Beautiful Disaster

Chapter 15: Damian or Cap

Wrong. I loved Damian too, which meant I didn’t want to hurt him. And part of me wanted to choose him, and that part was growing. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to choose Damian because it was out of love, or because he was the safe choice.

Fuck love.

Friday.

The weak lolled by with me tucked in my bed, reluctantly watching Lifetime movies or TiVo Gossip Girl. I’d still refused to come to school, claiming to be horribly sick, which technically wasn’t a lie. I was sick, lovesick. No matter how cheesy that sounded, it was the utter truth.

The whole school week I’d been in my bed and I’d only bothered to wash myself twice this week and I was sure I was stinking up the place. My kitty cat seemed to be my only comfort now, well besides watching horror movies about lovers being killed for being promiscuous (oh, how I love Friday The 13th!). Okay, so maybe that was petty, but at least they died together and weren’t huddled up in their bed wishing the world would just end.

Beyoncé’s Irreplaceable played through the speakers of my headphones. If I didn’t think that Cap and Damian were irreplaceable, maybe the song would’ve helped. But since that wasn’t true, the song made my sullen mood worse.

Bonnie was getting worried about me but she didn’t say anything until she saw me huddled in my usual position, eyes glistening with fresh tears, hair unbrushed for six days, listening to Eminem’s Kim – not exactly something that would uplift any female, but at least it wasn’t Mariah Carey singing about how great and special love was.

“Okay, Chloe, I’d let you mourn for almost a week now in hopes that you’d turn into super-feminist and start prancing around singing Single Ladies, So What or Womanizer. But it seems what I’d done should leave me in penitentiary prison for years if you’d started listening to Mr. I-think-I’m-all-that-with-my-white-boy-lyrics Eminem, and such a vulgar song, too.” She said, tapping her foot. A smile – the first one for the week – threatened to break across my unglossed lips.

“Well, he wants to kill Kim. I want to kill Cap and Damian, okay. I'm tired of feeling like a whore, Bon.” I told her honestly, crying on her shoulder when she came to lie next to me.

“Oh Chlo, you're not a whore. If anything, you're brave to shut them out.” She tried lying, but Bonnie wasn’t the world greatest liar. So when I gave an alarmingly skeptical look, her speech changed. “Okay, so maybe you're being coward for not facing them, and you're feelings. But, I think that the more you lay here, balled up and refusing to make a decision, the more it’s gonna eat at you, Chlo. I know you; you'll make a decision and stick to it. It’s not going to be the most easy thing to pick one and let the other go, but if you don’t you might end up losing them both.”

“I know. It’s just... just that I don’t know who to choose. I love Cap, but I love Damian too. And I want to hurt neither of them. I'm lost, Bon.” I said, taking another tissue out the box. “Who should I choose? How do I let the other one go without losing him? How do I make a choice that doesn’t just affect me?”

“Those are all good question, Chlo. Now you know how I'm not Capriano’s biggest fan, right?” I nodded in agreement. “But he said he loves you, so I can’t judge him any more than I can judge Damian.

“Look, once my mother told me – before she died – that if I'm ever stuck in a rut like this, I should visualize my life with each of them. The one that’s most clear and the one I can picture spending the rest of my life with, despite our faults, is the one I should choose.”

“If only it were that easy,” I grumbled.

“Look Chlo, I know it’s not the most original and uncheasy speech in the world, but I hear it helps.”