Ready Or Not

I wondered when I’d see him again. Hopefully soon. I mean, we went to the same school; we had English together so it wasn’t like I wouldn’t have the chance to run into him. Cherrygrove State High was small but not quite enough so that you knew everyone – although I pretty much did thanks to Eugene. “Honey, why are you home? You told me you were going to stay at Elaine’s house. Is everything alright with you two? Don’t tell me you guys are fighting again,” Mum babbled as I sat down on a stool in the kitchen. Deny it, I told myself, deny everything. “I didn’t feel right staying there tonight. I just wanted to sleep in my own bed,” I fibbed. That sounded like a fair enough excuse and from the look on her face, she seemed convinced. Then, her expression changed from understanding to utter confusion. “Um how did you get home? Please tell me you didn’t walk all the way here,” She frowned, “And where are your things? Didn’t you have a bag? And why aren’t you wearing your shoes?” So many questions. She had a good point, a very good point actually. Damn, I should’ve thought of that earlier. I had just said the first thing that came to mind. Now I had to make up more lies to cover up my other ones. I hated this; I hated spinning a web of lies. It was messy and I knew somewhere along the line I would screw it all up and fall through. “As I said: I didn’t feel right staying there. I had a friend come and pick me up,” It was obvious what she was going to ask next. I was dreading it. Elaine was my only friend so my friend who picked me up was going to have to be made up too. I went through a list of girls names in my head – mostly people I knew from school – trying to think of one that didn’t sound too suspicious. If I told the truth about it being a guy who’d dropped me home, I’d never hear the end of it. She raised her eyebrows, taking in what I’d just said. She opened her mouth to speak but luckily I beat her to it. “I’m gonna go upstairs and change,” I didn’t give her the chance to protest. I headed up the stairs, breathing a sigh of relief as I flung my bedroom door open. I turned my light on and collapsed in a heap on my bed. I just lay there, staring at the ceiling till the pattern turned blurry, thoughts racing through my head. Out of all the events that’d happened tonight, the only one I couldn’t stop dwelling on was my conversation with Dylan. It just kept playing over in my mind like a broken down record. It was actually really starting to piss me off. He didn’t have the right to ask me about my relationship, make me question myself and Eugene’s intentions. But what pissed me off the most was that he was most likely right. If he was right that meant I’d wasted three – almost four – months of my life. Dylan had basically just washed my relationship down the drain and I hated that. I hated that he knew more about my relationship than I did. I was blinded by the idea of being in a relationship rather than caring about who it was with. I just wanted to be loved by someone but not exactly in the way Eugene wanted to show it. I wanted long conversations; I wanted inside jokes; I wanted to hold hands in public. You’d think that wouldn’t be too much to ask from someone. Well, you’d be wrong. I’d never had any of that with him. It was always small talk and bullshit. That’s all it ever was and I was sick of it. That’s why I’d found it so refreshing to chat to Dylan. I kind of wished I had my phone with me but I knew that if I did, I’d be getting a lot of unwanted calls so it was probably better this way. I wondered if it would be considered cheating to ask for Dylan’s number. I doubted he’d even give it to me. I mean, I was in a relationship. Besides, he didn’t seem like the kind of guy to just give out his number. It wasn’t like I had an ulterior motive or anything. All I wanted was a friend, someone to talk to. Considering the fact that I felt as though I couldn’t do that with my boyfriend, I thought it was fair enough. With all that in mind, I slowly but surely fell into a deep sleep. What felt like just moments later but must have been a couple of hours, I was woken by a loud knock on my door. I didn’t even bother to open my eyes. “Honey, someone is here to see you,” I heard Mum say. I rolled over to face the wall and pulled the doona all the way over my head. I suddenly felt hot and sweaty from the lack of oxygen. I wasn’t really in the mental or emotional state for company. “Go away,” I muttered, my voice muffled by the doona. I didn’t flinch as the bed sank slightly under the weight of my apparent visitor. A moment later, my door shut and it was just us two. Half of me expected it to be Eugene and the other half, Elaine. I was hoping the latter. “You’re lucky I know how to play along with the lies you tell. Why didn’t you at least call me to let me know what was going on?” It was Elaine. I recognised her voice straight away. I breathed a sigh of relief at the fact she’d managed to actually follow through with it. What exactly did she think was going on? “Did you want to come to a party with me tonight?” She asked. I frowned and pretended like I didn’t hear her but she continued talking. “Eugene’s going to be there. Look, I heard about what happened between you two and I’m here to help you guys at least try to sort things out. I’d just hate to see your relationship go down in flames because of one silly misunderstanding,” My blood boiled as I realised what this was really about. He’d sent her to do his dirty work for him. He was too chicken to come over and do it himself so he’d gotten my best friend to do it for him. Now that was a new kind of low for him. Honestly, I’d had it with all of this drama. It was really beginning to get to me considering I usually avoided it as a rule. I pushed the covers off in one strong movement and sat up. “What did he tell you?” I demanded. “Enough,” She replied.

Notes