Unloved & Unloveable

Chapter 3

Stacy leads me to a staircase and I look at all the picture frames I pass on the way up. There's a picture of Stacy and the whole 4th grade class and I wince as I find myself in the group. Once we reach the top, I keep to Stacy as we turn the corner. We walk up to a door and I accompany Stacy as she walks through the doorway. This must be her room. It's filled with Cigarettes After Sex and Lana Del Rey posters. I look around for a moment until Stacy shoves me onto her bed. She then sets the chips and water on the nightstand and flops beside me on the bed. I sit there awkwardly as Stacy ices her eye and scrolls on her phone. It is just now hitting me that I am in the Stacy Bahlman's bedroom. This is so weird.

After a few silent and awkward minutes, I turn to Stacy and ask the question I've been thinking since I got here, "why am I here?"

"I'm not just going to let you free and give you the opportunity to embarrass me more in front of the whole school, silly," she laughs as if I already knew that.

"So you're just going to hold me captive?" I ask.

"Pretty much, I guess. It's just until my black eye goes away so you don't go around telling people you beat the fuck out of me, since you didn't," Stacy says while not even looking up from her phone.

I go silent again and look out the window to see the sun setting. It's beautiful, honestly. I think I'm starting to like sunsets more than I used to. I lay down and continue watching it and don't notice as Stacy adjusts herself against me and watches the sunset too. After a couple of minutes, I start drifting off to sleep and I feel Stacy drape her arms around me.

I wake up to the sun shining in my eyes. My body is cuddled against Stacy's, who is wide awake and scrolling on tiktok, and I turn red from embarrassment. I quickly scramble to my side of the bed.

"You know, you could've moved me," I mentioned.

"I know but you were too cute to wake up and I was comfortable," Stacy flirts.

I don't know how to respond so I just lay there. I check my phone to see the time. It's 1 PM.

"Do you normally sleep this late?" Stacy asks me.

I shake my head. I normally wake up at 8 AM each non school day. This is not normal for me. I don't know the last time I slept until 10 AM, let alone 1 PM.

Stacy presses a button on an intercom I didn't notice until now and calls someone up. This oldish woman walks in with 2 plates of scrambled eggs and some juice. She puts it on the bed trays Stacy takes out and leaves.

"I hope you like eggs. You weren't awake when Linda asked what to make for breakfast," Stacy says casually.

"You have a housekeeper?" I ask bewildered.

"Oh yeah," she responds nonchalantly.

We eat our food and Stacy turns on the TV to watch a movie on netflix. When we finish eating, Stacy takes the plates and trays and sets them on the floor. She then casually moves closer to me to the point where the sides of our bodies are pressed up against each other. My head is still pounding. Stacy notices this too because I wince intensely when I cough to clear my throat.

"Are you alright?" Stacy asks me.

"Yeah, it's just my head," I responded.

She then starts to rummage through the drawer of her bedside table and takes out some ibuprofen and hands it to me with a bottle of water. I drink some water and swallow the pill. I turn my attention back to the TV after.

We continued to watch movies for the rest of the day.