With or Without you || l.h.

Ch. 3

By the times I get home it’s been two hours since school ended. Kendall, being the star of the track team, ran those two miles from the villa to her place in like twenty minutes. If I had my board, it’d take thirty minutes, but since my board got incinerated I’m forced to walk home.

When I get home and walk up to the door there is no package to greet me. Hopefully mom saw it and took it inside. I’m praying that no one stole it. I walk inside and open the door. “Mom! I’m home!”

“And where have you been?” She said rounding the corner into the living room.

I sigh. “After school Kendall and I went to the mall when some moron ran into me knocking my board into the street and a car killed Pete.” This isn’t that far from the truth.

“Why didn’t you call?”

“Phone died.” I start turning around and head to my room. I’m in no mood to be lectured right now about anything. I just lost Pete this is a tough day for me. And the fact that I walked, walked, home was just painful.

I immediately remove my soda stained clothing from my body and toss it into the dirty clothes pile near my closet. I should really wash those clothes, maybe after the shower I’ll actually take the time to go to the laundry room. Or I’ll wait until my mom finds it and washes it herself. I walk into the bathroom and turn on the shower. The warm water feels so nice on my skin, removing the sticky soda remains from my skin. I never want to see those boys again.

-

How does one look cute? More specifically and importantly how does one look cute for a Patrick stump? I want to wear a FOB fan tee, but I also want to wear a shirt that says “Hey I look older than seventeen”. I don’t care that he’s married, I will marry him. It’s my ultimate fantasy. I just want to live that fantasy. The only FOB shirt that’s clean right now is the Faux De Lux shirt I got at their concert. It’s no longer a shirt to me, it’s more like a crop top and I hate my boobs for getting bigger in a year.

Finally I settle on my black V-neck and my favorite red skinnies. It only took me twenty minutes to find them in the mess of my closet and they weren’t in the dirty clothes pile. Achievement!! Now I have to apply my face, i.e. my makeup. My mom hates the amount of eyeliner I use, but I feel confident in it and I’m happy with it so I ignore her arguments on how I shouldn’t wear that much makeup. After thirty minutes of doing my makeup, I leave the house and jump into Matt’s 2004 red jeep. He’s been waiting for me for like ten minutes, which isn’t that long. Sometimes he has to wait longer. He was blessed today.

“Hey babe.” He smiles as I get into the passenger seat.

“Stop it.” I warn, but he’s still smiling so he probably thinks I’m teasing him. Gag. Why doesn’t he get the hint that I don’t like him like that? It’s like he still thinks I’m the girl who likes him. I want that thought gone from his mind.

-

I lost Matt in the crowd. He just went to get us drinks and he never came back. I’m no way in hell moving and losing our front row seats. I don’t care if I sound selfish but it cost money to pay for these seats and I’m not letting these twats steal them from me.

But what if he needs help holding the drinks? What if he’s been kidnapped? I continue to look around my general area for him, getting more and more anxious.

“Hey are you okay?” A guy next to me said.

I turn to the voice. He’s cute. I would say he looks kind of Asian, but I said that in school once to this kid and he was super offended. I learned never to call someone Asian until they say that they are. “I’m just worried about my friend. He’s been gone a while.”