axel was the one to blame.
For the past week, I’d thought about confronting him, warning him for the very last time. But there were other things in my life that caused this conversation to take the back burner. Like the fact that Uncle Joey was to be coming to town in just a month.
Dear old Uncle Joey. He wasn’t exactly my uncle. Not by blood, at least. Adopted into my mother’s family at a tender age, he earned a title that he quickly showed he didn’t deserve.
Some family secrets should never come out, but this man, he held a sledge hammer of power over my parent’s head and I hated him for it. Before, the hatred was more of a close your eyes and the image of him disappears, kind of ordeal. He never spent too long in town. A traveler, that’s what he was. Always tending to a business meeting here, collecting clients there and reaping the benefits of his ‘well-doings’ in unwelcomed locations. It wasn’t often that I saw him, but when I did, he’d leave a stench behind that took its time to wear away. Eventually, of course, even that would disappear. At least, before Axel walked into my life and stirred up a reality that I had to punish him for. Every time I looked at Axel, I was reminded of Uncle Joey. That was hard. Way too hard.
Impatiently, I waited for the bell to ring. Fourth period was always such a drag. Smack in the middle of the day, interrupting all the plans I had before me.
I scanned the room, taking in all the fidgety hands jotting down notes. Their lives were so easy, useless but easy. One day, they’d grow up to be work horses. One day, they’d find someone just as useless as themselves. Get married and have even more useless kids. I wouldn’t be that person. My life had a purpose, I was reminded of that from a very
young age. Nothing and no one should get in my way. Nothing and no one had ever gotten in my family’s way. They did what they had to in order to secure a more than comfortable life. Some of their actions were far from forgivable but yet, what they did made sense.
Everyone has a few bumps laid out in the road for them. It’s up to each individual to decide whether or not getting over those bumps cost too high of a price. Most won’t even consider mustering up the necessary barter. But my family, we weren’t most people. We did whatever it took to get the upper hand. Sometimes it hurt. Pain, however, was temporary. For some. For us. Only the weak allows a sting to consume all their happiness. My family did not and would not succumb to pain. We do what it takes to get the joy we deserve.
“Jemma.” I heard Mrs. Brent’s raspy voice. ‘Jemma,’ she called out again.
I looked up, put on a smile and willed her to speak.
“Have you done your homework?”
“Yeah. But don’t we turn homework in at the end of class.”
Such a feeble person. Shoulder length hair, big bulgy glasses covering her petite nose and the tiniest of bodies. If the wind blew too hard it would lift her right away with it.
“Oh dear,” she smiled, “you haven’t been listening a beat, have you?”
“Sorry. Got a lot on my mind today.”
“That’s alright. We’re at question nine, raise your hand if you’d like to answer.” Just like that, her gaze shifted from me to Stewart. “So, Stewart, since you’re waving your hand away in the air, I’m guessing you know the answer.”
“More short wave radiation than long wave radiation.”
“Exactly,” Mrs. Brent chirped. “Across our wonderful sky, we’ve got an immense amount of short wave radiation, blue light, so to speak. And thus, the sky is…”
“Blue,” the entire class chanted.
I tuned them all out.
Long wave radiation.
